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[Trylobot]

I can't believe that this hasn't been suggested already, but it'd be killer to have a tactical mini-map. A fixed-range sensor output somewhere onscreen, separate from the War Room, showing enemies and allies nearby that are too far away even for the maximum "Z" mode lookahead.

[frostphoenyx]

No offense, but I am not sure it would be a good idea. The warroom is already there for that purpose.It would take some space on the screen, and we need as much visibility as we can take.

[CommComms]

I concur with frostphoenyx.  Not only is visibility pretty key in this game, but we also have the radar ribbon, which basically serves the exact role you're talking about only without taking up a corner of the screen. 

If you want a real-time map you can look at, hit the little play button on the left side of the war room map, and you can watch your ships dance around while your flagship is on it's way wherever it's going. 

Of course it is hard to argue with "more features = more better", so long as the features are not detrimental or are optional.

[mendonca]

I don't know if I am being overly optimistic, but is there not a little bit of real estate in the bottom right of the screen?

The problem would come in giving a succinct, meaningful display. Something like the Elite / Frontier scanner springs to mind, giving a series of coloured dots around the central point. This was also elliptical, which I suppose is a compact circle.

A better way might be to show a circle, with the distance to ships being shown kind of 'logarithmically'. Far away ships also get relatively smaller 'dots' on the scanner. Could also tie the dot size relative to scanned ship mass.

Et voila:



Could give a lot of information in a compact manner, wouldn't need to show any more information than just a dot size with one of two colours ...

[Avan]

There used to be a minimap, if you view the videos. It was... quite bulky however. I personally I like the radar ribbon better myself.

[Trylobot]

The radar ribbon is cool, unobtrusive and very useful. It does not, though, give me a sense of the relative positions and arrangements of ships in the enemy fleet. And tabbing back and forth to the War Room is for strategy and giving orders, not checking formations moment-to-moment.

Mini-map could be toggled on and off, perhaps even off by default, collapsed to a little message that says "M for minimap" or somesuch.

[Alex]

Yeah, there used to be a mini-map, but we replaced it with the radar ribbon. Screen space *is* at a premium, especially in the lower resolutions.

I think if you need a better tactical view, zooming out two levels gives that. If you need to make strategic decisions, it's war room time.

I'm not saying that the minimap was totally useless, but I'd much rather improve the radar ribbon (say, have icons light up when they engage the enemy, for example) than bring the minimap back. Functionally, they are supposed to do the same thing, so it's really one or the other.

I don't know if I am being overly optimistic, but is there not a little bit of real estate in the bottom right of the screen?

Not in 1024x768

[Trylobot]

I'm fine with that, thanks for the feedback.

Here's an idea for a radar-ribbon improvement, then; subtle scale adjustments for the ship icons. Closer ships would be larger, perhaps logarithmically so (to mimic a sort of "perspective" effect) so that if you had say a group of 3 identical ships, you might be able to tell at a glance which one was closest and facing you, or something.

[CommComms]

Now That's an idea I like.  The little distance numbers next to each ship are nice when you're just focusing on a couple, but if the ribbon gets crowded they're hard to see, and impossible to read them all at a glance.  In addition or as an alternative to size changes, maybe make the icons of closer ships more opaque and further away ones more transparent.  Or just closer ones brighter and further away darker.

[Avan]

yeah, that would be a good idea (I still like the numbers as well though)

[Darloth]

I think the ribbon would be quite a lot better if it had some depth to it.

Right now it's a zero-width strip around the edge of the screen, ships are placed as far against the edge as possible, but that makes it really hard to read when several things are in the same direction.

Adding around an inch of depth to the ribbon, so that ships that were really near would be almost an inch away from the outer edge of the screen, and ships that are really far right up against the edge, would make it much easier to read at a glance, and would also give you some judge of relative speeds and formation, without needing to add anything else to the interface, because then you can see easily if something is getting closer, staying the same, or getting further.

Here is a rather bad mockup of what I mean.


[attachment deleted by admin]

[Blips]

Just make distance from screen edge and icon scale a function of distance from player.

[cloakdood]

Adding around an inch of depth to the ribbon, so that ships that were really near would be almost an inch away from the edge, and ships that are really far right up against the edge, would make it much easier to read at a glance, and would also give you some judge of relative speeds and formation, without needing to add anything else to the interface, because then you can see easily if something is getting closer, staying the same, or getting further.

+1

I also find the radar strip hard to read, and would be glad to have this solution implemented.

[Archduke Astro]

Adding around an inch of depth to the ribbon, so that ships that were really near would be almost an inch away from the edge, and ships that are really far right up against the edge, would make it much easier to read at a glance, and would also give you some judge of relative speeds and formation, without needing to add anything else to the interface, because then you can see easily if something is getting closer, staying the same, or getting further.

+1

I also find the radar strip hard to read, and would be glad to have this solution implemented.

Another vote in favor of the proposal. With more than a small number of units at various offscreen distances but along the same narrow heading relative to you, the radar ribbon becomes cluttered enough as to be nearly useless. Not good.

Another advantage of the proposed fix is that it does eliminate the need for an onscreen minimap. Extending the ribbon's thickness slightly inwards from all screen borders (& separating the blips distance-wise as detailed previously) while also keeping a corner free of a minimap parked there would be the best of both worlds.