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[Thaago]

My main use for the tactical display as it is is to tell roughly where ships are. Basically anything else takes too long to read. Not to mention it doesn't even show flux, PPT remaining, overloads, flameouts, etc. It is not a good overview of the battle.

+1

I'll use it to quickly switch view to the ships so I can tell whats going on - seeing what the replacement rate of the carrier group is, or how a lone ship is doing in a duel (and whether I can give an eliminate order), etc.

[xenoargh]

I figure you're seeing those things (overload, etc.) by mousing-over or clicking.  I wouldn't mind exploring how to show those things in a visually-straightforward way, though; a ship that's currently Overloaded could cycle between white and their team-color, for example, showing it very clearly as a symbol.

That said... I get the argument of, "I just don't use this much", but it's a matter of play-style.  I use the Tactical View quite a bit, for example, because my idea of a "small engagement" is like 20 ships per side, with fighters and missile strikes all over.  I like playing Space Admiral and placing ships where I want them, for hammer-and-anvil tactics, keeping vulnerable support ships isolated, etc.  I often halt gameplay to look at the dispositions and re-direct sections of my fleet, etc.

More to the point, there are quite a lot of the playerbase here that plays completely without taking control of their ships personally at all, too; for them, the things I've pointed out, like being able to see what's a ship, rather than having overlapping squares / circles, etc., getting in the way, are much more important.

[TrashMan]

More to the point, there are quite a lot of the playerbase here that plays completely without taking control of their ships personally at all, too; for them, the things I've pointed out, like being able to see what's a ship, rather than having overlapping squares / circles, etc., getting in the way, are much more important.

Guilty as charged. I often just observe the battle and issue orders when necessary, letting the AI handle my flagship. I only take over if necessary. But it depend on the battle. Sometimes I fight the entire battle, sometimes I don't even deploy my flagship

[SafariJohn]

My post was referring to vanilla. I was unclear, sorry.

[xenoargh]

It's cool, man.  Not really here to argue about this anyhow, just wanted to brainstorm what might work a bit better for those of us who like using that view a lot more than me, and I probably spend 25% of a battle's time in that POV, giving orders and so forth.

[Lionion]

I really like the mock-up, could this somehow be made into a mod, or is this simply impossible?

[xenoargh]

This is, unfortunately, in the "simply impossible" category right now.  That UI has largely stayed the same since the game was new, and isn't really exposed in the API at all. 

Alex would have to either expose the code for it or allow us to override it, both of which are a lot of work.  I thought it was worthwhile making the mockup to show how it might work better, though; it's one of the areas of the game that I've always thought could be improved.