Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: UI- Display ability status at 1+ charge  (Read 709 times)

bobucles

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 532
    • View Profile
UI- Display ability status at 1+ charge
« on: September 21, 2019, 07:56:12 AM »

Some ships have abilities with multiple charges, such as the phase skimmer. The UI will display partial charges below 0.99 as a status bar. After the first ability is ready the status bar stays empty, even though more uses are still charging.

Please continue to show ability charging status until the ship is fully maxed out.

TaLaR

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2794
    • View Profile
Re: UI- Display ability status at 1+ charge
« Reply #1 on: September 21, 2019, 08:12:45 AM »

+1, tracking charge reload would be helpful. As it stands now I just end up waiting 'few seconds', when I need more than 1 charge for effective attack.
Logged

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23986
    • View Profile
Re: UI- Display ability status at 1+ charge
« Reply #3 on: September 21, 2019, 09:54:46 AM »

Hmm - just doing that would I think be confusing since the bar also shows the cooldown for cooldown-based abilities, so "the bar is filling up" equates to a "can't use the ability" state, both for <1 charge and for no-charges, cooldown-based abilities.

So, right - I definitely see what you're saying, it's a useful bit of info. Just don't want to do it quite this way, and also hesitant to clutter it up more with additional indicators...
Logged

SafariJohn

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3010
    • View Profile
Re: UI- Display ability status at 1+ charge
« Reply #4 on: September 21, 2019, 01:45:41 PM »

I think the indicator needs a rework. Not only does it not show recharging progress for >1 charge, it doesn't show the maximum number of charges at all - you just have to know.

I think you should remove the current area for number of charges, freeing it up for more system name space.

I would have the bar be full when the system is ready and decrease while in use. Then recharging and cooldown always look the same, so recharging could safely be shown for charges over 1.

On the right, cooldown systems would still have READY and ACTIVE as now. For charge-based systems, I would show nothing when it is at 0 charges (like cooldown systems) and show X/Y when it is ready, where X is current charges and Y is max; while active I would show ACTIVE X/Y.

This would make cooldown and charge-based systems visually consistent and show all relevant information. Unless I forgot something because I'm tired.
Logged