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[Reshy]

Some ideas to help the tactical feel of the game a bit though changes to the tactical screen.


Idea 1:  Bullet Projectiles and lasers appear as small yellow dots on the screen.  Similar to how total annihilation did it.  That means you can more easily watch how a fire fight plays out just by watching the tactical screen.  For beams, something else will need to be done, or simply display each 'tick' of damage as a separate projectile on the map.


Idea 2:  Mini-map in the bottom right of the screen that can be toggled, it provides a smaller more compact version of the full screen, minus the command abilities.


Idea 3:  Add a small tactical feed like in Gratuitous space battles, only more serious and more technical and a better representation of the status of a ship.  Raising shields, engaging in fighting, securing a point, overloading, taking armor damage, taking hull damage, etc.


Idea 4:  Add a 'Speed Up' feature for in-battles also, this can help speed up the initial engagement along with chasing retreating ships when not much really goes on.


Idea 5:  The current 'Capture' level on a point should be displayed as a ring around the graphic of the point on the map.


Idea 6:  Display the health of enemy ships in health bars like are on your own ships.


Idea 7:  Display the current soft/hard flux levels over their health bar on the tactical screen.


Idea 8:  Make command points slowly regenerate over time, it seems that after long enough you simply cannot command your fleet anymore.  Being able to receive a slow rate of new CP would be good, possibly augmented by holding comm relays.


Idea 9:  Destroyed fighters are completely invisible on the tactical map as they can be hard to distinguish from still 'alive' fighters when something is behind them.


Idea 10:  Destroyed fighter hulks appear as 'Asteroids' on the tactical map.


Idea 11:  The option to see the grid outside of the tactical map, along with way points you've placed.




The other ideas for the tactical map can be found on my old topic Advanced Fleet Commands.

[CrashToDesktop]

1. Always wanted the projectiles to show up on the tactical map.

2. Minimap...iffy, but I like it.

3. definatly not all of it.  TMI!  maybe overloading and taking hull damage, but the hull damage might come in intervals.  Maybe voice-acting would play a role here.

4. Excuse the language, by HELL YES.  Something that I'd find useful anytime.

5. A bit BF3-ish, no?  But sounds perfectly fine to me anyway.

6. Yes, great idea.

7. Nah, TMI.  maybe just a bar indicating flux level, but that might even bee too much info in the tactical screen.

8. Yes, sounds good.  Ability to mod CP also.

9. Never had a problem with that, but I see no problem with that in the game.

10.  Now this might sound good, but after a few battles between the TT and the Hegemony, Corvus II would have it's own little asteroid field.

[ClosetGoth]

1: I agree that it would be useful.=, but I don't want it to cause clutter

2: I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED A MINIMAP.

3: A feed of EVERYTHING is quite a bit too much. Way to much clutter there.

4,5,6,7: Yes, yes, yes, and yes, respectively.

8: Yeah, it feels more than a little silly to be able to use your command points all at once, let alone having that prevent you from issuing any other orders until points are captured.

9: Yes, I totally agree that the fighter wing icon should only show how many fighters are alive.

10: Well, it would be interesting to have ship & fighter hulks show up on the screen, but only as asteroids.

11: This would be very interesting. I definitely want the option to overlay the grid on the main battle screen.

[Reshy]

1. Always wanted the projectiles to show up on the tactical map.

I quite enjoy the effect, makes the battle more interesting to watch even if not on the same screen.


2. Minimap...iffy, but I like it.

Yeah well being able to get a short version of what's going on without having to tab into the full sized map would be useful to me.


3. definatly not all of it.  TMI!  maybe overloading and taking hull damage, but the hull damage might come in intervals.  Maybe voice-acting would play a role here.

I think it would add a little more personality and character to the combat, you see how your crew responds to the situations.


4. Excuse the language, by HELL YES.  Something that I'd find useful anytime.

That's two of us then.


5. A bit BF3-ish, no?  But sounds perfectly fine to me anyway.

Well, why not?  You're shown the capture rate when viewing it in the combat visor, why not the tactical?


6. Yes, great idea.

  Sometimes they appear sometimes they don't.  They however should always appear.


7. Nah, TMI.  maybe just a bar indicating flux level, but that might even bee too much info in the tactical screen.

Well the difference can just be the caps like seen on flux already.  wouldn't require two different bars.


9. Never had a problem with that, but I see no problem with that in the game.

Fighters get transparent when destroyed, but not entirely so when behind an object like a nebula they all look alive.


10.  Now this might sound good, but after a few battles between the TT and the Hegemony, Corvus II would have it's own little asteroid field.

Fighter hulks, not ship hulks.

1: I agree that it would be useful.=, but I don't want it to cause clutter

It likely won't.


2: I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED A MINIMAP.

Well so have I.


3: A feed of EVERYTHING is quite a bit too much. Way to much clutter there.

Not really, I think it adds personality to the combat.


4,5,6,7: Yes, yes, yes, and yes, respectively.

Good, glad you like them.


8: Yeah, it feels more than a little silly to be able to use your command points all at once, let alone having that prevent you from issuing any other orders until points are captured.

It certainly does, in addition to having to spend extra points to give unorthodox commands.


9: Yes, I totally agree that the fighter wing icon should only show how many fighters are alive.

Yes it really should.


10: Well, it would be interesting to have ship & fighter hulks show up on the screen, but only as asteroids.

This isn't intended for ships, just fighters since they're too small for the current system.


11: This would be very interesting. I definitely want the option to overlay the grid on the main battle screen.

I do think it would serve useful utility.

Responses in red.

[K-64]

Some ideas to help the tactical feel of the game a bit though changes to the tactical screen.


Idea 1:  Bullet Projectiles and lasers appear as small yellow dots on the screen.  Similar to how total annihilation did it.  That means you can more easily watch how a fire fight plays out just by watching the tactical screen.  For beams, something else will need to be done, or simply display each 'tick' of damage as a separate projectile on the map.

Could be a nice feature. Possibly different for energy mount projectiles. Like yellow for ballistics and blue for energy. Though some notion of direction might be nice for when the game's paused? Beams could just be a white line with a slight "flare" effect at the source


Idea 2:  Mini-map in the bottom right of the screen that can be toggled, it provides a smaller more compact version of the full screen, minus the command abilities.

That may be useful. Although there might be a bit of an issue getting the balance between cluttering the HUD and being detailed enough to be useful here. Something to think about at any rate


Idea 3:  Add a small tactical feed like in Gratuitous space battles, only more serious and more technical and a better representation of the status of a ship.  Raising shields, engaging in fighting, securing a point, overloading, taking armor damage, taking hull damage, etc.

I think this should only be for important things, like engaging enemies, taking heavy fire, etc. Too much trivial stuff like "Ooh laddie, he's dinged me paint!" (paraphrased) would make it rather annoying


Idea 4:  Add a 'Speed Up' feature for in-battles also, this can help speed up the initial engagement along with chasing retreating ships when not much really goes on.

Again, this would be nice. Possibly expanding on the fog of war being lifted when the battle's in the bag, like if you have your entire fleet left and all that's left is a crippled Lasher. Just so it's not a ridiculous game of find the ship at the end


Idea 5:  The current 'Capture' level on a point should be displayed as a ring around the graphic of the point on the map.

Possibly with some kind of notification towards owned/enemy ships within the capture radius of the point as well?


Idea 6:  Display the health of enemy ships in health bars like are on your own ships.

I think it's fine as-is. Usually when I'm not actively engaging an enemy anyway, their health is entirely irrelevent. I don't need to know how close they are to death, and my ships will be able to keep them busy until my attention can be turned to them. This is merely my opinion on the matter though


Idea 7:  Display the current soft/hard flux levels over their health bar on the tactical screen.

This could be a good one though. Would readily tell the player whether or not a ship tasked with taking care of that ship is capable of doing getting past the shields. Or if they need to hightail it if they were put on as a distraction


Idea 8:  Make command points slowly regenerate over time, it seems that after long enough you simply cannot command your fleet anymore.  Being able to receive a slow rate of new CP would be good, possibly augmented by holding comm relays.

I like this idea, though there would probably have to be some kind of cap on passive command points gained


Idea 9:  Destroyed fighters are completely invisible on the tactical map as they can be hard to distinguish from still 'alive' fighters when something is behind them.

That's a problem I don't seem to have, so I can't really say either way on this one


Idea 10:  Destroyed fighter hulks appear as 'Asteroids' on the tactical map.

Possibly, not sure on this one. I find them completely insignificant in the whole thing, really


Idea 11:  The option to see the grid outside of the tactical map, along with way points you've placed.

First part, nah. Second part would be nice. Having the grid show up would make the combat view seem too artificial for my tastes

Responses in bold. Probably made it annoying to respond to though

[IIE16 Yoshi]

Some ideas to help the tactical feel of the game a bit though changes to the tactical screen.


Idea 1:  Bullet Projectiles and lasers appear as small yellow dots on the screen.  Similar to how total annihilation did it.  That means you can more easily watch how a fire fight plays out just by watching the tactical screen.  For beams, something else will need to be done, or simply display each 'tick' of damage as a separate projectile on the map.
I dunno about having projectiles appear. I know exactly what you mean by 'how TA did it'. So awesome watching firefights on the minimap as friendly and enemy dots trade yellow dots.


Idea 2:  Mini-map in the bottom right of the screen that can be toggled, it provides a smaller more compact version of the full screen, minus the command abilities.
Could become a bit messy in large battlespaces but otherwise, I like the idea.

Idea 3:  Add a small tactical feed like in Gratuitous space battles, only more serious and more technical and a better representation of the status of a ship.  Raising shields, engaging in fighting, securing a point, overloading, taking armor damage, taking hull damage, etc.
I like the idea of a feed, though that seems like too much info being registered. Perhaps just overloads, heavy hull damage and cripped weapons? Like, 'xXx has overloaded!', 'xXx has taken heavy damage!' or 'xXx's weapons are offline!'

Idea 4:  Add a 'Speed Up' feature for in-battles also, this can help speed up the initial engagement along with chasing retreating ships when not much really goes on.
I don't really mind it when I need to wait for retreating enemies, would be a nice feature to have anyway.

Idea 5:  The current 'Capture' level on a point should be displayed as a ring around the graphic of the point on the map.
To iterate on this, maybe the progress HUD element should also display when the area is being contested?

Idea 6:  Display the health of enemy ships in health bars like are on your own ships.
Don't they already do this? I know I can see tiny health bars on my own ships, but I often just click an enemy ship if I want more details

Idea 7:  Display the current soft/hard flux levels over their health bar on the tactical screen.
Like above, this effect can be achieved by clicking on the ship you want to know more about

Idea 8:  Make command points slowly regenerate over time, it seems that after long enough you simply cannot command your fleet anymore.  Being able to receive a slow rate of new CP would be good, possibly augmented by holding comm relays.
Personally, I think idea of CPs should be removed, to have just the ability to command your ships

Idea 9:  Destroyed fighters are completely invisible on the tactical map as they can be hard to distinguish from still 'alive' fighters when something is behind them.
Do you mean when a squad's pips go dark as the wing is destroyed? And you'd prefer if they disappeared instead of going dark?

Idea 10:  Destroyed fighter hulks appear as 'Asteroids' on the tactical map.
Not sure what this would accomplish. It's not like they're wayward neutron stars that will wreck you upon impact (at least, I've never lost a badly damaged ship to a dead fighter bumping it)

Idea 11:  The option to see the grid outside of the tactical map, along with way points you've placed.
Waypoints, yes. The grid, no. Random green lines drawn all across my game? No thanks.




The other ideas for the tactical map can be found on my old topic Advanced Fleet Commands.

[Reshy]

Some ideas to help the tactical feel of the game a bit though changes to the tactical screen.


Idea 1:  Bullet Projectiles and lasers appear as small yellow dots on the screen.  Similar to how total annihilation did it.  That means you can more easily watch how a fire fight plays out just by watching the tactical screen.  For beams, something else will need to be done, or simply display each 'tick' of damage as a separate projectile on the map.

Could be a nice feature. Possibly different for energy mount projectiles. Like yellow for ballistics and blue for energy. Though some notion of direction might be nice for when the game's paused? Beams could just be a white line with a slight "flare" effect at the source

If your ship is nearby you can just use 'Camera Feed' of the ship to know the exact direction.  It's not much of a guess where it is going based on the angle from the launching ship and the position of your own allied ship nearby that it's shooting at.


Idea 2:  Mini-map in the bottom right of the screen that can be toggled, it provides a smaller more compact version of the full screen, minus the command abilities.

That may be useful. Although there might be a bit of an issue getting the balance between cluttering the HUD and being detailed enough to be useful here. Something to think about at any rate

Could easily be made toggle-able like floating numbers and other such.



Idea 3:  Add a small tactical feed like in Gratuitous space battles, only more serious and more technical and a better representation of the status of a ship.  Raising shields, engaging in fighting, securing a point, overloading, taking armor damage, taking hull damage, etc.

I think this should only be for important things, like engaging enemies, taking heavy fire, etc. Too much trivial stuff like "Ooh laddie, he's dinged me paint!" (paraphrased) would make it rather annoying

This is for the player's info and for immersion factors.  The immersion of your fleet actually 'responding' and telling you what it's doing can go a long way.




Idea 4:  Add a 'Speed Up' feature for in-battles also, this can help speed up the initial engagement along with chasing retreating ships when not much really goes on.

Again, this would be nice. Possibly expanding on the fog of war being lifted when the battle's in the bag, like if you have your entire fleet left and all that's left is a crippled Lasher. Just so it's not a ridiculous game of find the ship at the end

Or just make the map reveal itself when all ships in battle are retreating and not actively engaging.  Speed up is just so that 'Curb-Stomp' battles can be sped up and that testing battle results can happen much faster.


Idea 5:  The current 'Capture' level on a point should be displayed as a ring around the graphic of the point on the map.

Possibly with some kind of notification towards owned/enemy ships within the capture radius of the point as well?


Could simply be a red or green 'capture' bar that spins around the capture icon.


Idea 6:  Display the health of enemy ships in health bars like are on your own ships.

I think it's fine as-is. Usually when I'm not actively engaging an enemy anyway, their health is entirely irrelevent. I don't need to know how close they are to death, and my ships will be able to keep them busy until my attention can be turned to them. This is merely my opinion on the matter though

Can help however when you just defeat someone and you have allies in two different places and you usually want to help either the most hurt ally or go and attack the ship that still is in the best condition.


Idea 7:  Display the current soft/hard flux levels over their health bar on the tactical screen.

This could be a good one though. Would readily tell the player whether or not a ship tasked with taking care of that ship is capable of doing getting past the shields. Or if they need to hightail it if they were put on as a distraction


Idea 8:  Make command points slowly regenerate over time, it seems that after long enough you simply cannot command your fleet anymore.  Being able to receive a slow rate of new CP would be good, possibly augmented by holding comm relays.

I like this idea, though there would probably have to be some kind of cap on passive command points gained

Well yes probably, could work like every 15-30 seconds you get 1 CP up to 10.  Capturing a comm relay reduces the time before each point is regenerated and adds more points to the 'cap' in addition to their current effect.


Idea 9:  Destroyed fighters are completely invisible on the tactical map as they can be hard to distinguish from still 'alive' fighters when something is behind them.

That's a problem I don't seem to have, so I can't really say either way on this one

When a fighter is destroyed they become 50% transparent, however if there's something behind them then you cannot actually tell.  Also might be nice to have the fighter's health bar split into 2-6 segments and each moves in correlation of a specific fighter in the squad.


Idea 10:  Destroyed fighter hulks appear as 'Asteroids' on the tactical map.

Possibly, not sure on this one. I find them completely insignificant in the whole thing, really

It's for asthetic purposes.




Idea 11:  The option to see the grid outside of the tactical map, along with way points you've placed.

First part, nah. Second part would be nice. Having the grid show up would make the combat view seem too artificial for my tastes

Not really, you aren't watching the battle from the first person, and it also gives it a feel that you're watching a tactical screen showing everything around you.  Think of how in surpreme commander if you zoomed out far enough you saw the computer bits around where you're actually facing.

Some ideas to help the tactical feel of the game a bit though changes to the tactical screen.


Idea 1:  Bullet Projectiles and lasers appear as small yellow dots on the screen.  Similar to how total annihilation did it.  That means you can more easily watch how a fire fight plays out just by watching the tactical screen.  For beams, something else will need to be done, or simply display each 'tick' of damage as a separate projectile on the map.
I dunno about having projectiles appear. I know exactly what you mean by 'how TA did it'. So awesome watching firefights on the minimap as friendly and enemy dots trade yellow dots.

I think it would be nice to watch your ships and the enemy ships trade dots at each other on the tactical map.


Idea 2:  Mini-map in the bottom right of the screen that can be toggled, it provides a smaller more compact version of the full screen, minus the command abilities.
Could become a bit messy in large battlespaces but otherwise, I like the idea.

Not hard to add a toggle option that minimises or expands it.  Think of the existing tactical map, then think of a 'shrunk' version you can watch but not interact with, then imagine it deactivated.  Think of it that way as a middleman between the full screen tactical map and the total lack of it.


Idea 3:  Add a small tactical feed like in Gratuitous space battles, only more serious and more technical and a better representation of the status of a ship.  Raising shields, engaging in fighting, securing a point, overloading, taking armor damage, taking hull damage, etc.
I like the idea of a feed, though that seems like too much info being registered. Perhaps just overloads, heavy hull damage and cripped weapons? Like, 'xXx has overloaded!', 'xXx has taken heavy damage!' or 'xXx's weapons are offline!'

I don't mean everything, but stuff like Venting, Overloading, Running low/out of ammo, Engaging a specific enemy in a specific manner, taking armor damage, taking hull damage, taking a massive hit, losing a ship, destroying a ship, repairing fighters, weapons being knocked offline, starting and completing capturing points, arriving at a waypoint, losing wingmen, rapidly losing health/armor, etc.


Idea 4:  Add a 'Speed Up' feature for in-battles also, this can help speed up the initial engagement along with chasing retreating ships when not much really goes on.
I don't really mind it when I need to wait for retreating enemies, would be a nice feature to have anyway.

Well it's an option, that's all it is.  You'd not be forced to use it if you did not want to.


Idea 5:  The current 'Capture' level on a point should be displayed as a ring around the graphic of the point on the map.
To iterate on this, maybe the progress HUD element should also display when the area is being contested?

You could just make it shine blue or something when it's contested.


Idea 6:  Display the health of enemy ships in health bars like are on your own ships.
Don't they already do this? I know I can see tiny health bars on my own ships, but I often just click an enemy ship if I want more details

Only if the ship you're piloting is actively fighting, making it kind of worthless as you usually want the tactical screen to show stuff you cannot see outside it.


Idea 7:  Display the current soft/hard flux levels over their health bar on the tactical screen.
Like above, this effect can be achieved by clicking on the ship you want to know more about

Saves needless clicking.


Idea 8:  Make command points slowly regenerate over time, it seems that after long enough you simply cannot command your fleet anymore.  Being able to receive a slow rate of new CP would be good, possibly augmented by holding comm relays.
Personally, I think idea of CPs should be removed, to have just the ability to command your ships

The 'Hat' or gimmick of the game is that the ability to command your forces is a resource not to be squandered.  Sort of like how in another game exploration is a resource.


Idea 9:  Destroyed fighters are completely invisible on the tactical map as they can be hard to distinguish from still 'alive' fighters when something is behind them.
Do you mean when a squad's pips go dark as the wing is destroyed? And you'd prefer if they disappeared instead of going dark?

Yes, if the icon is behind something like a nebula you cannot tell which are down or not.


Idea 10:  Destroyed fighter hulks appear as 'Asteroids' on the tactical map.
Not sure what this would accomplish. It's not like they're wayward neutron stars that will wreck you upon impact (at least, I've never lost a badly damaged ship to a dead fighter bumping it)

Collisions will become more problematic and damaging as the game develops.


Idea 11:  The option to see the grid outside of the tactical map, along with way points you've placed.
Waypoints, yes. The grid, no. Random green lines drawn all across my game? No thanks.

They wouldn't need to be highly visible, just like semi-transparent lines to mark locations.

[Gothars]

Idea 3:  Add a small tactical feed like in Gratuitous space battles, only more serious and more technical and a better representation of the status of a ship.  Raising shields, engaging in fighting, securing a point, overloading, taking armor damage, taking hull damage, etc.

I would love to see that, but with a slightly other focus. I don't want to know what each ship is doing, I can see that. I would rather know what each ship's captain is thinking, what his intention is, how he is interpreting his tactical situation.  Things like:

"ISS Auxo here, we are outgunned and could use some assistance!"

"Iss Matres here, commencing flanking maneuver. "

"Ha! The ISS Black Star will eat these Talons for breakfast!"

"Attention, enemy vessel is retreating, requesting interceptors!"

"ISS Iambe II has taken heavy hull damage, requesting permission to retreat!"

That would be quite useful I think.

[GUNINANRUNIN]

Could you perhaps add some spoiler tags here and there? Its a bit of a chore to scroll through.
I'm not so sure about some of these ideas. There's a fine line between irritation and immersion. Although I do crave more tactical awareness.

[Elate]

I have one, where the ships are shown on the map, have their icons facing the direction they are actually facing and such, makes it much easier to see ship positions at a glance than having to hunt out that little arrow around them (which just shows movement direction anyway.)