Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2417

Ashes: Global Zoom is coming

Ok, so internally we've been playing on huge maps and another type of map size called massive.

Huge maps are (I believe) 4X larger than Large. Massive maps are 16X larger than the large maps. We won't support Massive in Ashes 1 (you have to have 4GB of video memory to run them and at least 6 CPU cores).

However, even on huge, yes, we are going to need a way to zoom out and see a strategic view of the map.

We aren't going to turn every individual unit into an icon or something (we internally have that and it's a mess) but we have to do something that lets you look at things in a very different way than we do now.

For instance, on our massive map, we modeled a square area from London England to Margate England south to Brighton. And understand, we expect eventually to support maps that are 64X larger than large eventually with 255 players. The game mechanics of Ashes will evolve during this time to lend itself more to this scale than it is today.

So those of you wanting a SupCom style strategic view are still out of luck because that won't work here as it's not, well strategic enough.

With that in mind, we would like to send the call out to all strategy gamers on how you would want to represent such a map.

Here are the specifications:

Zoom level 1: What we have in Ashes of the Singularity:

Zoom level 2: Strategic view (forces, regions, resources are displayed as a sort of wire frame for maximum clarity):

Zoom level 3: Global view:

We ran into this problem with Sins of a Solar Empire which was solved like this:

zoomed out:

which is zoome dout to here:

And eventually:

So when we (Ironclad and Stardock) made Sins of a Solar Empire, we had to solve this issue up front because the game allowed you to control individual ships in fleets and zoom out to see multiple star systems in a single fluid zoom.

On a land based system, this gets a lot trickier because land is..untidy. But you get an idea of what we are going to have to solve long-term.

Please post your ideas below:

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Couldn't you have an icon with digits displaying the amount of units in X group? If I'm understanding correctly, ungrouped units would become a mess, looking untidy. perhaps an area the viewer could see a notification "you have x amount of standalone units" but then you may have problems with people that group 2 units (say brutes) which are dotted everywhere. It's a tough issue to tackle that's for sure i certainly don't envy you and I'm sure the community will post better suggestions than what I proposed.

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I don't have any particular preferences with regard to how groups of units are represented at higher zoom levels. In my mind, the most important factor is that the transition between zoom levels is fluid, as it is in Sins of a Solar Empire. I find that pressing a button to bring up a map at a different zoom level is momentarily disorienting, since it requires me to figure out where I was in relation to the previous zoom level. In contrast, having a fluid transition between zoom levels provides intuitive feedback as to where you are coming from and going to.

This is not unlike actual movement in the real world. Imagine if instead of walking from point A to point B we teleported from one point to the next. We'd still be able to figure out where we were, but not before needing to take a moment to reorient ourselves. It would be a jarring experience. Whereas when we walk from point A to B, the transitional process of moving itself provides valuable information about where we are.

As such, no matter what these zoom levels look like at a given level, I feel there there needs to be seamless transitions between them, even if it is more difficult to implement than it was in Sins of a Solar Empire.

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ASADDF

Join Date 02/2008

+50

OMG! that's really awesome! at last I hear from you guys wanting to develop a new and better way to Zoom out and have some kind of a Global Zoom

Like everyone here, the Zoom out needs to be very fluid with no lags, it needs to transition from a very low lvl Zoom to a Strategic Global Zoom with no hi-cups.

Brad I think I have a great Idea to show you, just give me a few days to make a Mockup map on how it may work.

So we have 3 main Zooms right? every main zoom will need to show some info on forces, regions and resources

Low lvl Zoom (max zoom in Ashes of the Singularity right now)
Mid lvl zoom (zoom out to see...lets say 4 Large maps together)
High lvl zoom (zoom out to see a total of 16 large maps together)

Ok... its time to work on some kind of Mockup, this is gonna take time to show a nice example

BTW I love to see on where you want to take AOTS, 255 players? having a world map? having transportation's, having trade, expanding your empire.....damn I think you are the guy who will create my dream RTS game.

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Ticktoc

Join Date 03/2015

+85

I love this update, bringing massive scale to it. Please being in "being attacked" notifications we can jump to when you bring in the huge maps as it is so easy to miss stuff happening with the larger maps.

Glad Asaddf is on the case, he's done great mock ups before.

Maybe Zen will bring in high quality affordable 6 core CPUs and then Intel will have to follow suit, likely with Cannon Lake in late 2017. So Mega maps 2018?

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TAG_Utter

Join Date 03/2015

+18

Quoting ASADDF,

reply 3

OMG! that's really awesome! at last I hear from you guys wanting to develop a new and better way to Zoom out and have some kind of a Global Zoom

Ok... its time to work on some kind of Mockup, this is gonna take time to show a nice example

BTW I love to see on where you want to take AOTS, 255 players? having a world map? having transportation's, having trade, expanding your empire.....damn I think you are the guy who will create my dream RTS game.

I'm glad to see you again, you always have good ideas.

We really need ideas for this because icons no way, but we need more zoom an lot more but that comes with a good solutions ,because most players still think full zoom its to play like that.

Full Zoom its only a fast option for fast moves and a bether and easy way to look not play, and only for that.

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Currently playing on a single screen, so i am kind of throwing a rock into the bush here:

Does Ashes have multiple monitor support? And if so, will it be possible to assign this multi-level zoom to the map, or for the lucky few who can afford to use three or four screens, one level of zoom per screen?

That is to say, main has the local battlefield, screen two has the map (with full zoom capability) and then screen three has the global view.

I also like TAG_Utter's idea above of transportation and (global?) trade.

What is the possibility of adding a "synchronised attack/assault/move" option: select the units assigned to attack, or move to, a specific area, select the option for synchronising, and let them go there, let the AI move them when needed to get them at the RV/target area at the same time (I do not know if this is already in the game mechanics, apparently something similar was possible in SupCom, but I never managed to get that done).

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