Thoughts on information presentation

Clarity, communication, data, UI

from Sins Forums

Disclaimer:  I am the sort of person who has enjoyed pushing carboard chits with symbols and numerical codes on them.  I have played Mechwarrior 2 in wireframe mode for more efficient presentation.  I don't mind one bit the spartan imagery of Introversion's DEFCON, or the dated-ness of Illwinter's Dominions, and prefer either to pretty but inefficient or idiotic interfaces.  When playing a wargame, I prefer interfaces that provide good command/control, not interfaces that might inspire lavish paintings.  These views may be somewhat archaic.

 

It seems to me that certain things in Sins are either somewhat unclear, or very opaque, or accessible but cumbersome.

For instance, the firepower of a ship tends to be listed with something like "Average laser damage:  N".  There is no indication of the range of that particular weapons system, whether that damage is per shot, per salvo if there are multiple lasers, per second of continuous firing on a single target, in what directions it can shoot, or so forth.   This is worse when one is considering purchasing a ship for the first time; there does not appear to be a way to even get -that- little piece of information.

And 'range of X' for special abilities -- unit not specified.  Km?  Highlight a starbase that's finished; while you can see base range when you're placing it, there doesn't seem to be any indication of its range(s) of weapons after it's finished... or even how many weapons of what types it has and in what directions.  Range in a normal unit of distance might be interesting to know, if there were a way to measure such ranges or even merely a primitive scale ('present view is X km by Y km' somewhere, for instance).

To this end, and to minimize additional artwork requirements, it seems it'd be useful to have an in-game way to present either a screen or a large window showing basic information on ship class.  e.g.

 

(only really necessary image being some representation of the ship itself -- which already exists.  I don't really care about having a 3-D rotating ship periodically firing its weapons.)

Ship class:   Radiance

Faction:       Advent

Ship type:   Capital ship (Assault)

Cost:          <resources>, <time>

Dimensions: <blah>

Speed / turn rate:  <blah>

Armor:        original value (tech-modified value)

Shields:      original value (tech-modified value)

Antimatter:  original value (TMV)

Damage modifiers against:  (ship types, percentages)

Weapon systems:  (basic table, no pictures required, it's not like you're designing ships anyway or letting the user in any way control individual weapons systems so there's no real need to *draw* them)

Nifty Laser Cannon  -- quantity -- direction -- range -- area (point/cylinder/sphere) -- damage per attack -- length of attack -- cooldown

Nifty Laser Cannon -- etc --

 

Possible abilities:

ability (brief summary, AM cost, cooldown, research required if any)

 

Having this would probably nix a lot of questions and guesswork, seems reasonable for a commander who's considering which ships to invest in, and would only be using numbers that must already exist in-game.  Some might prefer a backstory of design, manufacture and service, but that's a bit fluffy compared to more important aspects IMHO.

When a ship or structure is actually existing and selected, it might be useful to be able to project three lines (forward, flanks) to the extent of its weapon ranges, and code the lines with lethality (based on expected damage per second; color / brightness / thickness are obvious variables) for the standard, non-AM-based weapon systems.

21,611 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Infocards would take up the whole screen...and Sins is not about specifics of every little autocannon of every little Kol... There is simply too much information in Sins to push in every little detail about every little ship, play even one game and mess around with every ship and you will understand them...Or if you're really stat hungry dig through the entity files.

No player wants to be spammed with all that information.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

I think this sort of extensive information would be very handy to have as a 'unit info' tab, perhaps similar to KKND2. Failing that, maybe one of us could make up a little windows app that reads the game files and shows the values for the particular version.

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always worked under the assumption that all infocard damage values are average DPS, right?

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Mazuo, reply 3
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always worked under the assumption that all infocard damage values are average DPS, right?

I had assumed this as well, I learned otherwise from the dev post in the Vulkoras thread.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Hmm, I'll have to search for that later then unless you can provide a link.

Edit:  Are you referring to this thread:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/340810

If so, the developer is commenting that the ability doesn't translate those numbers to DPS but flat damage.  He's not talking about the regular weapons on ships.  I still think they're DPS especially considering the damage values divided by the cooldown times in the ship files seemed to match pretty closely last time I looked months ago.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

It would be useful to know for sure.  *shrug*

As for the quantity -- the amount of detail, and the likelihood that you wouldn't need to frequently refer to it, are why I'd suggested that it be a separate screen or window instead of a constantly-on feature.  Having detailed unit-type info available through a help menu or the like (or simply a dedicated unit reference, if there isn't much else to document) would be nifty.

The range/lethality indicators would work better as an optional overlay, however, because showing it from a ship on the tactical display would be infinitely more useful than a stand-alone display that doesn't show scale.

 

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Yeah, ALT is king for displaying weapon and ability ranges.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting leejaywu, reply 6
It would be useful to know for sure.  *shrug*

As for the quantity -- the amount of detail, and the likelihood that you wouldn't need to frequently refer to it, are why I'd suggested that it be a separate screen or window instead of a constantly-on feature.  Having detailed unit-type info available through a help menu or the like (or simply a dedicated unit reference, if there isn't much else to document) would be nifty.

a separate window? you like an encyclopedia like some other 4X games have? I'd love that!

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Yeah, a separate window.

Regarding the ALT key display:

After playing with it for a while, and checking things like starbases -- that have been upgraded to supposedly have multiple weapon systems with different engagement ranges -- obvious issues are that:

- the ALT display is a single circle, which probably reflects only the maximum range of any weapon, instead of each different type, and

- the ALT display shows a circle, instead of either explicitly showing firing arcs, or by showing firepower in different directions.   Knowing what banks are available in what directions would influence both how a unit might be used (some being only suitable for frontal attacks, others being better at attacking to the flanks at well -- probably flak frigates, for instance) or attacked.

 

(Aside -- it would not be entirely odd if lightly-armed ships not really meant for assault had primarily rear-facing weapons, since they'd preferably be using them to worry pursuers while fleeing, not charging at the enemy.  A mine-clearer would need something that could be better aimed, 'tho.)