Commander Interface
Comprox
*chortle*Canada Join Date: 2002-01-23 Member: 7Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Developer, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
*chortle*Canada Join Date: 2002-01-23 Member: 7Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Developer, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
This may sound cluttered, but I like it in theory:
What if all the marine players were listed along the top of the screen at all times. They would be grouped into squads (with a light colour background) or no colour background if they had no squad. You could move people between squads using ctrl and shift and even mouse drag to another squad as you normally do in windows. As you moved a person from one squad to another, he would slide over into that coloured box and everything would re-adjust as needed (see Player Bob switch from squad 1 to 2 below and how things would shift).
This would be handy as 'requests' (ammo/health/orders/etc) could be shown along here as well since all players will be there. When a player requests something, their name will flash red and a little icon pops up showing what they need. Then you can still see all requests unfilled and jump to anyone by clicking on it (or space bar to cycle through them). You can still keep normal functionality of making squads, this just helps since in our game players are always quitting and joining and makes it easier to get a new guy in a group (his name is added when he joins, click his name at the top and either drag him to a squad, ctrl+1 him to a squad, etc) without ever looking back at the spawn. Want to even get more fancy? Maybe if you drop meds/ammo on the guys name, it would drop it to him without even moving the screen? (too powerful maybe, just ideas!).
So, it seems like alot of info, but it combines squads and requests into a bar. only problem is maybe too many players in 32 player games.
What if all the marine players were listed along the top of the screen at all times. They would be grouped into squads (with a light colour background) or no colour background if they had no squad. You could move people between squads using ctrl and shift and even mouse drag to another squad as you normally do in windows. As you moved a person from one squad to another, he would slide over into that coloured box and everything would re-adjust as needed (see Player Bob switch from squad 1 to 2 below and how things would shift).
This would be handy as 'requests' (ammo/health/orders/etc) could be shown along here as well since all players will be there. When a player requests something, their name will flash red and a little icon pops up showing what they need. Then you can still see all requests unfilled and jump to anyone by clicking on it (or space bar to cycle through them). You can still keep normal functionality of making squads, this just helps since in our game players are always quitting and joining and makes it easier to get a new guy in a group (his name is added when he joins, click his name at the top and either drag him to a squad, ctrl+1 him to a squad, etc) without ever looking back at the spawn. Want to even get more fancy? Maybe if you drop meds/ammo on the guys name, it would drop it to him without even moving the screen? (too powerful maybe, just ideas!).
So, it seems like alot of info, but it combines squads and requests into a bar. only problem is maybe too many players in 32 player games.
Comments
Otherwise the increased functionality would be great! dropping health/ammo packs on the icons would be too powerful though. Especially if the icons for the marines had a health meter on them.
Part of the current incarnation of NS is that the commander has to pay attention to his marines in order to properly support them with meds and ammo. Just like any RTS, you don't pay attention, your units could well potentially die out there.
Also, there's this wonderful little feature already installed where the marines can call for stuff when they need it. Funny how many times people don't use that. This also allows the comm to instantly focus on the player who needs stuff.
Being able to keep tabs on all the marines probably over powers the commander to respond to attacks and unit support. Now, if you're grouping flashed red when under attack (assuming we still have the hotkeyed group icons in the upper UI), that would be OK, but still you should have been paying attention to the minimap in the first place and that voice that tells you "your units are under attack".
Just my 2cents
of course this wont work that good if you only have one screen.
<img src="http://www.wian.org/madschristoffer/div/ns2.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://www.wian.org/madschristoffer/div/ns1.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
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Like in the movie Aliens where the commander sits in his APC watching all the live feeds from the cameras on his marines' helmets.
Another new feature to convince people to buy NS2 and regard it less as just a NS source port.