GUI Design

[geever]

I'd reccomed splitting soldiers into squads of 6-8 men, and hten simply haveing "next squd" and "next sodlier" bottuns.

Kinda like Jagged Alliance did.

Oh, yes. I remember. Every third-fifth comment of you is to change the game more like Jagged Alliance...

-geever

[Prinegon]

Well, there is no reason not to orientate your efforts on a game, that improved the gameplay of ufo.

Don't get me wrong, ufo was an incredible game for its time, and if this game gets completed exactly the way, ufo was, it is a great game. But this project is in a state it almost is completed the way ufo was, so it is really fair to look around to other games of this genre to see, what was done better there.
If it was on me to change one thing in ufo:ai the way, Jagged Alliance is working, I probably would change the movement system to the hybrid: realtime, when no enemy is around, turn-modus otherwise. This really helped keep action in flow during missions. But I know, this change would probably turn the whole game system arround and will not be implemented (at least not for a time).

But the Jagged Alliance games do have some things, whose integration is not illusorial in this game, like jumping over fences or opening crates. And yes, some of the gui-decisions of JA were quite good. Please, don't turn this game into a jagged alliance clone, no one is (or should be) wanting that. But please don't be closeminded towards ideas just because its origans are in JA.

[BTAxis]

This particular idea is rather useless, though - there won't be enough soldiers on the battlescape to warrant organizing them in squads.

[TrashMan]

Groups, squads....IIRC; 12 people in battle...easier to manage if you can custom divide them into groups.
Groups having as many or as few soldiers in it as you want.

It's basicly like CTRL groups in strategy games. For convenince..you can group snipers together..or a sniper and a spotter...or a group for close combat..whatever.
Just throwing it out there. There's technicly no need for interface changes....

[BTAxis]

Even then, you can't move soldiers as groups, anyway. You have to move them one by one. So what'd be the point?

[TrashMan]

Quickly finding the soldier you're looking for?

Dunno. Maybe there's a better way to go about it. I cna think of a few variations:

a) having a list of soldier names

b) having a list of portrait+names

c) Having a way to mark a soldier. Like, marking soldier no.5 as a sniper, and the number 5 at the top of the screen having a specific color

d) Having a small icon next to each soldier number (autgenerated depending on the weapon he's equipped with). A sniper would have a crasshairs icon. A regular assault rifle would have a bullet. Heavy machinegun would have 3 bullets, flamethrower would have flame, etc...

[Winter]

Dividing troops into squads would be entirely wrong for a game of this nature. We don't have squads moving independently across a map, which is reason one why Jagged Alliance 2 did things that way. Copying without thought is always the wrong thing to do.

What I'm seeing:

Troops organised in a list order according to the player's preferences (drag and drop) during pre-deployment and/or aircraft troop assignment. This layout is saved from battle to battle. Troops are then selected by the number keys, 1-0 for soldiers 1 to 10 in the list, SHIFT+1-10 for 11 to 20, and so on.

Regards,
Winter

[vedrit]

I, for one, greatly prefer the pre-assigned order. It would be a nice cross between X-COMs near-infinate troop amounts, and a modern games organization, giving the best of both systems, with none, or few, of the drawbacks (Not knowing which soldier out of how many you are on, limited number of troops allowed, etc)

[TrashMan]

Again, dividing is purely in a semantical sense.
The idea is to be able to quickly find the soldier you're looking for.

Which is why I propose that the numbers have icons and different colors, so you can easily see which soldier has what weapon equipped, how many AP or HP he has left

[Prinegon]

Even then, you can't move soldiers as groups, anyway. You have to move them one by one. So what'd be the point?

This is so at this moment. But this doesn't have to stay so. Even in a turn based setting movement formations are really possible and, imho, very wishable. And this is not only, because of a player would be able to move around more troops much easier, but once implemented, alien movement could be tactical, too.

Lets say, one is able to group i.e. up to 5 people and designate a group leader. As long as not ungrouped again, movement of the leader would move the whole group in formation. If you move other members of the group first, the formation is automatically changed. If you move in formation, the movement is automatically adjusted, so that each member of the group automatically keep their relative distances to each other, if possible. People would automatically slow down, if someone needs more movement points than the other to reach its designied position, using the pool of unused movement points for cover fire.
Of course, this would be problematic to implement, one would have to make sure blocking soilders would step out of the way as well as to prevent a soilder to move around the map alone while the others wait for him to reach his position indefinitely, because cause of a narrow passage his destination would be outside of something, while the destination of all other soilders is inside. But theese are all things, a little ai-work could handle. With a little ai-work this movement could be even extended, e.g. soilders automatically crack their formation up to move behind cover, if in reach, or so. 

[BTAxis]

Actually, I'm pretty sure it's going to stay that way.

[Borsti67]

Which is why I propose that the numbers have icons and different colors, so you can easily see which soldier has what weapon equipped

Did you already try both of the methods mentioned in another thread here?

• since the camouflage has no meaning (currently?), use that e.g. like "snow clothing = sniper" and "jungle outfit = heavy weapon"
• edit the names of your soldiers accordingly

[TrashMan]

The method I proposed is better - it gives you all important info on all soldiers at a glance.

If needed, I can make a quick mockup of what I mean...

[TrashMan]

Here, the mockup:



As you can see, this way one can easily see the status and specialization of all soldiers.

Now, the specialization icon can either be generated depending on what weapon your soldier is carrying, or determined before the mission. Or some other way.

The icons could be generic (sniper, explosive, assault, close combat, heavy) or rather specific, right down to the weapon (railgun has a different icon than a sniper, granade launcher a different icon than a missile launcher, etc..)

[Hertzila]

Now, the specialization icon can either be generated depending on what weapon your soldier is carrying, or determined before the mission. Or some other way.

The icons could be generic (sniper, explosive, assault, close combat, heavy) or rather specific, right down to the weapon (railgun has a different icon than a sniper, granade launcher a different icon than a missile launcher, etc..)

The soldier equipping GUI could be changed to also have an option to change that logo, correct? It would be the best implementation IMO.
And if the texture artists would make them, you could also have additional insignia further down your agents sleeves that shows his/her specialisation.