Ground Combat Interface Refinements

[Gazz]

To my great chagrin, I didn't come up with the original idea.

This time

I played around with the ground combat part a bit, and the one thing that bugged me is the inconvenience of equipping inventory items. Since a quick search of the forums didn't dredge up any pertinent topics, I thought I might as well start My Very First Thread.

As a veteran of the 17-year (and counting) Cydonian War, I don't mind the inventory screen per se. Quite the contrary: just having it around behind a button press makes me feel warm and fuzzy. That's nostalgia for you.

Then again, rummaging through the inventory screen twice per every grenade thrown or teammate healed could get tedious.

My suggestion is to implement a quick switching feature to the equipped item slot. Right-clicking on it would pop up a list of wieldable stuff in the soldier's inventory, along with the AP cost of switching to each item. Left-clicking on an object equips it, right-clicking anywhere closes the menu. For extra polish and usability, you could adorn menu items with icons which would allow the player to appraise item type at a glance.

Oh, and one more thing: would you consider adding a reload icon to the lower right hand corner of the equipped item slot and/or implementing a hotkey for the same action?

One question is how many classes of items are "temporarily used".

One way to go about this would be:

- You press "G" for grenade.

- An overlay of maybe 20% transparent black covers the current weapon gfx on the main tactical UI.

- The first and successive presses of "G" cycle through all types of grenades the soldier has in his inventory.

- The current "temporary" grenade is displayed over the weapon gfx while you see the ghost of the original weapon

- It can "cycle around" to having no grenade superimposed / selected.

- No AP are spent at this time. You can cycle through this as often as you like until even

the greatest klutz hits the right grenade type.

Throwing the grenade spends the AP, including the AP required to move it to the mainhand.

Some pockets may just be more advantageous to store grenades in.

Throwing the grenade also resets this entire system to having the weapon displayed normally.

The same could be done for "other equipment" like medpacks or... whatever else.

Depending on how many "other equipment" there is, they could be tossed in with the grenades.

This system could also be used to

- reload normal weapons (only one magazine type)

- reload rocket launchers with multiple types of rockets.

You would use "R" to cycle through all magazine items that match your equipped weapon.

Just click on it (use it) to reload that particular item or reload / switch to that particular rocket.

A lot faster than rummaging through your inventory.

It's not even such a great cheat with throwing grenades.

Just imagine you are carrying the weapon on a sling and you would not stop to stow your rifle in your backpack before reaching for a grenade.

That eliminates a lot of annoying micromanagement and the player can stay "in" the battle instead of having to leave it to shuffle items around.

[Gazz]

As I started typing up the original post, I had a premonition of Gazz coming up with something more elegant and taking over the thread - my thread!

Well, at least I managed to raise the issue.

In all seriousness, though, your idea is more akin to what I originally had in mind but couldn't quite work out. I salute you!

Yeah, that sounds pretty good.

Still should have buttons on the interface though as well as hotkeys. Clicking on the button creates a menu/dropdown with all the item types. Sometimes you don't want to mess around with pressing keys.

If you use the "overlaying" display, a button could do the same thing a hotkey does. You just use it to cycle through the apropriate items.

The button's base colour would already tell you if there's anything to cycle through to begin with.

Popup menus always look artificial.

I know...its just a damn sight faster than press-scrolling....sigh.

Then again, how often are you going to be carrying 5 different types of temp-useables?

That was my line of thinking.

Also, displaying the grenade (or other thingy) superimposed over the weapon would allow to make it a properly graphical feature, display tooltips about it's stats, and generally show the player "you are going to attack" "with this".

With popup menus you're pretty much forced to use text because menus with possibly wildly differing item sizes would look awkward, IMO, and I hate "hunting" for the right entry in an auto-generated menu.

It's not necessarily faster then press-scrolling unless you have 7-8 different grenade types on you.

Then again, the menu-aversion is probably still an after-effect of the #$%*(&!)% popup menu in ET.

Oh yeah. I purposely forgotten about those...><

On consideration, I support this initiative. Now just have to move the secondary item slot somewhere more...obvious I guess.

On consideration, I support this initiative. Now just have to move the secondary item slot somewhere more...obvious I guess.

I, too, have considered having this secondary / temporary item displayed elsewhere.

The placement in my first draft (over the main weapon) has the advantage of complete freedom on the type of allowed temporary items because you can use full-sized items.

This way even a rocket launcher could be used without doing the inventory dance at all!

While it would be more "orderly" to have a dedicated display field, you would need a large field to get the most out of the feature.

That would waste a lot of space because most of the time there would really only be a grenade in it. If anything.

Maybe it's just a personal opinion but I think that having the item overlayed would help with the impression that this is really only "temporarily using an item".

It's quite obvious because the item is not there most of the time.

You press a button / key to reach into your pocket and grab it while taking your hands off your primary weapon.

That, combined with not limiting the design (or modding) somewhere down the road, makes me lean towards the "overlay" method.

Oh, the secondary item slot thing had nothing to do with your idea. Having the expendable/situational item scroll window-thing over the main weapons slot is a fine idea.

I meant the off-hand slot of the current interface. Its really small and out of the way, kind of hard to see anything in it. Its just not discussed much and getting more input about it would be useful.

.

[Gazz]

I meant the off-hand slot of the current interface. Its really small and out of the way, kind of hard to see anything in it.

I have to agree.

There is simply not enough space to put all desirable UI elements (ammo, fire modes, whatever) plus gfx of useful size on a window that small.

My suggestion:

- Put the left hand slot right next to the main weapon

so all the item stuff is in one place - instead of all over.

- Keep it the size it is now.

- The only numerical info it displays is ammo.

No "control" elements like fire mode.

- You can not fire a gun from the left hand slot.

- The only functionality this button has

is to swap the contents of left and right hand.

Once in the main hand you have full control over it and can

use the item normally. Then you switch it back.

There's still a problem though. Chris mentioned before that Combat Shields take up the primary slot, so you can only use items that go in the secondary (basically, anything 1-handed since 2-handers would always being in the primary).

Hmm what about that idea of having the 'hands' windows as one big bar, and splitting only when necessary? I forget who brought it up though.

Oh:

The more intelligent GUI design where you have a single window splitting into two if 2 1-handed weapons are equipped but being one single element if one 2-handed weapon is equipped will be used though.

Well, that's that. Forgot about this comment.

There's still a problem though. Chris mentioned before that Combat Shields take up the primary slot, so you can only use items that go in the secondary (basically, anything 1-handed since 2-handers would always being in the primary).

Well, that's a silly restriction that serves no purpose.

As long as the effect of 2 combat shields doesn't stack, there is absolutely no harm (or advantage) in carrying 2 of them.

A combat shield doesn't get any shieldier if you carry it in your right hand.

Well, if the combined/split item window idea is added, it doesn't matter. Then there isn't really a primary hand slot, so...yeah. Although...there was a mention of using items from the secondary slot adding an AP penalty, but that was from a long while ago.

Might need an progress/planning update on the whole thing.

But yeah, should be carry 2 if you want, just have no ability to counter-attack (besides punching I guess). Just have to deal with the weight of them. There's a minor balance issue concerning how if you lose one shield, then other one taking over. Depends on how 'covering' they are, and how much they weigh + the penalties. Does makes me wonder, will the negative effects of wielding a shield stack if you wield 2 of them? (AP penalty, LOS narrowing). I doubt the positive effects will stack though. Can the game even register the idea of being in 'double-cover'?

Hmm, I must see if I can find any mention of what happens when wielding a combat shield and being in cover, while facing said cover.

Edit: I can't find anything. I'm not sure if its ever been answered.

Well, if the combined/split item window idea is added, it doesn't matter. Then there isn't really a primary hand slot, so...yeah.

I'm not sure what the advantage of having a primary hand slot would be - with one-handed items.

How often do you see cops carry a riot shield in their right hand anyway?

From a UI point of view, more than one "active" hand makes no sense. It would require 2 fully fleshed-out interfaces for both slots. Superfluous.

A smaller, bare-bones display for the off hand should be perfectly serviceable if you can switch instantly.

"Two guns akimbo" may look nice in movies but no shooter would do that with the intention of hitting something. You're only shooting one gun at a time because you can't aim two.

In principle, the current system for hands / weapons works just fine. Needs a bit of polish and rearrangement but there's nothing inherently wrong with it.

Can only shoot one gun at a time anyways. Its more to save clicking, so you can use shock batons, medikits and grenades and the like without having to switch or having special rules for them. And hey, sometimes you might want to have 2 different kinds of pistols.

And considering that all the current one handed items have GUI images half the size of 2-handed weapons...and if you cut the current primary hand window into halves its still larger than the current off-hand window, and that shows ammo and fire modes quite clearly.

The only actual problem I have with the current off-hand slot is that its on the other side of the interface and right under the end turn button. Having them both on the same side is just nicer. Its not like which hand you hold something in is going to be important.

Anyways, as interesting as this discussion is (if creepy that we're having a civil discussion), having someone else chip in (Chris hopefully too) would be useful now, if only for another viewpoint.

Not to mention all the various little unknowns about interface stuff.

The split window was something I suggested in a mock up a while back.

I think Chris was going to try it out in the new GUI but I don't know if it worked out.

It would make sense if the same thing was used in the inventory screen as well but that might not be as visually obvious as having each object placed by the paper dolls hand.

I don't think two combat shields would be practical if they are balanced by their weight.

A major problem with allowing two shields to be carried is that you would need to animate a character model with each armour type.

That seems like a waste. Much better to only allow a character to carry one.

I would make them too physically large to even fit in the backpack.

If they were 6 squares tall for example the only way to carry one would be in the hands.

If you wanted to switch to anything using two hands you would have to drop it on the ground to be retrieved later.

Down side is that you would need them not to break completely if you can't take a spare.

Otherwise I would agree that there needs to be an easy way to swap items quickly, even if it is just an inventory overlay that pops up when you hold a key down.

[Chris]

Useful thread, thanks for saving it.

[Gazz]

I'm very much in love with the concept because it's a solution to the extremely outdated "fiddliness" of soldier equipment / inventory.

It's far closer to the system used in modern FPS.

There, you don't open your inventory, put your rifle into your backpack, put a grenade... BANG... you're dead.

Nope. You use the "select grenade" key, then throw the one you need.

Not being realtime, Xenonauts could give more leeway on the kind of items that are offered for "use" (grenades, medkits, other?) and still be be more elegant than all the back-and forth switching in the inventory screen.