Proposal for UI (increase size of soldier panels)

[Ruggerman]

The UI should provide enough info on your troops and surrounding, without cluttering up the screen.

If this info could change depending of the combat suite you were wearing, more advance suite would provide more or better battle field stats!!

[Sheepy]

I've made a UI mockup with UI elements that I'd like to see:

• Bigger Everything! Well, except the weapons.
• See major equipments of all soldiers.  See heal-able HP and stun damage.
• TU, HP, and main weapon above everyone (friends, foes, and 3rd parties).
• Outline move area, move + shot area (before turning), and vision cone.
• When selecting move location, show line to all enemies, and who can be shot from that location (after turning), and whether each can see you (red eye icon in the mockup, above the left alien). Default to move + fire instead of ignore move and fire.
• When hovering over target, see accuracy of all modes.  See hovered target's TU and HP but without numbers.

Full UI mockup (understandably most clustered):

Animated mockup (Not always playing correctly; did my best):

Fine touches: See all inventory on screen (slot based), Selecter soldier's skills, Silhouette for human and alien, Replace shot mode text with icons, Firing hint.

TU has a blue overwatch marker to represent snap TU.  Tried adding current firing mode marker, but a bit redundant with moving shot boundary and live TU prediction.
Floating TU and HP is white to emphasis coloured status icons such as the red eye for sight.
If a walk plan renders you unable to fire at a target after turning, it can be conveyed by "not-attackable line" to that target.
I think we can also rotate vision cone with mouse move, and update TU prediction (and maybe cone colour) to indicate whether there is enough TU left for overwatch.

In hindsight I could have made the alien indicator smaller and add their weapon icons below.  And add reaction shot indicator next to sight indicator.

Edited July 1, 2018 by Sheepy

[roxxed]

Damn thats a good effort sheepy. All in all i like the concept. The bottom right weapon bar looks a litle "busy" where size and some items could be removed/scaled down for a cleaner look. The alien portrait and stats is a fantastic idea. I could imagine when you first greet these foes that things like rank, alien type,  weapon type ect could be marked as  "unknown" in origin until you directly research each one to slowly reveal more as you progress through the game. Would give a great sense of wanting to know more about something. There could also be an information "I" section that links researched alien lore attached to it.

As for the soldier portraits they might work the way you added it. They could be incorperated in to the main middle section? But you would prob lose needed visual info. I guess the idea is if you click on something then a seperate portrait opens with extended details which i like.

Having a higher focus on human and alien portraits and there backbone details give a rpg sense which the game really needs. 

[Dritz]

I love the look of that U.I. Having both name and weapon on the soldier is perfect, the TU implementation looks super useful too.

[Skitso]

Nice work with the illustration. For my tastes, it's wayyyyy too cluttered and busy though. I like my games clean and simple. The less intrusive the UI is, the better. As long as all the relevant information is still available, of course.

[Sheepy]

Yes I love more info with less clicks.  So it is no surprise that between XCOM2, Phoenix Point, Invisible Inc, and BattleTech I like the last one most.

I do think I made some of the elements too big. And something can be made dynamic.
(e.g. Remove mode slider, Show only active weapon's modes, Hide max move area dynamically like PP.)
But the biggest problem I see when I compare X2 with them is the amount of info.

X2 starts with more soldiers than the full team of all these games.
I quite hate fishing for items belt by belt, backpack by backpack in X1.
In all those games I can see all (limited) equipments just by tabbing through (less characters to tab through too).

Then X2 have the firing arc of BattleTech, vision cone of Invisible Inc, locational damage of Phoenix Point (TBC), and more attack options than XCOM 2.
X2 also have crouch and the most fine grained TU system. Only Inv.Inc is comparable but they have no PC facing.
And Inv.Inc's battlefield is so complicated that they need a wireframe mode for practical planning, which I also suggested for X2 before.

There are few combat mechanics they have that X2 don't. My UI mockup is my effort of showing most info and keep it simple.
UI can be "dumped down" by hiding information, but I hate that approach for a tactical game.
Dynamic UI is one way to solve that, e.g. Inv.Inc's one action bars per subject. But ultimately X2's focus is not on closing doors, dragging guard, or trading items.

So, there is no perfect solution.
Unfortunately, none of the games offer much in way of UI customisation, and I really don't expect X2 to breakthrough on this front.

[Larry Burstyn]

I like the UI Sheepy designed.  I like a LOT of information.

Questions/Comments: 

What function do the two whole silhouettes serve?  I think we all know what humans look like and the picture of the alien's face shows more than the silhouette. 

Bottom right has overwatch listed twice??

The alien orange heads could be smaller without the loss of information as could the facial portraits .

[Larry Burstyn]

The blue rifle image is unnecessary as the rifle is shown in the bottom right square.

[Sheepy]

1 hour ago, Larry Burstyn said:

What function do the two whole silhouettes serve?  I think we all know what humans look like and the picture of the alien's face shows more than the silhouette. 

Bottom right has overwatch listed twice??

The alien orange heads could be smaller without the loss of information as could the facial portraits .

Silhouettes: Location injuries.  Not in alpha build but is in stretch goal.

I thought having two overwatch may be better in some cases, but in hindsight yes one is enough.

Concur on orange heads too big.  Face is more difficult; they are important to balance the panel sizes lol.
They can be made smaller if the weapon panels is smaller first, which is definitely possible.
(e.g. remove mode slider, expand belt only on hover, collapse non-active gear like Phoenix Point)

 

59 minutes ago, Larry Burstyn said:

The blue rifle image is unnecessary as the rifle is shown in the bottom right square.

They serve different purposes.

The blue floating weapons let you quickly identify the weapons in a formation without hovering or clicking them one by one.  In the mock up you can hide the soldier bar and still tell that shotgun and rifle are in the front while all support weapons are in the dropship, and the shotguns are at the "outwards" of each side.  (When no soldier is selected; floatie overlap is a problem that few games solved.)  Not having to look down to learn that is very useful, esp. when you have over 10 soldiers.

The red floating weapons is a quick indicator of the threat of an alien, again so that you don't need to click or zoom them one by one.  Works even when you zoom out.

And the big one in inventory panel is, to be honest, to fill up the space of four firing modes oh I mean to justify the designer's amazing work of course.
It is needed there to show which weapon is active (or inactive), since soldiers can have multiple weapons in all current and discussed inventory plan.  But the whole panel can be smaller yes.

 

Won't have time to revise the mock up soon, but thanks for the comments.

[Canyon]

I saw this post linked from the Kickstarter page.  I really like mazex's #6 - Final cut with background for the names and flags on the same row as the gun.

The names (and the flags to a degree) really help me connect with the soldiers.  I like the font and background for the name - it makes it easy to read.  And I like separating out the time units to make it more of the focus.

Sheepy's UI mockup is also good.  My favorite parts were these three - 

• Outline move area, move + shot area (before turning), and vision cone.
• When selecting move location, show line to all enemies, and who can be shot from that location (after turning), and whether each can see you (red eye icon in the mockup, above the left alien). Default to move + fire instead of ignore move and fire.
• When hovering over target, see accuracy of all modes.  See hovered target's TU and HP but without numbers.

All of those would be very useful for me.

Edited July 2, 2018 by Canyon

[XTC0r]

Great mock up Sheepy!

I really like the additional information your UI is showing!

 

Quote

• See major equipments of all soldiers.  See heal-able HP and stun damage.
• TU, HP, and main weapon above everyone (friends, foes, and 3rd parties).
• Outline move area, move + shot area (before turning), and vision cone.
• When selecting move location, show line to all enemies, and who can be shot from that location (after turning), and whether each can see you (red eye icon in the mockup, above the left alien). Default to move + fire instead of ignore move and fire.
• When hovering over target, see accuracy of all modes.  See hovered target's TU and HP but without numbers.

For further optimization the same ideas as already mentioned came into my mind.

• scale down weapons and equipment pictures in the right bottom
• scale down soldier portrait
• remove mode slider but keep info about hit chance

[roxxed]

Hope Chris is keeping an eye on this thread. Some great ideas 

Edited July 2, 2018 by roxxed

[Komandos]

You can use this part of the vehicle as a navigation bar for soldiers in ground combat.

It already contains information about: fighter's specialization; serial number.

It remains to display the percentage of health in color; Fighting spirit; number of AP.

In addition, we will know the location of a soldier in a combat vehicle, which in one way or another affects his functions and determines his rank in the team.