Xenonauts Time Increment UI

[Azek]

I recently gave the current build of Xenonauts a try a liked what I saw. I know a lot of this stuff is still WIP, but I felt like giving the time increments some scrutiny.

In my opinion, the current increments are a little on the thin side and I dislike the way the buttons stretch from an tiny square-like button to an extremely long button. Functionally, each time increment is equally useful and I feel the variable button sizes imply 4x speed is vastly more important than 1x. This and because you're constantly switching back from 2-4x speed back to 1x when waiting for UFOs and base building, I think larger, same-sized buttons is better.

I felt like going with 1x,2x,3x,4x buttons instead of >,>>,>>>,>>>> is not only simpler, you don't need to make the last button extra long, as you can see from the trouble I had fitting the >>>> into the alternate designs. What do you guys think?

EDIT- Alright, a slight update, one variation using filled in triangles and the other with numbered increments w/o the x's.

Edited December 25, 2012 by Azek

[Gauddlike]

The speeds are not actually 1x, 2x, 3x, and 4x though so those labels would not make sense.

If that was the case then you would get through 4 game seconds to every 1 real second.

The higher settings are significantly faster than that.

From gameconfig.xml:

<!-- GEOSCAPE TIME SETTING CONTROLS -->

<gameSpeed1 value="0.3" comment="Game minutes elapsing per second on lowest speed setting." />

<gameSpeed2 value="10" comment="Game minutes elapsing per second on second lowest speed setting." />

<gameSpeed3 value="100" comment="Game minutes elapsing per second on second highest speed setting." />

<gameSpeed4 value="500" comment="Game minutes elapsing per second on highest speed setting." />

[Azek]

I realized that the time increments weren't actually multipliers or 1x-4x. However, as the Time Setting Controls show, it also names the controls as 'Gamespeed 1-4'. In the same way the gears of a car aren't numbered by the MPH it takes you, I think the Xenonauts Time Increments would benefit from this simplicity while having more user friendly buttons.

Alternately, its also possible to make the current arrows into full triangles and condense them, so icons for speeds 1-4 can all fit a button of the same size comfortably.

[Gauddlike]

Naming something 1 to 4 is not the same as naming them 1x to 4x when they are not actually indicative of a 4 times multiplier.

I don't think they would benefit from misleading labels.

They do definitely look better as equal sized buttons though.

[Snozy]

I prefer the X-COM buttons showing actual time instead of arrows, not because its realistic but because its just cool.

5 Sec | 1 Min

----------------

5 Mins | 30 Mins

----------------

1 Hour | 1 Day

Yep...

[Snozy]

If I can change the icons myself with Xeno modding tools Ill post them to share with everyone. I wont attempt modding until the game is release.

So tell me, how much time does each button represent? Thanks you

[Gorlom]

Going by Gaudlikes first response to OP it is

> = 18 seconds in game per real second

>> = 10 minutes

>>> = 1 hour 40 minutes

>>>> = 8 hours 20 minutes in game per real second.