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Request - Improvement/Simplification of soldier assingment


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At the moment there are two screens for soldiers. General recruitment and Outfitting.

This system has some serious problems. Its clunky as hell. Probably this is to do with importing the basic screens from the original version.

Personally I think both screens could be combined, although its probably too late for that, so duplicating info between sceens would seem to be the way to go.

Data available on one tab isnt available on the other.

You cant tell a soldiers damage on the outfitting screen? why not, why should i have to check one tab to see if they are in fact healthy or injured then refer back to the outfitting screen to see if a current soldier is worth replacing.

I ususally decide wether or not to take one soldier over another based on what role they are good at (ie sniper/heavy support). This information is not available on the general recruitment screen.

Also max HP info doesnt seem to be available anywhere (i may be wrong).

Also a shortcut to the Dropship layout screen from either or both soldier screens would be useful and I'd be very happy if it was implemented. Again digging around in another tab and sub tab to do this is clunky!

So clarification of where I'm going wrong would be appreciated as well as comments from others that this is an issue/or not for them would be great

Thanks Alex

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http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/3748-New-UI-preview%21?highlight=geoscape+stores+soldier+equip

First post has the new UI images.

Chris has said that he doesn't want to make any more changes but I am sure if they are deemed useful enough then that may not be entirely final.

On the soldier equip UI there are bars for stats.

Maybe on there should be a current health status, either as a bar or a simple healthy/injured/critical indicator.

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Okay, you seem to have 3 issues.

1) You can't tell on the outfitting screen how many HPs the solider one is outfitting currently has.

2) You can't tell the stats of any particular solider.

3) You want a shortcut to the dropship layout screen from both tabs.

Are those all the issues that you have?

1) + 3) Can't comment on those, really. Never saw the issue myself, so there you go.

2) though... the stats for all soliders are on the lower half of the current UI for personell. Can you not see those stats? And this is mostly going to be ported over to the new UI.

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I don't think it would be possible and/or useable enough to combine equip and barracks screens in one, too much information. But some useability improvements would be good.

There was new UI announcement thread with some pictures, better to have them handy in this discussion as well:

- Equipment screen

- Barracks

- Barracks recruitment

- Dropship equipment

Upd: And ninjaed twice by Gauddlike and Max_Caine=)

1) Yes, having health level on equipment screen can be useful. I usually check who is still wounded and need to be replaced for the mission before loadout changes anyway.

3) Button to go directly to dropship would also be useful - this screen is few clicks too far away when it is needed which is every time you change who will fly on two other screens.

Personally, i found lacking one more thing - barrack screen, armor column.

Making it interactive and adding (or replacing it by) role column (also interactive, with indication, if loadout doesnt match role default) beside it will make soldier assignment much easier.

Edited by Lt_Parsons
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Ah but you did a more detailed and informative version ;)

Not all of the information is required in both screens of course but some, like health status, would be useful in both as it could influence your decisions on who to equip or who to fire.

Remembering that firing a soldier returns him to the hiring pool though it would also need to remember their health status so you couldn't fire then rehire for an instant heal.

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If I'm going to have a screen showing which vehicle the soldier is assigned to, then I'd want to be able to change that assignment there. I'd also want to see the role of the soldier so that I know what the soldier I'm assigning is supposed to be doing.

A link to anything soldier related seems sensible too, such as the dropship.

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Sorta. Not in the part where you can see who's on the ship. You can't just glance at a unified list of who is on the chinook and see what roles you have on board. If you want to see what weapons/roles you have on board, you have to go through the soldiers one-by-one.

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Replace the icons on the dropship screen to match the role icon used by each soldier?

Then you would drop each role where you wanted it on the craft.

Maybe it would be easier to make a list of the soldier information required on each screen (equip, dropship, roster) and how they should link together?

I don't think Chris will want to change it but you never know.

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Replace the icons on the dropship screen to match the role icon used by each soldier?

Then you would drop each role where you wanted it on the craft.

Good idea, i like it.

Maybe it would be easier to make a list of the soldier information required on each screen (equip, dropship, roster) and how they should link together?

I suggest to just replace field under soldier name and portrait where is currently said what weapon he's carry with role selection field with dropdown menu (with some way to indicate if soldier has customized loadout, that doesn't match designated role, by background color of field maybe).

Also maybe make it two fields, role and armor.

If you need to fit some more info there is place left of portraits under dropship info that can be filled with small memo about soldier stats.

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I too would appreciate being able to see what roles each soldier has in the dropship equip screen. I spent some time the other day creating a specialized role for the men I wanted to have secure the landing zone. These soldiers are given smoke grenades and weaponry well-suited to quickly take down a single enemy. They are also fast.

The soldiers coming behind them are usually the big gunners. These guys are too slow to do much shooting after reaching their positions outside the dropship but on round 2 they are able to inflict devastation upon the aliens.

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I was thinking about the personnel screen. You already have a craft assignment there. It would be nice to see what type of soldier you're putting in each craft.

The dropship screen is interesting. It would mean if you weren;t happy, you'd have to go back and unassign and then reassign someone else though.

If it was adjustable on the personnel screen, you could do that part form there, only going into the dropship screen if you needed to move people around.

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Well as we haven't seen the new UI in the game yet it isn't really clear what needs to be adjusted and what will work nicely.

It also may be difficult to get anything changed :P

Having played more since the new UI screens were posted though has made me think of a few things that may be useful to me.

Going purely from the screenshots my suggestions for things that would work well for me would be:

General note on the mockup screens is that stats are not consistent.

AP is swapped with time units, resilience with HP.

I imagine the finished version will use a standardised system.

The dropship screen only really needs information that helps me decide where to place people in the craft because generally I make my decisions on who to take on the missions in the equip or roster screens (by stats or equipment).

I would add a small window with soldier stats, doesn't matter if it is like the equip or roster window, either would do as long as current health is included.

It could be the same size and shape as the new UI portraits and placed beside them to the left, below craft info, to keep the style of the UI intact.

Allow the icon used to position the troops on the dropship to change so that it reflects the role set in the equip screen, also have the role name appear under the soldiers name below the portraits (i.e. SGT Custom Soldiername (Rifleman)).

An easy way to get back to the equip screen for the specific soldier you have selected would also be nice.

Maybe a button in the stats section?

The barracks (roster) window could use more information on equipment.

Weapon type can be as important when deciding transfers as armour type is.

There isn't much space so full names might be difficult.

Maybe a single word description of the weapon (Rifle, Shotgun, Support, Launcher etc) with a tier numeral?

At least you can tell at a glance if you are about to accidentally send your only tier 3 rifles off to the wrong base.

A role name may also work if it tagged (mod) on the end if it had been changed, although that only helps if you are using different roles for people with different tiers of the same gear.

Don't know if it is currently the case but clicking the equipment name should link to the equip screen for that specific soldier.

The dropship name could link straight to that specific dropship screen.

Changing dropship assignment may also be useful here but not sure which would be best.

Both would of course be great ;)

Current health status and recovery time should be listed here somewhere as it may influence your transfer and hire/fire decisions.

The recruitment window seems fine as is.

The soldier equip screen seems pretty much ok to me.

Current health status/recovery time should also be displayed here as it will influence your decisions on who to equip and who to assign to a dropship.

Stripping gear from injured soldiers could be useful when cash is tight.

The dropship name on the soldier information pane should probably link to the correct dropship screen, and possibly have the correct soldier highlighted.

Change the role badges to be round rather than square.

Mainly that would fit in with the change to dropship positioning icons.

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The new UI screens, beautiful and much anticipated as they are don't seem to have changed anything as regards my main issues. Apart from hp seems to be listed - http://www.xenonauts.com/devimages/5_Barracks_1610_2.jpg assuming HPS means HP and is the new Resilience. At this point I have to ask/admit is resilience the same as soldier hp, just realised I actually don't know what the resilience stat is, wow.

There seems to be a pretty good consensus as to the things we'd like.

A link to the drop-ship from the soldier equip screen: Max_Caine, a shortcut from the soldier equip screen would seem entirely appropriate, since its literally right behind your guys looking at you in the background :D

An indication of current soldier health, a colour health bar somewhere, on the new ui underneath the soldiers name or at the top of the stats bars would seem best - http://www.xenonauts.com/devimages/7_SoldierEquip_1610.jpg

Roles need to be indicated on Baracks screen - http://www.xenonauts.com/devimages/5_Barracks_1610_2.jpg another column next to the right of bravery? And also be better implemented in the dropship screen something like what Gauddlike said with regards role display, or perhaps just replace weapon name to the role badge.

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The new UI screens, beautiful and much anticipated as they are don't seem to have changed anything as regards my main issues. Apart from hp seems to be listed - http://www.xenonauts.com/devimages/5_Barracks_1610_2.jpg assuming HPS means HP and is the new Resilience. At this point I have to ask/admit is resilience the same as soldier hp, just realised I actually don't know what the resilience stat is, wow.

There seems to be a pretty good consensus as to the things we'd like.

A link to the drop-ship from the soldier equip screen: Max_Caine, a shortcut from the soldier equip screen would seem entirely appropriate, since its literally right behind your guys looking at you in the background :D

An indication of current soldier health, a colour health bar somewhere, on the new ui underneath the soldiers name or at the top of the stats bars would seem best - http://www.xenonauts.com/devimages/7_SoldierEquip_1610.jpg

Roles need to be indicated on Baracks screen - http://www.xenonauts.com/devimages/5_Barracks_1610_2.jpg another column next to the right of bravery? And also be better implemented in the dropship screen something like what Gauddlike said with regards role display, or perhaps just replace weapon name to the role badge.

Why not have the soldier's icon in the dropship be the role badge?

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Another note on the personnel screen: right now it's a little clunky to use if you have enough soldiers to require scrolling through the list. This may be irrelevant with the new UI, but basically every time you assign a soldier to training or a dropship, the screen pops back up to the top of the list. So, if I have 5 new rookies I want to assign to training, I have to scroll down to the bottom, select the soldier, click "start training" and then scroll back down to do the same with the next one. It really shouldn't pop back up to the top every time.

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