Combat GUI Update V2

[plucx]

Not quite Two hand.

But an alternative that won't penalise you from using anything at the reach of your character, may it be in your inventory or on the ground.

1-) Let me resume my rant:

(I am so frustrated by this, it came out like a wall)

2-) Using your inventory or your teammate inventory was paramount in saving your soldiers life in X-COM.

Having a empty hand helped a lot passing stuff around (bodies, weapons, bomb, name it)

3-) Having someting like a a throw button that let you pick-up stuff and throw it from the ground or the inventory without getting your weapon down (thats silly btw)

4-) You can salvage a mission by getting alien artifact back in the ship and retreat to base. Might save your stunned team mate by dragging them a board! Original X-Com had this.

5-) My suggestion is very similar to what is being done, it just leave more space for items type. Including anything you might whant to pick up fast and drop not so long afther. Ie dead/stun bodies, weapons ... heavy stuff to drag around of light stuff.

Edited January 29, 2012 by plucx

[Gorlom]

pluxc Im not sure you will be able to toss items from one char to another in xenonauts. Much of your arguments are invalidated if Chris doesnt put that ingame. So you might want to convince him of doing that firrst.

PS: this thread is about the combat GUI. would you mind keeping the discussion on topic? I'm sure there's other threads where your posts fits alot better. I assume people will be more inclined to read the full wall of text if it is acctually related to the topic of the thread. DS

Edit: Someone said that the reason Chris oesnt use the whole bottom was for sscaling issues with different resolutions. Is there any way to fill up the sides with black or whatever just to remove the feeling that the gui is covering something you might want to look at? Or should I expect to have to mod that or wait for someone else to mod it?

Personally I would prefere if AP as the most imprtant stat wasnt sandwiched between the other stats. any chance to have it at either the top or the bottom of the stack?

PPS. Will the community be able to mod the gui? (I guess that shows how much I know about modding =P) DS.

Edited January 29, 2012 by Gorlom

[plucx]

Thanks for the heads up, got redirected here from the Two hand treads.

[nutbarz]

I Posted this on the old List, then was asked to come to this one... so...

Remember in Xcom, when you were done with a soldier, and he finished his turn, you could click a button that woul take him out of the order and move tot he next guy? Can we get that button added?

My Second Part I see has already been addressed - That was the Lock of the Individual Soldiers AP setting from round to round. I see Chris intends on allowing all the soldiers their own setting and that it will be remembered from round to round. Great!!

Another thought I stated in that last one, was about the great Idea of a single click grenade toss, I would always get frustrated in the Original that I was able to prime a Grenade, but not throw it as AP would be used up.. So Having a One click Grenade is great. Also, I see the reload is showing, and the Grenade selection window, would the reload work on Heavy Weapons as well, like the Bazooka?

Overall I like this iteration much more than the one I am curently seeing in the Version I have.

[Gorlom]

really? I think I need to read your posts again then to me your post seemed to be much more suited for the 2hands thread.

[Gauddlike]

This is not really about the layout or function of GUI elements so it is out of place here.

[Haba]

The best implementation of clickable character portraits that I've ever seen was such that they moved according to the camera position. I.e. if the troopers were in north of the camera, the portraits would all be grouped at the top of the screen. A bit tricky to implement, but nothing impossible.

Imho the bars under portraits make the GUI a bit too busy, is there a specific reason why you'd want to see it all on glance? Maybe the same information can be provided more discreetly, without having to resort to displaying the bars all the time (mouseover, colored border if TU's are left, gradient layered on top to display health etc.).

If you are worried about he end turn button, simply make it require two clicks instead of one (one to change it to some "are you sure?" version of the icon, second to execute).

[anotherdevil]

for the end turn button problem, could you not just make it a double click? or have a (toggleable) pop up? (annoying, but better than half your squad dying? perhaps...)

[plucx]

I dont like not having a simple way to pick something up with a free hand.

It infuriate me to get my gun on the ground then pick somthing up!

Good try with the grenade slots.

Edited January 30, 2012 by plucx

[Gazz]

Any chance to expand the grenade direct-use button to medkits? (and what other "usable" items there might be)

The point is to reduce the unfun inventory micromanagement and that also applies to medkits.

Soldier's don't usually fight while constantly holding a medkit in one hand.

[Chris]

Welcome back, Gazz. At the moment there's no plans to expand the quickthrow icon to medikits but I suppose it is possible. It's just the medikit icon isn't really a very good shape to fit in the slot. It's something I'd look at in beta I think.

[plucx]

Maybe there is a work around with the quickthrow icon.

To set it up, the player just pick up an object acessible from the inventory and put it there. As it is, I feel very limited in term of things I can pick up on the fly and throw to a team mate. May it be a medpack, grenade lyng on the ground, munition or whatever else I might think of.

[anotherdevil]

I always thought you'd need 2 hands to use a medkit fully anyways. Hard to tie off a bandage with only one hand etc.

[IceVamp]

I'm liking how this looks atm. I would like all bars on the top there. Nice to be able to see at a glance how your squad is doing in general. I also like the idea of right clicking or something to have the portrait up permanently. Also, twice as long a bar thing for vehicles makes sense.

Having the AP reserve as a safety and fire mode selector is neat, but it would take up a lot of space. And it would have to be upgraded when you get them lazors!

I also like numbers on the stats in the main window. Nice to be able to just glance how much I need to heal the guy approximately.

Aye AD, it usually does. Modern tourniquets for combat personnel are designed to be able to use yourself with one hand, however this setting isn't modern.

To be honest, I don't mind rummaging about in the inventory to throw stuff that aren't grenades. Managing inventory is part of the game for me!

[nutbarz]

I always thought you'd need 2 hands to use a medkit fully anyways. Hard to tie off a bandage with only one hand etc.

Thats WHat you used your teeth for.. lol

Anyway Back to the GUI. Would adding an End of Movement button when your done using sqaud member be an issue to implement? To Remove them from the available soldier queue? It was Just something I always used on the Original.

[anotherdevil]

Thats WHat you used your teeth for.. lol

Ha ha true, but then there are slings, syringes, keeping pressure on big wounds, using scissors to cut anything, etc. that all would require 2 hands...

[Gorlom]

Just a question to the community: How difficult is it to mod the GUI? Haveing the soldeirs quickselect with bars on the left side of the GUI doesn't seem to be likely and I would really prefere it over there rather then on the top. I'm wondering if theres any chance of rearrangeing it the way i like after it's released.

[Pinetree]

....Remember in Xcom, when you were done with a soldier, and he finished his turn, you could click a button that woul take him out of the order and move tot he next guy? Can we get that button added?....

I'd like this too.

[plucx]

I always thought you'd need 2 hands to use a medkit fully anyways. Hard to tie off a bandage with only one hand etc.

I think you were mislead in this argument. Soldiers don't put guns on the ground, period. Now, you are aware that a sling is present on every weapon (launchers, rifle, flamer) so the the soldier can use both his hands. At first, you find that your gun is combersome. Afther some training you barely notice that your gun was on your back all along. Not in your back pack, just convenietly slung across your shoulders. You can do that with heavy weapon too, and you would be surpised how fast it is.

So once your gun is slung on your shoulder, you get two free hands. It serve the same function as a holster on a hip. You got a pistol, are you going to put it in the dirt? Damn no, you put it in it's holster.

[Gauddlike]

I don't think that anyone was mislead, I think it is more likely that some of us just don't care.

If a rifle is put into the pack to represent a sling rather than coding a whole new slot/ mechanic etc then that's fine with me.

It's a purely aesthetic thing for me.

For the record none of us have said that dropping a weapon to the ground is a good thing, Chris merely suggested it as one option.

[anotherdevil]

yeah, no matter where you put the rifle, you need 2 hands. That's what I was saying. You don't need two hands to throw a grenade, but you do to use a medkit

[Nikan]

where vehicle is?

[Amiga4ever]

Right...where's vehicle indicator?

[poulwrist]

I think it is a scaling issue with using the whole bottom of the screen.

Anything smaller than the resolution it is designed in and the buttons could end up being too small to click on.

I am generally slightly concerned about scaling issues with games these days as I play at 2560x1440 (27" monitor) and some just make a mess of the UI at that res, if it even is a selectable res that I don't have to go hunting for in an ini file somewhere. Present Xenonauts hud is kind of small'ish, but not too bad. Just cluttery and fiddly.

If the hud scales, or there's a scale-slider somewhere, that'd be great.

But other than that, I agree with your first post on the subject.

Hopefully most these things will have hotkeys attached to them.

[Chris]

Yeah I missed out the vehicle indicator, oops. It's quite hard to mod the GUI, but not impossible (scripts are in the /assets/scripts/ folder) and you might be able to move the GUI elements around if you know some code.

For scaling - I don't know yet. I think we'll test it at a variety of resolutions come beta to make sure it supports both large and small as well as possible.