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Development & Discussion / Re: [Progress - 16th Feb] Power Wheel UI Operation and Damage Animations

« on: February 21, 2016, 12:16:12 PM »

While writing my response, I was thinking about what sort of animation would be good for the usage, but I was afraid of exactly what you wrote: the engineer being overwhelmed with information. Too much information is as dangerous as few little information. It's like the saying: "when everyone is special, noone is".

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Development & Discussion / Multimonitor support

« on: February 21, 2016, 10:45:09 AM »

I have a question about something that was not discussed in this post, but it is connected the UI, basically. Will you be able to support showing UNION on multiple monitors?

Let me make my quesiton a bit clearer. I have two monitors of different sizes: a big one (24'') and a small one (19''). The big monitor is my main, and is used for the gaming, but I love to have something game related on the other monitor. For example, in Fallout 4 or Skyrim, it would be great to have the map or the inventory on the other screen, so you don't have to open it up to check where you are or what you have. In Artemis, we open another client and connect to the Main Screen to see the outside, but it would be phenomenal if you could somehow support that in the game itself, in a single client.

Let's say the player is playing an Engineer. His main screen (the big one, in my case) would have the Power Wheel on. The other screen (the small one, in my case) could have the options to show the visuals of the ship, the stellar map or something entirely else that's useful.

What do you think about this?

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Development & Discussion / Re: [Progress - 18th Feb] Power Wheel UI Connection Improvements

« on: February 21, 2016, 10:44:19 AM »

Power Wheel
What do you think about editing the power number upon the inital connection done by dragging? What I mean is that currently, you need to connect the reactor node to the equipment node, and then aim at the line to increase or decrease the power. I think it would be nice if the connection, immediately after being made, would remain "active" and allow you to use arrows or scroll wheel to quickly set it up on the desired power level. That is the initial idea I've posted, that you've quoted a few times (thanks for the shoutouts on those!).

This way, you could increase the power level to a higher number much faster, as well as cancel the connection by setting the power level to 0. The connection would stay "active" until you click outside of it, whether on an empty space or on another node.

Though, I do not know if something like this is possible with XAML...

UI scaling
When you say we'll be able to set the scale of UI manually, do you mean that we'll be able to set the scale of the UI as a whole or of each separate element of the UI?

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Development & Discussion / Re: [Progress - 16th Feb] Power Wheel UI Operation and Damage Animations

« on: February 21, 2016, 10:19:28 AM »

I understand that the animations will change, but when you do change them keep in mind that the equipment's icon flashing yellow is not very noticeable.

However, as for the functionality, knowing what is being used or damaged may prove very valuable, since the Engineer can react even before the crew speaks. Very good.

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Development & Discussion / Re: [Progress - 14th Feb] Engineering Power Wheel UI Valid Node Animation

« on: February 21, 2016, 10:16:01 AM »

Looking at the animation, I wanted to say that a darker shade of yellow would be better, since it seems like it's hard to see the number while the flashing is occuring, but then I saw the update.

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Development & Discussion / Re: [Progress - 13th Feb] Power Wheel UI Node Animations

« on: February 21, 2016, 10:11:27 AM »

Looks nice. Maybe too subtle, but that may not be the case since it is an animated reaction of the system on the player's reaction, so it's expected.

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Development & Discussion / Re: A Game of Chance - feedback

« on: February 11, 2016, 12:30:33 AM »

I hope there is, too. Mone money for you guys, means a better game for all of us.

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Development & Discussion / Re: Engineering Power Wheel

« on: February 11, 2016, 12:15:33 AM »

Can't wait for the playtesting results!

And it's awesome you have more people in mind to help develop the game.

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Development & Discussion / Re: A Game of Chance - feedback

« on: February 11, 2016, 12:13:37 AM »

Does that make sense?

Yes it does. Sorry to make you repeat yourself.

In terms of other communication, I would like to build VoIP into the game, allowing players to chat with the bridge or just specific officers. I can do that if we get enough funding.

I don't think you should focus on this. There are enough applications out there capable of great voice communication, like Mumble, TeamSpeak, Ventrilo and the new Discord. If you could make it, it might prove to be a great feature, but I don't think it's something that's necessary for the game in it's first edition.
It also depends on what type of market are you targeting and what size of market share you want to hit. Rocket League (soccer with rocket-powered cars) is an indie game from 2015 that has voice communication ingame, and they got quite a lot more popular than they expected (expected 10k concurrent users, got 180k on launch), but not many people use that voice communication since you cannot talk only to your teammates.

Thanks again for this, your questions and suggestions really help in the design process.

Glad to help! I work as a DBA, so I know that a fresh set of eyes can give you a better view on the overall situation.

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Development & Discussion / Re: Engineering Power Wheel

« on: February 11, 2016, 12:05:15 AM »

Now that I have described my current plans, what do you think?

Love it. And I love that you have to manage risk, and not simply be free of it. Perhaps there are scenarios where you'll risk loosing the the reactor node and fully using 9 power from it on a single node. We shall see, as the game develops.

I kept both inner and outer circles to a fixed size to keep consistency, it makes it easier to compare ships like for like.

I agree you should keep them consitent for now. This is one of the question I wanted to ask back on the TSN forum, but decided not to run too much ahead. My opinion is that this would make it much harder to balance the ships out. And since you're a small team without a dedicated mathematician to balance things, I'd stick with same-sizes circles at least until the first expansion.
Later, you can even add new/alien technology ships with only 1 or 3 huge reactor cores, and balance them out in another way.

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Development & Discussion / Re: A Game of Chance - feedback

« on: February 10, 2016, 11:56:58 PM »

That would work.

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Development & Discussion / Re: Torpedoes

« on: February 10, 2016, 11:56:26 PM »

I think that allowing the Tactical to change torpedo's target while it is in-flight would be a style of advanced play that a skilled player could really do something with. I would just add a limit on the maneuverability (the torpedo shouldn't be able to make sharp turns) and the fuel (it shouldn't be able to fly for minutes and minutes of game time).

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Development & Discussion / Re: A Game of Chance - feedback

« on: February 10, 2016, 11:53:37 PM »

2. Communication between officers is an extensive topic. We have 9 channels of 1on1 communication between officers, exluding the Captain. There may even be potential for a three-way communication, but I would recommend against it, since it can all probably be solved in a few 1on1 communications. And a three-way communication among 6 crew members is already half the crew, so that can already be solved using voice.
Now, the question is does every officer need to have a special communication channel with every other officer. Perhaps not. I do believe that most of it can be solved with voice, and it wouldn't be clutter. This is important since if an officer only needs to talk to 2 or 3 other officers via the special 1on1 communication, there could be special buttons that would serve as a type of "quick chat". One example of a button would be on the Tactical's screen: "Request enemy's shield frequency", which would raise a notification on the Science's screen, with a quick way of reply. Just throwing that out there.

4. That's great! More depth!
5. What does the Engineer Officer think about that?

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Development & Discussion / Re: Torpedoes

« on: February 10, 2016, 11:32:01 PM »

I could make really accurate torpedoes, but that removes need for the Tactical officer to use his/her skills in firing them. Instead I have gone with a kind of dumb tracking system, which is quite effective but not infallible.

I agree with you. Since this is a game, it makes much more sense to rely on the skill of the player. Though in a real world spaceship (yeah, ok, this sounds ridiculous), I don't think that something like this will be left in the hands of a human.
With "navigated by the ship or the Tactical Officer" I didn't mean that the Tactical Officer would take control in a first person view, but would be able to take direct control as if looking from the ship and navigating the torpedo, moving it in three dimensions. You've basically answered it when you mention the skill of the player as a Tactical Officer.

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Development & Discussion / Torpedoes

« on: February 10, 2016, 09:46:02 PM »

Feedback on TORPEDOES, TORPEDOES, TORPEDOES (DEV LOG 6).
If torpedoes are fired in a straight line, it should be quite simple for a computer to calculate where the torpedo will be at any given time. That would allow the ship to fire at it or at the position where it will be at a specific moment, even with another torpedo. Vice versa, aiming with a torpedo should be left to a computer, since the computer can easily calculate the vector of the target, and know where will it be if it continues moving at the same speed or increasing (or decreasing) it's speed at a constant rate.

If the torpedoes can be navigated by the ship or the Tactical Officer, the torpedo can do some very interesting actions, such as avoiding collisions on course to it's target or entering a vent shaft of a space station.