At present, the display for the bars at the top of the screen is ...

[....TECH.....]
[.GG.][..GP...]

There has been a suggestion (a good one) that we should modify this layout on wide screens to ...

[....TECH.....][..GP...][.GG.]

Personally, I prefer ...

[.GG.][....TECH.....][..GP...]

Either way, what do we do about bars that aren't valid (ie no GP points)? Should they be blank or should the tech bar be stretched out to fill in those positions?

I like the sound of your idea, and that of expanding the bars to fill the gaps.

Bars resizing on the fly seems somewhat unnerving. I would rather see the areas blank.

@ruff:

I'd rather have empty bars as it is not aesthetic if there is no bar there. This is the case especially for the GG bar. Could you make that optional so one can choose how the bars behave ? The idea is really cool though, looks neat with those bars.

So I was thinking about this a little last night. In the case of the GG bar, there's really no time it should be "invalid" since you always have X number of points to go until your next GG. You don't have a GG rate like you have rates for GP and Research. Instead, you accumulate GG points at random intervals.

In contrast, you do have a GP rate for each city (sometimes 0). Currently, when all of your cities have a 0 GP rate, the bar disappears. The logic is that the bar shows the city who will birth the next GP. If all cities are at 0, no GP are coming, so no bar is shown.

I'm thinking of changing that to show the city the with highest GP total a) so the bar is always showing* and b) because it's useful information even when you have a 0 rate.

* Should the bar be visible when all cities have a 0 rate and 0 GP points? In that case, it would always show your capital with no GP percent information (since you have no points to tell). Is this the one time the bar should disappear? I'm inclined to say yes.

@EF:

Well, from an aeasthetic point of view I'd say the bars should never be invalid and left out as othe other visible bars - namely the GG Bar - are rather forlorn then. A possible option would be to stretch the bars if the other bar is invalid ATM, but I don't know a) if this would look good with the GG Bar and b) if it's easy to code.

preference to always show the bars. Stretching them out is do-able but does involve multiple bars with only 1 visible. The other bars are there - just not shown.

The easiest solution is to show the GP bar with some message like "No Great People points" or something when all cities have 0 points and 0 rate. Any suggestions for a clear message?

I think "You are too stupid for GPs" would be funny but "Not applicable" might be more appropriate.

roflcopter :lol:

It should have "Great Person" in the message so that they know what the bar is for. Remember that it will be visible at the start of every new game.


"Your civilization lacks greatness"
"Lots of people, none of them great"
"Theeeeeey're great! But you're not"
"Yer peeple no is grate"

How boring . . . I went with ":gp:: None" when all cities have zero GPP and a zero rate. This is what you'll see at the start of a new game. Note that the research bar is not displayed until you found your first city. It looks a little odd, and probably even more so in wide screen mode.

If they all have a zero rate but at least one has one or more GPP, the city with the highest GPP and its percentages are displayed without the number of turns until a birth (since it's infinite).

Naturally, if the number of turns is 7 and the city has exactly 283 GPP, it says "You're a frakin' cylon!"

Please tell me you didn't just make a Battlestar Galactica refrences EF.:p

Moi? A BSG reference?? Frak non!

there you go again! Beware or else I'm going to start talking about a magic towel that is needed for all space travel....

It's not magic. Every traveler has one!

Here, stick this fish in your ear . . .

No thanks, I am trying to run away from a spider droid and hiding from the Orat.

oh dear - we seem to have gone down hill into an alternate universe

If you two don't stop, I'm gonna get the Death Star on you.

Y'all just take your Soma and go play some Bumble-Puppy.

What I would probably be more interested in, would be better using the space taken up by the technology bar, it could be 1/2 the size and still accurately display the same information, the freed up space could show the next tech or 2 that you have selected to research (if that information is available).

Interesting idea. Can you please post it to our feature request tracker (follow "SourceForge" Link in my sig, then select "Tracker : Features" and click "Submit New".