KayAU
Emperor
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2014
- Messages
- 1,319
One of the most common criticisms agains Ara is that the there is simply too much to manage, and that the UI is too fiddly. While both are fair criticisms, I also sometimes see people complain about things missing which are actually there. So, I thought maybe it might be helpful to create a thread with some basic UI tips for beginners. I will start myself, but everyone is welcome to add their own.
1. Check the UI Scaling setting
There is a setting for UI scaling under "Settings->Accessibility", which by default is set to 100%. I think for a lot of us, this is too big, and contributes to making the screen look crowded, while at the same time having less information available without scrolling. You can shrink it down to a minimum of 67%, but I found my spot at about 75%.
100% UI Scaling:
75% UI Scaling:
2. Check out the Resources and Goods overviews in the upper right part of the screen
If you move your mouse pointer over the Resources or Goods icons and wait a little bit, you will get handy overviews over how much you are producing, how much you are consuming, and how much you have in your stockpile for each thing. This may extremely obvious for some of you, but it took me longer to discover than I care to admit.
This is very helpful to see where you need to improve production, and where you have a usable surplus of something. Looking at my screenshots here, I can quickly see that I am soon to be short on Metal Ingots, but that I am not using nearly as much Fish as I am producing.
3. Check out the pull-down menu above the list to the right in the city view
Again, this is one I myself was missing for far too long, even though it is right there. By default, the list is set to show Zones, which is useful for putting down improvements, and especially to see where you can put resource extractors. But the other lists are more useful for managing existing improvements. Let's say for example, that you have have just unlocked Mines, and want to upgrade your Stone Pits. When I was first learning to play the game during the alpha, I actually used to find the improvements on the map, and click on each of them, which is extremely tedious and inconvenient. The better way to do it, is to switch over from "Zones" to "Harvesters", and just click the little green upgrade arrow next to each Stone Pit I want to upgrade. You can also easily manage the supplies for each building, as well as assign experts for each.
Default "Zones" view:
"Harvesters" view:
These are just some simple tips, but since I didn't immediately find these myself, I figured it might be useful for someone. As a general tip, I would suggest just taking some time to explore the UI, as it actually has a lot of good functionality, some of which is not immediately obvious.
1. Check the UI Scaling setting
There is a setting for UI scaling under "Settings->Accessibility", which by default is set to 100%. I think for a lot of us, this is too big, and contributes to making the screen look crowded, while at the same time having less information available without scrolling. You can shrink it down to a minimum of 67%, but I found my spot at about 75%.
100% UI Scaling:
Spoiler :
75% UI Scaling:
Spoiler :
2. Check out the Resources and Goods overviews in the upper right part of the screen
If you move your mouse pointer over the Resources or Goods icons and wait a little bit, you will get handy overviews over how much you are producing, how much you are consuming, and how much you have in your stockpile for each thing. This may extremely obvious for some of you, but it took me longer to discover than I care to admit.
Spoiler :
Spoiler :
This is very helpful to see where you need to improve production, and where you have a usable surplus of something. Looking at my screenshots here, I can quickly see that I am soon to be short on Metal Ingots, but that I am not using nearly as much Fish as I am producing.
3. Check out the pull-down menu above the list to the right in the city view
Again, this is one I myself was missing for far too long, even though it is right there. By default, the list is set to show Zones, which is useful for putting down improvements, and especially to see where you can put resource extractors. But the other lists are more useful for managing existing improvements. Let's say for example, that you have have just unlocked Mines, and want to upgrade your Stone Pits. When I was first learning to play the game during the alpha, I actually used to find the improvements on the map, and click on each of them, which is extremely tedious and inconvenient. The better way to do it, is to switch over from "Zones" to "Harvesters", and just click the little green upgrade arrow next to each Stone Pit I want to upgrade. You can also easily manage the supplies for each building, as well as assign experts for each.
Default "Zones" view:
Spoiler :
"Harvesters" view:
Spoiler :
These are just some simple tips, but since I didn't immediately find these myself, I figured it might be useful for someone. As a general tip, I would suggest just taking some time to explore the UI, as it actually has a lot of good functionality, some of which is not immediately obvious.