Improvements (Quality) - UI, Screens and Pedia [ACCEPTED]

[raystuttgart]

Hi guys,

there are still a lot of small improvements possible in UI and Pedia.
(So this thread is NOT intended to be discussing features or balancing.)

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For UI (Mouse Over Help):
(needs a tester to figure out, then needs a programmer)

• Systematically checking all Mouse Over Help in City Sreen (for useful info not displayed)
• Systematically checking all Mouse Over Help in Europe Sreen (for useful info not displayed)
• Systematically checking all Mouse Over Help in Map View (for useful info not displayed)
• ...

For UI (L-System, Bonus Ressources):
(needs a graphical modder.)

• Bonus Ressources (especially new ones) need to be checked if they are used in L-System
• Bonus Ressources graphics themselves (especially new ones) may need to be improved
• ...

For Pedia (more and better Info in Pedia Screen):
(first 2 bullets need a programmer, rest is pure text changes in XML)

• e.g. Bonus Ressources currently do not show Terrain / Terrain Feature restrictions
• Modifiers of many new features are not displayed / explained yet

• Pedia texts need to be checked and corrected according to current game features
• Pedia texts need to be checked for being too long to currently be displayed (and listed)
• Pedia texts need to be checked for improving Hihglighting (already in work)
  
• ...

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All of this is not difficult, but it takes massive amount of time to check and adjust all of that ...
So let us collect a bit and see what of this we will actually work on.
(A lot of this will depend on somebody volunteering to invest the effort.)

 

[Mr. ZorG]

For UI (Part 2: Mouse Over Help)

I do this periodically.
as soon as I start a new test game, I will give feedback.

 

[raystuttgart]

Just bumping "ACCEPTED" old concepts so they get further up in the queue again.

 

[Nightinggale]

This could be a good first task for programmers as the coding difficulty is reasonable. In most cases it's likely extending existing functions where adding text to an existing string is what needs to be done. Even better we already have plenty of help text to use as a template on how to do it.

I can't say for sure this applies to all tasks covered by this, but it does cover a significant amount of them.

 

[Mr. ZorG]

For UI (Mouse Over Help)

With the new barracks mechanic, it's not entirely clear how the colony's defense bonus is calculated. I suggest adding context help when hovering over the barracks icon located at the top of the colony screen. it should display on separate lines the bonus from defenses and the bonus from forts located around the colony.

 

[devolution]

Here's couple of additional idea for reducing the UI clutter a bit:

Consolidate the following into a single string:

- Yields lost due to overflow notification.
- Yield price change notification. I envision something like the yield icon and a number in green (for increase) or red (for decrease). This should be on on a per-port basis.
- Combat overview so that we don't duplicate the +X vs. whatever too many times. This will only get worse with the additional map stuff we are adding!


The first two could be good targets for newbies! The latter will probably tie-in with the upcoming changes to the combat system though and may need to be deferred.

It's worth pointing out that these improvement will actually increases performance a bit since the less we require the python UI to do, the faster the game will run.

 

[Mr. ZorG]

By the way, in the late game, a lot of messages about the sale of something, price changes, and so on are very disturbing. all these notifications appear in the center of the screen and when there are a lot of them, they close the map. yes, they disappear, but not quickly. is it possible to shift the window of these messages to the left edge of the screen?

 

[raystuttgart]

With the new barracks mechanic, it's not entirely clear how the colony's defense bonus is calculated.

"Barracks Mechanic" and colony defense are not related to each other.

The "Fort Defense for City" is a separate feature and I already planned to explain it at Mouse over the "Defense Bonus".
(It will explain how that number is calculated from Buildings and Improvements and potentially another small feature that is still secret ... )

 

[raystuttgart]

In Domestic Advisor currently "Domestic Market" info and "Happiness" info are hidden under as pages of Button / Categorie "General".
(It is pretty hard to find if you do not already know that it is there.)

We will give them now their own Buttons / Categories in the Domestic Advisor.
Thus I have prepared the button graphics.