SE5: GUI design discussion..

[Suicide Junkie]

Instar:
I didn't mean on the level of components, but rather overall ship shape.
Take a Norak Dreadnaught, for example. Each of the wings could be a hull piece, and if the design of your ship has a block of components (no matter what they are) that are arranged in a similar shape (3 square components in a row, forming a 6x2 block, for example) then the model used for rendering that ship gets a Wing Piece in that position.

Probably still not practical to actually do, but fun to imagine.

[Will]

What I would really like to see in SEV GUI is a completely skinnable, XML based GUI. This just extends even further the ability for the gaming community to modify the look of the game. So someone could design a UI that resembles a ship's bridge, with the system map/area/whatever it's going to be in the center, an expandable galaxy map at the bottom center that overlaps the system map when expanded, information screens on the sides (perhaps even an info1 and info2... left click loads into the left screen, right click loads into the right screen), and command buttons along the top.

Or, somebody could create a UI that looks remarkably like a bachelor's living room from the view of the couch. TV has the system map, the poster of the swimsuit model changes to an info screen when something's selected, galaxy map can be toggled on screen with the remote, or you could put it in picture-in-picture... clicking the beer and pizza on the table inputs a cheat code for you.

So, in short, don't lock the GUI down to something specific. Allow fans to change the very layout of the interface, not just the colors/bitmapped graphics.

David, I know not very much ideas for you there, but if you get the contract, be sure to bug Aaron about the skinnability

[Ruatha]

I'd like somekind of 3D map. A grid instead of a 2d map.
As in Elite II Frontier. (I think it was that game)

[David E. Gervais]

Originally posted by Will:
David, I know not very much ideas for you there, but if you get the contract, be sure to bug Aaron about the skinnability

I never 'bug' Aaron, but I will mention it. Having the GUI 'skinnable' would be a nice feature. As to weather the actual shape and placement of the different GUI parts can be user defined, I'm not the one to answer that!

Cheers!

[ February 21, 2003, 12:48: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]

[Lemmy]

quote:

---

For one example, I'm designing a new 'visual tech-tree' for the 'Research' window. I'm aiming along the lines of a flow-chart type layout, but also have a few 'different' things that I might try. Do you think this might be a good thing?

That would be a bad idea. It would not incorporate tech levels very well, unless it was extremeley long.

---

I am not sure how usefull a graphical tech tree would be, there would be lots of crossing lines, since it is moddable and will have to be generated on the fly based on whatever techtree people want to load in.

*jumps excitedly*
Look at my sig!! Look at my sig!! Look at my sig!! Look at my sig!! Look at my sig!!

The screenshot link!

[ February 22, 2003, 00:25: Message edited by: Lemmy ]

[Ed Kolis]

Looks nice, but maybe some of those long "strings" could be condensed - i.e. instead of

shields 1 -> shields 2 -> shields 3 -> shields 4 -> shields 5 and shield depleting weapons

you could have

shields 1-3 -> shields 4 -> shields 5 and shield depleting weapons

in other words, any time you have a linear progression with no branches, just compress it into one box

[Suicide Junkie]

Alternatively, you could always compress the tech areas into one block, and label the outgoing lines with the level requirement.

For in game, you could have indicators, a bar, or just numbers to tell you how many levels you have so far.

Colour coding things to show whether it is researchable or not (or already done) would be a nice touch.