Special weapon icons filling up to indicate whether ready is

[Nebula_Class_Ftw]

posted on August 15th, 2010, 10:22 pm

Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on August 16th, 2010, 3:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I play cloaking races a lot, and I notice that the only way I can tell whether my vessels are ready to cloak or not is based off of the cloak icon, but it is very hard to tell just a second or two before it is ready whether or not it is, in fact, ready; the result is that I have to click multiple times to keep trying to cloak if I don't happen to have clicked late enuff the first time.
This problem with special icons also makes it nearly impossible to use normal specials (the Venture's ping is an especially egregious case that looks ready based on the icon even if there are still many seconds left) just based on the icon if the unit does not hav full energy and is recharging.

I think a way to fix this would be to make the special's icon appear a different color while less than the energy necessary is available. Maybe Red or Blue. Yellow is another possibility, but I think it is already used for certain situations (such as Canaveral's sensor blackout while ECCCM is on, also I've seen cloak icons go yellow on the Talon for some reason) and I don't want people to get confused and I think blue is a way cool color that will add variety.

Btw, I set the poll to allow voting twice, please select only one of first six options, then select the 7th if you dislike my idea about changing the color.

posted on August 16th, 2010, 1:49 am

That would be kinda nice if nothing else you could just grey it out.

posted on August 16th, 2010, 2:24 am

What about having the icon greyed out with a clock that slowly un-greys out the icon as it counts down?  I guess like warcraft 3 when you know the spell is available to be cast again?

But also have the icon red or whatever colour to let you know that there is not enough energy to use the actual ability?

Don't know whether any of that is possible at all with the engine or whatevs...

posted on August 16th, 2010, 5:33 am

What if the actual button itself for the special had a meter that filled up? Would that be too obvious and take away from microing?

posted on August 16th, 2010, 6:50 am

If you select multiple ships it wont help to display that cooldown...the current icons are ok since you can see the availability in the group selection

posted on August 16th, 2010, 11:44 am

Hmm, too right.  Totally didn't think about that.

Oh well, click madly many timez as per usual then!  Hotkeys would be cool though.

[Anonymous]

posted on August 16th, 2010, 2:27 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on August 16th, 2010, 2:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The other problem with these icons is when you have your fleet hotkeyed.   If all but one ship is ready, the rest of the fleet that is ready will obey the command anyway.  I usually try to delay a second or two, just to make sure that all ships are ready, but in the heat of battle that doesn't always work.

This is particularly troublesome with cloaking races, as if you accidentally double-click or double press the action button to get that last ship to cloak, your entire fleet will decloak with only that single ship ready to re-cloak. 

-edit-

I think a way to fix this would be to make the special's icon appear a different color while less than the energy necessary is available. Maybe Red or Blue. Yellow is another possibility, but I think it is already used for certain situations (such as Canaveral's sensor blackout while ECCCM is on, also I've seen cloak icons go yellow on the Talon for some reason) and I don't want people to get confused and think blue is a way cool color that will add variety.

I like this idea with some tweaking.  Have the icon follow the same pattern as if you were viewing energy on each ship individually.  Red if it is charging, with not enough energy to activate the special.  Yellow if the special can be activated, but less than full.  Green for 100% full.

posted on August 16th, 2010, 2:45 pm

Aye, this is a good set of ideas  - it's quite difficult to tell when you can't use an ability due to a cooldown.

posted on August 16th, 2010, 3:00 pm

I have no particular issue with the current style, though the color change I wouldn't complain about.

[Nebula_Class_Ftw]

posted on August 16th, 2010, 3:45 pm

Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on August 16th, 2010, 4:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

-edit-
I like this idea with some tweaking.   Have the icon follow the same pattern as if you were viewing energy on each ship individually.   Red if it is charging, with not enough energy to activate the special.  Yellow if the special can be activated, but less than full.   Green for 100% full.

I don't think having red, yellow, and green would be wise, as currently the special energy number already goes from red (low energy) to yellow (medium energy) to green (high energy) in a way that is unrelated to whether the ship has enuff energy for its special weapons. If the special icons had the same color pattern, people might get confused and think that the icon being red or yellow means that the ship has medium or low energy instead of seeing the special doesn't have enuff energy or is on a cooldown.

I think maybe a slight alteration to my original idea could be this: red if the ship needs more energy to use the special, yellow if a cooldown is in effect (if a cooldown is in effect and there is not enuff energy, then red and yellow will alternate), blue if the ship has enuff energy for the special but energy is not full (adding blue will help distinguish from special energy number colors and is a good color for "things are good, but they can be better"), and green for full energy and special is ready.

EDIT: Decided, after some thought, that red and yellow should both be used.

posted on August 22nd, 2010, 8:10 am

I don't think having red, yellow, and green would be wise, as currently the special energy number already goes from red (low energy) to yellow (medium energy) to green (high energy) in a way that is unrelated to whether the ship has enuff energy for its special weapons. If the special icons had the same color pattern, people might get confused and think that the icon being red or yellow means that the ship has medium or low energy instead of seeing the special doesn't have enuff energy or is on a cooldown.

I must say that I agree here that making it the same might become confusing.  Let us combine the ideas here and gray it out when no power is available, yellow while it charges, and blue while it is at 100% this way a person can just glance at it and be able to tell and not have to study it.

[ketchup_chips]

posted on August 22nd, 2010, 10:35 pm

Last edited by ketchup_chips on August 23rd, 2010, 8:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Also, there's one other complication here... some ships have 2 or more special weapons, each requiring a different amount of energy. So, the question is, would the icon change colours when the one that requires the least energy is ready?

Typo

posted on August 22nd, 2010, 10:40 pm

I'd imagine they would all have independant colors. It wouldn't make much sense to prevent people from knowing the weapon is available just because another isn't.