Naval Combat

[lomyrin]

ORIGINAL: Incy

CWiF had a feature where you could use the world map for naval movements. You also had some toggles for the world map that let you see what was in each seasone. Each seazone would have 4 numbers:
SURFACE/AIR/SUB/CP
These 4 numbers would show for every seazone, and if you wanted detail, you just held your mouse over any seazone, to see exactly what was there, and in which box. The 4 numbers were extremely practical to be able to spot at a glance where extra escorts or CP were needed.

It was possible to select units on the regular map and drop them on the world map, or the other way around. After playiong CWiF a while, I ended up using the regular map to pick up units, and using the world map to drop them off (oposite when returning to base).

These features are exactly why I aways want to have a smallish Global Window open at the right side of the screen.

Lars

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

I just had another idea. How about making all the larger names the size of the major power names for zoom level 1? That will make the sea area names easy to read.

Good idea, very good !!!

But about the hexgrid, pleaaaaaaaase, make it a toggle that can be changed while in the game.
The game last too long to be pissed off because you activated / deactivated the hexgrid at game start, and you would like to change now.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

I just had another idea. How about making all the larger names the size of the major power names for zoom level 1? That will make the sea area names easy to read.

Maybe we could also get rid of the white shadowing of names at zoom level 1 ?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

I just had another idea. How about making all the larger names the size of the major power names for zoom level 1? That will make the sea area names easy to read.

Good idea, very good !!!

But about the hexgrid, pleaaaaaaaase, make it a toggle that can be changed while in the game.
The game last too long to be pissed off because you activated / deactivated the hexgrid at game start, and you would like to change now.

Player options for the interface can be changed at any time using the drop down menu from the main menu. They just don't have buttons on the toolbar. For example, the use of automatic scroll.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

I just had another idea. How about making all the larger names the size of the major power names for zoom level 1? That will make the sea area names easy to read.

Maybe we could also get rid of the white shadowing of names at zoom level 1 ?

Yes, I thought of this too.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here's zoom level 1 with the small names automatically removed and the remaining names all using the same large font. The sea area labels are a mix of upper and lower case while the country names are all upper case. That difference and the color of the labels makes them quite distinct.

I think this is 1 viable map for performing naval moves. The existing global map is a second and I'm seriously considering giving the global map 2 zoom levels (2 by 2 pixels and 4 by 4 pixels: zoom-out and zoom-in). Those 3 choices (or 4 if you want to include zoom level 2 on the detailed map) should be enough.

The next piece is how the units should be shown. Clearly the current Units Under Cursor panel is one choice. It does have limitations though.

[Ullern]

Great. All of this.

About how units should be shown:
The game already have a toggle to show or not show units.
What about making another customiseable toggle just like it, where the user himself can select what kind of units to be shown. The choices would be:
air face up, air face down
land face up, land face down
naval face up, naval face down.

If I had such a toggle I would set it to show only face up naval and air units, and hit this button every time I was planing naval moves. At zoom level 1 and 2 I guess many user will need to use the Unit under cursor window to be able to identify what units is there. But you have to do that in the board version too. If you instantly know there is only four hexes with face up air units that is actually easiere than in WIF FE where you may have too look through stacks to be sure.

Ullern

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here's zoom level 1 with the small names automatically removed and the remaining names all using the same large font. The sea area labels are a mix of upper and lower case while the country names are all upper case. That difference and the color of the labels makes them quite distinct.

I think this is 1 viable map for performing naval moves. The existing global map is a second and I'm seriously considering giving the global map 2 zoom levels (2 by 2 pixels and 4 by 4 pixels: zoom-out and zoom-in). Those 3 choices (or 4 if you want to include zoom level 2 on the detailed map) should be enough.

The next piece is how the units should be shown. Clearly the current Units Under Cursor panel is one choice. It does have limitations though.

I am not sure enlarging countries names is necessary. I think they can stay the size they were.
Maybe keep at this level of zoom, the Cities and Major Ports names, or the red objective Cities only, and enlarge them to the size of Minor Countries' names.
Or / and simply enlarge the Port / City symbols.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Here's zoom level 1 with the small names automatically removed and the remaining names all using the same large font. The sea area labels are a mix of upper and lower case while the country names are all upper case. That difference and the color of the labels makes them quite distinct.

I think this is 1 viable map for performing naval moves. The existing global map is a second and I'm seriously considering giving the global map 2 zoom levels (2 by 2 pixels and 4 by 4 pixels: zoom-out and zoom-in). Those 3 choices (or 4 if you want to include zoom level 2 on the detailed map) should be enough.

The next piece is how the units should be shown. Clearly the current Units Under Cursor panel is one choice. It does have limitations though.

I am not sure enlarging countries names is necessary. I think they can stay the size they were.
Maybe keep at this level of zoom, the Cities and Major Ports names, or the red objective Cities only, and enlarge them to the size of Minor Countries' names.
Or / and simply enlarge the Port / City symbols.

I want the sea area names larger but I do not know which names are which when the map is drawn. It is easiest to just make them all large. Europe is a congested place. Other parts of the maritime world will not have as many country names (i.e., ignoring central Africa).

There are a lot of cities and minor ports so displaying all their names will either add clutter or they'll be illegible.

I want to figure out how to display the units next. Part of that might be identifying the port they are in.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Here's zoom level 1 with the small names automatically removed and the remaining names all using the same large font. The sea area labels are a mix of upper and lower case while the country names are all upper case. That difference and the color of the labels makes them quite distinct.

I think this is 1 viable map for performing naval moves. The existing global map is a second and I'm seriously considering giving the global map 2 zoom levels (2 by 2 pixels and 4 by 4 pixels: zoom-out and zoom-in). Those 3 choices (or 4 if you want to include zoom level 2 on the detailed map) should be enough.

The next piece is how the units should be shown. Clearly the current Units Under Cursor panel is one choice. It does have limitations though.

I am not sure enlarging countries names is necessary. I think they can stay the size they were.
Maybe keep at this level of zoom, the Cities and Major Ports names, or the red objective Cities only, and enlarge them to the size of Minor Countries' names.
Or / and simply enlarge the Port / City symbols.

I want the sea area names larger but I do not know which names are which when the map is drawn. It is easiest to just make them all large. Europe is a congested place. Other parts of the maritime world will not have as many country names (i.e., ignoring central Africa).

There are a lot of cities and minor ports so displaying all their names will either add clutter or they'll be illegible.

I want to figure out how to display the units next. Part of that might be identifying the port they are in.

You can simply double the size of the Port / City icon, if you don't want to clutter the map with lots of city names.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp
You can simply double the size of the Port / City icon, if you don't want to clutter the map with lots of city names.

Well, doubling zoom level 1 only gets us to zoom level 2. If I decide to do this I would want to go at least to Z4.

[Zorachus99]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Froonp
You can simply double the size of the Port / City icon, if you don't want to clutter the map with lots of city names.

Well, doubling zoom level 1 only gets us to zoom level 2. If I decide to do this I would want to go at least to Z4.

Seeing what is in a sea box at zoom level one would be nice to have. Would you Z4 units in sea boxes as well?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Froonp
You can simply double the size of the Port / City icon, if you don't want to clutter the map with lots of city names.

Well, doubling zoom level 1 only gets us to zoom level 2. If I decide to do this I would want to go at least to Z4.

Seeing what is in a sea box at zoom level one would be nice to have. Would you Z4 units in sea boxes as well?

Where my thinking has taken me recently is to have 2 zoom controls, one for units and one for the detailed map. The map could be MZ1 while the units are UZ2, UZ3, UZ4 - what ever. Though this won't make much sense visually if they are too large. I expect to set limits.

The map (MZ) and unit (UZ) zoom levels will be equal unless the player overrides it. This will go hand-in-hand with setting unit resolution (high, medium, or low) for different zoom levels, unit zoom levels that is. So UZ1 might always be shown using low resolution, UZ2 => UZ4 using medium resolution, and UZ5 => UZ8 using high resolution.

Then the player can specifiy that MZ1 uses UZ3, MZ2 => MZ7 use UZ2 => UZ7, and MZ8 uses UZ4. The last will enable 4 stacks of land/air units to be visible in each hex (I described this several times a long time ago).

This discussion probably has to wait for pictures/screen shots which, in turn, will have to wait for displaying the naval units in the sea area sections/boxes, which in turn, ...

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

That sounds really good!
 
I wonder what the cost to benefit is of having three Unit Zoom configurations?  One for land, air, and sea?
 
 

[Froonp]

Maybe units could be shown in "comics like balloon" (see attached illustration sketch), of a color that catch the eye (yellow here), that would show 1-10 units, with one "balloon" for each sea box section that contains units.

Could be filtered to only see Active Units / SUBs / Convoys / Surface Combat Ships / Transport ships.

- If more than 10 units were in the section, it would only show the most powerfull of them and the active TRS in priority, and would show the complete task force in a separate window that the player would call at will. The balloon could be of another color, and have a number showing the total number of ships, to better catch the attention.

- If only a couple of units were in the area, they would all be in the ballon zone.

The player would then see all the units at sea spread out on top of the map (in those "balloons") and on top of the other units (that could even be grayed out if unable to participate).

It would really be obvious to understand where are all the naval forces, and grasp a global picture of what is going on.

This system could also be extended to ships in ports, that would be optionaly shown within another balloon color (green ?).

[lomyrin]

Seems to me that a global winidow open beside the main game map window solves all these problems. In CWiF with this arrangement one can select which power or which side (Axis or Allies) is shown in each and every one of the sea areas visible in the global wiindow. Placing the mouse over any sea area visible in the global window instantly shows all ships in that sea area in the units window. The global wiindow can be quite narrow and be rotated to the portion of the world that is of interest at any one time. 
 
 The global window can also be used to instantly place the main map portion visible to the same point that the mouse clicked on in the global window, this allows instant slewing to different areas of the map, sea or land. 
 
Lars
 
 

[stretch]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

- If more than 10 units were in the section, it would only show the most powerfull of them and the active TRS in priority, and would show the complete task force in a separate window that the player would call at will. The balloon could be of another color, and have a number showing the total number of ships, to better catch the attention.

perhaps by clicking on the seabox while the limit-10 balloon is showing..

this could even be extended to land hexes as an alternative to the separate units window for seeing all units in a stack.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: lomyrin
Seems to me that a global winidow open beside the main game map window solves all these problems. In CWiF with this arrangement one can select which power or which side (Axis or Allies) is shown in each and every one of the sea areas visible in the global wiindow. Placing the mouse over any sea area visible in the global window instantly shows all ships in that sea area in the units window. The global wiindow can be quite narrow and be rotated to the portion of the world that is of interest at any one time. 

The global window can also be used to instantly place the main map portion visible to the same point that the mouse clicked on in the global window, this allows instant slewing to different areas of the map, sea or land. 

Lars

I have this as the base (current standard) for the naval interface.

Its weakness is that you can only see 1 sea area at a time. When deciding where to move a group of naval units it would be nice to be able to see the contents of several sea areas all at once, with ports included. The screen size is large enough for more to be shown at once, though how exactly to do that is the purpose (one of the purposes) of this discussion.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp
Maybe units could be shown in "comics like balloon" (see attached illustration sketch), of a color that catch the eye (yellow here), that would show 1-10 units, with one "balloon" for each sea box section that contains units.

Could be filtered to only see Active Units / SUBs / Convoys / Surface Combat Ships / Transport ships.

- If more than 10 units were in the section, it would only show the most powerfull of them and the active TRS in priority, and would show the complete task force in a separate window that the player would call at will. The balloon could be of another color, and have a number showing the total number of ships, to better catch the attention.

- If only a couple of units were in the area, they would all be in the ballon zone.

The player would then see all the units at sea spread out on top of the map (in those "balloons") and on top of the other units (that could even be grayed out if unable to participate).

It would really be obvious to understand where are all the naval forces, and grasp a global picture of what is going on.

This system could also be extended to ships in ports, that would be optionaly shown within another balloon color (green ?).

I am not real keen on balloons.

Currently there are 10 sea boxes shown and I would like to both keep their existing definitions (5 sections by 2 sides) while somehow exploiting the fact they are already sitting there taking up space. It would not be difficult to simply magnify those 10 boxes so the top unit in each box would be visible. Of course, that's the problem - only the top unit would be visible. But the separation into sections for each sea area on the map would be a good start.

Now the Units Under Cursor panel could be used multiple times (cloned) with each clone showing a different sea area. Combined with filters for side and sections that would let the player see the individual units clearly in as many sea areas as he wants to clutter the screen with. To display a Units In Sea Area panel, the player would just right click and select that action from a menu. The difference between this and the current implementation, is that the Units In Sea Area panel would remain visible while the player goes about doing the same for other sea areas.

The downside of this is that the Units In Sea Area panels would have sizeable footprints (take up a lot of room).

Flyouts is another possibility. Moving the cursor over a sea area section/sea box would create a flyout showing the units therein. Downside is that the display would be temporal and the display would disappear when the mouse moved away.

Another possibility is a large panel that holds multiple sea areas at once. The player drags & drops (or indicates in some other way) a sea area to the panel and a portion of the panel is used to display the details of units in that sea area. Using one panel for multiple sea areas reduces some overhead (space) I expect, and the player doesn't have to fuss with positioning each Units In Sea Area panel separately. It could also be scrollable if the number of sea areas being shown exceeded it dimensions.

[mlees]

When I moved naval units, I dragged them from the regular playing map (at z4 or whatever), and dropped them onto the desired sea zone on the Global map, which was always at z1.

For example, I picked up a cruiser from Liverpool, and dropped it into the Arabian sea.

I assume that the seperate map panels will retain their discrete zoom settings and geographical focus, correct? (As it did in CWIF.)