Unit Depictions on Screen

[Ballista]

Victory at sea ! LOL ! This is one of the most complex and important things to be able to see/manipulate and keep straight (in the boardgame too)

I'd never let a novice play CW alone or the game will be an assured Axis victory thanks to the need to fully understand convoys (something I was and have done letting my Allied cohorts down badly) as 2 turns of non or neglible CW production is disasterous to the cause. Never have I prayed for a Cat attack or In-law visit more than after that fumble....

[composer99]

Looks pretty good, although the USSR player should perhaps be castigated for putting all his convoys in the Baltic where he doesn't need 'em. [:'(]

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: composer99

Looks pretty good, although the USSR player should perhaps be castigated for putting all his convoys in the Baltic where he doesn't need 'em. [:'(]

One of them can be handy in the Baltic.
But not all 4 !!! [:D]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: composer99

Looks pretty good, although the USSR player should perhaps be castigated for putting all his convoys in the Baltic where he doesn't need 'em. [:'(]

Since you didn't comment on it, I guess you liked the placement of the Maxim Gorky in Estonia?

Anyway, these are the only 2 units I had set up, and they can be repositioned to better locations.

[composer99]

Nah, I know they were just for show. Just being facetious.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here is a screen shot from setting up the Guadalcanal scenario. My question to you is about the Netherlands CA Sumatra which is now 'owned' by the Commonwealth, since the Netherlands has been conquered. I have logic in place which at scenario start transfers ownership of the unit from the Netherlands to the Commonwealth, and then when the unit is selected for placement on the map when the CW sets up, it is found in the list of CW ships.

The result is the color scheme you see here. The unit primarily uses Netherlands colors, except that a thin border of CW color is placed between the selection outline (the light green outline that all these units have) and the numbers. The purpose of this coloring scheme is to identify it as a CW unit that came from the Netherlands originally.

Whadda ya think?

[lomyrin]

Looks like a good way to identify acquired ships and at the same time keep their origins clear.
 
This would presumably be used for all powers.
 
Lars

[Froonp]

The result is the color scheme you see here. The unit primarily uses Netherlands colors, except that a thin border of CW color is placed between the selection outline (the light green outline that all these units have) and the numbers. The purpose of this coloring scheme is to identify it as a CW unit that came from the Netherlands originally.

I think this is not visible enough.

I think that a band on the bottom (or the top) of the counter, from the color of the controling country, would be better.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here are a couple more.

This will only be done for naval units that have bitmapped graphics. For example, the CW captured Norwegian TRS and the Italian captured French Sub will be drawn like any other CW TRS and Italian Sub. The captured units will be indistinguishable from units build in the CW/Italy.

I believe this is only a minor item in gameplay, since almost all the time the players will know/remember when they have captured a named naval unit.

I am using a horizontal band of color (across the bottom numbers) for lend leased aircraft and will use another horizontal band of color (bottom of the counter) for loaned units. A loaned unit is not part of RAW, but in MWIF it represents a player telling another player that he can move "those units over there". MWIF has to be explicitly informed about those arrangements or else it will keep waiting on the CW to move the BEF in France or Germany to move Italian units in the USSR.

[iamspamus]

Wow, this looks really good. (Sorry, older post.)
Jason

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Well, it took 3 weeks, but I have revised the unit movement code so it now displays naval units at sea in the Sea Box Sections. Or at least it does for this lone convoy unit. I need to work through the bugs in moving naval units before I can show a full complement of naval units in a sea area.

The convoy is in the Allied 0 Sea Box of the Baltic Sea (convoys must be in a 0 box). It shows up correctly in the Units Under Cursor panel and also in the Units Review panel (lower right corner of screen shot).

I still need to remove about 50 references to SeaAreaValue in the code, but that number is down from 480 when I started 3 weeks ago. Of course, each removal has to be replaced with new code that references the sea area box hex on the map. Most of the really difficult bits have been modified and I have a bunch of utility functions and procedures in place that handle the conversion from (SeaAreaValue, Sea Area #) to (Column, Row), where the latter are map coordinates for a Sea Box Section within the sea area.

By the way, I was jumping around shouting "Victory at Sea" for a while when this display came up correctly.

[iamspamus]

Yep, you need either a significantly thicker line or band (maybe diagonal?) to distinguish. Good idea though.

I think that once a ship is captured it adopts this marking.

Jason

ORIGINAL: Froonp

The result is the color scheme you see here. The unit primarily uses Netherlands colors, except that a thin border of CW color is placed between the selection outline (the light green outline that all these units have) and the numbers. The purpose of this coloring scheme is to identify it as a CW unit that came from the Netherlands originally.

I think this is not visible enough.

I think that a band on the bottom (or the top) of the counter, from the color of the controling country, would be better.

[amwild]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
The result is the color scheme you see here. The unit primarily uses Netherlands colors, except that a thin border of CW color is placed between the selection outline (the light green outline that all these units have) and the numbers. The purpose of this coloring scheme is to identify it as a CW unit that came from the Netherlands originally.

Whadda ya think?

I think that the CW colour border needs to be wider - perhaps half-way into the counter's numbers, so more than twice as wide, and the inner edge of the border also needs to have rounded corners like the counter itself. You need plenty of border where the colours are similar like this to improve the contrast.

[christo]

While a part of me likes to know from which country a ship originated, when 2 colours are very similar it is difficult to see the border. Would it just be easier to change the whole background colour to that of the controlling major power?

Christo

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: christo


While a part of me likes to know from which country a ship originated, when 2 colours are very similar it is difficult to see the border. Would it just be easier to change the whole background colour to that of the controlling major power?

Christo

Not easily doable. The naval and air units have bit mapped graphics which use anti-aliasing based on the background color for the country that originally owned them. When the Bearn is transferred to the USA, it has French colors for the carrier image on the counter. I am just painting another color on top of it - which is why I am working abround the edges of the counter and not using a diagonal stripe (or anything else that crosses the middle of the counter). I do not want to paint over the picture/image of the ship/aircraft.

[Froonp]

This will only be done for naval units that have bitmapped graphics. For example, the CW captured Norwegian TRS and the Italian captured French Sub will be drawn like any other CW TRS and Italian Sub. The captured units will be indistinguishable from units build in the CW/Italy.

Too bad, would have prefered if they were keeping their original color, with a touch of the controlling major power color as you shown lately.

I am using a horizontal band of color (across the bottom numbers) for lend leased aircraft and will use another horizontal band of color (bottom of the counter) for loaned units. A loaned unit is not part of RAW, but in MWIF it represents a player telling another player that he can move "those units over there". MWIF has to be explicitly informed about those arrangements or else it will keep waiting on the CW to move the BEF in France or Germany to move Italian units in the USSR.

Why not an horizontal bar on the top of the counter, for showing the controlling MP's color ?

[Peter Stauffenberg]

ORIGINAL: Froonp
Why not an horizontal bar on the top of the counter, for showing the controlling MP's color ?

I think this is a good idea too. The alternative is what Steve has already posted, but with the controlling power border being a lot thicker.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Borger Borgersen

ORIGINAL: Froonp
Why not an horizontal bar on the top of the counter, for showing the controlling MP's color ?

I think this is a good idea too. The alternative is what Steve has already posted, but with the controlling power border being a lot thicker.

This actually is what I had intended to do when I last worked on this (about 10 months ago). When I went back and looked at the code I found the routine was mostly written, just disabled until I had some examples to test against. I am currently polishing it up and should post some examples later today. The captured generic units (e.g., Norweigan naval transports now owned by the CW) are displayed using two colors too.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here are two screen shots for how 'captured' naval units will be displayed. The transport was originally Norwegian. It is now owned by the Commonwealth

[Shannon V. OKeets]

These were Netherlands ships at the start of the war. Now they are Commonwealth.

[Froonp]

I love that that way.