Matrix Games Forums

12th and last in the series. I'll close with the area that bothers me the most. Here the white seems to overwhelm the other terrain features. Restoring the missing default black hexagon grid lines will help somewhat. I like the the way this choice of colors works almost every where, so I am reluctant to make a dramatic changes. Perhaps I should change the weather zone boundary color to silver when it abuts both an all sea hex and a coastal hex.

Comments yay or nay for this design overall?

The weather zone lines are visible but could they perhaps be another pixel wide to show up better in all terrains and zoom levels?
 
Lars

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

The weather zone lines are visible but could they perhaps be another pixel wide to show up better in all terrains and zoom levels?

Lars

Could you give me an example of where you find them hard to see?

Because of zoom levels distortion effects I stay with odd number thicknesses for hexgrid lines (1, 3, and 5 presently).

Well.... I for one am not quite happy with these.

I would have prefered if the weather boundaries were always the same color, and the Sea area boundaries always the same color, and the borders always the same color, and when they overlap, have them displayed side by side.

Having the colors change is quite disturbing, at least to me, and as a result, countries & weather areas are not immediately discernable to me.

For the current colors, I have difficulties to immediately understand if a sea area boundary is overlaping a weather zone boundary. The light blue color is not evident to me from the dark blue at first glance, especially if there is no "normal" sea area boundary in the screen displayed, for comparison.

The white is not bad, better than the green, it is easily seen quite everywhere, but what bothers me is to have the color change when there is overlapping. On shots taken from afar (small hexes) I find that the white weather zone boundary can be mistaken with the railways. It's true too that it is not very pretty when the weather zone is around a sea area. Well, I think that finaly I do not like it very much.

Will those Weather boundaries be able to be toggle off ?

If the Weather boundaries can be toggled off, why not make them in a color totaly forgeign to the map, such as yellow for example ? Also, they could be thicker.

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here is one of the more confusing sea area - weather zone boundary places in the Pacific. It makes me wonder if the weather zone for the southern islands is correct.

They are correct.
All the Caroline Islands and Marshall Islands are in the North Monsoon weather zone in WiF FE.

Would it be possible to say use 2 lines spaced apart (maybe by a 3-4 pixels or so) that allowed the solid line in the middle to stay the same color instead of a solid line that overrides the current line ?

(Example- colors and lines not to scale obviously- blue dashed is the weather line. Weather line can be any color (I picked blue just for an example))

[/img]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

The weather zone lines are visible but could they perhaps be another pixel wide to show up better in all terrains and zoom levels?

Lars

Could you give me an example of where you find them hard to see?

Because of zoom levels distortion effects I stay with odd number thicknesses for hexgrid lines (1, 3, and 5 presently).

No specific example, just would like the boundaries to stand out more. Patrice's comments are in line with that also I believe.

Lars

I tend to agree with Froonp on this one.

But how about redoing the wether zoning in oceans a bit?
If the weather zones can be drawn a bit more "natural", rather than follow seazone boundaries, I think it would look a lot better.

For sea zones, instead of following the circumference of a seazone, the weather zones could go throgh/across the sea zone. But the weather of a seazone would always be the part of the zone where the seabox was located.

Example 1, Baltic:
Weather boundary would cross straight from south of stockholm across to Estonia, taking care to put all the search boxes in the temperate zone.

Example 2, Solomons sea:
Weather boundary goes further east & south, so no island are in the "wrong" weather zone

Example 3, Bismarch + South China seas:
Weather boundary goes roughly straight eastwards from (a hex south of) Singapore through these 2 sea areas

ORIGINAL: Incy
I tend to agree with Froonp on this one.

But how about redoing the wether zoning in oceans a bit?
If the weather zones can be drawn a bit more "natural", rather than follow seazone boundaries, I think it would look a lot better.

For sea zones, instead of following the circumference of a seazone, the weather zones could go throgh/across the sea zone. But the weather of a seazone would always be the part of the zone where the seabox was located.

Example 1, Baltic:
Weather boundary would cross straight from south of stockholm across to Estonia, taking care to put all the search boxes in the temperate zone.

Example 2, Solomons sea:
Weather boundary goes further east & south, so no island are in the "wrong" weather zone

Example 3, Bismarch + South China seas:
Weather boundary goes roughly straight eastwards from (a hex south of) Singapore through these 2 sea areas

I think some of the changes you propose here would change game play. Or at least make it more likely for the players to become confused. Shore bombardment and invasions depend on the weather in the sea area. If an all sea hex is adjacent to a coastal hex but the weather boundary is drawn such that the all sea hex is in a different weather zone from the rest of the sea area, which weather zone applies isn't obvious. By the rules, it is determined by where the sea boxes are located (I believe). but having the immediately adjacent all sea hex clearly placed in a different weather zone will make that more difficult for the players to see/understand/accept.

I looked at drawing the sea area boundaries as straight lines (as in the WIF FE paper maps) but that is tricky to do, especially because the location of the center dots in the all sea hexes has to be perfect in every instance - because the placement of the center dots determines the movement cost for air units to fly into sea areas.

ORIGINAL: Incy
But how about redoing the wether zoning in oceans a bit?
If the weather zones can be drawn a bit more "natural", rather than follow seazone boundaries, I think it would look a lot better.

For sea zones, instead of following the circumference of a seazone, the weather zones could go throgh/across the sea zone. But the weather of a seazone would always be the part of the zone where the seabox was located.

I think this would be a bad idea.
The weather in a given Sea Area is the same in all the sea area, so having the Weather zone boundary cross a sea area in 2 would be very confusing.

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

The weather zone lines are visible but could they perhaps be another pixel wide to show up better in all terrains and zoom levels?

Lars

Here is another set of screen shots. I have widened the hexside lines for the country, sea area, and weather zone borders. Instead of 5 and 3 they are now 7 and 5 pixels wide.

The last screen shot was zoom level 3. This is zoom level 4.

Here is another at zoom level 4. Notice that the country borders stand out more because they have been widened.

This is zoom level 2 (which removes the default black hexgird from the land hexes). I expect a lot of naval decisions to be made at this zoom level.

Zoom level 6. It's clear that Tenerife borders 2 sea areas but is in only one weather zone. Of course, every hex in the game is in only one weather zone.

Unusual, but accurate.

The white is very powerful but I need that for when it crosses all the different types of land terrain. It is actually thinner than the blue lines (5 versus 7), but still jumps out more.

Another zoom level 2.

yet another zoom level 2.

10th and last in the series. Zoom level 3. Most of the map will look like this, with the weather zone boundary extending roughly horizontally and only occasionally paralleling a country border. I do not believe the width should be increased more than what is shown in this set of screen shots (7 pixels wide). I prefer 5 but only marginally more than 7 - either works for me.

If I get a chance tomorrow, I'll explore lines with two-tone colors. But don't get your hopes up, I expect them to be unpleasant to look at.