UI for ship actions (Radial Menu)

[softsound]

We need to provide a way to show UI for

• follow,
• destroy,
• attack,
• move to waypoint,
• ideally guard,
• ideally patrol.

The difference between patrol & guard is patrol is more wandering the map whereas guard has ships wander only on known areas.

I think we should go back to my ring concept from last year. (QAR) - #285 near the bottom

kinda similar to lol.

• [ ] Click on a ship for action menu to appear around ship.
• [ ] Select multiple ships for action menu to appear in screen center.
• [ ] After you click an action from the menu the cursor should change to reflect that.

cursor change:

• merge direction arrow icon (follow)

• recycle icon (destroy)

• exclamation point icon (attack)

• arrow pointing to ring point icon (waypoint)

• shield icon (defend)

• question mark (patrol)

Then when the user clicks next the icon leaves that mark on the selected object or position.

Use the action menu to set mass follow, destroy, attack, move to way point, guard or patrol.

674 #621 #595 #590 #433 #285

[snowschu]

additional references: #678 and #737

[josefnpat]

This needs to be fleshed out precisely along with UI and UX.

[softsound]

Company of Heroes Legacy Star Wars: Empire at War Supreme Commander

[josefnpat]

Current task: design and mock up visual assets for demo

First draft: 17th Final version: 24th

Contingency: re-evaluate on 17th

[softsound]

Here is what starcraft uses

[josefnpat]

We have a lot of different ship actions:

• Move
• Move (Interrupt to attack/gather)
• Attack
• Gather
• Repair
• Takeover
• Follow
• Select
• Jump (tbd)

All of these actions stem from the parameters of each ship and it's target - because they are inherent, and we want to avoid overloading the UI, we will keep them as is.

Abstracting these commands to a radial wheel would leave each wheel practically with only one entry. If we add things such as:

• Patrol
• Defend
• Rally
• Toggle Interrupt
• Set to control group (?)

We should revisit this ticket

[josefnpat]

Radial Menu:

What happens when you have multiple ships What happens when you have more than 4 icons What happens when you have a variable number of icons

Sidebar:

Vertical min is 720 Segmentation between commands and build actions

[softsound]

I think I need to mock up 3 different use cases.

1. Multi-Group select actions - when more then one ship type is selected.
2. Group select actions - when multiple ships are selected that are the same type
3. Single unit action - when one unit is selected

I think we also should consider positioning actions vs offensive vs technical actions.

(Multi-Group select actions) - smallest amount of possible actions All ships should have positioning actions - move to point, patrol (look for nearby interactions in set area - auto collect resources/attack), Follow (set to follow a leader or unit), Rally (group together)

(Group select actions/ Single unit action/ Multi-Group select actions) Some ships should have offensive actions - attack (sub attack categories nearest enemy, weakest enemy, fastest enemy, enemy furthest away), defend ( circle around units? run into line of fire?)

(Group select actions/ Single unit action) - highest amount of group actions if single unit Some ships should have technical actions - Repair, Takeover, Toggle Interrupt, Gather, Move (Interrupt to attack/gather), drop bomb.

I still like my QAR idea. It could be centered among all units selected like finding the middle of the select box. The main idea is starting with the smallest possible actions possible and working upwards because the smallest amount of actions affects the most units and affects gameplay the most.

The highest actions would be:

1. Move to point,
2. Patrol,
3. Follow,
4. Rally
5. Stop/cancel/Toggle Interrupt

From there units are broken between offensive and technical.

Offensive

• attack
• defend

Technical

• Repair, (1 ship has this)
• Takeover, (1 ship has this)
• Toggle Interrupt, (All ships have this)
• Gather, (1 ship has this)
• Move, (Move to point)
• Drop bomb (1 ship has this)

Combat units

1. Move to point,
2. Patrol,
3. Follow,
4. Rally
5. Attack (key action)
6. Defend (key action) Since this doesn't exist yet technically all ships have 6 actions.
7. Stop (Toggle Interrupt)

For technical units a total of 6 actions is available.

Repair ship

1. Move to point,
2. Patrol,
3. Follow,
4. Rally
5. Repair (key action)
6. Stop

Takeover ship

1. Move to point,
2. Patrol,
3. Follow,
4. Rally
5. Takeover (key action)
6. Stop

Collecting ship

1. Move to point,
2. Patrol,
3. Follow,
4. Rally
5. Gather (key action)
6. Stop

Bomb ship

1. Move to point,
2. Patrol,
3. Follow,
4. Rally
5. Bomb (key action)
6. Stop

All ships use 6-7 actions if single/group else all ships use 5 actions if multi-group. All ships default to 5 actions unless they have key actions.

Notes Set to control group would add an action to multi-group/single/group. Bumping all actions across the board up 1.

Jump command would add an action to multi-group/single/group or be it's own ship with the standard 6 actions.