ogametracker / ogame-extension

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Improve settings UI of resource factors of ship gains and losses #217

Open PhrozenByte opened 1 month ago

PhrozenByte commented 1 month ago

IMO the current settings UI to set resource factors OGame Tracker uses to calculate resource units of fleet found in expeditions resp. fleet lost in battles is a little confusing and likely causes a lot users to enter wrong values.

Bildschirmfoto von 2024-07-21 23-44-54

Currently there's litterally no explanation what these settings do. The first impression one might get from the settings UI is that these settings are about resource conversion rates to calculate standard units. This isn't true, these settings are rather about calculating the resource value of fleet found in expeditions resp. fleet lost in battles.

It is intended that users either enter 1.0 Crystal and 1.0 Deuterium (notably: the value entered for Crystal is also used for Metal) to value fleet with their respective construction costs, or any lower factor. The idea of lower values is to either match the resources one gains when scrapping the fleet found using OGame's junk dealer, or the resources one gains when destroying the fleet somewhere and collecting the debris field. That's also the reason why the settings UI asks for Crystal and Deuterium separately: depending on the scrapping method used and the universe the player is playing in, the Metal/Crystal and Deuterium gains differ.

The issue with this settings UI is that it requires users to 1) already know what OGame Tracker is doing with these settings, and 2) also know this special play style in which fleet found in expeditions is scrapped. I assume that least users truly know what this setting is about. I still don't know why there's a matching setting for ships lost in battles. Anyway, thus I suggest changing the settings UI to match what this setting is about: Instead of entering resource factors, one should simply choose what one intends to do with the ships found in expeditions. The UI might look something like this in the future:

    ( X ) Value ships found in expeditions with [ X ] percent of their respective construction costs
    (   ) Value ships found in expeditions with their respective debris field value

The first radio selection can be used by both players not scrapping fleet at all, as well as by players scrapping fleet using OGame's junk dealer; for the latter one simply chooses a lower percentage, depending on whether the player intends do bargain with OGame's junk dealer using dark matter.

The second radio selection should automatically use the server settings to calculate the factors later used by OGame Tracker. So, for example, in a universe with 80% debris fields and Deuterium-enabled debris fields, OGame Tracker should automatically choose 0.8 for Metal, Crystal, and Deuterium. However, in a default universe (30% debris fields without Deuterium), OGame Tracker should automatically choose 0.3 for Metal and Crystal, but 0.0 for Deuterium.

Note that I still don't understand why there's a matching setting to set resource factors for ships lost in battles. Some explanation would be helpful; because as of now I'd suggest removing them altogether.

This is a follow-up to the discussion in OGame's German forum at https://board.de.ogame.gameforge.com/index.php?thread/214640-ogame-tracker-trackt-expeditionsergebnisse-gefarmte-rohstoffe-und-mehr/&postID=4004126#post4004126

backfromexile commented 1 month ago

Like many of the settings and features of the OGame tracker they are not really user friendly. There a only few explanations, especially when it comes to settings.

I'm not really a fan of new/additional options to use the debris factors from the server settings here because this value is server-dependent and may change while the option in the tracker is used for all universes. Sure, this can be changed, but requires a a lot more changes than just a simple UI change.

I think, if anything this setting (and similar settings) should be changed to show 100% instead of 1 to be a bit more clear, and maybe have additional information provided by a tooltip or similar.