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Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:04 pm
by The Silent One
Eleazar wrote:If you command a fleet to leave a system the fleet icon is no longer diplayed above the star, but is instead displayed below the star. Thus it's easy to tell at a glance which fleets have orders to move.
But why would that no longer be possible with the fleets above the system selection indicator like in pd's mockup? - I don't think pd meant to change that departing fleets are placed at the bottom.
Geoff the Medio wrote: It might be assumed that there's only ever one empire's fleet icon at the bottom to indicating it's moving, which is presumably the player's fleet... However we might have multiplayer in which orders are shared between allies, and thus want to be able to show more than one empire's fleets being ordered to leave the same system on the same turn.
That'll probably be rare and if, it should still be no problem to have the star name overlain for one turn.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 6:37 pm
by LithiumMongoose
The Silent One wrote:That'll probably be rare and if, it should still be no problem to have the star name overlain for one turn.
Happened in my MOO3 multiplayer games all the time. Wouldn't exactly call it rare, heh.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 8:29 pm
by The Silent One
Okay, so then the system name is partly obstructed for 1 turn, that's hardly relevant.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 8:36 pm
by Geoff the Medio
The Silent One wrote:Okay, so then the system name is partly obstructed for 1 turn, that's hardly relevant.
Not just one turn; every time you have a fleet there that's ordered to move.

The system name is pretty important, as it's the only way to identify which system is which. Particularly on a big map, it will be difficult to remember which is which everywhere. It really needs to be not obscured if it can be avoided... and I don't think this is essential enough to warrant calling it unavoidable.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 8:38 pm
by eleazar
The Silent One wrote:Okay, so then the system name is partly obstructed for 1 turn, that's hardly relevant.
The star's names are important, without them there's not much to distinguish 1 star from the perhaps a hundred of the same color. Covering the name won't kill the game, but we have plenty of options that don't cause this problem.

EDIT: :shock: huh. I posted virtually the same thing as Geoff only minutes later. What are the chances?

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 8:59 pm
by pd
So just move the fleet icon more to the left/right than it is now.
Don't make things more complicated than they are.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 9:08 pm
by Geoff the Medio
pd wrote:So just move the fleet icon more to the left/right than it is now.
Don't make things more complicated than they are.
What about multiple moving fleet icons? Where would they go?
Geoff the Medio wrote:...we might have multiplayer in which orders are shared between allies, and thus want to be able to show more than one empire's fleets being ordered to leave the same system on the same turn.
LithiumMongoose wrote:Happened in my MOO3 multiplayer games all the time. Wouldn't exactly call it rare, heh.

Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 3:08 am
by eleazar
I intially recommended stacking in the corners is because
1) i'm familiar with that kind of set-up from other games, and
2) it seems likely that we'll need to attach other iconic indicators to a star.
We can't plan it all out at this stage, with so much of the game unformed, but i'm comfortable predicting that there will be more than ships and a star-names.