galaxy map information modes/overlays

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shrinkshooter
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Re: galaxy map information modes/overlays

#31 Post by shrinkshooter »

What has been done in many games like this is that the starlanes themselves are colored the respective color of the empire that owns the planets which the starlane connects. The planets themselves have an icon that represents the different empires present in that system. If more than one empire occupies planets in a system, than icons from both (or more) of those empires are seen above or beneath the system.
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eleazar
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Re: galaxy map information modes/overlays

#32 Post by eleazar »

pd wrote:considering that the distances of some stars are rather short and overlap should be avoided there has to be maximum size and anything else should be related to this

Yeah, probably the maximum circle radius should be ~ half the length of the the minimum allowed starlane length.

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Re: galaxy map information modes/overlays

#33 Post by kess »

eleazar wrote:
pd wrote:Maybe like this?:
Image
Let the amount of shown values decide about the angle and the radius shows the amount?
I don't know if that's what's being suggested, but IMHO the "normal" pie graphs in your first example are much easier to comprehend.
A small note from a lurker: When used to it, seeing different radii for different sections give much more information at a glance, than having the same radius. The first time I stumbled upon such charts/graphs I was quite dumbfounded, but having stared them for some minutes (they weren’t as clean as PD’s example) the reading became quite clear, and I have no problem at all with it nowadays.

Perhaps an option to turn on/off advanced statistics could be utilised? I. e. using normal pie charts when off, and the different radii approach when on. (But that seems somewhat of an overkill, please go with the different radii.) 8)

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pd
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Re: galaxy map information modes/overlays

#34 Post by pd »

kess wrote:different radii for different sections give much more information at a glance, than having the same radius
Could you elaborate on this? What additional information is or can be shown in those charts, compared to the normal pie charts?

Something else:
Image
The difference with those is, they don't add up in total size. The problem is, equal values can't be shown.

edit:
And for the sake of completeness there are of course also some bars. Those are perhaps the best way to show meter values on the galaxy map(very similar to the sidepanel, including gain or loss predictions), whereas pie charts could be used to show production outputs.
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pd
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Re: galaxy map information modes/overlays

#35 Post by pd »

Geoff wrote:A reasonable way to deal wirh more than one empire owning a system, and thus (perhaps?) more than one flag being shown on the map would be needed.
Using flags or icons to show ownership might be too confusing, if they are already used for other things(fleets, marker, etc).
How about rings that suggests ownership and the development level at the same time.

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Redcap
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Re: galaxy map information modes/overlays

#36 Post by Redcap »

I like the way that this is going, only one question.

With the rings around stars representing ownership what is going to happen to the star names? I imagine that would look pretty confusing.

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Re: galaxy map information modes/overlays

#37 Post by pd »

Redcap wrote:With the rings around stars representing ownership what is going to happen to the star names? I imagine that would look pretty confusing.
Nothing a drop shadow or contour can't handle.
Image

I don't think colored system names are the way to go, they are quite hard to read as mentioned previously.

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pd
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Re: galaxy map information modes/overlays

#38 Post by pd »

An alternative could be a simple empire colored underline. Shared systems stay white, but have different underlines.
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Robbie.Price
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Re: galaxy map information modes/overlays

#39 Post by Robbie.Price »

Goodmorning all;
pd wrote:Maybe like this?:
Image
Let the amount of shown values decide about the angle and the radius shows the amount?

That was what i was going for.

It also makes it possible to mix races. one race one colour the other race, then you can visually see the information in colour or size as you prefer.

Best wishes all

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eleazar
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Re: galaxy map information modes/overlays

#40 Post by eleazar »

pd wrote:Image
I find these circles very interesting...

They could also be used for anything the pie-charts are used for... just think of them as a pie-chart with a hole in the middle.

It would require some testing to see if it was more or less confusing to retain the star to help identify the system, or to simplifiy the whole display by cover the stars with circles.


If pd has no objection, i'm going to split out the post on fleet into a different thread... i'd like to develop it further and it's reasonably distinct.

EDIT: spelling

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pd
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Re: galaxy map information modes/overlays

#41 Post by pd »

That's fine, it definitely needs a separate thread.

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eleazar
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Re: galaxy map information modes/overlays

#42 Post by eleazar »

Ok, stuff about improving the display of the fleet icons on the galaxy map has been moved:

here


pd wrote:An alternative could be a simple empire colored underline. Shared systems stay white, but have different underlines.
Image
I don't think the thin underline will be very useful for distinguishing colors that aren't radically different.

However if we do indicate ownership by something other than colored text, turning multiple-owner systems white seems reasonable. To help that stand out, the uncolonized planet names could be light grey like this:
names.jpg
names.jpg (14.74 KiB) Viewed 1781 times
(of course the names of uncolonized planets should also get the dark outline, but i was too lazy to add it here.)

EDIT: actually i think it would be good to make the uncolonized system names light grey anyway, it helps make the inhabited system names look more significant.

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Redcap
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Re: galaxy map information modes/overlays

#43 Post by Redcap »

Wow, this has come a great distance! I like the colored circles with a slight transparency the best. The stars name with colored underlines or mixed colores not so much.

Maybe just make the star system name the color of the empire if they don't share the star with any other players and maybe make it a bright offensive color if you are sharing planets, that way it gives a sense of conflict or urgency to try and purge others off of your star. Like Eleazor's second image right above this post.

All in all like where this is going.

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pd
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Re: galaxy map information modes/overlays

#44 Post by pd »

of course the names of uncolonized planets should also get the dark outline, but i was too lazy to add it here
Maybe they shouldn't. The outline makes the colonized systems pop out nicely, whereas the un-outlined system stay in the back. Just using a light grey color, might not be enough. But like using it to support the idea.

I agree, that the (multiple) underlines suck. The single empire colored underline however works on a visual level IMO. Might be used for something else like indicating a homeworld or shipyard being present.

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eleazar
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Re: galaxy map information modes/overlays

#45 Post by eleazar »

pd wrote:
of course the names of uncolonized planets should also get the dark outline, but i was too lazy to add it here
Maybe they shouldn't. The outline makes the colonized systems pop out nicely, whereas the un-outlined system stay in the back. Just using a light grey color, might not be enough. But like using it to support the idea.

I agree, that the (multiple) underlines suck. The single empire colored underline however works on a visual level IMO. Might be used for something else like indicating a homeworld or shipyard being present.
Yeah we could use the underline for something like that, and/or bold an italic type.

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