My FI on FO

[gthx]

Greeting to everyone! This is my first "official" post so first some info about me.
I'm 29 years old web developer / graduate students from Finland. My my interests include game development, strategy games and usability design. I'm also somewhat experienced C++ coder so I hope that I can help on programming section.

So here are my first impressions on FreeOrion.
pros:
+ It is a game not a simulation
+ It feels familiar
+ eleazar's post and vision
+ GiGi seems great
++ Easy to compile

cons:
- No windowed mode (?)
[edit]I found out that w/o "-f"-argument the game starts at windowed mode but mouse cursor is locked to the game window[/edit]
- Problems with the UI and UI design, UI can be improved
- Research panel is intimidating.
- Left panel feels awkward to use. I can't push the "Planet button"

FO_left_panel.png (9.25 KiB) Viewed 1502 times

The game/project has lot of potential and I'm really waiting for the next release and 1.0. I hope, I'm able to help with it.

P.S. Thx for MikkoM for "advertisement" at suomipelit.com

[Geoff the Medio]

I'm also somewhat experienced C++ coder so I hope that I can help on programming section.

Since you've already got it compiled (I assume from "++ Easy to compile"), I suggest and encourage you (to) find something that you would like to improve, and try improving it. Submit patches by posting with a svn diff attached. There's also a Programming Work page, but I haven't had a lot of success getting people working on tasks from that list. If you need help with coding, feel free to post and I should be able to help.

- No windowed mode (?)
[edit]I found out that w/o "-f"-argument the game starts at windowed mode but mouse cursor is locked to the game window[/edit]

This is an annoying "feature" of OGRE. It sort of be worked around by editing OISInput.cfg to set

w32_mouse=DISCL_NONEXCLUSIVE

instead of

w32_mouse=DISCL_EXCLUSIVE

The problem is that this can lead to doubled cursor rendering. I don't know any better fix, unfortunately.

- Left panel feels awkward to use. I can't push the "Planet button"

I don't follow what you mean by "Left panel" or "Planet button".

[gthx]

I don't follow what you mean by "Left panel" or "Planet button".

Typo. It was supposed to be "right panel" aka the System panel. I wanted to click those planet icons/images to open a detailed view. My crappy screenshot edit tried to present that (I'm after all just a coder).

I'll check that Programming Work page and try to hack something. Maybe something small like renaming HumanClientApp::MulitplayerGame() to HumanClientApp::MultiplayerGame()

[Geoff the Medio]

I wanted to click those planet icons/images to open a detailed view.

We don't plan to have a detailed planet view, and everything should be controllable from the system sidepanel itself. We could perhaps have clicking the planet render open and close all the planet panels to the right, though.

Maybe something small like renaming HumanClientApp::MulitplayerGame() to HumanClientApp::MultiplayerGame()

Actually, that should be HumanClientApp::MulletplayerGame()

[boban]

- No windowed mode (?)
[edit]I found out that w/o "-f"-argument the game starts at windowed mode but mouse cursor is locked to the game window[/edit]

This is an annoying "feature" of OGRE. It sort of be worked around by editing OISInput.cfg to set

w32_mouse=DISCL_NONEXCLUSIVE

instead of

w32_mouse=DISCL_EXCLUSIVE

The problem is that this can lead to doubled cursor rendering. I don't know any better fix, unfortunately.

It seems that this will not be simple to fix. In my settings (default configuration files, compiled head of FreeOrion, KDE 4.2 under Ubunt 9.04) the window mode works fine. Up to a point - after changing to full screen in maximum resolution (1920x1200) I cannot revert the configuration setting in other way than manually editing .freeorion/config.xml.

[pd]

We could perhaps have clicking the planet render open and close all the planet panels to the right, though.

Good idea!

[MikkoM]

So here are my first impressions on FreeOrion.
pros:
+ eleazar's post and vision

In addition to those links in eleazar`s post, if you haven`t already done so, it might be a good idea to go through other design documents as well, especially 0.4 Design Pad:

http://www.freeorion.org/index.php/Requirements

And maybe read the Quick Play Guide too:

http://www.freeorion.org/index.php/V0.4 ... Play_Guide

This way you can probably get a pretty good picture of the project’s current state.

I wanted to click those planet icons/images to open a detailed view.

We don't plan to have a detailed planet view, and everything should be controllable from the system sidepanel itself. We could perhaps have clicking the planet render open and close all the planet panels to the right, though.

I don`t know what you exactly had in mind with this detailed planet view, but there have been many suggestions about planetary surface view pictures before. And even though using these kinds of pictures isn’t currently planned, I for one remain hopeful that these pictures could still find a place in the game, where they wouldn’t be disturbing important parts of the UI, but could still offer the player an opportunity to catch a glimpse of the environment where his/her citizen’s live in.

And before some one brings this up. Yes, I realize that one picture can`t really tell everything about the environment of an Earth kind of planet for example. It can however bring the game closer to the player’s everyday world, since planetary surface views are what you see when you look out of a window or move from one place to another here on Earth.

P.S. Thx for MikkoM for "advertisement" at suomipelit.com

Nice to know that my advertisement campaign actually did something good.

[gthx]

I don`t know what you exactly had in mind with this detailed planet view, but there have been many suggestions about planetary surface view pictures before. And even though using these kinds of pictures isn’t currently planned, I for one remain hopeful that these pictures could still find a place in the game, where they wouldn’t be disturbing important parts of the UI, but could still offer the player an opportunity to catch a glimpse of the environment where his/her citizen’s live in.

My idea was that those accordions on system panel could be replaced with bigger (compared to all accordions open) info panel opening left from system panel. I didn't like the way items in the panel can vary in height.

[Geoff the Medio]

My idea was that those accordions on system panel could be replaced with bigger (compared to all accordions open) info panel opening left from system panel.

Covering up the space to the left of the sidepanel is problematic, as one needs to be able to see the galaxy map in that space while looking at the sidepanel, particularly while on the production screen.

I also don't see the point to begin with... What's the advantage of having a box of info panels out to the left rather than having the box on the sidepanel?

I didn't like the way items in the panel can vary in height.

I'm not sure what you mean by this... Do you object to the "accordion" style expandable tabs and the resulting shifting of other planet panels, or do you object to, for example, the buildings panel that expands to have more rows to show all the needed info?

For the latter, there can be any number of buildings on a planet, so the buildings panel will always have to be able to expand in some direction, or have a scroll bar. It's already within a scrolling pane of controls, and nested scrolling is awkward and potentially confusing, so it's probabaly unavoidable to have expanding panels in some cases.

[gthx]

Covering up the space to the left of the sidepanel is problematic, as one needs to be able to see the galaxy map in that space while looking at the sidepanel, particularly while on the production screen.

I realized that after playing in 1024x768 windowed mode.. It wasn't really a problem with 1080p.

I'm not sure what you mean by this... Do you object to the "accordion" style expandable tabs and the resulting shifting of other planet panels, or do you object to, for example, the buildings panel that expands to have more rows to show all the needed info?

For the latter, there can be any number of buildings on a planet, so the buildings panel will always have to be able to expand in some direction, or have a scroll bar. It's already within a scrolling pane of controls, and nested scrolling is awkward and potentially confusing, so it's probabaly unavoidable to have expanding panels in some cases.

I meant the former one. I think that normal-mode should give little more info (i.e. current/change/max) and "planet selected"-mode would show detailed info. Building list could still be accordion. This is quite close to what you described earlier.

We could perhaps have clicking the planet render open and close all the planet panels to the right, though.