SitRep UI

[mZhura]

i found it difficult to read SitRep. for now i need to attentively scan it all in attempt not to miss important information. i would greatly appreciate some color-coding of SitRep messages. for example production of new ship in yellow, battles in red, colonization of planet in green, new research available in blue, ship arrival to system in white. i guess it's not to hard to implement?

[pd]

You know the deal by now, feel free to do some mockups to explore the topic and provide a base for discussion. Supporting sitrep messages with colors and icons is certainly a good idea.

[mZhura]

so if you ask

[pd]

Well, we should probably not color entire lines. If there has been a battle against a certain empire for example, the empire name should be colored accordingly. Empire color should also be used for future diplomacy reports. In addition, some sitrep messages could perhaps be linked with flags, which are shown on the galaxy map. Something similar(player placed flags) has been briefly discussed already.

You could also take a look at a related thread: Sitrep message categories for the galaxy map.

Instead of just putting some color here and there, I'd like to have discussed in depth what the sitrep could be like.

[mZhura]

threads you mentioned are not exactly related. they discuss galaxy map event icons rather then sitrep itself. and focused mainly on "very special" and "having exact target" effects. also "just putting some color here and there" itself greatly simplify sitrep reading.

we should probably not color entire lines

agreed

event icons probably must be showing only for events that have icons on galactic map.

[pd]

threads you mentioned are not exactly related. they discuss galaxy map event icons rather then sitrep itself.

The thread provides all kinds of different events, which need to be represented in the sitrep.

also "just putting some color here and there" itself greatly simplify sitrep reading.

What I meant is, that the concept of a sitrep should be explored in more depth. I agree, that adding color to some items helps readability, but there is a lot more than that, that could be done.

[mZhura]

here's another thought: let the gamer decide which events most or less important to see on sitrep. something like that:
where "options" contain full list of categories described in mentioned above topic with some switches "most-less"

[pd]

Now we can talk

The different tabs are a good idea, but I'm wondering if we couldn't do the same with the already established filter switches (techs, buildings, ship parts). In addition, for the switches turned off, there could be indicators(tiny numbers in a corner of the buttons?), so the player knows there is a new message in a category he has turned off.

Also, how about being able to review sitrep messages from previous turns? There could be an interactive field showing the turn number and arrows next to it, to go backwards and forwards.

[mZhura]

[Bigjoe5]

Instead of colour coding phrases like "has been produced" and "has been researched", it's much more informative to colour code object names based on the colour of their owner empire.

[mZhura]

of cause color-coding of different empires also needed, but what you suggest to differ messages that belongs to your empire? how to quick find completed research in dozens of fleet-arrivals?

[pd]

As mentioned in my previous post, it's more useful if we are using UI elements for mockups, that are already established in the game, like filter switches.
The interactive turn indicator shouldn't be squeezed in the corner.

We need to know how all this works for more complex sitrep's(see the different types of messages I pointed to) and also how empire color is used.

Maybe different categories are not differentiated by color coding the message(or part of it). Instead an icon(maybe colored) might be sufficient. This allows us to use color exclusively to depict ownership of certain game objects to their respective empires.

If it becomes a problem, that too many techs are researched, or too many things are produced, maybe there could be "container messages", that can be uncollapsed to reveal the individual messages. I realize that this is an UI fix for a game design problem, which should be avoided in the first place.

[eleazar]

Maybe different categories are not differentiated by color coding the message(or part of it). Instead an icon(maybe colored) might be sufficient. This allows us to use color exclusively to depict ownership of certain game objects to their respective empires.

Off the cuff, that sounds about right.
1) Color code the event icons in a uniform way
2) Color references to empires in the empire color
3) leave everything else white or grey

If it becomes a problem, that too many techs are researched, or too many things are produced, maybe there could be "container messages", that can be uncollapsed to reveal the individual messages. I realize that this is an UI fix for a game design problem, which should be avoided in the first place.

I think if so many techs can under normal circumstances be researched that it is burdensome, then the tech tree probably needs to be pruned.

I could imagine the output of shipyards getting excessive in the sitrep... probably the output of a single shipyard should be in a single message, no matter how many ships that is.

Un-collapse-able messages are likely to be useful at some point, for instance a "Victory at system X" message, might open to reveal a list of ships destroyed on each side.

[fabsh]

Not to nitpick, but I'm pretty sure the really isn't such an abbreviation as "techs". I mean there is technologies, but even in plural it's usually abbreviated "tech", right? I could be wrong on this but "techs" just looks and sounds weird to me...

[Bigjoe5]

The category will more likely be called "Research". However, there are ways to gain technology without actually researching it. Perhaps to avoid confusion, either the category should be called "Technology", or it should be abbreviated to just plain "Tech" (as opposed to "Techs").