User interface

[Willi Winzig]

Preceeding statement.
AH flight model and graphics are far better than in AW (where I started my flight sim career). Yet I preferred the AW user interface.  

Some suggestions:

1) Briefing rooms (no messages from outside in textbuffer)

2) Extended clipboard when not in plane / vehicle / ship. The "mission clipboard" should provide more information at once.

3) Extended roster with more information for the own side. Possibility to show only friendly country or only 1 friendly base or 1 mission.

In general I would prefer a simple desktop approach for all planning and preparation duties instead of the simulated clipboard and hangar. The hangars with planes and loads are very nice and very uncomfortable IMO.

Example for roster:

[list=a]
----------------------------------------------------
ID_______Ctry_Base_TakeOff_Pl ane_Load_____Mission#
----------------------------------------------------
player1___Kn__A17__17:22___B17___12x500_____512
player2___Kn__A3___17:40___La-7                       
player3___Kn__A16__17:31___C47___field res.      
player4___Ro  
player5___Kn__A17__17:22___La-7_____________512
player6___Kn__A5___17:45___B17___6x1000    
player7___Bi                                         
player8___Kn__A17__17:23___C47___troops_____512
player9___Bi
player10__Ro  
player11__Kn__A16__17:22___Typh__rock/bombs_512
player12__Kn__A17__17:33___Spit9    
----------------------------------------------------[/list=a]

[ccvi]

I like that idea. And please add a field for user information to write down in plain text what you're doing. And make it sortable by target fields (those field attacked or defended). And add a radio channel for all with the same target field.

PS: http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=50510

[Willi Winzig]

Hmmm for some reason my browser only showed 4 pages when I entered this forum 1st. Otherwise I had posted my message into your thread.

I've read your thread now and I agree with your suggestions for an easier approach in the "mission tool".
What i would like to see in an extended roster is not quite what you want.
I want an extended roster giving a *rough* overview with "hard facts" delivered by the game system. All "soft facts" like target informations from a player should be apart IMO to avoid an overflow of information.
The "mission tool" would be the right place for this kind of info.
What I would like to see is a "short step" procedure from the extended roster to the mission planner and to the bases.
For example:
Doubleclick on a field name (A17) in the extended roster and you get the this:

----------------------------------------------------
ID_______Ctry_Base_TakeOff_Pl ane_Load_____Mission#----------------------------------------------------
player1___Kn__A17__17:22___B17___12x500_____512
player5___Kn__A17__17:22___La-7_____________512
player8___Kn__A17__17:23___C47___troops_____512
player12__Kn__A17__17:33___Spit9
----------------------------------------------------


Doubleclick again on the field name and you travel to the field


OR
 doubleclick on a mission (512) and you get this:
----------------------------------------------------
ID_______Ctry_Base_TakeOff_Pl ane_Load_____Mission#---------------------------------------------------
player1___Kn__A17__17:22___B17___12x500_____512
player5___Kn__A17__17:22___La-7_____________512
player8___Kn__A17__17:23___C47___troops_____512
player11__Kn__A16__17:22___Typh__rock/bombs_512
----------------------------------------------------


Doubleclick again on the mission and you open the mission editor with the mission.

With a "back button" you can go 1 step back as long as you are in the roster


And as I said before; the mission editor should be much easier to read:

On the top the main objective / target description.
At least 30 lines (1 line per member with all informations like plane, load, fuel, objective and so on) for the participants of a mission.
That means:
1) no need to click and show some other nifty dialogs to get a clue of the mission.
2) no need to scroll through the list of participants. (If less than 30)
3) throw away that stupid clipboard format. I don't think planning in RL was made with little clipboards.

[Packy]

excellent suggestions by willi and ccvi

i would also like to see the ability of the clipboard to show more information in the area(s) of...

grey-out all planes/vehicles/guns at hanger not available at that instant (whether due to destroyed hangers/no ammo/no fuel/etc.).

more legible font on the map


thanks for all the hard work, HTC!:p

[Innominate]

Here's a little one,
How about changing the clipboard so that clicking on it doesnt activate any options below it(Like in the hanger).  Kind of annoying accidently taking off with 25 fuel because the fly button happened to be over that option

[KG45]

briefing room is the best suggestion, and maybe the easiest to implement.

in AW, our squad met there every squad night to make plans for the evening. there was also the private O.C.s with a map to layout missions.
 
i guess right now you could go to a field and sqelch all but squad channel, it would be nice to turn off 'kills' part of the text buffer.

[ccvi]

You can squelch kill messages by squelching channel 6.

[Willi Winzig]

How do you squelch own country channel? I tried ".squelch 2" and ".squelch country". It didn't work.

An extended roster would be a major update. otoh it's simple file processing. (I know I know: nothing is simple in IT )
In RL the combattants had more clue about the actions of the own side. When I want to join action in AH all is completely foggy. The map shows our side attacking a base. Do we have bombers in action? GVs? Are goons otw? What's the best choice for me in a given situation? The only (fatiguing) way to get information now is the text buffer. An extended roster would be a basic simulation of hours and hours of preparation preceeding every mission in RL.

[Yippee38]

I'd like to see font changes about everywhere.  Antistropic filtering is pretty much necessary to eliminate the shimmery landscape, but then the ammo guages are unreadable without moving forward and back in the seat.  That's fine otw to the target, but in the thick of things, it's not doable.

With anti-aliasing on (when I want it to look purdy), the chat fonts become really blurry.

It would also be nice if the clipboard data changed resolution to match your vid settings.  If you can run it at a higher res, you can see more stuff on the clipboard.

It would also be nice if it would be possible to scroll around the map when zoomed in (the clipboard map).

[AKSWulfe]

Originally posted by Yippee38
I'd like to see font changes about everywhere.  Antistropic filtering is pretty much necessary to eliminate the shimmery landscape, but then the ammo guages are unreadable without moving forward and back in the seat.  That's fine otw to the target, but in the thick of things, it's not doable.

With anti-aliasing on (when I want it to look purdy), the chat fonts become really blurry.

Text becomes blury with anti-aliasing or antistropic filtering no matter what game you play. It samples two images together, that's how it becomes smoother in anti-aliasing. This means text won't be as defined, it also blurs out the jaggies.

Originally posted by Yippee38
It would also be nice if it would be possible to scroll around the map when zoomed in (the clipboard map).

You can, press shift and right click on the map and drag around.
-SW

[Yippee38]

Originally posted by AKSWulfe


Text becomes blury with anti-aliasing or antistropic filtering no matter what game you play. It samples two images together, that's how it becomes smoother in anti-aliasing. This means text won't be as defined, it also blurs out the jaggies.

That's not entirely true.  Although the text will be effected by the FSAA, some fonts are more effected than others.  I have some games where the text is much more readable.