Economy UI

I think it's generally accepted now that many people who were unfamiliar with a TA/SC style economy had trouble understanding aspects of it. Although I personally feel a streaming economy isn't really that difficult to understand, I know that some aspects of it, particularly resource interdependent stalls, have been criticised in the past as somewhat opaque. I think the tweaks to the economy system for PA will go a long way to helping this, but there are still a few wrinkles that could be smoothed out, in the way that information is presented to the player.

Amongst higher level players (of which I do NOT claim to be one) of TA,SC, and ZK I have heard the saying that a player should "float in metal, and swim in energy". In other words, your economy is at an optimum when all of your metal income is being spent, but there is a surplus of energy. The reason for this is that if a player is running a metal surplus, then they will eventually fill up their storage, and start to waste metal. By running at a very small deficit, a player can guarantee that no metal is wasted, and it also means that any reclaim will instantly go into producing units. With energy, a surplus is desired because it defines how quickly a player can spend their metal. Energy is easier to come-by, so a surplus is useful as a buffer to prevent energy stalls. Obviously, there is some leeway in this system, but it seems to be the optimum play that has been stabilised upon.

With that in mind, I would like to forward some simple suggestions:

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  1. Metal stalls: This is one aspect of the UI which is very counter intuitive. For good play (e.g. a very small metal deficit), your metal streaming value is red. People have been programmed by a large number of sociological, psychological and physiological factors to work on the assumption that red means you are doing something bad. It seems like a bad idea that optimum play makes parts of the UI turn from green to red. To that end, I would suggest that instead of the number turning red the instant it hit's negative numbers, it should turn red gradually based on the percentage of mass being used. E.g. If I'm producing 99 metal and using 100, the number would perhaps be a very slightly yellow-er shade of green. As the output/input ratio decreases, the number would go to a sickly green, to yellow, to orange, and finally to red for deep stalls. I think this would do a better job of communicating to the player how well they are managing their metal.
  
  2. Metal Surpluses: Having a full storage and a positive metal value means a player is wasting metal. However, despite the non-optimum play the metal streaming value is still green. I would suggest that if the storage is full, and there is a metal surplus, the number would start to slowly flash. This way, we still keep the same colour scheme (which does seem logical until you account for wastage), but communicate to the player that they need to do something in order to improve their economy.
  
  3. Overall economic indicator: Suppose I've just lost some PGens. I'm generating 11750 and spending 15500, but I have 20000 in storage, while my metal has only 300 in storage and I'm generating 49 while using 53. How fast are my factories running, and for how long? If you have answered that quickly, and off the top of your head, then you are either a liar or a savant. Whenever I'm in a stall, there is an overall rate that my factories and fabbers will be running at as a percentage of their full output. I propose that this percentage be displayed as a small pie chart symbol sitting in between the metal and energy bars. For aesthetic sake, it may be better as an octagon, rather than a circle. The point is, it would communicate at a glance how much a player is stalling as a percentage of their overall used economic throughput. I believe that this would be useful information for the player to always have access to.

I think these three changes to the UI would lead to much more intuitive economic management by players, both noob and pro alike. The way energy is displayed need not be changed as the current system already encourages good energy play. Further-more, subtly changing how metal values are displayed emphasises how these resources are different from each-other.

I believe these would be a positive change to the UI, and given that UI is largely a client-side feature, may even be moddable now.

While i think that a good tutorial to help people get the econ is better than too much ui clutter, a timer for drain would be awesome. It might induce some panic though, especially if your metals bouncing +/- a lot.

YES THANK YOU I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE.

Seriously... it's really irked me that the economy indicator trains players at an intuitive level to play nonoptimally. Maybe green is a surplus and blue is a deficit, with yellow for low storage and red for a stall or waste.

Thinking on this more, maybe instead of a timer, cus numbers aren't all that intuitive and colors are, make the indicator bar yellow/blue/green/red (or whatever works for the color blind).

for METAL: \m/(>_<)\m/

• yellow = full for too long. Sortof a "warning: waste" indicator
• blue = filling
• green = draining, but still enough to complete tasks.
• red = draining, will be GONE in a short time.

for energy it could be as simple as green/red. Green = filling OR draining but not in danger of being out. Red = in danger of stalling.

Maybe even move the storage/max numbers to the left of the bar, and make the bar as thick as the +/- numbers. That way the numbers can be red/green but the bar is there to comfort. Or even make green for +, yellow for minus/no imminent stall, and red for minus/stall.

Quick and dirty GIMP work to show the layout I mean, compared to current. Not the colors tho, cus quick.

Adding more colours willy-nilly isn't a good idea. I suggested using a simple green-yellow-red graduated scale for the metal number because it's something we all fundamentally understand. Also, by graduating the colour, it's easy to see just how badly you are stalling, as opposed to a simple green/good red/bad system. For example, you've suggested:

What is the boundary between green and red? 80% economic throughput? 75%? There is no arbitrary line between a slight drain and a heavy drain, only stages of graduation. Thus it makes sense to have the colouring scheme follow.

Now, you also want to add blue into the colour scheme. While a red-yellow-green scale maps intuitively onto our concepts of bad-ok-good, blue really doesn't. How good is blue? It doesn't make sense on it's own, which means that you need to set aside tutorial time in order to explain what it means. On top of that, it is information already displayed by the fact you have a "+" next to your net income number. Confusion only arises when you have a "-" symbol. This is because two different players could both have a "-5" number, yet while one is barely stalling at-all (with a High income), the other is stalling alot (with a low income). The graduated scale would mean that the former's +5 would be a very slightly yellowish green, while the latter's would be a deep orange/red.

I think having easy access to logistics when we have multiple bases on many planets will be necessary for really high end play, maybe not so much for casual stuff, but then casuals didn't fund this game.

Forgive me for asking, but what logistics? PA doesn't require the player to move ammo, fuel or food around in order to keep their troops in the battle. The closest the game comes to in the way of logistics is moving units to the front-line, which is easily managed by order shift queuing. Are you suggesting that there should be some sort of logistical management required by the player? Which should then be automated?

I supposed the logistics of PA would be resources per planet, routes for moving units from planet to planets, metal planet weapons or features, energy/metal stored.

The game is very basic as it is, its hard to know what kind of things we'll want to quantify come release.

I think you are overestimating the amount of "logistics" that will be included in the final game. I'm pretty sure that the devs have spoken that tying economies to individual planets would probably end up being a bad idea, hence local economies will not be happening.

However, non of this is pertinent to the topic of altering UI features to improve readability of a players economy.

I'm sure that the first two features I suggested are possible now as mods. They only require information in the form of metal input, output and storage. This information already gets passed to the UI in order to display it to the player, so altering colours or adding elements to the UI based on mathematical manipulations of these numbers should be entirely possible.

However the "Total economic indicator" requires additional information. It needs to know the total of full metal usage and total of full energy usage for all fabbers and factories that a player has building things. A list of active fabbers and factories would be enough.
Do any modders or devs know if it the UI can access this information is possible at the moment?

The suggestion of blue was just kinda off the top of my head. Think "cool" colors = good, "warm" colors = bad. I can totally get behind color gradients though.

The boundary between green and red would/should be based around "are you gonna have enough metal to complete your current tasks". If nothing you are constructing at that moment will be done before you hit 0 metal: warning. A gradient system could definitely improve understanding: green = good, yellow = ok, but don't start going red.

I still stand behind there being a good tutorial. Something where there is accomplishment as well as learning. If a picture is worth 1000 words, then a good tutorial is worth 1000 pictures.

Casual here. I might not have gotten in on the KS, but I supported with a couple hundred thru the uber store. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Check your privilege Or, just don't jump to conclusions like that :mrgreen:

Normaly i never now how mutch mass/power units or structurs need ,we don´t have inf for that.
Only appears the mass cost ,and the power its for what?
Iff i want build a unit lets say a T2(any) i don´t now what mass/power i need,only show the mass cost ,and the same for all rest things!
We need right information for the cost off builds

viewtopic.php?f=71&t=47545

That thead has a link to a spreadsheet that lists all the metal/energy +/- for fabbers/mexes/pgens/factories.

I've been meaning to edit it so it just lists the basics (mex/pgen requirements, metal/energy in/out), and maybe include the build times/resources used for each unit from just the factory. Maybe have a section where you can input the number of assisting engies of different types, and if the commander is assisting (1=yes, 0=no kinda thing).

It wouldn't be that hard to figure out tho. Take the metal cost of the unit you're looking to build, divide it by the sum of the metal needed for the factory/assisting units. That's your build time. Multiply that by the sum of the energy needed for the same factory/assisters and you get the total energy needed.

I think I know how my afternoons gonna be :ugeek: :mrgreen:

While this may seem a little drastic, since we're all kind of used to the current system, but I propose re-working the resource system entirely. I would think that it would be easier to do it something like this:



It encompasses a graphical layout, helps to show relative production vs expenses, and shows numbers, all while making a kind of "color scale". Maybe it is a little far-off from TA and Supcom, but I like the overall feel of the kind of "balancing". It also scales up well when you've got huge economies: 100 to 110 is the same balance as 10000 to 11000.

Yep, another casual here. I actually typically call myself a casual-competitive player, since many people don't distinguish between the "hardcore vs casual" and "competitive vs noncompetitive" spectrums. In other words, I like to play against other players (That's the competitive part), but I don't like to do what I call "video game homework" (reading wikis, forum posts, researching build orders, unit stats, etc.) and expect to be able to improve my play primarily by playing the game itself (That's the casual part).

I posted a whole topic about this a while back, and after a long flamewar, pretty much everyone agreed that the game's interface should do as much as it can it to intuitively discourage new players from making rookie mistakes, and the chief of these is wasting mass. Right now, the interface actively encourages new players to waste mass and that needs to change.

*Just to clear up any confusion: I do not intend to compete against hardcore-competitive players without doing homework - but if the game is designed to encourage (or at least not discourage) casual-competitive play, the bottom parts of the ladder can be populated by casual-competitives who are fair matches for each other.

This isn't really a re-work of the resource system, just the UI. However, I like your mock-up, that would be the most intuitive system I could imagine.

That is a good mock up; I approve.

I have seen some posts and topics about hardcore logistics :shock: , I personally like the current way the devs have explained it :mrgreen: and was wondering if these "hardcore" logistics might be part of the game.......... :cry:

I third that mock up. Email it to the devs!

I kindof like the single bar per resource too though, and think it would be kind of cool to switch between the 2. That way people that can't do without the current one don't get left out, and we all get a really intuitive one for begginners. Plus everyone gets choice!

Here's a half done spread sheet where you can see the metal/energy in/out of fabbers/factories/mexes/pgens (1st page), as well as see the metal cost, build time, and energy/unit built (2nd page). You can even put numbers anywhere in H6-P41 to see how assisting affects build time/energy use per unit.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... sp=sharing

This entire post is important, so I highlighted all of it.