[T:V]Command Screen

Bloody
04-30-2003, 05:39
Well one of my pet peeves was the command screen in T2, I used it quite a bit in T1 as a way to easily see where abouts everyone from my team was on the fly, it was rather quick and easy to switch back and forth between it while skiing to the base readying for a flag run, I could see exactly where the HO and my capping partner were to time the attack more easily.

In T2 it became hard to use it the same way, one because it was slow to come up (compared to the T1 one), two because of the controls that where forced and it seemed to stop your movement controls while you where in it and lastly it not showing the player names without zooming in (im unsure if you could change this, never looked into it).

Anyway some of the things I would like the command screen in T:V to have (if they implement one) are the following:


A small togable map on your HUD.
A full screen transparent map you can bring up so you can still see and move around normally but still have access to the full screen map.
Show player names.
Quick to pop up.


Like I said above I believe the command screen is good for seeing where your team is for co-ordinating and for defence to see incoming enemies that show up on sensor, I don***8217;t believe it should be designed as some kind of RTS interface to "command" people to attack places or deploy something because that***8217;s really just pointless.

Really some of the things I wish were included aren't really original and some have even been scripted in T1 and T2 but it would be nice for them to come with the game.

If you have any further ideas or flames, please feel free.

Sir Lucius
04-30-2003, 06:35
I think their auto-draw feature is nice and all, but personally I'd prefer each map came as a prerendered image to save space. You could auto generate them once and be done with it. But then you could ALSO make it an option to import your OWN maps. Ones that looked like contour maps or something cool like that. Maybe let the mapper create his own and include it in the package file.

Then it'd be neat (since there won't be any stupid load times to bring the CS up) if you could draw on the map with your mouse -- like a white board. Hell, maybe not even that fancy.

Ok, what about this: Someone can open the CS and click and drag on the command screen real quick. Then players could get a *notice* message and if they bring up their cc they'll see the arrow drawn. Could be used nicely for telling about incomming cappers and HO. You could even have an auto-notice feature so it pops up.

R@ND0M
04-30-2003, 06:35
http://www.team5150.com/~random/tribez/cmd.jpg
or SPY's
http://www.team5150.com/~fsb-spy/Pictures/TribalWar/FSB-SPY's%20Tribes%20-%20CommandGUI%20small.gif (http://www.team5150.com/~fsb-spy/Pictures/TribalWar/FSB-SPY's%20Tribes%20-%20CommandGUI.gif)
^

"keep it simple stupid"

Uncle Silas
04-30-2003, 06:47
I like what Lucius said. A simple overhead would be fine. It would be easy enough for mappers to add their own image to a file.

I also like the idea of a simple drawing too. It would help organize some aspects of team practice.

FSB-SPY
04-30-2003, 06:53
Yes! Please keep it simple. Really, there was no need for a full-blown rendered plane for a commandmap like in Tribes 2. It took 15 seconds just to open/close it -- and it was nowhere as quickly and easily to identify what was on the screen than it was in Tribes.

Plus this means less coding time...? :P

R@ND0M
04-30-2003, 07:04
Hint: I sure would love to have information on how the Command Screens shadow and rendering palettes are generated in T1 (key reason custom palettez are delayed)

Neek
04-30-2003, 12:16
I Agree 120%.
In T1 I would use the cc constantly. Often while in mid-air or in the middle of a ski because you could just flip it on & off really fast.
In T2, I use it once in blue moon. Usually to check for holes in the sensor network. Otherwise it's pretty useless simply because of the long loading time and the fact that T2 has all those waypointed bases/flags etc. anyway.
It would be nice if it were even further streamlined as far as the interface goes as well.

Flatscan
04-30-2003, 14:02
Originally you could move AND use the T2 CC.

The reason your controls don't work in the T2 CC today is because the code was so ****ty, doing so induced UEs. Simple, crappy solution: remove the ability to move your player when the CC is called up.

dunce_boy
04-30-2003, 14:09
Here's something from a UT2k3 mod im involved in,
I believe we are just using a picture(that the mapper takes) for the command map. I also like how the arrows point to which way you're players are moving. Having a name next to 'em in full screen mode would be sweet.

http://www.conquestmarines.com/images/media/Shot00061.jpg

Here's a shot of the full screen/transparent shot.
http://dunce.3dmax.org/misc/shot00089.jpg

Something like this would be pretty cool imo.
If it were custumizable that would be sweet. So you could change wheather you want a little map on your screen, whether you want it to come up full screen/transparent, or come up with options for sensors and base/equip info, etc.

edit: that second shot is an old one(before the arrows were colored), it looks better now but I dont have access to a SS from work :P

Bloody
05-01-2003, 17:26
Yeah I was thinking the same thing about not haveing the auto-draw and just haveing a picture for the map like in T1 Sir Lucius, actually prefered that over T2s auto-draw map.

One more thing about the full screen transparent CS, I think you would need to be able to set how transparent you want it, think it would work better if it was only 30% or so, but unsure unless I actually saw it.

R@ND0M
05-02-2003, 03:34
Ya, I'd definately want to be able to set the Transparency of it.
Probably in a "Misc GUI Graphics" option, w/ a sliding bar.

DOOPY_LOOPY
05-02-2003, 08:18
something akin to the BF corner map but more functional in terms of what it displays.

dunce_boy
05-02-2003, 12:22
to add to borlaks post(which I aggree with),
- show vehicals on CC also :)

Sir Lucius
05-02-2003, 13:55
I was thinking about the contour lines thing, and this would actually be really easy to generate if you have the hrightmap. I would like countour lines, b/c that's how real life maps work, and real life maps rock :]