[Feature request] visual cue on ship movement distance

from GalCiv3 Forums

When you select a ship and you move the mouse, the target hex is colored light blue irrespective of the number of moves the ship can move. I would like to propose that the highlight of the targeted hex might give a visual cue of the number of turns it would take to reach said target.

For example:
If the distance is less or equal to the number of moves the ship has left for this turn, color the highlight green.
If the ship can reach given target location before the end of the next turn, color the highlight yellow.
Any other distance, no change to the highlight - just highlight it light blue like it is now. 

This would help in planning whether you can reach a location (planet/base) or evade an enemy fleet without counting the tiles to travel yourself. Of course the player will still need to check the movement range of the enemy fleets/ships himself.

2,749 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I like this, it also would let you know if backup can get there first too and you can stand your ground.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Why not use the same system that Civ 5 has? Represent the range a ship can go in one turn with a circle, which grows smaler as the moves are used.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I like this idea. I also have a problem with the current system. For some reason when i click on my ship before moving it, at least my "2 moves/turn" ships the movement line is green for 4 spaces, not 2. Anyone else notice this? I can't imagine its intended on purpose.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

The best UI cue I've seen for this is (in an old Windows Empire clone) is (generically) a dynamic mouse cursor, which changes shape to indicate what command context you're in, and floats a tiny icon next to the arrowhead with context-sensitive data.

  • For ship movement, the obvious datum is distance.  Then the mouse becomes a tape measure.
  • More elaborately, you can float a tiny menu right next to the arrow tip, so that a small flick menu-ward lets you select a choice.  If your menu is a pie chart with each slice being a command option, the UI becomes (quasi-)gesture-based, where your hand muscle-memorizes small flick-motions (and complex S-curves, haha) that select different options.  CAD systems have been doing this for ~2 decades.

In Windows MFC, this usually meant you first anticipate all possible mouse cursors, make each one individually as a bitmap, and then have your app intelligently select its current cursor on-the-fly.  (MFC has API hooks to do exactly this ... which is how every Windows app can change the mouse pointer into an hourglass #:( )  GC3's UI is completely custom(?), so first they'd implement their own API to do it.

  • It's only a small step beyond that to generate truly dynamic mouse cursors, e.g. you compose the pie-chart menu based on the current contents of the target hex.  Then we'd all use this to select a target from the AI's 8-deep stack of fleets in one hex: hover in hex, wrist curlicue (like a cursive "gamma" letter) to enter the context pie-menu -- enemy transports are always sorted to the 4 o'clock position, so small drag-down-right, then finally right-click to attack.  With practice, it's one atomic action, like snoozing your cell phone alarm clock in the morning --