Hotkeys, Interface and IRC integration -From the IRC Meeting

[Cardinal22]

So the IRC meeting today was pretty fruitful and a lot of topics were discussed...

As a relatively new Transcendent player a major area of the game that irked me was the 'B' and 'U' interface to install/uninstall, activate/deactivate modules, and use devices.

A lot of my plans or ideas for future Transcendent mods focus solely on increasing usability within the existing framework. Adding replayability, strategies and general enjoyment come as an added bonus.

The first idea involves the implementation of an "MMO-like" Skill or Hotkey bar along the edge of the screen consisting of 10 square frames or boxes. This bar would populate itself with installed components. modules, weapons and devices from your ship. You can turn individual modules or subsystems of your ship on or off at the press of a button; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 0 would correspond dynamically to the 1st through to the 10th (last) installed module on your ship.

For example, I spawn in a Sapphire with a Recoilless Cannon (1) and a Shield (2), I then install a Mining Laser (3) and pick up two ROMs (4) and (5). For varieties sake, let's say I'm playing with a Mining Pack mod added in, I then go to install an Asteroid Scanner (6) and a Raw Materials Processor RMP (7).

Already my little 15MW generator is starting to eat my fuel reserves, my ship is overburdened with juice-hungry electronics and devices.

In Vanilla I would need to use a combination of 'B' and 'U' to disable and turn off modules which are non-essential.

In this suggested mod, I could simply hit 6 and then 7 to turn off my asteroid scanner and RMP respectively. Pressing 1 or 3 would switch my main weapon to either my Recoilless Cannon or my Mining Laser and deactivate whichever wasn't being used. Let's say I've completely wiped out every possible red thread in Eriadni and now want to resume mining. Press 2 to deactivate shields, 3 to bring up my Mining Laser and 7 to turn on my Asteroid Scanner. Loot all the ore, excellent. Oh no! Pirates. 1, 2, 7. Blast blast blast. Phew. Refuel. 2, 7. Use RMP and get rich.

Using 4 + 5 would activate the ROMs and leave slots 4 and 5 free to reference future installed modules.
OR
Using 4 + 5 would cause 6 and 7 to migrate and become the new modules activated under keys 4 and 5.

Thoughts?

PS. Additional functionality would include maybe Shift+1 through Shift+0 to differentiate between "Using" a module and "Activating/Deactivating" a module.

TL;DR: At the core it is an array populated by installed weapons, modules and devices. Pressing corresponding keys (1 through to 0) would turn on or off the respective device.




We also discussed integrating some kind of chat service directly into the game client, similar to IRC. Players connected to the multiverse could browse channels and discuss whatever they pleased. This would not replace the current IRC but give online, ingame players of Transcendence a place to hangout and co-ordinate.


Disclaimer: I have a tendency to write "holy mother wall of text" threads. Deal with it

[Atarlost]

That solution won't work. There is no limit to the number of devices a ship can have, and at least one mod in beta on the multiverse has a playable ship with 11. It is also possible for ships in Corporate Command to have 11 devices using external mounts even if you contrived to stack patch spiders. Then there's armor. It's possible for armor to be usable and ships usually have multiple armor segments. There are additional items that can be used from the hold. If you want a unified interface bar it needs to have unlimited length, which is not possible. Some of us still use 3:4 monitors.

Then there's the problem of distinct icons, the problem of other things using the keys you want (all numbers and shift+numbers are available for use keys), and the problem of interfering with the viewport except on the largest monitors.

[sun1404]

separating the installed things and the usable items might help. Have two bars, one for installed items, and another for usables. Let's assume this is the only mod used, so all keys not used by vanilla is free, 1-0 can be used to use the corresponding item on the bar, and -,= can be used to switch from bar 1 and 2 or maybe 1 2 3. I think one bar for using installed items and another for enabling/disabling them should work. We'd need some code to determine which items gets in which bar, some may take two or more. Another thing that would help is to make the bars customizable.

[Cardinal22]

Okay, then we make a separate distinction between "Installed Items" (weapons, shields, asteroid scanners, armour plating, etc) and "Useable Devices" (ROMs, barrels, etc).
With hotkeys being '1' through to '0', and '-' toggles between Devices and Components...

Pressing B might open a "dockscreen like interface" listing all currently installed items on board and their power status (on/off) alongside their coinciding "dynamic hotkey".
Whereas pressing U might do as above, except for all useable devices on board your ship.

Hopefully that takes care of your UI concerns.

Alternatively, pressing B or U could activate which "list" you are considering, then pressing 1-0 would turn on/off or use the component/device held in that slot.

[Atarlost]

An EI-500 can mount 9 devices, 8 of them not reactors and therefore in need of access through the enable/disable interface. In addition they can mount 2 external weapons in Corporate Command, an NM-900 missile pod, and any number of patch spiders. These also need access through the enable/disable interface. There can exist mod ships with even more slots, but since there's no limit to how many patch spiders can be installed no finite interface bar is even adequate for vanilla Transcendence.

And that's just installed devices in need or power management controls. UsefulItems.xml contains over 60 items that can be used from inventory not counting obsolete items like the Rowena roms. That's more than you can give single key access to using all the alphanumerics.

Because Transcendence is designed to support modding any interface to inventory or equipment needs to be able to support thousands of options if not tens of thousands to be robust.

[sun1404]

You can make the bar customizable, and let the player choose what devices/items he wants on hotkey. Many MMO have much more skills or actions than can be covered by 1-0, but they just let you choose those ten you need the most, and the rest can be accessed with the long way.

[george moromisato]

You can make the bar customizable, and let the player choose what devices/items he wants on hotkey. Many MMO have much more skills or actions than can be covered by 1-0, but they just let you choose those ten you need the most, and the rest can be accessed with the long way.

This, I think, is the best solution. It takes care of the expansion problem that Atarlost brings up.

For example, imagine that in the ship's screen interface (or somewhere) there is a command to add a hot key. If the item can be enabled/disabled, the command is "Set hotkey to enable/disable"; if the item can be used, the command is "Set hotkey to use". If both are possible on the item, then both commands are available.

We could even allow assigning the same hotkey to multiple devices, so you can disable/enable a bank of devices at once.

[Song]

We could even allow assigning the same hotkey to multiple devices, so you can disable/enable a bank of devices at once.

This sounds similar to the 'Action Group' system of Kerbal Space program, only more flexible. As such, it'd probably be very useful indeed.

[Atarlost]

You can make the bar customizable, and let the player choose what devices/items he wants on hotkey. Many MMO have much more skills or actions than can be covered by 1-0, but they just let you choose those ten you need the most, and the rest can be accessed with the long way.

This, I think, is the best solution. It takes care of the expansion problem that Atarlost brings up.

For example, imagine that in the ship's screen interface (or somewhere) there is a command to add a hot key. If the item can be enabled/disabled, the command is "Set hotkey to enable/disable"; if the item can be used, the command is "Set hotkey to use". If both are possible on the item, then both commands are available.

We could even allow assigning the same hotkey to multiple devices, so you can disable/enable a bank of devices at once.

Giving multiple devices the same hotkey is only useful if automatic device shutdown is not happening. Power management is only an issue when it is a risk.

Trying to get fancy with a the use command is also a problem. You want to use all your patch spiders, but only one of your armor repair kits. When patch spiders are on the hull they're separate devices. When they're off the hull they're a single item struct with a quantity field.

Numeric hotkeys and ctrl and alt modified hotkeys are harder on small hands than alphabetic hotkeys and shift hotkeys.

A command bar eats a lot of screen real estate if anything is to be legible and unless every single item has its own distinct icon text is needed. Customizable controls without a hotkey bar doesn't have this issue, though.

I don't think any attempt at control streamlining that doesn't have a macro scripting language is capable of handling the potential complexity of games running on the Transcendence engine.

[SpongeJr]

I have wanted a customizable hotkey bar for years! This would be great to have! I am sure the little details on how to implement it would be worked out carefully by George and the community. Seems like it could be done fairly easily, wouldn't upset game balance, wouldn't take more resources of any significance, and would improve gameplay.

On the topic of integrated IRC/chat... I'd like to see the game spit out some occasional "news" blurbs from other players currently logged in to the Multiverse. Currently, in the #transcendence IRC chat, our 'bot named Katami tells of player deaths (some? all?). This is similar to what I'm thinking, but I'd like to see various other events reported. Some examples:

"Spongejr has exited human space and is bound for the Galactic Core!"
"Spongejr has bested all opponents and become Champion of the Arena!"
"Spongejr has saved the Korolov station in the Charon system!"
"Spongejr just got busted for piracy and [was imprisoned/paid the fine]!"
"Spongejr has installed [rare/unique item] on their ship!"
"Spongejr has just purchased the Corporate Command v5.0 expansion [or whatever add-on or downloadable content]! See _here_ for how to get yours!"
...and I'm sure y'all can think of a bunch more.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking: "noooo the spam the spam!". I have an answer for that. These messages could be toggled off very easily in the game options (or with a hotkey).
Toggling the Multiverse Player News chat could be done in different degrees, also:

Multiverse Player News: [X] All On [ ] Show Most Events [ ] Show Only Important Events [ ] All Off

And finally... here's something else to throw in: Even if the chat/news feature doesn't get implemented in the "main game", it would be GREAT for the title screen/screensaver! Obviously, both could be possible, also.

Some of us would turn this off immediately if it were in the game. But I, for one, would love to see these little messages at least SOMEWHERE in the game (maybe not on my main game screen... maybe only when paused or accessed via a menu). It also brings more of a sense of "I'm playing single player, but I'm not alone" to the game.

Any thoughts?

[SpongeJr]

OH! And another idea for Multiverse integration:

I should be able to click on a link or choose an option in-game and it would open up a webpage showing:

- My stats on my current game (basically, the F2 screen formatted in pretty HTML)
and
- My "player stats". This would include such info as number of (un)official games played, number of wins, average number of systems travelled, average score, favorite starting ship, best rank obtained in (Korolov, Militia, etc.), causes of death and most hated enemy (enemy that caused the most deaths), major achievements...
AND LOTS MORE

These numbers should be relatively easy to collect, some of them are probably already being collected behind the curtain even.
It should probably also be an "opt-in" sort of thing also, the player should be able to view their own stats privately, or they can allow it to be public so that other players can check 'em out.

There is a RIDICULOUS number of fun statistics that could be gathered. Both per-player stats and all player stats could be shown.

There is a roguelike game called ToME that many of you are familiar with... if anyone thinks this idea has merit, you could hop on over there (I'm not going to post links) and check out all the nifty statistics they make available and how they are presented.

Two notes about this: 1. Yes it would require some server resources (seems like it'd be pretty minimal) and 2. THIS IS FREE ADVERTISING

Imagine this system in place, but when you go to your player stats page, you see a couple links like "Stats badge to link to" and "Post a link to my current character (or player stats) to my Facebook (or whatever social networking site)". I'm not sure what FB's rules are on that sort of thing; if that's not cool with them, then you could still have a button to click that would prepare the FB friendly blurb/link and it could be copied/pasted.

If a stats page/link/image badge like this existed, I would DEFINITELY use it. I would show it off in places where non-players might see it and get interested!

Anyone else? Would you do the same if there were such a thing?

[george moromisato]

And finally... here's something else to throw in: Even if the chat/news feature doesn't get implemented in the "main game", it would be GREAT for the title screen/screensaver! Obviously, both could be possible, also.

I particularly like this idea. The intro screen is a great place for it. And once it's part of the engine it's easier to experiment with putting it in during gameplay (I would definitely add an option to control it; it might even be off by default).

I also really like the idea of a per-player stats page. The profile page in the Multiverse is currently reserved for that, but it will take a while to implement.