Different colors of ufo marks on geospace

[TopCat]

Draw ufo marks on globe with different colors based on ufo size .

[Yankes]

this have small problem, most of palette is used for globe coloring. Its not enough of them left to do it.

[pmprog]

Could the marker be drawn at different sizes? Maybe keep the current 3x3 marker for the smaller crafts and a 5x5 marker for the larger ones

[Yankes]

I think better solution was different shapes per ufo size. It could be that every craft in game have own unique shape (in 3x3 marker or bigger)

[luke83]

wouldn't this be cheating as you then know how big a ufo is before you intercept

[moriarty]

nah, you are given the size of the UFO in the initial pop-up. in that way, it would make sense to have some kind of visual representation on the globe.

but considering that we have sizes "very small", "small", "medium", "large" and "very large", we would need five sizes of blips - even if we start at 1x1 for small scouts, we end up at 9x9 for the very large UFOs (icons probably should have a "center", so they need to be odd numbers) - that's a really large blip that will potentially obscure other stuff.

on the other hand, battleships are rather rare, and they are terrifyingly large, so seeing a 9x9 pixel blip on the globe gives you the right idea from the start

[xracer]

on the other hand, battleships are rather rare, and they are terrifyingly large, so seeing a 9x9 pixel blip on the globe gives you the right idea from the start

hmm.... they are rare!!! in that case i think I might be playing the wrong game!!

by the way i do like the idea of having multiple size icons for different sizes, i however don't like the idea of different colors after all we colorblind people may not benefit from that at all

Also this helps when you have a bunch of UFO's on the geoscape you can simply target the tiny bleeps and let the rest go

[moriarty]

I think this is something that may at least be included as an option: ShowUFOSizeOnGlobe (boolean) or something like that.

I tried making up some sprites, and I think that a 9x9 blip is too large. my alternative suggestion would be to make medium, large and very large UFOs the same size, but different levels of "fill".

They would look like this:

Code: [Select]

Very Small

X


Small

XXX
X X
XXX


Medium

 XXX
X   X
X   X
X   X
 XXX


Large

 XXX 
X X X
XX XX
X X X
 XXX


Very Large

 XXX 
XXXXX
XX XX
XXXXX
 XXX


[AMX]

Do we have support for transparency?

Something like this:

Very small:
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX

Small:
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX

Medium:
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX

Large:
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX

Very Large:
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX

Obviously, white=background color, pink=transparent red on top of bg color, red=red

[moriarty]

Nope. No transparency. Sorry.

[Arpia]

at the moment all sizes are represented by the one-blip-fits-all. So anything would be more accurate.
the top row uses filled/non filled to show differences between very small+small and between medium+large and then very large has it's
own blip. if the non infill counts as transparent then we could just go with the bottom row
Vsmall+small = 3x3, medium+large= 5x5 and Vlarge gets it's own blip again (since it is unquestionably in a league of it's own)
this would at very least be an improvement over the one-blip-fits-all system we have now and isnt transparent/extracolours/oversized

[MyThos]

at the moment all sizes are represented by the one-blip-fits-all. So anything would be more accurate.
the top row uses filled/non filled to show differences between very small+small and between medium+large and then very large has it's
own blip. if the non infill counts as transparent then we could just go with the bottom row
Vsmall+small = 3x3, medium+large= 5x5 and Vlarge gets it's own blip again (since it is unquestionably in a league of it's own)
this would at very least be an improvement over the one-blip-fits-all system we have now and isnt transparent/extracolours/oversized

Like this idea and image

[Volutar]

What is the purpose of this?

[Arpia]

well someone suggested geoscape ufo icons that represent the ufo's size, so you can see at a glance instead of having to click on it. I thought it was a simple and overlooked idea that got stumped because people were trying to overcomplicate it (with transparency or different colours)
I thought it was a good idea because when you've got lots of ufo's onscreen, this would let you see what is what at a glance.

[Volutar]

I don't think changing icons which are "classic" to something else is a good idea for project meant to replicate original gameplay. Specially when there will be 7x7 pixels instead of 3x3, with 320x200 screen more that would be too big. Instead of posting icons, better post geoscape screenshot with those icons in it.