Graphs notifications or improvement

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Graphs is a real UFO tracking tool! It shows you alien activity in not radar covered zone. An absolute life saver especially at higher difficulties when each score point matters.
Essentially, this is open information given to player. However, at times, it is difficult to visually extract it. Here is the proposal for QoL feature graphs improvement.

Now I am calling it QoL because in my experience all information I need is there it is just annoying to advance clocks by seconds and keep notepad and pencil ready to record these numbers over and over again. Let me know if you think it changes strategic game play. And, as always, it could be off by default if anyone does not like it.

Feature:
Alert player when UFO activity in region continues for considerable period of time assuming UFO reached its target region, not just passing by.
The time threshold or activity threshold and reminder frequency is up to configuration.
Also could be configured for activity happening outside of radar coverage to not annoy player late game.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Please move this topic it to BrutalAI suggestion board. Thank you.

[Xilmi]

If you wanna code something like that and it's all optional, I'm totally fine with including it.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Good. Will work on it.

[Xilmi]

Just tested it and immediately thought of something I'd like improved about it:

The button also centering on the region in question so the less geographically adept can learn something and actually know where it is.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

The button also centering on the region in question so the less geographically adept can learn something and actually know where it is.

Yep. Thought about this too. Does not work that easy pure logical.

1. There is no region "center" defined in this game. Some of them are so extended and/or of not right shape that even human would have difficulty defining center visually.
2. Quite often you will see more than one sector in the list. Which one to center on?

The #2 can be solved by just showing a single sector that reached the threshold. Without a list I mean - similar to UFO detection: i.e. one by one. If many, then each will trigger a popup.

Think about it. This notification is just a summary of what player sees in graphs. Less geographically adept will have equal problem interpreting it.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Now I am thinking, the list is to excessive. Rarely player will see more than one-two anyway. And the purpose of this notification is just to draw attention and stop time. The rest of details they can get from graphs.
So maybe redo it to the single sector notification. These lists and scrolling is unnecessary complication. Should be in the size of a normal UFO detection.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Thank you for you feedback. I think I have a good picture in my mind how it should look.

Separate notification per area. Notification pops up once area hidden activity reached threshold.
No lists, just a name of the area where it happened.

Not sure what to do with countries. They do not cover globe completely so there are blind spots. When activity happens in the area it also happens in the country so it kind of redundant. Yes, I know they intersect so showing country help to narrow the location down.
Probably just show are and optionally country if there is one.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Eh. I think I am thinking too much. Let's keep it as is and see how it works out.
Works out for me quite well so far.

[Xilmi]

Could you describe how the new and more detailed one is supposed to be read?

I'm admittedly a bit confused by what these numbers and colors mean.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Numbers are cumulative continuous undetected UFO in the sector. Every 30 minutes 1 point is added to each undetected UFO in the sector.
This should be an exact number of points of graph increase (for undetected UFO only). Actually, I need to pick this value (1) from the ruleset instead of hardcoding.

Red: activity increases.
Blue: activity ceased (no undetected UFOs in the sector for the last 30 minutes).

Option values:
0 = disabled
1 = activity is displayed when it reaches the threshold of 10 (= 5 hours for a single undetected UFO)
2 = every change is displayed including activity ceased

I can add more description in option if it fits the screen. Feel free to suggest.

I can also remove number for option 1 to just show a long uninterrupted activity. This is probably how it should be to keep the lore. Option 2 is for nerds to catch every single UFO fart.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Another option would be to show a popup for EACH sector with activity change instead of the list. I am open for both.
In this case such notification can include more textual description like: "alien activity increased in …".
We may end up with multitude of such popups every 30 minutes, though.

[Xilmi]

The way Xenonauts did it was what I'd prefer. It didn't show a popup that interrupted the game but instead you got some text appearing on the globe in the region of the sighting, usually in the form of local news-reports.

"Military radar tracked unidentified object."  "Farmers report finding of mutilated cattle."
Stuff like that.

If I were you, I'd implement it in a way that you personally think it would be most useful to you yourself. The mindset of trying to appease others can backfire. Doing it like you want and then others can decide whether to use it or not.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Need to check on Xenonauts.

As for the implementation options: I like both options. The list is simple and global allowing to overview the whole globe activity. The one-by-one popup is more lore abiding similar to Xenonauts probably. Thinking …

The ability to stop the game and do not crawl by 5 seconds at a time is why I started all this. Player should be given an opportunity to slow down and investigate. Otherwise, these notifications just blink and disappear.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Oh. Apparently, Xenonauts is its own game not even based on OpenXcom. I doubt I can replicate their functionality here (easily).
Besides, they have two major differences those make sense non stopping UFO sightings.
1. The map is FLAT!
2. The highest speed is about an hour a second, not a day a second as in xcom.

The game itself looks amazing. I now want to try it out.