Solider status icons

[Solarius Scorch]

No flashing please.

[Falko]

yes there is a "disable icon animation"-option in my gui changes for a reason

[luke83]

So is this getting close to a possibility?

[VSx86]

Interesting...     I think this addition will be very useful, especially for newbie players.

[Random Commander]

Y'know, I think I would like this!

Just my two cents: Making the status things on the left screen is a sweet idea, I just wonder if they will be Icons instead of Numbers, so we do not have the need for Rainbow Madness on the battlefield. Although if people prefer numbers, we can always have both (I think they will fit)!

Which brings me to my next idea: The Seen Enemy buttons should also have Icons depicting the unit type. I sometimes have trouble seeing what the heck an alien in a pitch black area is, so this should be useful if I'm firing in the dark and hitting either a Sectoid or a Cyberdisk but not sure which.

[Falko]

icons?
the number is like 9 pixel high thats not much space for any icon
i work with (non animated) colors and quite like it
for aliens i have 4 different colors
- real alien the current unit can see
- real alien the some other unit can see
- psi controlled soldier the current unit can see
- psi controlled soldier the some other unit can see
the "some other unit can see" boxes are great for the psi/mind probe squad in the back of the skyranger
adding special 4tile big alien (chrysdalid/celatid != big) icons
- real big-alien the current unit can see
- real big-alien the some other unit can see
is not a technical problem but i never needed that functionality

[Random Commander]

It's 9x13, to be exact. I sort of think otherwise...

I have made a quick mockup of four sprites that have the same dimensions of the number box, a Cyberdisc, a Snakeman, an Ethereal and a Muton.


The first attachment shows the icons as their original format. Yes, you are right, it is not much space to work with and it ends up being small. But it seems, at least to me, the windowed mode has doubled the pixel size, effectively making it look something like what I have in the Second attachment.

Keep in mind however that some people play OXC Fullscreen, and sometimes they have stretched the viewscreen to fit. That effectively makes those number boxes even bigger than before, so I think, even though it is somewhat limiting in pixel art, you will definitely tell which alien is which in those number boxes. You could even pair that with your current mechanic of "Current soldier sees alien vs Other soldier sees alien!"


Granted, there are also modded alien races, and since OXC doesn't recognize them as vanilla, they won't have a corresponding "detected" icon, so that would be when the numbers come back. Of course these icons could be added as extraSprites in a newly made ICON.PCK folder or something via Ruleset.

The Implementation may require a bit of graphical work, but the coding part seems somewhat easy (at least to me, anyway).

[Falko]

the icons do not scale with the resolution
you can see more (with the option enabled) like this https://imgur.com/WSGPfLn
you are correct that the size is doubled in regard to the source image but its still 9 pixel high even if the resulting icon box is 18 pixel

but i am not opposed to icons
coding c++ for a "moving target" (tftd) is not the highest priority for me at the moment but i keep the idea in mind

[Random Commander]

Well, honest mistake.

But hey, at least you can consider it!

[Dioxine]

Nevah. Modder-unfriendly. If you replace the aliens, you'd need new icons, besides, I fail to see the point of "alien ID" icons. You can see WHAT alien it is on the main screen, rite?

[Random Commander]

You can see WHAT alien it is on the main screen, rite?

Not if it is above you on a grav-lift and the spaces there are blacked out.

Also, what if it was a psi-controlled soldier instead? Would you rather prefer Falko's Rainbow madness method instead and risk possibly hurting your eyes?

[Falko]

lol
yeah i created the rainbow madness image to show all possibilities
1. how often have you huge amounts of mindcontrolled soldiers?
2. the color is moddable (you can set it to same as normal alien and see no difference)
3. the animation/blink is by default off

[Dioxine]

Not if it is above you on a grav-lift and the spaces there are blacked out.

Also, what if it was a psi-controlled soldier instead? Would you rather prefer Falko's Rainbow madness method instead and risk possibly hurting your eyes?

If you can't see, then you can't see, wouldn't the icon be a cheat?

I'm not a big fan of crazy mind-controlled icons, a different colored background to a normal "enemy spotted" icon would suffice to differ aliens from your own. The only icon I want bad, and want flashing is fatal wounds icon.

[Solarius Scorch]

Any flashing icons, for any reason, will be considered an act of war.

[Random Commander]

Holy sheep, there should be options for these things!

- Which Icons to show?
- Flashing on?
- Color-coding on?
- etc etc.

Might be a tad harder to code, but I think it makes everyone happy.