Filtering, disemminating and processing information is important in a team based game like this.

I've been thinking about how communications worked in other games without VOIP and I think we need to form a consensus on acceptable icons, colors and other basic UI features.

Starting off:

Chat Box.

My biggest problem with chatboxes is that designers use one box for everything and if you want to use multiple boxes all the boxes are tabbed behind each other. I want to see a chat box defaulted with two visibile boxes so anyone can divide up communications between people they are close to and the other box for everything else. Who wants to be forced to scroll back up their box or resizing their box for a handful of importnat lines that blurred by?

World Map.

There's a lot of ways this could be done but I'm only going to mention two.
1. Allow us to draw on the map manually and with recongnizable icons.

 Allow us to create tooltip macros for icons so players can ahve customized icons with additonal information that can be added on the fly.

The World map doesn't have to take up the entire screen. Give us the option to split our screen so we can view world wide ojectives  while maintaining control of our character.

2. Instead of doing it like past mechwarrior games, when players switch to the world map they are given an isometric view that shows everything around them as if they were playing an RTS game. The map would be obscured by a fog of war that represents our line of sight modified by electronics like Mag Res and IR. (the fog of war shouldn't even exist but play balance is more important than adhering to battletech fiction) Clanners with enhanced imaging can really overcome the limitations of the fog to a high degree.

Everything mentioned in 1 except for the split screen could be applied to 2.


HUD

Icons that are placed on the world map can be viewed without switching to the world map would be pretty nice. Icons can only be seen if your character is facing in the icons general direction.

Quick Chat Commands
One of the things I enjoyed from a game called Planetside were quick commands. Basically with three key presses you could send out messages like "Thank you", "Base is being Hacked", "Air support Inbound." because all of these messages were tied to hotkeys.

I would like to see that in this game and take it one step further by allowing custimizable quick commands. Take it a step further and allow players to share their quick commands in compressed audio files.

Some additional things to consider:

Electronics and Electronic Warfare.

Should what you can see on your HUD and worldmap be dependent on the electronics package of your mech? Should mechs using ECM measures be able to disrupt the usability of your map, chatbox and hud?

Icons and Color schemes

How many and what specific basic objectives should be condensed down to a single picture?
What type of pictures and colors should be used to convey these messages?

Is there anything else about communications I'm forgetting? Bring it up and I'll insert it here below this point since people have a tendency to skim posts after the op.

The issue with chat boxes for me is that no matter what they always seem to add so much clutter to an already packed HUD/UI. Allowing for a resizable chat window would be very nice, with options to color certain messages. For example: squad messages, squad leader messages, whispers, etc. The dual window doesn't sound half bad, by default... maybe not, but the option to make channels new chat windows should suffice, depending on coding difficulty.


Simple. Make them NAV points and if possible allow a short tag to be added (like 30 character or so). At the same time it may be nice to give squad mates and squad leaders mini-NAV points, so a semblance of cohesion could be easier to maintain.
Map wise, how about having it replace the radar when toggled?


Fog of War for the terrain part of the map? No. orbital recon before the attack. And the defenders obvisouly have maps of the terrain. FoW for enemy units? I can agree on that.


See NAV point reference above.


I agree this could be useful.


HUD, probably not, it's ECM, not EMP. Radar should definetly be affected, some sort of static disrupting the image. So the player knows there are enemies in the vicinity, but no details on troop strength. Make mechs easier to hide based on class. Light and med mechs = no radar signature. Heavy and assault = faint radar signatures. This makes it easier for faster moving, smaller mechs to infiltrate enemy lines, but make it difficult, but not impossible, to do so with heavier lances.


For creating NAV points use basic icons/shapes to indicate their purpose. Icons for Move (rally point), Attack and so forth.

I agree as well. Only issue is not everyone has a mic. And sometimes it's faster than the pre-programed voice commands. *Shrugs*

What he is suggesting is more along the lines of distant contacts being obscured by jamming.  A larger target would have a larger radar cross section and thus more energy would return to the receiver.  In its simplest form, jamming is a function of hitting the receiver with more signal energy than the emitter generates.  Thus it is easier to "hide" an object that normally reflects less energy.

Would this allow lighter Mechs to be invisible in all circumstances?  No, but it would assist them in masking their movements if done properly.

All this talk about hiding seems to stem from my fog of war statement so I'll address it from that angle.

I suggested fog of war for the alternative version of the world map because in that design you would control your mech as if you were playing Mechwarrior Crescent Hawks Revenge, Grand Theft Auto 1 or Super MArio 64. In those games you can see everything around so well it makes first person view obsolete. Fog of war is there to mitigate that balance problem between different view modes. But let's forget about that for now since turning the world map into an isometric version of the first person game is beyond the interests of the developers.


As for your points about how electronic warfare should work in general I sort of agree with the growing consensus so far that no vehicle should be rendered invisibile unless minmetic armor is going to be introduced. The clans to my knowledge still have such machines that can bend light around them from the Star League Exodus, but they are very rare. Eventually Comstar and the Draconis Combine will be able to produce minmetic capable materials for battle armor, soon after the truce line is established, so this tech while rare in the IS isn't completely beyond them to have. Personally I think we should avoid having minmetic suits and armor in the game for the time being. Many games just get screwed up as hardware changes rendering stealth materials like that useless.

Now I said 'sort of' agree for a reason. Mechs were able to mask their signatures well enough to obscure details on what type of machine they were until a pilot was in visual range. I think EW should allow for that type of invisbiliity if one side makes really good use of electronic warfare tools bettter than their opponent.

Swissjak - In regards to your point about having only using nav points with a tag filled with 30 characters try visualizing in your head how that works. For some people they love getting that level of detail, for others thats just terrible. 30 characters could explaining that a power generator has to be taken out to turn off local turrets and then breach the wall could easily be replaced with two picutres. The First picture could have the number 1 next to a fireball and the second picture could have a number 2 with a lightning bolt. 1 Means first objective, fireball means destroy, 2 means second objective and lightning means breach and move past/to here.
Ofcourse people may have different ideas on what could be used as better visual aids and that's why 'm hoping for a consensus to be formed on details like that.


Players should have options.



Could you give us some direction then on what specifics would you be interested on discussing on with the community? If for instance you gave us a basic idea of where the UI was going and you asked us what we would prefer as visual aids could save some time for you.

We always did and still will in the future - when there are topics occuring which require input.
Other than that: feel free to keep posting suggestions, that's what most others in this subsection of the forum did as well.
Sometimes we pick up suggestions when we read them.

A fireball could be used as a generic symbol for attack though the generator symbol shouldn't be neccessary. The fireball tag should force the generator you have to be attacked to be highlighted as the same color as the fireball.

I was thinking of the lightning because it is similar to the fireball in conveying an image of destruction but also a sense of direction since lightning bolts are shaped more similarily with arrows.

Yet who thinks like that commonly?

Maybe a better system is to just put trailing arcs on any symbol. So a shield tag tells a player to defend here while a shield tag with a trailing arc would indicate a direction of moving in thi direction while/after defending here. A trailing arc would be more universal in applying directional cues.

I like the idea of having a pre-made set of graphic icons that depict what type of nav point it is... This keeps the system very simple; no long strings you have to read - all info you need is gathered in a quick glance. The icon itself should contain graphics that make the type intuitive just like your example of the fireball and lightning bolt. These things will be in the manual so players will know what they are prior to any mission. They could be added on the fly by one of the leaders or pre-set prior to mission start.

What would be a good first step is to define ALL the different types of nav points that you would like to see in the mod. Group them into main types with many sub-types. For example:

ATTACK

• Destroy
• Breach

DEFEND

• Area
• Building
• Person

PATROL

• Area
• Between 2 Points (Start & End Points Provided)

NAVIGATE

• To This Point

... and so forth. Once the list has been completed then we come up with graphics to represent them that are intuitive to most players.