0.4 Cockpit Discussion

What do you want to see in Armagetron soon? Any new feature ideas? Let's ponder these ground breaking ideas...

What are the most valuable cockpit elements (besides rubber)?

ping
11
12%
speed
12
13%
brakes
21
23%
friends/enemies
12
13%
framerate
9
10%
score
9
10%
clock
5
5%
fastest
2
2%
MINI MAP
11
12%
 
Total votes: 92

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sinewav
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0.4 Cockpit Discussion

Post by sinewav »

Consider this thread for user feedback.

Besides rubber, what are the most essential HUD elements for competitive tronning? Also, what are popular elements for DF/HR/Fort/Sumo? Why?
Last edited by sinewav on Fri Oct 16, 2015 8:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
Word
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Re: 0.4 Cockpit Discussion

Post by Word »

To me, it's the minimap (in all server types). I don't look at virtually all else except rubber and brakes (but the brake meter's importance is marginal to me; it's good that it's small). Sometimes it would be useful to know the total number of rounds that are left of the match/the points required to win. One can easily calculate both, but I guess it would give players a bigger sense of urgency if they had two big bars on top which are about to meet in the middle, or something like that.
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sinewav
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Re: 0.4 Cockpit Discussion

Post by sinewav »

Ah, I forgot about the map. I've added it to the list.

I guess I would also like to hear feedback on what parts of the screen you expect to see certain elements.
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breeze
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Re: 0.4 Cockpit Discussion

Post by breeze »

Copying my post from another thread...

I really like the essential series, including rain's essential and flex's essential remix. I like flex's a bit more because it has more information without being cluttered. I would really like to see something like one of those included with 0.4. I like them because they are minimalistic, but contain all the vital information while giving you the most space to view the game. Please consider something like these.

http://wiki.armagetronad.org/images/5/5 ... win%29.png
http://wiki.armagetronad.org/images/a/a ... hot_78.png

For the love of all things good, please make the map toggle-able.
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ConVicT
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Re: 0.4 Cockpit Discussion

Post by ConVicT »

I'd like to list these and what I think of them:

ping - I could do without this easily, because I usually use the tab key.
speed - Personally it doesn't help me, I can judge how fast I'm going. (I could see it being helpful for def, maybe)
brakes -This helps me sometimes, but only because I use toggle brake and it reminds me to press brake again for a refill.
friends/enemies - One that I find very useful in fort when I'm not paying enough attention. It saves people having to spam "ATTACK" at me :)
framerate - Again, pretty useless. I can tell if I have bad fps.
score - I could do without this easily, because I usually use the tab key.
clock - To see when deathzone is due? Never used it.
fastest - Totally useless IMO. You can be faster than the fastest and this is telling you *but he was faster at one point*.
MINI MAP - Useful in the same kind of way as friends/enemies for me. I personally find it annoying.

What do you guys think about them?
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Re: 0.4 Cockpit Discussion

Post by Word »

I do find the clock useful, just not for competitive gaming.
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Re: 0.4 Cockpit Discussion

Post by [Anonymous] »

Coming from an experience DF'er, prob the only one tgat chrcks this forums besides Light, none of the above is important tbh. Only element that is listed here that may have a little something is ping. That 8 rubber can turn into 7 and cause an early death.

Sumo on the other hand would be Speed and Brakes.

Mini Map is useless imo.
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Re: 0.4 Cockpit Discussion

Post by Monkey »

I use most of the cockpit elements except for the following:

The huge analog clock on the 0.4 default cockpit is both redundant (there is a digital clock too) and annoying (and it doesn't even work with alpha blending turned off like I have in my setup).
I don't currently use the minimap at all although I can see how it would be useful on some maps in CTWF, for example.
breeze wrote:For the love of all things good, please make the map toggle-able.
Agreed. In fact, I'm wondering whether every cockpit element should be toggle-able, if possible, because different game modes require different cockpit settings. However, most of the other cockpit elements aren't as large as the minimap so it's not as big a deal.

Some cockpit elements don't work as desired in some game modes, for example, in sumo and fortress, the team score would be more useful than the personal score. This is even true in at least some non-team sumo servers, where the team score is the score that matters.

Finally, as puzzle/breeze said, I feel we need different full cockpit setups available in 0.4, such as Flex's, etc.
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vov
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Re: 0.4 Cockpit Discussion

Post by vov »

I'd rank them like this (mostly in respect to competitive fort/sumo):

Essential:
brakes - I brake a lot and brake is important in fort/sumo.
friends/enemies - How the grand situation looks is very important in fort. Also useful to know if your partner has died in a tst.
speed - Lets me know what kind of stuff i can do. Kinda goes together with brakes. I could probably do without this though if I had to.

Important:
minimap - Looking at this to see if the def is down, easy as that. I use a rather large FOV so glancing at my zone makes it hard for me to tell. Could do without it, but it's convenient. I toggle it off in sumo. Opposed to most common HUDs, I actually have this on the top right which frees up lots of useful viewing space on the bottom.

Potentially:
fastest - The "fastest speed of the round" is meaningless in fort. There's also the possibility of showing the "currently fastest" which may have some use. Still not very important though.
ping + score - Tab key is quick and convenient enough for me; also lets you see more details. Not really needed on the HUD for fort/sumo imo.

Non-competitive:
framerate - I got a pretty good PC so in an actual round it's not important for me. Useful for configuring graphics settings though.
clock - In a competitive match I've not used it (in CTF for the deathzone R's team uses DGM's stopwatch :D). I like having a (small, digital) clock around the bottom corner though.


Also:
Word wrote:Sometimes it would be useful to know the total number of rounds that are left of the match/the points required to win. One can easily calculate both, but I guess it would give players a bigger sense of urgency if they had two big bars on top which are about to meet in the middle, or something like that.
Now that's something that sounds cool and useful and I've not thought of it before. Should I have a go at it?
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Re: 0.4 Cockpit Discussion

Post by Word »

Do feel free to go ahead. :-) I'm not sure how it would look best - either really on top of the screen or just on top/bottom of the minimap so it's less obstrusive. Come to think of it, IMO a lot of HUD information should be moved to a place similar to the scoreboard, that can be opened and closed without switching to chatbot mode.

(Off-topic: By the way, it would be cool if Arma had some kind of detective mode that works like the moviepacks - you could just toggle the texture of the trails to make them transparent with a single key...not sure if that deserves a feature request, since it can be done using instant chats and moviepacks, only problem is that everything else changes too. But I just thought of that now and had to write it down somewhere.)
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sinewav
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Re: 0.4 Cockpit Discussion

Post by sinewav »

Great feedback so far. I wouldn't mind hearing what parts of the screen you expect to see certain things. I'm going to be making some cockpits over the next few months and this will involve a lot of research from Arma and other games.
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Magi
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Re: 0.4 Cockpit Discussion

Post by Magi »

I basically agree with everything vov, minimap is nice in fort if you don't want to glance or if you have a really zoomed in FOV it's useful, brakes are important but I feel more often than not I have a "feel" for how much I have left based on how long/much I've been tapping them. For people with toggle brake I guess it wouldn't be too important. My minimap is in bottom right; I'll post a screenshot of my actual cockpit I use for anyone interested in what it looks like.

http://imgur.com/a/KW8xx

The first has time and FPS in top right and the large meter on the bottom is my rubber, the smaller one above it is brakes remaining, and the meter to the bottom left is my speed, then the second screenshot shows fastest speed and max rubber instead of FPS/Time top right.
Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image
Image

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ConVicT
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Re: 0.4 Cockpit Discussion

Post by ConVicT »

Your client looks weird, to me.
Off topic, but can you see grey zones yet? :?
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Magi
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Re: 0.4 Cockpit Discussion

Post by Magi »

ConVicT wrote:Your client looks weird, to me.
Off topic, but can you see grey zones yet? :?
You mean zones that are darker than hex 808080? Nope! They appear very transparent to me, that may also be do to my zone_alpha settings, not actually sure. Also it's usually only a problem in Happy Fun Time, most other servers like sumo I can see them.

As for my client looking weird do you just mean like the bikes or just the entire thing seems weird
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ConVicT
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Re: 0.4 Cockpit Discussion

Post by ConVicT »

Magi wrote: As for my client looking weird do you just mean like the bikes or just the entire thing seems weird
Just that this:
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Is the norm for me in 0.4
Is the norm for me in 0.4
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