Buttoned unbuttoned status

[Georgie]

It sure would be helpful to have an "unbuttoned/buttoned" status display in the UI. Anybody else agree?

[Bradley Dick]

It does, it's just hard to spot. There's a subtle difference in the appearance of the Hide, Deploy, Unbutton and Open Up. The text is highlighted or blacked out depending on which setting it is.

[Erwin]

You need Juju's interface mod which makes the buttons' position very clear.

[Amizaur]

I agree that it would help me a lot if the "buttoned" status was more easily recognised, than now.

[winkelried]

I agree that it would help me a lot if the "buttoned" status was more easily recognised, than now.

+1 from me.

[Brindlewolf]

Agree.After moving from CMSF to CMBN and playing it for the first time.My tanks wouldn't react properly and panic when moving to engage.Hadn't realised tanks started unbuttoned and my commanders were getting sniped.

Tanks in CMSF always started buttoned up.Maybe my fault though for not paying attention in the set-up phase.

[Vinnart]

This has been suggested way back. In looking at the space available in the UI I thought of this design. For tanks the button/unbutton status would show where floor on, or passenger status is in the graphic. The soldier experience could be condensed into the current unused square along with all the other modifiers. In this case I am showing it as a colored square with a letter “E” for elite, “V” for veteran ect… Also shown is the addition of color indicators for ammo for quicker situational awareness so one does not have to read the integers unless necessary. Green would mean ammo 50% to 100% typical full amount. Yellow would mean moderate 25% to 49% amount typical capacity. Red would mean low/out 0% to 24%. Incases where a weapon is still being held, but has no ammo it would show Red, and 0 amount. Plenty of times I have missed my Tommy gunners being out of ammo, and sent on an attack with nothing but their dick in their hand. I think it would be better to keep 45cal ammo, or any ammo that is out to show with a Red indicator and 0 rather than the ammo disappearing from the ammo panel as is currently done. A Red indicator will alert at a glance. The color and amounts are not accurate in my graphic, but you get the idea.

[GerryCMBB]

I really like that floor label for infantry too.

Gerry

[Erwin]

+2 for Vinnart's concept.

[Georgie]

This has been suggested way back. In looking at the space available in the UI I thought of this design. For tanks the button/unbutton status would show where floor on, or passenger status is in the graphic. The soldier experience could be condensed into the current unused square along with all the other modifiers. In this case I am showing it as a colored square with a letter “E” for elite, “V” for veteran ect… Also shown is the addition of color indicators for ammo for quicker situational awareness so one does not have to read the integers unless necessary. Green would mean ammo 50% to 100% typical full amount. Yellow would mean moderate 25% to 49% amount typical capacity. Red would mean low/out 0% to 24%. Incases where a weapon is still being held, but has no ammo it would show Red, and 0 amount. Plenty of times I have missed my Tommy gunners being out of ammo, and sent on an attack with nothing but their dick in their hand. I think it would be better to keep 45cal ammo, or any ammo that is out to show with a Red indicator and 0 rather than the ammo disappearing from the ammo panel as is currently done. A Red indicator will alert at a glance. The color and amounts are not accurate in my graphic, but you get the idea.

Good idea except for the colors. There are a lot of green/red color blind people out there so how about Green for enough ammo yellow for out of ammo but leave out the red or Blue for enough and red for out of ammo and leave out the green.

[Georgie]

Passenger status for vehicles would help also. Its hard to tell a lot of the time which vehicle contains which passengers.

[Georgie]

You need Juju's interface mod which makes the buttons' position very clear.

Thanks Erwin I'll give it a try.

[Georgie]

You need Juju's interface mod which makes the buttons' position very clear.

Tried it and it makes the button position very clear. The position was very subtle before and I thought that it was just a toggle with no position indication. Thank you JuJu.

[Erwin]

Re the color blind issue, it is clear we will ALWAYS need a mod option for that.

[Childress]

Passenger status for vehicles would help also. Its hard to tell a lot of the time which vehicle contains which passengers.

Right. Even better would be, imo, a provision to color code the divided teams of a squad. I'm currently playing Contact at Golleville, an excellent scenario, in which all the American squads at setup are split. Not too onerous since this is a smallish battle but it struck me how much more user friendly it would be if, when selecting a team, the icon flashed, say, blue, instead of the default orange. That would reconcile the indolent majority (?) to the concept of breaking down every single squad on the map which, as the battle expands, can end up feeling like herding gerbils.

[Childress]

Re the color blind issue, it is clear we will ALWAYS need a mod option for that.

That may require a class action lawsuit, Erwin.

[Erwin]

Or an app...

lol

[Vinnart]

Good idea except for the colors. There are a lot of green/red color blind people out there so how about Green for enough ammo yellow for out of ammo but leave out the red or Blue for enough and red for out of ammo and leave out the green.

Georgie, I have had this discussion here before about color use for quicker mind response. I do sympathies with people with disabilities, but you can’t design for the 10% minority otherwise there would be no staircases in the world, and the flight decks of aircraft carriers would not function as efficient as they do. The minority must adapt to the majority, but in cases where the game deals with color it can be modded to accommodate. The game already uses red, yellow, green color scheme symbolism so there is nothing new in that regard that isn’t already there now. For the color blind a mod could be easily made using shades of blue, or whatever one desires. Modding is a beautiful thing as it allows one to cater things to their preference, however it has to be there in the first place in order to mod. On this we must rely on Battlefront to implement. What I am presenting is not new as color code combined with integers, floor on, passenger, and buttoned/unbuttoned were all features in CMx1 UI.

With RT play the “at a glance” is essential to take unnecessary frustrations out of RT play for smoother game play. Doing so allows the player to focus on the fun stuff, which is the plotting of tactics, strategy, and combat.