Remove the maximum unit cost

[Arreon]

One thing I've noticed when I'm playing T3 is that there is a unit cost limit of 1000. Once players can afford that price tag (usually late T2 - mid T3), they can throw caution to the winds when designing new units.

Removing the unit cost limit will encourage players with a lot of spare power to watch what they spend. Also, it will use up more of the extra power that causes itself to lose value after a while.

Are there any flaws with this idea?

[Zarel]

I like this idea.

[Avestron]

As a sub-suggestion may I suggest colour coding graphical coding costs?

We all know the yellow bar but it gets confusing when its maxed out. Take a page from beat-em-up health bars and either overlap the current bar with another bar of a different colour (red > orange > yellow > green > light blue) or introduce bullets to represent full bars.

I personally prefer the former option because it could also apply to power bars.

A third option would be a return to numericals to represent cost.

[Per]

One thing I've noticed when I'm playing T3 is that there is a unit cost limit of 1000. Once players can afford that price tag (usually late T2 - mid T3), they can throw caution to the winds when designing new units.

This limitation is visual only. If you notice how much power you actually end up paying for it, you see that unit costs can go past 1000.

It would be really nice to fix the bars that go up to the visual limit, though. This also happens in other cases, I'm especially annoyed by capped research costs for example.

[Per]

I'd appreciate if some of the more artistic types around here could come up with a new bar for the design screen to indicate a "wrap around" or otherwise "over the normal limits" look.

I have made a quick fix in #994 that simply displays the correct cost and power in numbers, even if the bar still shows the wrong graphic.

[Avestron]

I am guessing that the tiles for researches and units are pre-edited to include energy bars? They aren't overlaid or anything?

[Per]

They are overlaid.

[silberfuchs]

I'd appreciate if some of the more artistic types around here could come up with a new bar for the design screen to indicate a "wrap around" or otherwise "over the normal limits" look.

I think Avestron hit the nail on the head here. A color coding system would be best. It is incredibly simple to implement, looks nice, and is easy to quickly distinguish a rough cost of the unit. It also could be looped around to create a limitless graph.

Basically, 0-1000 would be yellow (as it is now). 1001-2000 would be a full yellow bar with a green overlayed second bar. 2001-3000 would be a full green bar, with a blue overlay, etc. Red should probably be avoided (as it is already used to represent when you don't have enough power to produce that unit).

[Avestron]

What I was thinking is replacing the red for negatives with a dusky grey bar and red font.

As for the bar I was thinking of progressively thinner and 'cooler' colours.

Red = 17 pixels
orange = 15 pixels
yellow = 13 pixels
green = 11 pixels
blue = 9 pixels
sky blue = 7 pixels
pearl blue = 5 pixels
White = 3 pixels

I acknowledge that 17 pixels may be a bit much. A compromise would be 9 pixels in size and would be a one-sided wave format (cut the above bar in half and add any missing pixels at the bottom).

[Per]

If someone can draw it, I can try to implement it (in code).

[Avestron]

If someone can draw it, I can try to implement it (in code).

Here is a slightly simplified version.

If you like I could also stick to a single hue - (dusky yellow to very light yellow) - but this should work for testing.

This would cover 5 bands - 5x the normal amount of power - the grey represents negatives.

I don't really like the rounded corners... will look into it.

[-Kosh-]

I don't really like the rounded corners... will look into it.

Is that not too big and does not follow the correct format?
http://warzone2100.svn.sourceforge.net/ ... iew=markup

[psychopompos]

why not put one small red cheveron at the start of the bar for every 1000 points
have a yellow one for 500
then have the normal bar show the accurate cost beyond those, where a full bar is 500 resource points.

[Avestron]

Here is another variant - with a dark-to-light scale. - thinner but not great on detail.

Isn't this something that in-built programming art options can handle?

[Per]

I'm low on imagination right now. How would it look in practice?