Author Topic: Fitting Screen Devblog  (Read 13579 times)

Offline Mangala

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Fitting Screen Devblog
« on: February 14, 2009, 03:50:46 PM »
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new fitting screen in apocrypha
reported by CCP Fendahl | 2009.02.14 14:31:56 | NEW | Comments

CCP Sharq and I have been working on Apocrypha as part of the mythical UI team. Essentially we form a small team creating new UI designs and reviewing the UI as needed. Being a UI design team only, we coordinate with the various scrum teams to get the designs and improvements implemented. This structure has given us the needed flexibility to adapt to the UI requirements of the scrum teams so far.

One of the biggest changes, UI-wise is the redesign of the fitting screen. With the introduction of Tech 3 ships with sub-systems, we decided it was time for an overhaul. As sub-systems change the look of Tech 3 ships, it would be useful to be able to see how the ship changes as you fit different sub-systems. At the same time we wanted a unique interface rather than another Excel-in-space window. With this in mind, we came up with a new design. We arrange the modules, rigs and sub-systems in a ring around the ship (codename: Stargate, and later: Viewmaster 2000), with collapsible side panels for item selection and ship statistics.

The ring has gauges running along the outer edge, with readouts for CPU, powergrid and calibration. The representation of the modules is now closer to that in space, with respect to charges and offlining. Modules that accept charges have a bar along the outer edge of the module slot, representing the percentage of the capacity that has been loaded. Hovering over a module or the area below it will bring up an icon menu extending from the module towards the center of the ring.



Item Selection Panel

The item panel has collapsible sections for the item browser and for all the bays on the ship being fitted (e.g. cargo and drone bay). The item browser provides a unified mechanism for browsing hangars in the station such that the item hangar, ship hangar and corporation hangar are part of the same structure. The different hangars are browsed in the same window, rather than opening a new window for every sub-folder, using a bread-crumb trail for navigation.

Statistics Panel

The statistics panel is arranged into a number of sub-panels describing different aspects of the ship. Each of these panels can be collapsed to conserve space. Since the statistic panel now packs more information than before, it was necessary to condense the information as much as possible to fit the available space. As a result, labels are generally only available on mouse over. While this increases the barrier to entry when learning how to fit a ship for the first time, we also think that the fitting screen is a critically important interface that needs to show all the relevant numbers.

The defense sub-panel is arranged in a matrix: resistance type vs. defense layer (shield/armor/hull). The top-left corner shows the base statistics for the primary repair system: passive shield, active shield, armor or hull. If more than one repair module is fitted, the number of modules is indicated similar to weapons groups. By default the best repair system is shown, but any of the repair systems can be selected from the drop-down box, if further details are needed.

Saving Fittings

One of the biggest improvements in the fitting screen is that it can now be saved and loaded. This makes it very easy to switch between different fittings for different mission profiles. Fittings are automatically archived by ship class and race, with options for importing and exporting the fitting database. Corporation members with sufficient roles can also store corporation fittings which automatically become available to all the corporation members.

Current State on SiSi

Currently the fitting screen is not in its final state on Sisi and we are committed to finishing the implementation and sorting out usability issues. By far, the main complaint about the current implementation is the fitting screen is not movable, which is an issue especially in lower resolutions.

As all clients will be running Premium (light or normal) come Apocrypha, the Core team has worked hard to move the 3D rendering to "Scene 2". This has made it possible to render several different scenes at once (PIP, or "picture in picture"), which opens up a number of awesome possibilities. The Core and t3ch tech teams have committed to making the fitting screen the first PIP interface, allowing us to make the fitting screen movable (and possibly resizable) while still retaining the ship in the middle of the circle.

We are very interested in hearing what you think about the new interfaces in Apocrypha and would love to get feedback and suggestions. Looking ahead, we have loads of improvements queued up for the fitting screen (the statistics panel in particular) to take it to the next level. Next stop: Mozo!
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Offline Mangala

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Re: Fitting Screen Devblog
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2009, 03:51:49 PM »
Comments thread link: http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=998906

Overall, I kinda like the new ui, it does need to be scableable like all the other windows though.
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Offline Caradir

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Re: Fitting Screen Devblog
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2009, 04:30:34 PM »
i do like it but the fact you cant move it means that my item/ship containers go over the bottom so i  have to resize them  (which i dont want to do, i like having 2 rows of stuff along my screen while docked), so please make it moveable thank you.
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Offline Rubino

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Re: Fitting Screen Devblog
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2009, 06:14:28 PM »
It is very nice.  The ring partly fills up around the edge based on the PG/CPU which is nice - but not particularly clear.
Would be handy if it also showed the number of charges in guns/launchers also.

You know where the saved fittings end up?



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Offline Jarkko

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Re: Fitting Screen Devblog
« Reply #4 on: February 14, 2009, 06:24:49 PM »
Oooo, nice! I also like the fact that you can save and load fittings, that is *very* neat :)

Offline Mangala

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Re: Fitting Screen Devblog
« Reply #5 on: February 14, 2009, 06:34:33 PM »
It is very nice.  The ring partly fills up around the edge based on the PG/CPU which is nice - but not particularly clear.
Would be handy if it also showed the number of charges in guns/launchers also.

You know where the saved fittings end up?

Havent found where theyve saved them when i click save for both corp and personal. I'll look more after the rugby.
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Offline Rubino

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Re: Fitting Screen Devblog
« Reply #6 on: February 14, 2009, 09:18:39 PM »
Might only be internal to CCP - the ones saved as corp are available to corp members immediately which makes me think it's server side.



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Offline Bethor

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Re: Fitting Screen Devblog
« Reply #7 on: February 15, 2009, 08:11:45 AM »
does anyone have any idea what the 1 till 5 on the screen do? (in the setup thingy lower right)
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Offline Warcold

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Re: Fitting Screen Devblog
« Reply #8 on: February 15, 2009, 10:41:49 AM »
my guess is those numbers are for the 5 T3 components.

all in all i am very dissatisfied with the new fitting screen, major reasons have been mentioned: not scalable and not movable. other things i dont like: weps in the highslots now totally disappear under the ammo, so you can not clearly see what you actually fitted there. the other thing is the statistics: the old fitting screen gave me a clear overview, the new one divided everything in different little menus, which is really unclear IMHO.

guess I vote for excel in space


Quote
You know, having read a bit more of this thread and taken a bit more time to consider how I really feel about the new fitting screen, I pretty much agree with everything this man had to say. You've committed an atrocity against gameplay, if you want to sacrifice gameplay for fancy fancy graphics, Crysis is thataway.

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It's as if you took the old UI, cut a hole in the middle and made it five times less user friendly. Pray tell, what is the big fascination with being able to see your ship while you fit? Do you think we're going to somehow forget that, yes, this is a goddamn Apocalypse we are playing with now?

    I feel confused when the UI Team goes poking into one of the last places that needs it. Name any other UI element, and I'll tell you just how much worse it is than Quantum Rise fitting window.

    For the record, this is what you did wrong:

    1. Transparency looks nice, but isn't user friendly.

    2. Remove module and Info button trails are annoying and redundant.

    3. Can't have more than one left-side menu open at once; all menus collapsed by default.

    4. CPU / Powergrid bars are blended into the UI with no obvious start/end points; too large and entirely worthless without readout.

    5. Drop shadow and bevel emboss on the fitting ring? Really?

    6. The hardpoints graphic is not intuitive, takes up too much space, and looks out of place. What do the grey circles represent? Hardpoints left? Hardpoints used?

    7. Small autocannon and standard launcher icons in my fitting window, when you have none fitted. Newbs will love that one.

    8. You made the module icons smaller and blurrier, and the green 'active' button as visually intrusive as possible.

    9. Ammo now takes up the entire turret space, making it harder to see what guns you have fitted as you're cycling through multiple ships.

    10. No drag, no minimize, no close, no resize.

    11. No cargo capacity readout to show what you have and what you used.

    12. Same thing for drones, add the missing drone bandwidth on top.

    13. Can't see or make drone groupings in fitting window, the most obvious new feature you could have added.

    14. The colored backgrounds on the resistance readouts are useless because you don't know where they start or end.

    15. What is that circular capacitor graphic good for, exactly?

    16. Your free floating and icons around the ring only blend into my station environments, and my eye has to keep straining to spot them while the strobe lights move around.

    17. The short animation you get when opening the fitting window is lame and pointless.

    18. UI behaviour changes depending on whether the side panels are open. Sometimes you can click-drag to rotate camera, other times the mouse gets stuck. Completely unintuitive.

    19. Your fitting window blocks parts of my neocom and station panel on the lowest resolution.

    20. It's completely out of place with the rest of the UI, and whether or not you intend to change the rest in time, the fact remains you have two different UI designs and behaviours for the duration instead of one logical theme and set of behaviors.

    21. You're still missing vital information from this new fitting window, just as the old one. I still have to 'show info' on my ship to get the whole picture.

    22. You added new information with hitpoint calculations, but you force the user to select from an obscure dropdown window instead of doing a simple check to see what sort of setup that person has.

    23. The left-side panel boxes are mixing two types of information: stuff in station and stuff in your ship with no obvious distinction between the two.

    24. The left-side panel boxes are tiny, and worthless for scrolling through a mountain of assets, some in containers and other ships. They don't even extend fully in the horizontal and waste space.

    25. This design sucks bacause Stargate sucks.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2009, 10:55:22 AM by Warcold »
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Offline Rubino

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Re: Fitting Screen Devblog
« Reply #9 on: February 15, 2009, 11:55:45 AM »
It is pretty but keep in mind that it's not complete.
As it's mostly GUI it shouldn't be that hard for them to alter it to make it more friendly & intuitative.



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Offline Rubino

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Re: Fitting Screen Devblog
« Reply #10 on: February 17, 2009, 07:59:27 AM »
The devs have (finally) given some feedback on the extensive comments about the new fittings panel: http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=998906&page=6#171



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Offline Mangala

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Re: Fitting Screen Devblog
« Reply #11 on: February 18, 2009, 09:46:34 AM »
New fitting screen is better now.

Its now movable, uses that picnpic thingy they mentioned and is no longer transparent.
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Offline Rubino

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Re: Fitting Screen Devblog
« Reply #12 on: February 18, 2009, 09:55:03 AM »
OOo - new build :)




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Offline Mangala

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Re: Fitting Screen Devblog
« Reply #13 on: February 18, 2009, 10:29:31 AM »
"May God stand between you and harm in all the empty places you must walk."


Offline Rubino

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Re: Fitting Screen Devblog
« Reply #14 on: February 18, 2009, 10:31:23 AM »
Is the PiP working yet?



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