Updating the User InterfaceThe original Starcraft was released back on March 31st, 1998. While the game has been heralded as one of the best RTS titles of all time, the games user interface really shows its age. Over the last decade, the RTS interface has changed and evolved quite a bit. Starcraft 2 will integrate several changes to its interface in order to bring it up to more modern RTS titles. It won’t include every change imaginable, just the ones that won’t cause the fundamental gameplay to be affected. These changes will certainly help reduce the learning curve for newer players and allow seasoned fans to reduce the amount of things they need to worry about and focus more on the battling and economy. I’ve included what I know to be true via developer comments or through screenshots. This list may not include all of the changes to the final game.
I’ll be using the following screenshot to show some of the changes:
It’s quite a battle we have going on here, but more importantly, it shows off several improvements to the UI. The first thing to notice is that the player has a single SCV selected at the current time. A new feature is being shown here as the SCV is being ordered to build multiple structures. The SCV will complete the first structure and then immediately start the next one. You can tell that this is happening by the wire framed green structures in the screenshot. By ordering up several structures to be built in a certain order, it allows the player to concentrate on other tasks at hand, such as the enemy attack he’s facing. It looks as though the SCV will be making a total of four Missle Turrets, assuming it survives the attacking enemy army.
Next let’s focus on the upper left corner:
These are menu commands that can be accessed by pressing the appropriate F# key.
-The F9 key will bring up map objectives such as destroy all enemy buildings, go to X location on map, survive X minutes, ect.
-The F10 key will bring up the menu screen to change the game speed, sound effects, and other options
-The F11 key will bring up alliances. This will allow you to ally other players in skirmishes or unally them to backstab them. Not advised.
-The F12 key gives you access to your races Tech Tree. This is extremely helpful for newer players that haven’t memorized what buildings are needed to make what.
Moving along to the upper right corner:
Starting on the left we have the players current mineral amount, then their vespene gas amount, and finally their current and maximum unit counts. Looks like this player has too much money and not enough units.
In the lower left corner we have the mini map, shown here:
The mini map is used to see what’s going on in the battlefield even if your not focused on it. The mini map is an essential tool of any RTS and games can be won or lost depending on whether your paying attention to it or not. On the mini map, the player’s units are always represented as green, no matter what your actual unit colors wind up being. In this screen shot, the player is the red Terran, but shows up as green in the mini map. The enemy always shows up in the mini map in their actual color, in this case teal.
In addition, when your units fall under attack, the mini map will draw a red box to show you exactly where the attack is taking place. There will also be an audio clue, and upon hearing the warning, the player can press the spacebar to be taken to the last update. This is an important hotkey to remember.
To the right of the mini map are three symbols. The first one up top is a circle which I have no idea what it does. Sorry. The middle symbol can be used to turn the terrain off in the mini map to make it easier to distinguish enemy forces and money on the mini map. The final symbol is another way to assign alliances with other players.
The last thing to note is the SCV symbol located above and to the left of the mini map. This icon tells the player that he has a worker unit that is idle and not doing anything. This player has one unit idle as indicated by the 1 in the lower right corner. If the player clicks on this button, your screen will be immediately focused on that unit. If there are multiple units, the player can cycle through them by continually clicking on the button. If that number is large, you may have finished mining all the money at a location and now have a bunch of idle workers. Remember, idle workers mean no money is coming into the coffers. Make sure to keep your workers busy.
Next, we have the unit box:
This box gives you a wealth of information about your selected unit. This picture shows us the SCV’s hit points, a wire frame of his model, his armor level, his attack level, his kill count, and his type modifiers.
-The hit points let you know how close the unit is away from death.
-The wire frame is a visual indicator to see how damaged a unit is at a glance. The frame goes from green to yellow to red. If you see a bunch of red units, you may want to get them fixed up asap. This is extremely useful when you have multiple units selected in a group and don’t have the time to look at their individual hit points.
-The armor value is the box on the left. Currently, the SCV has an armor level of 0. If you hover the mouse over this button, the armor type will appear. The armor types are light, armored, or building.
-The weapon value is the box to the right of the armor level. If you hover your mouse over this button, the attack strength and modifiers will show up. Had this been a Ghost unit, the attack strength would have displayed as “6 + 12 vs light”.
-The kill count shows how many enemy units this unit has slain. Not much strategic value, just kind of neat to look at.
-The unit type modifiers, if any, are displayed along the bottom. This SCV is classified as Fleshy, Mechanical, and Hover. These can be both good and bad depending on the spells and modifiers of your other units and your enemies units.
-Although it’s difficult to make out in the picture, there is a small number 1 in a box over the unit box to the left of the wire frame. That number can change from 0-9 and represents which group this unit is in. Say you have a group of 30 marines selected. By holding the Ctrl key, you can assign them as a group to any of the number keys. You can even assign the same unit to multiple groups. By tapping the number key that they are assigned to, you can recall the group or center on them at any time. This is essential for controlling large groups of units in the middle of a game. No unit game has been given for group size and as of this writing it is an unlimited selection.
Finally, the lower right corner:
Here we have the unit command window. Any and all commands that you can issue a unit can be found here. All units share the top row of commands which are (from left to right):
-Move without attacking
-Move and attack
-Stop moving
-Patrol from one spot to another attacking enemy units that appear
-Hold position and only attack enemy units within attack range
The next two rows are reserved for special techniques, spells, and abilities for each type of unit. In our example, the second row features the SCV’s ability to repair units and mine resources. On the bottom row, we see that the SCV can build basic and advanced structures.
That’s it for the user interface. There is a lot more to cover, but this is a good stopping point. I’ll update more UI changes in a future update.
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Topic: The Starcraft mega thread - Rising from the ashes. (Read 189929 times)
