View extra unit/building details before building begins.

[jammyjamjamman]

This problem came to my attention when me, tomreyn and titi-son were playing the latest prax game (0.5.9). titi-son started to build a new building that was recently added, and it was only after it was built could he see that it could store gold.

Currently, when you hover over one of the "build a particular building" selections, all you are told is its cost. What I recommend is that when you hover over one of these selections is that it also shows you what you would see if you were to select an already built corresponding building (so hp, storage etc.). Except, you don't want to show information such as "Kills" (arrow towers show this when selected).

[MoLAoS]

there is almost no video game ever that shows that info. if you are so new to a content pack that you don't know what stuff does, you probably can't make effective choices based on that info anyways.

[Ishmaru]

there is almost no video game ever that shows that info. if you are so new to a content pack that you don't know what stuff does, you probably can't make effective choices based on that info anyways.

Just cause it was never done before doesn't mean it shouldn't.

What I think we should plan is, what Info should be shown and when? There are a lot of possible info that could be displayed depending on what the structure is used for:

Cost?
HP?
Armor Type?
Armor value?
Storage?
Resourced Produced?
Sight/Attack range?
Attack?
Attack field?
Attack Type?
Attacks boosts?  (Range, Boost Given, Units Effected)
Units Produced?

Obviously that's information overload and most aren't useful for all structures. EX: You wouldn't care how far a castle might see but for a defense that is more important.

Or maybe an implementation of a translatable description  for the structure/unit would work better?

[jammyjamjamman]

Actually, lots of video games tend to have written in great detail what a unit/spell/attack does before you use it, often too much detail to read at the time. I reckon MG could potentially do a better job of showing the important points of a unit/building but without having to read a large paragraph which isn't sensible during a huge battle.

Planning what information should be shown at what times is definitely a good idea, but not too many points at a time because no one will then have the time to read any of the points during a battle.

[tomreyn]

I'd also like to see this done, but I think that both choosing the right things to display in a way that it works generally, and the implementation itself can be quite tricky.

[andy_5995]

titi just taught me today how to see the attack strength of a unit: by hovering over the "attack" icon of that unit. Anyone else miss this or am I just blind??

[jammyjamjamman]

titi just taught me today how to see the attack strength of a unit: by hovering over the "attack" icon of that unit. Anyone else miss this or am I just blind??

I did see this info, but it's not very obvious. The extra information I wanted to see in the "hover" was what resources the building can store, so I know e.g. to build a blacksmith near a forest.

[andy_5995]

I did see this info, but it's not very obvious. The extra information I wanted to see in the "hover" was what resources the building can store, so I know e.g. to build a blacksmith near a forest.

I'd have to agree.

titi just taught me today how to see the attack strength of a unit: by hovering over the "attack" icon of that unit.

And that doesn't help a player compare the attack strength of a unit against that of an enemy's.

[titi_son]

I think the attack strength is obvious enough. At least i had no problem to find it.
Maybe we should change the dots to a minus (so "100-300" instead of "100...300"), but thats all.
The main problem is, that this number does not state a lot.
The actual damage output is heavily dependent on the damage type of the attack and the armor type of the target.
For example "slashing" damage deals only half of its value to units with "stone" armor.
This is why stickfighters are very ineffective against buildings and catapults can easily destroy a building (well this fact + splash damage)
The only place where you can look up those values is the megapack.xml
I have no idea how you could inform the player about this values. You can't really print them under the damage value because there are up to 5 of them. Or would this be fine?
I think if we would print all information about a unit, there would be a very great amount of text on the screen.

[andy_5995]

This is an example of how it's done in 0 A.D.

In the 2nd image, the info is displayed when right-clicking on the unit icon in the center dashboard. Works for enemy units as well.

https://imgur.com/a/JiiJ4ey