Recently I’ve added a very simple GUI system to handle the interfaces for Consoles to the prototype I have in development. I haven’t released this prototype just yet, probably over the next few days once I sort out some other blocking issues.
What are Consoles?
Consoles are the computer terminals placed around the ship that players can use to monitor and interact with the various ship systems such as power, life support, navigation, propulsion, weapons and shields.
The various systems can be selected via the tabs at the top of the console window however not all systems will be accessible at all times. If a particular console is not connected to a particular system via a command conduit (same principles as the power conduits discussed in the blog about power I wrote previously) then players will not be able to interact with them (or only in a limited capacity).
What does the power screen show?
Here is the current power screen:
As you can see, it shows the layout of the ship with the power conduit network overlayed on it. The colours of the conduits depict the status of the conduits: Damaged, Unpowered and Powered. The blue squares are the power storage units which is where the power comes from. The other green/gray squares represent the various modules which use power around the ship.
This screen is good for quickly gauging how much of the ship is unpowered and where repairs need to be made in order to restore power flow. If the ship is damaged and cannot enter FTL, one reason may be that the FTL modules (the top and bottom banks of squares on the right of the ship above) are not receiving power and are therefore inoperable.
This screen is updated in real-time, so if events are occurring (or other players are fixing conduits in the far off future when Adrift is multiplayer) then you’ll see the power status change immediately.
What can players do on the power screen?
Since a high priority of Adrift is to enable the player to control their environment, players are able to control power distribution and power usage of modules from this screen.
Simply by left or right clicking you can remotely turn a module on or off. Anything which uses power can be controlled in this way, from Life Support modules to FTL engines. One other thing that is controllable are Relays. Relays control the flow of power through them and so if you want to cut off the power to a section of the ship intentionally you can switch off the relays leading to that section to achieve that.
In conclusion
This is just the first screen for consoles that I’ve implemented but I think it’s addressed the requirements perfectly. In the future when ships are much, much larger it will require reworking to enable panning and zooming of the ship diagram, but that’s not something which will be required for this prototype.
