UNION is a cooperative spaceship simulator where up to five people work together to control a warship.
These past two weeks I've been working on the core of the Engineering UI, the "Power Systems Wheel", which allows you to route power around the ship.
The wheel gives you a lot of flexibility in how you power your ship. The image below contains examples of what these configurations might be. The description of these configs is contained in the image.
You can create config presets and switch between them instantly, giving the Engineer an ability to plan ahead and be prepared for almost any situation.
Thank you for reading.
I'd appreciate any feedback you could give in the comments.
All the best,
Mark
You could (in extreme circumstances?) force the player to route power via adjacent systems instead of/in addition to just using other nodes.
The icons are great but could perhaps do with a little more distinction between weapons and (I'm assuming) missiles? Also, took me a while to work out which was SR and LR sensors, still not entirely convinced I've guessed right! After playing a few times, I can't imagine it'd be an issue but that initial clarity would make for a minutely more smooth learning curve!
Great suggestion, I do like the idea of re-routing power through other systems. I'll have to figure out a nice way of doing it between completely separate systems (not just adjacent as that isn't a huge benefit, it is likely that they can be connected to the same nodes anyway). So if you lost a few nodes on one side of the ship you could power systems on that side from systems on the other sides.
The three bullets icon is for (turret based) weapons and the single torpedo is for torpedo/missiles. I found it really hard to come up with icons for sensors, the short range is supposed to be a radar screen and the long range is some kind of satelite-like dish. Do you have any suggestions on how I can improve them? I'm genuinely interested in input from others.
I really love this idea of having presets. It saves the scramble for the engineer in those tight moments when he has to reassign power while at the same time giving him alot of power in the push of a button. Very interesting.
I really wanted to give Engineering the ability to strategise, by planning ahead, rather than just reacting to situations all the time. I feel like Presets give it that.
I would recommend, at least the option to color coat systems. That way at a glance an engineer could figure out the config, and divert power to what systems is needed. Combat systems could be red, engines could be yellow, shields could be blue etc.
Absolutely, I'll look at how I can incorporate colour coding into the design.
Thank you for the suggestion.