I love both types of sci-fi, science fiction and science fantasy (for the people who don't know things like Star Trek is science fiction and things like Star Wars is science fantasy). And as some of you might have noticed on Discord a good bit of some of the things I talk about has to do with the technology level of the people on Em-8ER and what that would really mean in terms of how they would live their lives and how they would fight. Because in my view of things, no matter if the game leans more to the science fiction side or the science fantasy side, the thing that makes or breaks good sci-fi is believable level of technology and a believable way of using such technology (which includes using technology in a way that it was not originally attended for). Now must of this is going to be on the world building and lore side of things. But it would also effect on the players how they play. One of the key things to do is think about what counts as a baseline technology and level of technology. For example, the wheel is a baseline technology as in it is something everyone understands and can make, while things like cars and tanks are a technology level a specific application of the baseline technology because of the fact that you can use the concept if a wheel for things outside of vehicle movement (everything from pulleys to ferris wheels to spinning orbital space stations).
Although this thread is going to be focused on the HUD and UI of the game other topics might pop up from time to time in relation to it. The main goal of this thread is to share ideas for different types of HUDs and IUs for the player to use how they might work in why that make sense, even if it is not 100% scientifically accurate and we have to do a bit of hand waving to make it happen. Because the rule of cool is this a thing. Also there is no one right way to things, there can be different variants of the same thing that works for different people and/or different circumstances that are related to how different people might see things or approach a situation. For example, some people would prefer only having one targeting reticle while some would prefer to have multiple reticles on the screen at the same time with personal preferences and playing styles being a driving force behind how some people feel about thing. As long as we all mindful and respectful of the fact that what works for one person might not work for another person.
As some of you know one of the roles I love to play as in game are anti-materiel (a.k.a. anti-tank) snipers and that I also hate being forced to use scopes or sights wound you realistically shouldn't have to. Because point blank ranges are a thing that exist on weapons and in my option to many games ignore this fact. Anyway, I'm one of the people who is fine with having multiple reticles on the screen at once, as i'm use to playing flight simulators and mecha games where you can fire multiple different weapons at once and not all of them are pointing in the same direction or at the same target. Given how we will be doing most of our fighting in Omniframes which do have A.I. in them. I think having that level of technology making things like needing to physically look down a scope on a sniper rifle pointless because it would not be your eyes looking down the scope if it had one, but the eyes of the Omniframe which are cameras. So why not just have the zoom function built into the cameras on the Omniframe itself or just have camera built into the gun itself so you can always see what the gun is pointing at even if you are not holding it (something people do in real life even now to let them do things life fire around corners or fire remotely without the risk of exposure)? With that in mind the targeting system in my Omniframe would just be a function of my HUD. I can see this working in a number of ways along both with and without A.I. support. Without A.I. support a simple picture-in-picture option can work, where what is shown in the smaller window is what the gun itself is pointed at while rest of the screen is just what I would normally see with the reticle showing a ghostly outline of the area the gun is focused on. I still have the option to switch the screens back and forth with if I need to make really small movements to get a shot, but otherwise there would be no need to. With A.I. I can see myself locking onto at target and my A.I. tracking it and telling me where you aim my gun to hit the target. The same kind of why tracking targeting reticles work in things like fighter jets and attack helicopters, the computer does the math of things like intercept paths and all you have to do is try and line your reticle with the reticle the computer placed on the HUD. There are many other ways of doing it with the techology level with have in Omnifames and weapons, but those two ways are the ones I can think of that would fit into the feel of the game that I'm use too without having a dedicated targeting computes and radar systems like other game such as Armored Core, Ace Combat, Mech Warriors, and the like.
Although this thread is going to be focused on the HUD and UI of the game other topics might pop up from time to time in relation to it. The main goal of this thread is to share ideas for different types of HUDs and IUs for the player to use how they might work in why that make sense, even if it is not 100% scientifically accurate and we have to do a bit of hand waving to make it happen. Because the rule of cool is this a thing. Also there is no one right way to things, there can be different variants of the same thing that works for different people and/or different circumstances that are related to how different people might see things or approach a situation. For example, some people would prefer only having one targeting reticle while some would prefer to have multiple reticles on the screen at the same time with personal preferences and playing styles being a driving force behind how some people feel about thing. As long as we all mindful and respectful of the fact that what works for one person might not work for another person.
As some of you know one of the roles I love to play as in game are anti-materiel (a.k.a. anti-tank) snipers and that I also hate being forced to use scopes or sights wound you realistically shouldn't have to. Because point blank ranges are a thing that exist on weapons and in my option to many games ignore this fact. Anyway, I'm one of the people who is fine with having multiple reticles on the screen at once, as i'm use to playing flight simulators and mecha games where you can fire multiple different weapons at once and not all of them are pointing in the same direction or at the same target. Given how we will be doing most of our fighting in Omniframes which do have A.I. in them. I think having that level of technology making things like needing to physically look down a scope on a sniper rifle pointless because it would not be your eyes looking down the scope if it had one, but the eyes of the Omniframe which are cameras. So why not just have the zoom function built into the cameras on the Omniframe itself or just have camera built into the gun itself so you can always see what the gun is pointing at even if you are not holding it (something people do in real life even now to let them do things life fire around corners or fire remotely without the risk of exposure)? With that in mind the targeting system in my Omniframe would just be a function of my HUD. I can see this working in a number of ways along both with and without A.I. support. Without A.I. support a simple picture-in-picture option can work, where what is shown in the smaller window is what the gun itself is pointed at while rest of the screen is just what I would normally see with the reticle showing a ghostly outline of the area the gun is focused on. I still have the option to switch the screens back and forth with if I need to make really small movements to get a shot, but otherwise there would be no need to. With A.I. I can see myself locking onto at target and my A.I. tracking it and telling me where you aim my gun to hit the target. The same kind of why tracking targeting reticles work in things like fighter jets and attack helicopters, the computer does the math of things like intercept paths and all you have to do is try and line your reticle with the reticle the computer placed on the HUD. There are many other ways of doing it with the techology level with have in Omnifames and weapons, but those two ways are the ones I can think of that would fit into the feel of the game that I'm use too without having a dedicated targeting computes and radar systems like other game such as Armored Core, Ace Combat, Mech Warriors, and the like.
Likes:
Markolis and Pandagnome