Whee, you got a lot going on here so I'll take the time to respond to everything.
First and foremost, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to provide your insights. As a developer of the game it's easy to overlook basic usability issues / features from the point of the player. This kind of constructive feedback helps to produce a much better game.
A lot of the things you mentioned are in fact planned features in the future. For now I wanted to get the core gameplay mechanics in place and then polish everything. So you'll see great usability enhancements toward the end of the development.
All that stated, let's go one by one and address your points.
1. I suggest visually representing resources as bronze, silver, gold icons to indicate rarity. In other words, the icons for the different rarities remain the same except for the color..
The base resources in the game are Common Metals, Rare Metals, Common Minerals, Rare Minerals. As they aren't all metals it's hard to represent visually. I didn't want to spend too much time on this when it can be easily replaced later. But definitely I agree, a better visual representation is needed.
2. I don't know what most of the icons on the top bar mean, need tool tips!
Completely agreed. This is something that will be implemented as the core mechanics are more or less completed.
3. I suggest having tool tips for everything, and have extended tool tips with simple explanations that can be turned on/off in the game options screen.
Agreed.
4. I couldn't place agridomes anywhere... but then realised (upon right-clicking on the tile) that the dome is there but it shows up as bulldozed land
Seems I somehow forgot to include the agridome sprite sheet. I'll update the download package.
As for the missing .dat files, I have the game atm looking for the archives -- I haven't decided if I'm going to leave the data as-is or if I'm going to pack them up into archives. The archives would be ZIP's if I did so anybody would be able to unpack them to do whatever.
Side note -- most of the external definitions like .sprite are actually XML files. Open one up in a text editor and you'll be able to modify it at will. There may be a need for some explanation for non-programmers but that's the subject of a different topic.
5. Another problem is that my colony *always* dies after two dozen turns or so and I have no idea why!
The sudden game over screen? Yeah, it confused me at first too when I was play testing it last night. It happens because critical resources end up drained to 0 then critical structures go offline which leaves the colony with no power, air or food and all the colonists die.
I have a plan for this in a future update:
https://github.com/ldicker83/OPHD/issues/26For now, keep a close eye on those resources. And build a Smelter as soon as you can, the SEED Smelter is extremely inefficient (by design).
6. What does the icon just above the next turn icon mean?
Connectedness. It shows you which tiles are connected to the Command Center. It's more of a debug aid but it can also be a useful tool for players when disasters are implemented so I figured I'd leave it in.
7. Is the circle in the minimap the communications range?
Exactly. You can't place robots outside of that (I don't remember if we implemented that in 0.7.1) or structures. The next release will include Comm Towers to extend comm range with robots (structures will still be required to be built within 15 tiles of the CC).
Later on the comm ranges will become moot when you're able to launch comm satellites. The main circle will remain to indicate where you can place structures.
8. Does the top "mountains" icon toggle between "visual" view and "terrain roughness" view?
Yes.
9. Looks like satellites haven't been implemented yet, but in the future I suggest showing a list of satellites I have in orbit and show their status, i.e. functional/disabled, need repair, etc.
That's the plan.
11. Make UI elements like construction panel, minimap, etc. so that you can hide/minimise them to the side.
The construction panel doesn't need to be hidden due to the diamond nature of the map. Plus it was an intentional design decision as a sort of throw back to the original game.
However, I could be persuaded with a good case.
12. https://opengameart.org/ might be a good place to look for useful assets?
Some of the assets have come from OGA (mostly UI stuff). Everything else is either borrowed from Outpost or created by me and other contributors.
White Claw has been doing a lot of work lately creating new visuals to replace the structure graphics.
13. Make the game moddable so that not only can a modder change stats, but also replace artwork or add buildings, planet types, satellites, etc.
This is already possible for many cases. The structure, robot and planet graphics are all replaceable and the animation states are defined via XML files (saved as .sprite). As this is an open-source game anybody will be able to make changes to the game.
As for planets and tilesets and such, that will be part of the later development efforts. At the moment the 'three planets' to choose from are superficially different with just different depth levels, tilesets and landing sites... otherwise the behave the same way. It's more for debugging purposes than anything else.
The plan is to allow for a wide selection of visually interesting and distinct planets and landing sites. Planet/Star types will also change a variety of factors including radiation levels, day/night cycle, light exposure, surface temperatures, etc. all of which will have effects on the game. This will be implemented after research is put in place (sometime between 0.9 and 1.0 releases... see the
Roadmap.
15. I actually like the current UI toolkit. Is the UI developed as a front end to the backend game mechanics? If so then there's the possibility of different kinds of UIs like a fancy 3D rendered UI or even a curses based one!
Thank you! A lot of effort has been put in to make this work and it's ever expanding.
It is a 'sort of' front end in that it ties into the back end, but to implement a Curses UI would take considerable effort. The UI code is built into the code base -- it's a custom GUI package that I originally built for an RPG many years ago but have since adapted for my own games and applications based on the NAS2D middleware.
16. I actually like using sprites instead of 3D renders for graphics. Has this been decided on?
Yes.
17. Add ability to cancel a robot's current task such as digging or dozing.
I like that idea but it raises the question of what happens to the tile if you recall the robot? How would the terrain be modified, if at all?
18. Allow using right-click to exit dialogues and windows.
That's not a bad idea but at the moment the RMB is used to inspect tiles/structures. This could be changed to the LMB and repurpose the RMB but I'd have to see how it feels and guage a response from the other developers.
In the mean time, the Escape key serves the same purpose.
19. For actions that can't be done because of insufficient resources, indicate what's missing.
Agreed. This will be implemented in a future update.
20. For research, I'd love a research panel or window where you see a list of all labs. Each lab will have information on whether they are functional (or missing staff/resources) and let's you easily assign research from this master list.
21. I like assigning research to individual labs because I can have many projects going slowly, or concentrate all the labs to research one topic quicker, etc.
Working on it.
22. Can the research tree be slightly randomised like in Sword of the Stars??
Perhaps? I've never seen a research tree like that. But I have to admit I haven't played a lot of games that offer research trees.
OutpostHD's research tree is something that's
still being talked about and hasn't been settled on yet. By all means provide your input -- I would suggest opening up a new thread to discuss it.
23. I also like a resources view where I can see a list of all the mines and smelters with their status and maybe a summary of trucks and resource storage.
Like the research interface, working on it!
This is where I could use some help with wireframing because I have a vague idea in mind but I have no idea what to really do with it yet.
24. Same thing for factories where I can see all the factories and what they are producing.
See above.
26. I like @vomov's suggestion of having a generic but dynamic tube item rather than multiple options.
I've considered this but I'm not yet convinced.
27. Have you posted this game at the FreeGameDev forums(https://forum.freegamedev.net/)? It might be a good place to get help with development. Or http://moddb.com/?
I haven't thought of this. Moddb I never liked (still don't) but I have nothing against freegamedev.net. I figured when the game was in a more playable and complete state that I'd start trying to 'spread the word' so to speak.
As for Inkscape, I hope I didn't give the impression that I can do professional wireframing with it!!! But I can try to use it to do a sketch of what a labs/mines/factories UI might look like... (or maybe just sketch on paper and scan it in... )
Hand sketches scanned in are extremely helpful. I don't need 'professional' wireframes, just something to give me an idea of what exactly to tell the GUI to go do with itself. ATM I'm sort of slapping the UI's together as I need them (e.g., the structure inspector... it's a debugging aid and as you can see provides very little information of value to the end user).
