Overlay Suggestions and Criticisms

[crypticorb]

There's been a few threads lately regarding the overlays, but I thought I'd add several of my own criticisms and feedback on the current state of the overlays. As a whole, most of the overlays are awesome, clear, and useful, but I feel that there are too many currently.

 

Oxygen Overlay: This overlay works well as it currently stands. The only real addition I'd like to see is a distinguishable difference between polluted and clean oxygen, and perhaps a "toxic gas" coloration for gasses that are supposed to be deadly to breathe at all, like chlorine.

On 3/14/2018 at 9:39 AM, mircomars said:

I'd also love a different gas and pressure overlay, which actually shows the different gases and concentrations (perhaps even movement) instead of the vague breathability overlay. and a button to switch if PO2 is shown as breathable.

 

Power Overlay: @oxygenmissing made a few excellent points on additions to the power overlay in https://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/89689-suggestion-for-ui-improvement-power-overlay/ , but I'll summarize here.

Quote

Circuit Daily Average: shows an averaged power draw for the entire circuit, averaged over the last few days. This would show what the REAL power draw is for the total circuit, though it would not account for spikes in usage. You mentioned this as "typical consumption", but averaged would be more useful.

Individual Machine Duty Cycle: this would display an averaged daily percentage that the machine is active on the circuit, with one duty cycle % per machine. This feedback would be useful for seeing which consumers are drawing power all the time (near 100% D.C.) and which are almost never used (near 0% D.C.)

Total Power vs Average Power: If I'm interpreting correctly, you suggested having two pages for the power overlay tooltips. One page for "Total Power", or maximum power draw, with each individual machine listed as they are currently. Then a separate page to include the above two ideas, with averaging information, duty cycles, and possibly some of the power consumption/production information from the daily reports.

 

Temperature Overlay: This overlay works very well, with good coloration scales for the 0^oC to 40^oC ranges, but anything above or below that is indistinguishable in color from the extreme colors.

On 3/14/2018 at 9:39 AM, mircomars said:

Regarding overlays, I'd really love to be able to choose a temp range. When trouble-shooting (supposed to be) cold environments the current overlay just shows blue from 30K to 278K. Is it hard to change it to a slider for max and min and distribute the colors equally to the temps included (with white < min, purple > max)? this would make the temp overlay so much more useful.

 

Thermal Comfort Overlay: Does anyone actually use this overlay, at all? I've tried to intentionally use it every time I pulled up the temperature overlay, but the information is nearly useless and could easily be rolled into the Temperature Overlay with zero drawbacks. The only useful bit of information I've gleaned from this one is "water is too cold" and "hot gasses and lava are too hot", which are more general rules of thumb than information for an overlay. Reserving the F4 button for this seems pointless.

 

Light Overlay: This overlay is currently almost useless, but only because light is nearly useless in its current state in the game. I'd love to see actual benefits and drawbacks for using lights outside the base, or other natural sources of light. As this overlay stands currently, it is a waste of an overlay slot, and could be rolled into the Power Overlay.

 

Plumbing, Ventilation, Decor, Germs Overlays: These overlays are in excellent form, and have been since the beginning. My only criticism for these four is that I'd like to be able to rearrange them to have overlays I look at every cycle closer to the F1-F5 keys. I would like to see a disable/enable disinfect selection for the germs overlay.

 

Farming Overlay: I rarely use this overlay. I understand that it displays the current growth cycle of every plant, and current status effects of plants, but it doesn't seem to justify an entire overlay for so little information. If this overlay is kept around, though, I'd like to see an "Estimated Time until Harvestable" shown on the tooltips for plants, as well as a colored effect for when plants have farmers touch applied with micronutrients.

Perhaps also roll ranching information, such as icons for critter happiness, wildness, and reproduction into this overlay? @horgerj made this suggestion in https://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/89664-critter-info-in-farmingagriculture-overlay/

 

Room Overlay: This overlay functions perfectly as it is, with the exception that stables and greenhouses are exactly the same color, and are very close in color to the mess hall and power plants. This is particularly a problem for colorblind people, as one of my friends cannot distinguish between most rooms at all based on red/green colors.

 

Exosuit Overlay: What is the purpose of this overlay? It displays no useful information, at all. Showing an icon of the location of the dupes wearing an exosuit is not helpful at all, as finding your dupes is rarely a difficult task. This overlay in its current form could be removed entirely with no repercussions. However, if something similar to the Room Overlay were applied here, like a "Exosuit Only Area" coloration, I could see a purpose. Perhaps add in the dupes current suit oxygen levels, status's of docked exosuits, and a "Locate Exosuit" button for each dock, and I might start using this overlay.

 

Automation Overlay: This one works well, and I haven't had any real problems with it since it was implemented. The colors, connections, and sounds are all quite clear and well presented.

 

Shipping Overlay: This overlay is nearly useless, but not because it has no potential. With the Plumbing/Ventilation overlays, a clear white pipe with obvious colorized packets of liquid/gas inside is what makes them so clear and usable. With shipping, the colors of all shipping buildings, rails, and sweepers is nearly indistinguishable from the light/dark grays of the background. Empty rails are almost exactly the same shape/color as firepoles, and when items are loaded into full rails, they are all indistinguishable from each other. Sedimentary rock looks exactly like abyssalite, and slime balls look like ice.

 

If you guys have any feedback on these ideas, I'd love to hear them, but keep it on topic for the overlays, not for suggestions for new additions to the game.

 

[Kasuha]

26 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

Oxygen Overlay:

Should definitely be extended to other gases. It would be really nice to be able to distinguish CO2 from natural gas, for example.

27 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

Temperature Overlay:

Would be nice if thermal conductivity of things affected their saturation. Obviously abyssalite would be completely gray, but it would also allow distinguishing metals from minerals.

29 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

Thermal Comfort Overlay: Does anyone actually use this overlay, at all?

I do, though not very often. Helps to check if the base is comfortable. Also very useful to locate hydrogen.

34 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

Plumbing, Ventilation

Could use some pipe coloring function, allowing players to give pipe backgrounds arbitrary colors.

30 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

Germs Overlay

Germs in pipes have serious problems in this overlay, it definitely does not highlight germs in piped material correctly. Hopefully a bug and will be fixed.

36 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

Automation Overlay

Has some layering problems, some sensors are drawn in front of connections, making the circuit worse to read. But that will hopefully be fixed.

38 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

Shipping Overlay: This overlay is nearly useless

I definitely don't agree with 'useless', making it brighter might help but even as is it's extremely useful to me.

Should show deconstruct marks when related things are marked for deconstruct.

[Rossum]

1 hour ago, crypticorb said:

Room Overlay: This overlay functions perfectly as it is, with the exception that stables and greenhouses are exactly the same color, and are very close in color to the mess hall and power plants. This is particularly a problem for colorblind people, as one of my friends cannot distinguish between most rooms at all based on red/green colors.

Perhaps it also shows a large icon within each room showing what it is? Like say, a bedroom has a 2x2 block sized icon of a bed, a greenhouse has an icon of a leaf, etc.

[TheExceed]

40 minutes ago, Kasuha said:

Should definitely be extended to other gases. It would be really nice to be able to distinguish CO2 from natural gas, for example.

Agreed, it would be nice to see more than just breathable and not.

[Kasuha]

15 hours ago, crypticorb said:

Thermal Comfort Overlay: Does anyone actually use this overlay, at all?

Another thing this overlay is useful for is locating water puddles over airflow tiles.

[crypticorb]

Thermal Comfort Overlay:

22 hours ago, Kasuha said:

I do, though not very often. Helps to check if the base is comfortable. Also very useful to locate hydrogen.

 

7 hours ago, Kasuha said:

Another thing this overlay is useful for is locating water puddles over airflow tiles.

You've found some use for the overlay that I did not, I might use some of these tricks myself.

But the question remains: Is it worth an entirely separate overlay for this functionality? And if so, is it worth reserving the F4 slot for this one? It would be quite nice to be able to hide, rearrange, or disable overlays at will.

[Kasuha]

24 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

And if so, is it worth reserving the F4 slot for this one? It would be quite nice to be able to hide, rearrange, or disable overlays at will.

You can't change their order in the menu, but you can reassign their keys in the configuration if you need it. They already have usable key shortcuts, they're just not displayed correctly in the tooltip. Exosuit is Shift+F1, automation Shift+F2, and shipping Shift+F3. That's not too bad.

[Denisetwin]

On 4/13/2018 at 12:42 PM, crypticorb said:

I'd also love a different gas and pressure overlay, which actually shows the different gases and concentrations (perhaps even movement) instead of the vague breathability overlay. and a button to switch if PO2 is shown as breathable.

THIS   ridiculous to constantly have to move cursor around to see if it's C02 in your slicksters area or if it's NG or Chlorine.......

[Queron81]

Maybe they could put a filter for gases in the gas overlay, so that only one gas is shown. So you could switch between the gases to get a better overview.

[Fishslap]

I have always just assumed that the gas part of the game is nowhere near done though. I base that on the gas filter options you get, which includes helium and lots of other gases that are not presently in the game. There has to be, or at least has to have been at one point in the past, plans to further develop this aspect of the game. I guess it would make sense to address the overlay at the same time. It's like you say not an athmospheric overlay, but rather a breathability overlay.

 

[ImpalerWrG]

Good overview Cryptic, the overlays are due for some upgrades