Hot spots

[Figment]

EDIT: Tactical Map redesign (WIP)



http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/i...t-spots.71142/
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Hot spots need to more accurately represent where fighting takes place and the intensity of it.

If a fight is going on in the south of an Esamir region, the hot spot is always over the base itself. You hence don't know direction of the fight (where is it moving/are they heading, who is winning?), when heading to the region, you have to search for its exact location, can't predict where you could cut them off, bassically making proper decision making much harder than needed.


I would suggest using two hot spots, one for ground and air fighting. Second, I would suggest density, size, transparancy and colour to be related as such:

• Density: linked to spread of fighting and movement speed based on locations
• Size: amount of players engaging each other
• Colour: lethality (amount of deaths per minute) and empire(s) involved (edge of hot spot star, shape of star?)
• Transparancy: age of conflict

In ps1 you sometimes saw a conflict between two aircraft create a trail of hotspots, but only based on speed of fading and speed of hot spot moving and intermediate distance, position and direction of hot spots could you derive it was an aircav engagement rather than a frontline. This could thus be done more intuitively.

Note that I feel fog of war is important, only fights observed by your empire should be seen. That is enough info already, increases the need for scouting and doesn't create an information overload.