I find the current "amalgamated" bars used in some specific information displays lacking in conveying some of the information I want and sometime not doing enough to aid in relevant evaluations.



Pre-Battle Window



I think the bar displaying relative Military Power/Points could be improved, and I also think a Command Point representation of the fleet is lacking. I spent some time trying to put together an illustration of what I would consider an improvement, so let me share that and discuss specific elements afterwards:











Note: I couldn't figure out how to attach a full size image through the forums, so...Click on Image to access Full Size at Imageshack.

Image is 1920x1200 and might require window maximizing, specific browser features, or some method saving and loading in external viewing software, to examine the details.







Comments:

• Military Power
  
  This bar has changed to have segmenting along its length to help illustrate the break down of the fleet strength, which helps in evaluating relative status of the fleet by composition. As just one example of how I feel the lack of this currently is when trying to help evaluate whether a loss of a ship is likely or not for Auto battle, and to start forming a plan of how to approach the battle if I will do it manually.
  
  
  
  Note:
  
  
  I gave this some thought and I think the bar segments should be sorted from greatest MP to smallest, left to right for both your fleet and the enemy, as illustrated, for a variety of reasons, including ease of processing the information (no hunting to see the smallest and largest MP in the fleet and easier to form a quick impression of composition) and an aid to estimating the likelihood of losing a ship by placing the smallest of yours versus the largest of the enemy's fleet MPs next to each other.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Implementation detail: For drastically "squeezed down" MP values like when fighting a group of more than one of the AI's frequent "scout" type ships throughout the game, the way to deal with not being able to draw all the lines would be to just dim down the part of the bar that is drawn and also darken the top and bottom more from where the notche(s) would be too...i.e, sort of "anti-aliased" rendering of the effect. See the next section for why there is not even information lost by doing this.
  
  
  
  
• Command Points
  
  An addition to the battle window is a display that represents the "size" of the fleet, proportioned according to Command Points.
  
  
  
  Each of the "pale yellowish" oblongs is a ship, proportionate to its Command Point cost, and each row in the example scaling can represent about 10 or 11 CP, though 8 would probably be a better value when I consider the way fleet sizes progress (in any case, this space allows far more total CP in a fleet than the game supports currently, so the size of this display can be much smaller, or the "ships" made larger if no other use of the space is envisioned).
  
  
  
  Finally, there is a count of ships for reference underneath...perhaps not necessary for quick impression, but I feel a clear count belongs somewhere, and this seems the suitable place given the added display.
  
  
  
  Note:
  
  
  I don't find the "ship count" symbol clear, so that collection of 3 cyanish "blobs" in the center is my quickly hacked together (cut and multiple paste of the current symbol into a "fleet") replacement for the "ship count" icon representation to help hint as to what all the displayed information around it is. I think a (more refined of course) version of this would be better where ship count is currently used...see the discussion of the in-Battle display below.
  
  
  

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Cinematic Fleet Battle Screen



Focusing on just my thoughts on "segmenting" for now, I'll first share some illustration on a replacement for the current HP bar that adds much of the info I find lacking to help me understand what is happening in battle and what effect my choices are having:







With the bar significantly wider than pictured here (double or triple width of my illustration seems like it could still be about used compactly in-game with suitable arrangment) I think this could work for the current maximum fleet size pretty well.



Note:







I'll also state that I think something like the "Command Point" display I illustrated above could be a fairly compact addition to the current display, though something else might already be planned. Just like in the Pre-Battle Window illustration above, ship count could be underneath (in x/X form, with the x on the darker background with the "CP oblongs" and the X on the lighter, with the "ship count" icon to the side to hint as to the representation). I'll just mention that what I picture is something like that (though it could probably be significantly larger without crowding things), with:

• Ships simply turning into empty outlines as they are destroyed (with a special fill color and pattern or symbol for "destroyed" ships that will return after battle due to that special Hero ability) instead of disappearing.
  
  
  
  
• Alternatively, the "oblongs" could be color coded on the inside for health as an alternative to the segmented HP bar I illustrate above, and then turn into the empty or special symbol upon destruction.
  
  

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What do you think?

Added to summary list under Interfaces > UI - Improved fleet composition bars