Federation Commander

spud · Ensign Joined: 06 Aug 2009 Posts: 18

for awhile I been checking to see who is using this, but thus far no one. I tried to use the demo but can't figure out somethings and was hoping someone could teach me.

Peewee · Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 12:54 pm Post subject: Client

Hi spud,

There are not near as many people using FCOL as SFB online but we are growing Smile

Just let me know what time works for you and I would be more than happy to show you some of the ins and outs of the client. What we have been doing with my online group that has met on FCOL is emailing each other when we are going to get together online so I guess we tend to show up at certain times but hopefully the numbers are growing. See you online.

Bill

pinecone · Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 1:26 pm Post subject:

I'd also be happy to help out, spud. I'm another regular of the client and check it periodically, but if you wanna set a time, I'd love to help out.

gar1138 · Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 5:54 pm Post subject:

I'm also on and try to play regularly (my work schedule is just crazy busy through August, unfortunately). Very happy to help out with a demo game, just email. I'm in the Pacific time zone.

Garrett

spud · Ensign Joined: 06 Aug 2009 Posts: 18

got to play pinecone, and thanks for a quick run though.
The client is usable but not really user friendly. Makes it hard I would think to get people interested in the online game system.

I haven't figured out how to scroll though a stack, say ship with drones on them. Overloading was strange, it was a pop up window that didn't allow you to type in chat windows while it was up.

Steven

gar1138 · Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 7:09 pm Post subject:

Cool, glad you got your first game in!

Andromedan · Lieutenant Commander Joined: 17 Nov 2006 Posts: 251

Spud,
I am more than open to suggestions. I am not a UI or graphical designer. So I am doing my best. Some of things I did is an experiment vs. the SFB way of doing things.

For example, in SFB Online there is no "main window". The Ships are in a single tab for each opponent and they can be floating or tabbed. The EAs are a tab/floating window and there is one per ship vs. the Fed Com which is a single tab for all ships..

I am in middle I trying to re-think the whole client. But it might take a while to do that. Small things at first. Like a voice saying "Welcome, Captain" when you first login. Remove the "Tree" way of viewing rooms. Maybe combine the default chat room with the listing of chat rooms. Things like that.

Paul Franz
Owner of Fed Com Online

spud · Ensign Joined: 06 Aug 2009 Posts: 18

Andromedan, it is good to hear your open to ideas.

1) "Main" window height size should be larger then the size of the picture of the ship at right.

2) "Range Tracker / Add Entry" window size should be wider as default to allow easy viewing. entry area "From:" and "To:". some people may have longer names in there.

3) scroll wheel I feel should be the zoom in and out. but perhaps allow someone to key map so it can be used for whatever they wish.

4) "Weapon Charts" It seems as default the cells are not wide enough to see the full text or numbers.

5) When in a Room, the menu bar "Game Edit Board Chat Player Mode"
Would be nice that when you press "Alt G" would be Game, "Alt E" would be edit and so forth. Some of them are set already.

6) There seems to be tabs that are repeated. "Weapon Status" and "Opponent Weapon Status".

7) "Main", there are two buttons "Begin EA" and "Commit EA". Perhaps have a mouse over that shows "Begin Energy Allocation". At first glance it doesn't make sense.

Cool

When asked if you wish to preload photons, there isn't an easy way to just undo that choice. Also when one says "Yes" the Photons are listed as Loaded, when I believe it should be preloaded.

9) When pressing "Commit EA" popup window says "Commit EAF" perhaps change that to "Commit Energy Alocation....)

ok that is what I can think of off the top of my head.

pinecone · Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 2:13 pm Post subject:

Well, for number 4), you can drag to enlarge the Weapon Charts. for Number Cool

, the preloading is referring to pre-game arming, therefore it automatically goes to load in the EA phase.

Andromedan · Lieutenant Commander Joined: 17 Nov 2006 Posts: 251

1) The only way to do that is to shrink the Ship Cards. (I don't like the idea too much because for the larger ships the boxes become real small, making hard to know when a box is disabled.

2) You are right on this one.

3) I will see if this is possible. I know the behavior by default is scrolling up and down. Right now, there are two toolbar icons that allow you to quickly zoom in and out.

4) I will see what I can do.

5) Agreed.

6) This is a bug.

7) I am thinking about making "Start Energy Allocation" and "Done Energy Allocation" to be a single button.

8) The thing is if you pre-load your photons there is only 1 of 2 things you can do. a) Finish the loading b) Startiing Overloading. The reason that it automatically goes to "Loaded" is because that is the default.

9) Sorry this is due to copying the text from the SFB portion of the client. This will be fixed in the next update.