Build Menu UI Suggestion

[foggy isle]

Hello! I'm newer to BAR but I enjoy mocking things up. I saw some discussion about build menu clutter from there being a lot of duplicate units from naval / land.

I think this could be a UI improvement without using gridmenu by reducing the amount of duplicate units, which could leave room for titles or other organizational tabs on page itself (scrollable for longer build menus).

The game does have an auto-swap feature for land and naval buildings, but the cost between them can be very different, so they're currently separated. I think an on-cursor build suggestion displaying the cost would be a good compromise to free up build menu clutter and center the important building information where the user will be looking anyway (the cursor).

[jagged stump]

@night steeple

[ashen jewel]

I think this looks really nice, water units that are basically duplicates of land units take a lot of space in the UI when it's not really necessary

[glacial plank]

Even with grid menu and the costs displayed there, the cost-on-cursor thing would still be neat as a toggle

[night steeple]

Well it's hard to do right, each solution we've gotten, and like this one, has it's flaws.

1. What I like:
   A. Less buildpics
   B. Combining roles in visual groups (and not twice anymore, for land and water)
   C. Communicating the change in cost with the auto-change

2. What is dislike:
   A. A lot of** wasted space** in buildmenus with empty rows
   B. More clutter in main UI because of name + metal + energy cost
   C. a lot of naval buildings** look quite different** (with floaters is most similar, but uw nrg storage is very different)
   D. When you are a Sea player, you don't have all your Sea stuff combined anymore
   E. I think a separate category for 'utility' buildings/units is needed - when doing that here you get another extra row of emptyness
   F. This might on higher resolutions, you need to design for 1080p, or if possible even for 1280x800. On 1080p this will like introduce extra pages for your buildmenu, which i'd would very much like to prevent.

PS. you can also combine the hovercraft (land/water)
And maybe also the same for land/water nrg-storage

Perhaps we should consider unifying the land/water storages to be identical models...

OR, the buildpic should auto-change to the land or naval version when placing

Including updated cost

[night steeple]

I was thinking about a highlight system, where to be place building is highlighted in the buildmenu (switching when hovering water/land)

or changing buildpic, though not a big fan yet

I don't like one buildpic that has different modelled units/structures

you want a WYSIWYG

[foggy isle]

Thanks for giving it a look! You pointed out a lot of things I can definitely improve on, and I'm still learning the game so I definitely forgot to combine a few of the units 😅.

I'll play around with the wasted space, what other builder units would look like, and on different resolutions because I definitely did not consider any of those factors.

For less main UI clutter, maybe it would look better if it was just both energy and metal cost on one line rather than Name + Metal + Energy? I'll mock something up later

Unifying the models could be interesting to ensure that the buildpic always matches the building you're getting. I think a changing buildpic might confuse people.

[hardy island]

What about a split buildpic
like split diagonally and have both
might be confusing to read tho

[night steeple]

you can see a lot of already tried variants in #926040195667738625

[pearl hawk]

One of the challenges in laying out grid menu was the sheer number of units BAR has. Less units means we could’ve used smaller grids, for example. We also wanted to try to unify the layouts as much as possible across constructors (which have different build options). This ensures that no matter which t1 con you have selected, when you hit the key combo “zx” you get a solar, and “zc” a windmill. This reinforces muscle memory and makes it easier to select build options. Another example is that “e” is the universal key for anti-air in your labs - on purpose. This means there will be empty space in parts of the menu that don’t have build options because this lab builds less things than that lab.
So ultimately we have to keep in mind that UI needs to be functional as well as aesthetic, and BAR has unique challenges in that direction.

Underwater variants were generally put in awkward or farther positions because of the “context build” widget, which switches automatically between build options depending if you are hovering over land or sea. This widget doesn’t work pregame, though, and build options not defined in the grid layouts will still be placed in the menu, but at more random locations

[foggy isle]

those GUI variants are baller, I will follow that thread instead

[pearl hawk]

The example layout works well for the commander, which doesn’t have very many build options, but when you see what an amphibious constructor can do you will see why the menu has been categorized to multiple pages

[foggy isle]

When I get off work I'll see if can apply any of the same principles to constructors with a ton of options, again thank you so much for the feedback.

I looked at the GUI re-design page and there's obviously a lot of thought going into it. I think the solution for me now is to learn hotkeys so I don't have to look as much LOL

I made the example build menu sloppy and quick in Photoshop but I will absolutely try again with the amphibious constructor

[jagged stump]

If we go to grid-menu only, we'll need the default to not have gaps in it, and the one with gaps to be the "pro" configuration

[pearl hawk]

This sort of divisiveness is really not helpful to these discussion. Plenty of new players are choosing grid menu so there clearly not a new player vs pros issue here. It’s not ideal to have two different build menus and multiple hot key layouts, and it would be nice if we could have some sort of combined solution with a new UI. Making arbitrary demands like this though just doesn’t make sense. If design accommodates no spaces then fine, but UI is a practical tool for players too and we can’t just make specific aesthetic demands.

[foggy isle]

Is there a preference for grid-only?

I'm assuming no one wants to make two UIs, so if there is a preference toward grid/non-grid because of ease of use or accessibility I can make mock-ups around it.

[pearl hawk]

There's not a clear preference as grid menu is a pretty new option in comparison to the game as a whole.