Directional Marker

[Duckers]

Right, here's an idea. When travelling, both on land and on... not-land, I think it would help a lot if there was a small arrow, or other marker, on the orange dot, showing which direction you're travelling in. So, say you're travelling west, there should be the orange dot with a small 'something' protruding from it, on it's 'western' side.

This would help immensely when sailing, so that the player may accurately plot a new direction. What d'ya think, people?

[SekoETC]

Haha, wow, this would be cool. But sounds more complicated to program than just zooming in on a bigass map and adding a single pixel to represent yourself and other ships. An arrow... would require layered graphics, right?

[Duckers]

Haha, wow, this would be cool.

Now, this sounds promising...

But sounds more complicated to program than just zooming in on a bigass map and adding a single pixel to represent yourself and other ships. An arrow... would require layered graphics, right?

And... this doesn't. But then, that's about what I expected. Seems, I know nothing about the behind-the-scenes goings-on, so I expected the lead-balloon thing.

[wichita]

I liked Seko's drawing of a wake being added behind the ship pixel to accomplish this. Shouldn't be too difficult, I wouldn't think. Calculate vector then add three white pixels along the line...

[marol]

OK, I'll add the arrow. Moved to accepted.

[Duckers]

Whoa... Little ol' me has got himself a suggestion accepted.

[marol]

And implemented. Directional marker indicates ships current direction, marker lenght indicates ships current speed. Line of sight is currently circular, not square. Area of sight is the same, as it was previously.

[wichita]

Dude! My head is still spinning!

Minor point, marol. Could you multiply by -1 and edit it so that the arrow points out the back of the boat like a wake, rather than out the front? I think it will be a bit easier to visualize that way.

[marol]

I am going to paint roads there, but not today. If you have any suggestions, let me know here.

Minor point, marol. Could you multiply by -1 and edit it so that the arrow points out the back of the boat like a wake, rather than out the front? I think it will be a bit easier to visualize that way.

As you wish. Better now?

[marol]

Hmm... but what to do with docking boats?

[Pieter de Groote]

I have different map makers among my characters and this change made me curse.

There's no need for direction markers. Once you've sailed for a few days, you should be used to the Cantr navigation. For map making they form ugly little stripes that I have to edit manually, which is not really something I look forward to. I agree, it's not worth cursing for.

The other change (was it even asked for?) is much worse. The circular map view with non-transparant borders. Using these views to construct maps is going to be worth cursing, since I'll have to delete a circular area on each picture I add to my map.
Could this change be reversed, or if there's good reasons for having a circular view, at least make sure the borders of the bitmap are transparent.
The current implementation will end the effort of some good map makers.

[SekoETC]

*sigh* I agree it's troublesome for map making. But then again, I don't think we should be having pixel accurate maps for the fact that helicopters or other air vessels don't exist in Cantr, thus characters shouldn't be getting a pixel accurate view of their surroundings, even though the players might. I keep a copy-paste map for personal reference but my character's maps are always hand-drawn.

Could it be possible to have the map view a bit wider to make up for the lost corners? A square field of view was never a natural option, but it never crossed my mind a round view could be accomplished this easily.

[Cantryjczyk]

For me it will be better if arrows show direction where ship is going. It is more intuitive. Mayby even it can be ended by real "arrow" and show directly place where boat will be in next tur. That will be great help, if you want to catch some pirates etc. You can change direction and speed to "jump" directly in place you want to be, and you know where other ship are going...

[marol]

Pieter - I have solution for you - you would be able to click on the map and then it would be displayed without any additional markers, ships or even locations. I'll also try to change green backround to transparent - it should be no problem.

Cantryjczyk - will see, but I think such lengths would be to short.

[Rusalka]

And is there a possibility that image will fade a little bit at the borders? Since is circular, low resolution became visible.