[Spoiler]Stockpiles how would you like them to look

[Semmy]

So I was checking out stockpiles tonight and it looks nice.
Now I was wondering what would you like.

At the moment my screen looks like a rainbow. But all those stockpiles areas actually are the same storage/stockpile (dumping zone).

Would you like the game to automatically assign a color to a stockpile? Or a simple color wheel to give each stockpile settings so you can set up your own colors?
Or do you have a completely different more awesome opinion?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/uyzhr55qp4kgavf/Storage.jpg

[BattleFate]

I think it would be great it you could assign a stockpile a certain type (or types) of good(s) to store, rather than an everything goes type of deal. Then you could have colours based on the goods it can accept. Brown for metal, grey for food, beige for metal & food (or stripped brown/grey).

Same deal with dumping zones, of course with a different colour scheme.

This way I could place my food stockpile near where my colonists are going to eat, and my metal ones near where they are going to build, etc).

[Galileus]

While I'm not picky about colours of my dumps, it would be nice to have small icons in top corner of what is allowed to be stored where. In the end that's what I would see the use of colours for - and with just colours it gets tricky. Say yellow is for one thing and blue for another - is green for both of them or for yet another thing?

Being able to colour your dumps is nice quality of life improvement, but in a game where stockpiles may be a mix'n'match of different materials it may just not be enough. If we sit on food and metal forever - sure, but I'm quite sure it'll get a bit more complicated later down the road. With icons AND ability to colour the dumps (either auto or manual) you end up with a very, very clear and easy system. And if you add automatic scaling of these icons depending on zoom level, it's an early Christmas!

[Semmy]

I really like the small icon add.
But how would that look on a 1*1 or 2*2 stockpile that holds everything.

[BattleFate]

I really like the small icon add.
But how would that look on a 1*1 or 2*2 stockpile that holds everything.

Maybe have a minimum of 1 square per item it can hold. Afterall, how can you put both food and metal into a 1*1 square?

[Semmy]

I really like the small icon add.
But how would that look on a 1*1 or 2*2 stockpile that holds everything.

Maybe have a minimum of 1 square per item it can hold. Afterall, how can you put both food and metal into a 1*1 square?

Not but what if you use the food and metal gets dumped inside instead.

[Galileus]

I really like the small icon add.
But how would that look on a 1*1 or 2*2 stockpile that holds everything.

Good point, simple answer Use an icon representing multiple resources, if there is not enough space on the screen for renderer to draw all the icons. That, with auto-scaling icons, will give you ability to simply zoom in to see what's on that specific stockpile - because if you zoom in close enough, renderer will find enough place to draw more icons. And if we end up in situation with 19365 different resources, we can either stop at using [multi] when not enough place or set up a limiter, that >10 resources allowed on stockpile are always drawn with [multi] icon.

I'm not really sure how much work would that take, but it would be an amazing quality-of-life improvement.

[BattleFate]

I really like the small icon add.
But how would that look on a 1*1 or 2*2 stockpile that holds everything.

Maybe have a minimum of 1 square per item it can hold. Afterall, how can you put both food and metal into a 1*1 square?

Not but what if you use the food and metal gets dumped inside instead.

True... But I was thinking to limit the ability to only being able to assign a resource to it if there's enough space to accommodate it. 1*1? only 1 resource can be assigned. 2*1? 2. 2*2? 4 max. Icons would be a bit crowded on 'packed' dumps like that, but at least you'd be able to use them. Same deal with stripping the colours of the stockpile. If it's too small, your stripes are going to be too hard to see.

Alternatively you could have an icon representing multiple resources, when insufficient room is allowed for each individual one.

[Galileus]

I think a [see more] icon would be the way to go here. Limiting resources accepted by stockpile is a dirty solution for that problem (changing game mechanics to clean UI problem) and us such should be avoided. And this example is actually a great... uhm... example why such design would be considered dirty - it suddenly spawns more problems. Let's say player wants to make a quick and cheap stockpile, knowing that only certain things will be dumped there (because all other things are far away). For example a food stock in hydroponics farm, far away from anything else. Now, the game needs to actually look for near resources to determine what to allow on this stockpile - otherwise player needs to manually change every stockpile to make sure certain resources are allowed. This is a drag, especially if game would make a mistake - you pop down a temporary "all in" stockpile to clear these 4 metals, and your colonists gallop to other side of the map, because game decided metal is not one of the resources that stockpile is going to receive.

And this is a quick example of what can you run into with dirty solutions. Changing game mechanics to clean UI is a big no-no in my book.

Even with a perfect script that could read player's mind - it's still one more game mechanics element to maintain and update. Much more than more elegant and simple solution of adding [multiple] icon.

[Untrustedlife]

Color wheel in my opinion is best. The more customization the better in my opinion.

[Workload]

Nice really pumped for the new stockpiles. Like it the way its now but a little something more would help.
Maybe use the icon thing but have them only pop up while the curser is hovering over that stockpile. and make the icons pop beside/around your curser so this gets around the problem with the stocks being 1*1 and not showing all the icons.

[BattleFate]

Nice really pumped for the new stockpiles. Like it the way its now but a little something more would help.
Maybe use the icon thing but have them only pop up while the curser is hovering over that stockpile. and make the icons pop beside/around your curser so this gets around the problem with the stocks being 1*1 and not showing all the icons.

I think that would work. So long as there aren't too many resources added later on.

[Galileus]

Does not like. With enough stockpiles you still need to do a bunch of busywork and remembering, and icons around cursor obstruct cursor. Not to mention limited space and forced small icons.

[Untrustedlife]

I really like he idea of stockpiles, they fit.... and they mean you have to strategize more with where you put things...will the citizens run and grab the metal required to build?
I would make a stockpile room.

[Workload]

I really like the small icon add.
But how would that look on a 1*1 or 2*2 stockpile that holds everything.

Maybe have a minimum of 1 square per item it can hold. Afterall, how can you put both food and metal into a 1*1 square?

This could work also and wouldn't look bad. Tho icons could cover the items placed there unless they only appear while placing new zones.
But the simple wheel would be easy and fast to learn. Red is weapon items / Green is food or Blue what ever you like. Best thing about this too is its done all ready