26 replies to this topic

[Muzakman]

I love making loadouts in Smurfy's MechLab, but I found that I wanted to be able to be able to "zoom out" from the battlefield a bit more. The classic game MechCommander has an opening FMV that's cheesier than a Wisconsin dairy farm, but it's still kinda cool to imagine directing a battle from the micro to the macro.

Fortunately, Smurfy has allowed the fruits of his labors to freely be shared, and PGI has allowed me to use their most excellent artwork (Alex, you rock man!) in the pursuit of that idea.

Head to http://mwocommand.liquidelectron.com to download the app, see screenshots, and read more about the MWO Command Console app.

As of right now, the app is available only for Windows 8.1 users. The next release, hopefully within the next week or two, is scheduled to support Windows Phone 8 as well.

I hope you find the app useful, and I'd love to hear people's thoughts on how to make it moreso.

Enjoy!

[Muzakman]

here's a quick update for what is coming soon in the Command Console's DropShip Command page:

[Muzakman]

here's how it's looking. I'm still trying to figure out a better way to display weapons on the lance cards

[K1ttykat]

This is an interesting idea, its just too bad its for windows 8.

[Muzakman]

Thanks! I'm doing it in HTML+JS, so I'm hoping that will make it easy to port to other platforms. I think I got the problem licked about displaying the load -- keep in mind I'm not a designer by any means, so just making it visually legible counts as a victory in my book!

EDIT: the screenshot shows a hover (mouse) or hover-intent (touch) view of the load's details

Edited by Muzakman, 11 May 2014 - 08:58 PM.

[Muzakman]

I've submitted an update to the store containing the DropDeck features pictured above - it should be available within the next 8-12 hours

[Muzakman]

I've been informed that update 0.9.4.1 is now available in the store - check for app updates (settings) if you're not seeing it yet for some reason.

[Muzakman]

to give updated screenshots a place to live while caches invalidate, wanted to share this from the new update. This is the RTM view of the DropDeck screen. Couple things to note:

• See the title bar? That only shows up when I'm using a mouse. That's part of a recent Windows 8.1 update.
  
• Show or hide different weight classes in the left-hand side "well" of loads by tapping or clicking on one of the colored boxes at the top of the well. In the screenshot below, only Medium weight class 'Mechs are displayed.
  
• You can also see an aggregate count of the company's tonnage and class distribution at the top of the screen below the header.
  
• Clicking the "X" next to the header will clear the current DropDeck.
  
• Your deck will be saved automatically a short interval after you make any change.

[StalaggtIKE]

Looking good!

[Muzakman]

Glad you like it!

I'm a pretty crappy front-end developer, so the styles and layout aren't nearly where I want to be (any HTML / CSS gurus wanna contrib?), but if I waited to release until I was satisfied, the app would never come out!

hopefully this app become a useful tool in people's MWO toolbox

[Muzakman]

NEW! Command Console v0.9.5 is now available in the store!

- Tag loadouts in the MechBay
- UI changes:
- better-looking delete handles in DropDeck for pilots and mechs
- DropDeck cards now aggregate weapons to show the unique count and type of weapons in the well
- Once much elements are assigned to a lance, flipping the card over reveals loadout details
- MechBay color-codes equipment and upgrades:
- JumpJets
- ECM
- Ferro
- Endo
- DHS
- Hub view of 'MY Mechs' improved
- displays chassis info per variant now to reduce clutter
- variants have hardpoint info overlaid on their image

[Jester McCloud]

How about those of us that never decided to buy into Windows 8?

[Muzakman]

- 0.9.6.3

• Fixed crash-upon-launch problem caused by network timeouts and errors in loading codex data
  
• Improved handling of network unavailable situations

0.9.6.1 Update notes:

• Bug fixes in many areas
  
• MWO static data API integration (beta)
  
• DropDeck - instead of displaying loadouts in the load well, cards for available chassis and variants are displayed.
  
• Clan invasion updates
  
• Known issue: clan mech hardpoints all say "0" for their count in summaries (omnipod data reading issue)
  

[Muzakman]

Jester McCloud, on 24 July 2014 - 05:09 PM, said:

How about those of us that never decided to buy into Windows 8?

I'd love to reach the broadest base of people possible, but my resources are quite limited, and don't have any allowance for that at this time. That said, I'm examining some possibilities that could neatly avoid the issue altogether...

Windows 8.1 is really quite a huge improvement from Windows 8 (and it doesn't cost anything to upgrade from 8 -> 8.1). You even have your start menu back... it can take up the whole screen if you want it! There's other benefits too - I've seen folks gain 10-15fps in the MWO client after an upgrade from 7.

[gamingogre]

The majority of users are on Win 7. Please consider this a nessassary evil if you want to reach the majority.

[Pezzer]

I'd hate to rain on anyone's parade, especially if they are making FREE software for the public to use, so all I can say is good work! Maybe we will see a Windows 7/Android port in the distant future!

Edited by Pezzer, 25 July 2014 - 03:20 PM.

[MadPanda]

Only windows 8 lol. If you are doing this for fun and experience then its fine, but if you wanted actual users then limiting to windows 8 was a big plunder.

[Arkbird_]

Just adding to the choir that having it only on windows 8 severely restricts the audience as I too am on windows 7 with no intention of switching to 8. Going to skip it altogether just like Vista.

However this does sound like a cool app. Should it see an android release I would grab it in a heartbeat

[greytiger]

Also a windows 7 only user. Been making certain to buy extra copies of win 7 for new machines, tearing out windows 8 and reinstalling with 7, ect.

This app looks like pretty much what I want for MWO to help co-ordinate and manage my unit. A pity it's only for windows 8.

And for the record, without changing to windows 8.1, I get 60 FPS, even on my older machine, at high resolution settings in MWO.

[greytiger]

JennerCrusher, on 30 July 2014 - 11:09 PM, said:

Why do people hate Windows 8 so much? I've used it before, and to me it's amazing!

Call me old fashioned, but I don't want my interface to look like that - it looks, for lack of a better term, too childlike, akin to some of the child protection software of the 90s where it created an 'safe' interface over the OS to keep kids out of dangerous things. And some of the network functionality has caused -massive- headaches for me and my company. A basic network connection should not require 'pro' anything.

Further more, you can't easily tweak it. Hell, even the 'Windows 7' interface program doesn't fix most of my issues - it allows more control, but you still have the network issues and the inflexibility in dealing with certain things.

Granted, you have some of that in Windows 7 as well, but it's substantially more tech/IT friendly for many things - I don't need to pay more to get what is a basic functionality with windows 7 home basic, for example.

Much like Vista before it, Windows 8 is just too restrictive on too many levels. And 8.1 is worse. And the interface, though simple, reminds me of a smart phone - not what I want my computer to be like.