itch.io

In my opinion it would be equally important allowing the user to interact with the unit using shortcuts.

Absolutely, the devices are still being explored, but currently there is a Command device that all units have that is the interface between the user actions and the unit, move and attack commands, keyboard shortcuts and other stuff like this would be configured through that device.

At least in games like starcraft I think the UI was important to provide feedback, but most actions would be performed using the keyboard.

I expect this to be slightly different in Kikai, although I see the need for it of course. The end goal is to automate a lot of the army so I think the need for fast shortcuts and a lot of micro diminishes. Although I guess it depends on the player, so it’s good to have!

Would this be an option that the player can make (i.e. it could affect the cost of the unit)? or would the devices be always available and it’s just a matter of complexity?

I’m unsure yet, the same way that I want to remove the CPU cost of drawing UI my intuition tells me I should make these two devices free but this is absolutely undecided. Being able to provide custom information like what the ASDP mkII provides may be invaluable in some cases. So maybe the base EzGui 3000 would be free, but ASDP would cost resources. I have no idea yet! What do you think?

Depending on how hardcore you want to go, maybe the minimap is something the user has to create using the units’ visibility and radio capabilities

This game is definitely an exercise in restraint to not overcomplicate everything, but as with the base army, if a basic minimap is provided and the user wants to update it, that’s good as well so this is in the realm of possibility for this game, yes.

Maybe it would be responsibility of the player to define an interface between them and the units to interact in a way that makes sense (for example, attacking is the same “command” for all units)

As it is right now there are two basic commands that are common for all units (but that they may decide to ignore of course)

• Move
• Attack

These are two specific vectors (callbacks) that all units will respond to. One thing that may be interesting is to offer the capability to write customized devices using Uxntal as well, that offer unified command interfaces for what the user wants to do.

This is very interesting, there could be a “GUI Unit” (for a lack of a better term), it’s code that is always present and controls the whole UI of the player. With Camera, Units and other devices that allows you to control several aspects of the gameplay.

Data sheets would be cool!

Data sheets are definitely in the pipeline!

What if there were no difference between “units” and “buildings” at all? and the difference is just the components. This could allow for stationary “units” (like defenses) or movable factories. Or crazy stuff like swarm-spawning motherships.

I think this makes a lot of sense and it really goes in the direction of the game. At the end of the day Units are just a mash of different devices + a CPU + some code. You could have a Factory device, that provides the interface to assemble units and you could embed that in anything as you say. The idea of movable factories generating swarm units is very interesting. (Depending on how we model resource gather it may mean a constant stream of resources going to movable factories! I’m still thinking about how I want to model resources and if they should be factory-local, similar to how factorio works)

This enables strategies like expensive smart units controlling expendable dumb ones.

Exactly! The strategies are endless when you have control over every part of a unit at runtime (except changing devices, although units with a factory device may be able to rewire a unit to have different devices altogether)

What if there were some kind of mechanism to read/write the code on the enemy units? (like the engineer in command & conquer).

This could be very cool but I wonder how to make it work, maybe by salvaging killed units? You send a unit with some particular device that can extract fragments of code from enemy units.

exposes a custom UI so the player can see the data

I literally just wrote another post about customizable interfaces that touches on this and I added your example to the advanced UI device. Check it out!