3 Commando Brigade

ACE 3 First Impression (from playtest)

Action Menu
My god, where has this been all my life. The new 3D-like action menu is a massive improvement (replacement?) of the vanilla A3 action menu. It's really easy and quick to use. Compared to the current AGM implementation, you can:

• Use the action UI while on the move.
• Quickly jump between menus/sub-menus just by looking at it (rather than clicking back through the menus).
• Select options faster - no clicks required, only mouse movement.
• Use TrackIR to select options (by looking at them).

Here's a quick demo of the ACE 3 action UI:

Would be nice if we could increase the size of the UI - might be a bit too small for some (hopefully they add this).


Map
A small change, but I thought I'd mention it. The map screen colours have been slightly modified (to look more like a real OS map?). Thanks to a new server-side option the map cursor coordinates can now be removed (at last!).

Something else quite nice I noticed - the satellite image version of the map has been lowered in opacity so you can still easily read the original map below it.





Map illumination is also another nice feature (aka ST Map Brightness)



Helicopter HUD

Not sure of all the specific advantages of the new heli HUD (perhaps some of the pilots can fill me in here). However, for immersion purposes, it looks awesome! The compass heading shown at the top is the vehicle's heading (not where you're looking), which could be useful. As the pilot, I can also see where my gunner is aiming (overlays their crosshair on my HUD).

UI aside, there's one new interesting feature - the gunner's aim holds it's position. In other words, if you (as the gunner) aim at a vehicle on the ground while the pilot is twisting/turning - you're aim will stick and hold to that vehicle so you can continue engaging/watching without your turret going all over the place.


Ragdoll
New ragdoll is really nice - human targets are now less like sacks of potatoes when killed.

Vanilla:


ACE 3:




First impressions overall - I'm liking ACE3. It's what we already have from AGM - and then a bit more.
This is just the start, I'm looking forward to seeing how ACE3 progresses.

Added ragdoll.

I like the UI - bit it's too small for me.. I tried to use TrackIR with it but the targets are too small and fiddly to hit. But I Also don't like the idea of the Avatar moving around like a puppet when you're trying to hit an option... not very stealthy 

SJ

Just checked this out and played a bit around and here are my thoughts.

The UI looks nice but it feels impractical. Treating people is a huge pain and I hope they will at least include a alternative for the current UI. Sure it looks shiny, but when it comes to a UI I prefer functionality over looks. Especially when you are in front of a brigher background some elements are very hard to read. Beside that I dont like the idea that my character is moving around like he has a stroke just to check how heavy my magazine is. I have not tested the UI when TrackIR was on (too much sun here right now) but I think this will be a huge pain with TrackIR. I can only hope they reconsider the way the UI works, create a alternative or massively improve it.

But let us come to some good news.....

The medical system is pretty much what you had in the latest version of CSE with some improvements. Sadly the whole system suffers from the quite terrible UI.

I'm pretty happy to see an AGM/CSE/ACE merger and especially with it going open source. I shouldn't think there's any doubt we'll change over in due course when it's properly released.
We can probably start testing different medical system configurations as a group pretty soon, but I predict flame-wars of epic proportions.

The UI is interesting, but does need work to make it enjoyable. 

For those that haven't seen the option, for self-interaction you can remove the character movement and revert to a standard cursor point UI:

- ACE OPTIONS (top left on menu screen)
- Always display cursor for self interaction: change to YES.

It makes sense that you need to look at different body parts on other-interaction, but I'm not sure how it will feel with TrackIR in the heat of battle.

What would be nice is an option to use a 2D version on the current UI (i.e. you use your mouse cursor to select options instead of pointing with your actual avatar).

I really like the UI system (as in the way the menus expand/collapse, and how quick it is to select them) - a 2D version of it would be perfect.


Edit: Just saw Apollo's post, will try this now.