Sunday, 4th January, 2004

The old layout, organized by technological pathway	The new layout proposed by TRZ, organizing technology by sections corresponding to the kind of technology that it represents.

TheRealZenin recently posted a poll on AHQ which asks whether the community is favorable toward a change in the layout of the investments display: the F5 menu. The old menu pictured above is the one that has been in use since Allegiance was released by Microsoft. The technology is organized by technological pathway. As such, everything that one can obtain from a Supremacy Center is found under the Supremacy Center tab, and so on. However, with the creation of new factions, each with varying technology, it was becoming clear that this layout no longer sufficed. Indeed, the SOC created long ago, and the more recent Palisade and Research Station used by the Ga'Taraan Federation, all provide new technologies that had to be placed under the Garrison tab for lack of a better place. The F5 menu is coded deeply within Allegiance, and without the code, no one was able to change it to add new tabs for the new stations.

The best we can do is change the images where the names of the tabs are displayed, and which technology goes where, as was done above. The new layout would group all types of technology together. As such, ship research would be placed in their section, weapons, parts, and GAs all in their own. This makes creating new technologies much easier, because all new ship upgrades will be placed together in a single menu, regardless of how many technologies are built.

Aside from the advantage of grouping all technologies differently, the new layout makes the different technologies less linked to their station. With the old layout, when one builds a supremacy center, it is clear which ship, equipment and GAs have been obtained, as they are all together under a single tab. However, the new layout has new ships, equipment and GAs appearing all over the menu. For veterans, it is clear that the supremacy center is the station responsible for the fighter, AB2, AC2, DF2 technologies and ripcord GA, , but the tactical laboratory is the station responsible for the stealth fighter, cloak2, stealth bomber, energy GA, etc. For the newbie however, knowing which station obtains which ship may become more difficult to learn, since they are no longer so clearly identified. It would become easier to confuse the stations and the technology that they provide.

In order to compensate for this, players have thought of a way to identify each technology. When placing your mouse over a menu option in the F5 menu, a description appears to the left. The description could be changed to add which station provides each technology. As such, by reading the description, one could find out which station provides which technology, thus making it easier to learn. One could tell more easily what technology he is about to lose as the station is getting bombed.

The new layout is, as announced, a much needed change that seems welcomed by most. It allows easier creation of new technological pathways by grouping them differently, but also groups different upgrades together more efficiently. One no longer needs to navigate the tabs to find which missiles are available, but only look under a single tab.