Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: SafariJohn on October 12, 2017, 11:57:26 AM
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In the main campaign view, left-clicking lays a course, while right-clicking toggles freelook.
In the map view, left-clicking (holding, technically) opens a context menu, while right-clicking lays a course.
I think it is obvious these two should be consistent with each other. Therefore I suggest the main campaign view use the same mouse controls as the map view.
While I like right-click context menus, right-click movement is VERY common in video games and I think it makes more sense in Starsector's case. Freelook is just gonna have to take a hike to the settings menu. I for one always have it on anyways.
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"Lay in course" needs to be consistent too.
It's maddening that laying in course to a [star/planet/space station with market] requires a different input (LMB press & drag down), to laying in course to anything else (LMB click).
I expected it to have been a simple oversight, and corrected in one of 0.8's patch releases; alas it hasn't.
Maybe nobody screamed loud enough!
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In the main campaign view, left-clicking lays a course, while right-clicking toggles freelook.
In the map view, left-clicking (holding, technically) opens a context menu, while right-clicking lays a course.
I think it is obvious these two should be consistent with each other. Therefore I suggest the main campaign view use the same mouse controls as the map view.
While I like right-click context menus, right-click movement is VERY common in video games and I think it makes more sense in Starsector's case. Freelook is just gonna have to take a hike to the settings menu. I for one always have it on anyways.
If main view movement was on right-click, then what would be on left-click? It feels like a primary action should be on the left mouse click, which I'd assume is the first thing a new player tries.
As far as consistency, think of it this way - left-clicking interacts with a thing in both views, while right-clicking (and dragging) moves the view around, also in both views. Right-click to lay in course is more of a secondary use for right-click there, as a shortcut. The primary uses for both buttons are pretty consistent. Also, consider that there's the same sort of setup in the combat map - you can right-click-drag to pan the view, and you can also right-click to give a move order, as a secondary use for right-click.
"Lay in course" needs to be consistent too.
It's maddening that laying in course to a [star/planet/space station with market] requires a different input (LMB press & drag down), to laying in course to anything else (LMB click).
I expected it to have been a simple oversight, and corrected in one of 0.8's patch releases; alas it hasn't.
Maybe nobody screamed loud enough!
The map needs to be easy to navigate - you need to be able to switch between system and hyperspace views easily. To me, that means the "show system map" option has to be the primary one at least when you're clicking on a star in hyperspace. There's an argument for maybe moving "lay in course" to be the first option for in-system entities, but given that you can right-click to lay in course, it seems a bit moot.
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Have you considered some sort of waypoint system? I'd like to be able to plot courses other than straight lines.
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Yeah - I don't want to get that complicated with it. Waypoint systems are nice for RTS games where you want to queue up some orders and forget about the units for a bit. Here, you're still controlling your fleet the entire time; the odds of a waypointed route remaining relevant all the way to completion aren't... great; I'm not seeing a compelling use case. And it's a lot more complicated to implement compared to a single destination system.
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I guess the situation where I'd like it is in hyperspace. I tend to use the campaign map to see where areas of low nebula density are and then head through those areas, I end up switching back and forth between the map and campaign a lot to see when I've reached certain places. I could lay in a course to the point where I want to turn, but then I lose where my mission is and have to open the intel tab to find it again. Even the ability to mark points on the map and have arrows pointing towards them in the campaign would work, or the ability to mark missions and bounties on the map tab.
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If main view movement was on right-click, then what would be on left-click?
Left-click (hold) in the main view would be to open a context menu.
It feels like a primary action should be on the left mouse click, which I'd assume is the first thing a new player tries.
Hey, I mean, I'd much rather have left-click is "do thing" and right-click is "menu of more things you can do here".
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In the main campaign view, left-clicking lays a course, while right-clicking toggles freelook.
In the map view, left-clicking (holding, technically) opens a context menu, while right-clicking lays a course.
I think it is obvious these two should be consistent with each other. Therefore I suggest the main campaign view use the same mouse controls as the map view.
While I like right-click context menus, right-click movement is VERY common in video games and I think it makes more sense in Starsector's case. Freelook is just gonna have to take a hike to the settings menu. I for one always have it on anyways.
If main view movement was on right-click, then what would be on left-click? It feels like a primary action should be on the left mouse click, which I'd assume is the first thing a new player tries.
As far as consistency, think of it this way - left-clicking interacts with a thing in both views, while right-clicking (and dragging) moves the view around, also in both views. Right-click to lay in course is more of a secondary use for right-click there, as a shortcut. The primary uses for both buttons are pretty consistent. Also, consider that there's the same sort of setup in the combat map - you can right-click-drag to pan the view, and you can also right-click to give a move order, as a secondary use for right-click.
"Lay in course" needs to be consistent too.
It's maddening that laying in course to a [star/planet/space station with market] requires a different input (LMB press & drag down), to laying in course to anything else (LMB click).
I expected it to have been a simple oversight, and corrected in one of 0.8's patch releases; alas it hasn't.
Maybe nobody screamed loud enough!
The map needs to be easy to navigate - you need to be able to switch between system and hyperspace views easily. To me, that means the "show system map" option has to be the primary one at least when you're clicking on a star in hyperspace. There's an argument for maybe moving "lay in course" to be the first option for in-system entities, but given that you can right-click to lay in course, it seems a bit moot.
Wait, what? This is like some obtuse GIS program. Left click should just be the movement/lay course in all layers. All the above rationale you give for the inconsistency is overthinking it. With enough words, you can come up with a good sounding theoretical explanation for any design choice... but for players, we just want the same button to do the same thing on multiple layers.
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While I agree with the sentiment, I hardly think that "left-click = interact, right-click = move the view around" is overthinking it :)
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The thing is, here in Statsector almost all of the time you'll be using the LMB since you don't have to do other things like in rts games or similar genres. There, right click is almost always movement but you do a lot of actions with LMB like selecting units and ordering all sorts of different commands. It makes no sense to put it on the RMB since you'll never use left click then. And it's kinda counter intuitive that primary actions you use a lot go on RMB.
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Wait, what? This is like some obtuse GIS program. Left click should just be the movement/lay course in all layers. All the above rationale you give for the inconsistency is overthinking it. With enough words, you can come up with a good sounding theoretical explanation for any design choice... but for players, we just want the same button to do the same thing on multiple layers.
While I agree with the sentiment, I hardly think that "left-click = interact, right-click = move the view around" is overthinking it :)
I think both of you are right.
The current controls aren’t good. No flowery explanation will get around that. However, I think the “left-click = interact, right-click = camera” design can be modified to do everything right.
As I implied earlier, I think having context menus in the main view would be very useful. The following control scheme would work for the main view and the map view:
Left-hold = context menu
Left-click = primary option from the context menu
Right-click = go there (main view)/lay a course (map view)
Right-hold & drag = move camera around
When the right mouse button is held and released in the main view, I think the camera should wait one or two seconds, then re-center on the player’s fleet. This would give enough time for the player to issue a “go there” order or open a context menu.
The camera could either center on the context menu’s location while it’s open, or the context menu could simply maintain its spot relative to the screen. In the latter case I think the context menu should show the name of what entity it is for.
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Hmm - I don't think using "consistency" as a metric for whether a UI is good, and as a primary design goal is a good idea. The two screens are not the same and not every interaction translates equally well. Consistency has some value, for sure, but it's not the only thing we should look at.
A quick example: right-click and drag to move the view in the combat and campaign map, vs right-click, release, and drag for the same in the main campaign view. It's inconsistent, but the context is different, and using right-click as a toggle there felt *much* better.
Fleet movement in the main view and setting course on the map are pretty different in terms of player interaction. One is a real-time control, one is a much less frequent longer-term decision. Heck, prior the the .1 release, the only way to lay in a course was from the context menu. Taking a usability improvement - i.e. allowing right-click to set and cancel course - and using that as the basis of a UI rework (which imo sacrifices usability by not using left-click for some important actions) seems a bit much. That it requires a new, otherwise undiscussed feature (main view context menus) to make it "work" is also a warning sign - cart, horse, etc.
That said - thank you for the suggestion, and for putting thought into it! These are very interesting and useful things to think about, and I've ended up thinking about it quite a bit here. I think I have a better mental grasp of it as a result :)
FWIW, what I think is a general "rule" type thing to get out of this - consistency is important for UI interactions for performing similar actions, but not necessarily when working with similar concepts. For example, if left-click brings up a context menu somewhere, if at all possible, that's how it should be across the board anywhere there is a context menu. Right-click and drag to pan maps and scroll lists etc is in the same vein. But some actions aren't going to translate between screens even if the concepts are the same. The actions are different even if the concepts are similar, and trying to force the same UI on them may end up being detrimental. It's *nice* to get consistency in that case as well, but it can't be the primary goal.
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I guess the situation where I'd like it is in hyperspace. I tend to use the campaign map to see where areas of low nebula density are and then head through those areas, I end up switching back and forth between the map and campaign a lot to see when I've reached certain places. I could lay in a course to the point where I want to turn, but then I lose where my mission is and have to open the intel tab to find it again. Even the ability to mark points on the map and have arrows pointing towards them in the campaign would work, or the ability to mark missions and bounties on the map tab.
Right - the radar is supposed to help there, but the deep-hyper terrain on it is kind of hard to see. And IIRC wasn't working at all in .8 but works in .8.1 (though still a bit tough to see). Also, if you're using LazyWizard's radar, I *think* - but I'm not 100% sure - it shows a much smaller area around you by default than the vanilla radar. Depending on the distance, zoom-out and free-look pan can help here as well.
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The radar is helpful for locally avoiding individual storms, but you can't see the full structure of the nebulae. It can be difficult to tell from the campaign map and radar if that patch of storms is a thin patch you can just smash through or a massive nebulae that extends very far where you will bog down and run out of supplies. I had that happen a few too many times so I started opening the map and looking for the clear paths around the nebulae, but you can't really tell from the campaign or radar if a gap in the clouds is the start of the path you are looking for, so I end up just opening the map repeatedly to find the path I want to take. I don't use any radar mods and always play as zoomed out as possible in the campaign with free look on.
On the subject of campaign UI:
What about double left click for lay in course in the map? I almost never look at system maps when laying in course, I always just lay in course to the system and then figure out which jump point I want to enter through and do that manually (also it would be nice if laying in a course to a system took you to the system and then canceled autopilot rather than jumping in on the star). Streamlining the lay-in-course would be very nice.
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Streamlining the lay-in-course would be very nice.
You can right-click to do it. Double-click is problematic to use alongside the left-click-and-hold context menu.
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One thing I know for sure is that even after I've had all this time to get used to it, I still sometimes pull up the planet info screen when I meant to lay a course. :(
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Right - the radar is supposed to help there, but the deep-hyper terrain on it is kind of hard to see. And IIRC wasn't working at all in .8 but works in .8.1 (though still a bit tough to see). Also, if you're using LazyWizard's radar, I *think* - but I'm not 100% sure - it shows a much smaller area around you by default than the vanilla radar. Depending on the distance, zoom-out and free-look pan can help here as well.
Just a note. LazyWizard's Common Radar mod only has a combat radar now. Since vanilla got its own campaign radar display, the campaign radar component of the mod was disabled.
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Ah, ok, thank you for letting me know.
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I agree with OP. I don't have a strong opinion on whether it should be RMB or LMB that orders a move command, but it should be consistent.
Fleet movement in the main view and setting course on the map are pretty different in terms of player interaction. One is a real-time control, one is a much less frequent longer-term decision. FWIW, what I think is a general "rule" type thing to get out of this - consistency is important for UI interactions for performing similar actions, but not necessarily when working with similar concepts.
They aren't just similiar concepts, they are similiar actions. While moving around the campaign the player alternates between giving "move commands" by clicking on the top-down view, and giving "move commands" by clicking on the map. The result of either is the fleet moving to the point that was clicked. It's no different than an RTS game accepting move commands either by clicking on the ground or on the minimap.
Personally I'd go with RMB as that is the key most commonly used for movement in top-down PC games, but LMB makes sense too, as the interface in most operating systems has RMB open a context menu. Like I said, I'm fine with either, but it shouldn't arbitrarily change from one screen to the next.
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I will weigh in, since this got resurrected, and say that even now it's bloody annoying. I have to constant switch which mouse button I'm using because the primary function ("Go here") keeps jumping from left to right.
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Alex i think that you’re wrong that things are consistent. The primary thing you do in this game is “move your fleet”. You cannot deselect your fleet. You cannot select other fleets. There are no drag and drop selections. Context menus for other things are not primary interactions. In almost no situations you’re not going there to move your fleet.
But you always move your fleet and left mouse button is “move” in one and not in the other. Even after hundreds of hours of playing I still get confused playing and it takes far more time to adjust than other games when coming back.
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Why not have right click function the same as left click on the campaign layer? That way people can just default to right click if they want a consistent button? Everywhere else in the game (intel and regular map, tactical map, market, colony management, etc.) LMB selects things and right click is laying in a course or a battle waypoint. It's just the campaign layer where movement becomes the primary action and jumps from RMB to LMB, and RMB becomes free look. That's what's weird. Free look should be on a hotkey or in the menu and in the campaign layer both mouse buttons can be movement, so people can just get used to RMB to lay in a destination on any point, just like the map, while LMB can be movement that doesn't override the currently laid-in destination. So it's a primary form of movement, an "I want to control my movement closely, and particularly, right now" while RMB remains a higher-level, less-used "I want to pick a destination" button.