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Author Topic: Destination Marker  (Read 2430 times)

ArkAngel

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Destination Marker
« on: September 17, 2016, 06:43:46 AM »

It'd be kinda cool if you xould mark your travel destination on the map, and get some various information about it. Like, whats the estimated time to arrive at max burn, or approximate fuel/supply cost for trip.

It would certainly make doing missions a fair bit easier.
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DatonKallandor

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Re: Destination Marker
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2016, 05:02:57 AM »

That's a great idea, would be really useful.
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Gothars

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Re: Destination Marker
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2016, 05:26:03 AM »

Please don't forget to use the search function before posting a suggestion, this one was made several times.

For example, here: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11252.0


I'm personally not a fan of map markers. Simple direction markers are only useful when travel is trivial, and since we'll be doing rather a lot of it, I'd rather have in complex and rich in variety. More sophisticated path-markers would certainly "help" then, but they would also serve wonderfully to keep you out of the experience.
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Sy

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Re: Destination Marker
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2016, 02:48:20 PM »

Simple direction markers are only useful when travel is trivial
i'd argue it's actually the opposite: if i don't have to worry about enemies or terrain, i can just use the map to click on my destination once, and let my 'autopilot' take me there in a straight line. for that, the addition of a visual indicator would be pointless. but if i'm frequently dodging and/or chasing enemy fleets, reinforcing nearby allies locked in battle, or avoiding obstructing terrain like hyperstorms, it's often hard to tell in which exact direction my ultimate destination is. this leads to me frequently opening the map, either to check direction or engage autopilot again for a short distance, whenever something else made me deviate from the most direct course.

the upcoming addition of a campaign radar (similar to what is currently available as mod) could help with this on short distances, but not for journeys across the sector. and with a large number of procedurally generated fringe systems, this will likely only get worse. being able to set a single custom waypoint / map marker that shows direction to my set destination, without having to open the map all the time, would be very helpful.
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Gothars

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Re: Destination Marker
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2016, 03:19:56 PM »

Right. At the moment they would certainly help, because all obstructions are quite small, and there are no shortcuts.
What I'm kinda hoping for is that travel will be  about interacting with your sourrounding in a way that makes travel faster than following a straight line would be. Things like using streams and currents in hyperspace, or finding instable temporary jump points. Alex mentioned that hyperspace might become non-static. So obstructions might appear between you and your target, forcing you to approach it from a completely different vector.
Those kind of things would make a directional marker quite misleading. A radar map would be very uselful though, so I'm taking it's implementation as a good sign :)
« Last Edit: September 18, 2016, 03:22:20 PM by Gothars »
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The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

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Sy

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Re: Destination Marker
« Reply #5 on: September 18, 2016, 04:14:52 PM »

yeah, that makes sense. these things would certainly diminish the usefulness of a simple "go this way" indicator. but not to the point where it'd be entirely useless, i think. even if i don't directly follow the indicator, being able to tell where my ultimate destination is might still be helpful to choose what path i want to get there.

if it's just a single marker than shows a small icon indicating direction and maybe distance, it shouldn't be a problem for the UI, even when it isn't used all the time. plus, if it's set manually, you can always just not use it on travels where it's not helpful.

obviously, if something is just pointless, then dev time shouldn't be wasted on it, regardless of how unobtrusive it is. but i don't feel that's the case here.
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DatonKallandor

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Re: Destination Marker
« Reply #6 on: September 19, 2016, 12:24:30 PM »

It's not so much the marker itself that would be useful it's the implied ruler functionality. Why not let the player find out how much fuel it would take his current fleet to get to point X (under optimal conditions)? Because the alternative is that he saves the game and tries it - and it either works or he has to reload and has just wasted time because there was no UI support for it. That's not a good outcome for no potential gameplay upside.
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