As there's already a thread for this, I have some more UX-friendliness suggestions. I hadn't realised this list would be so big, I hope it's OK!
My context : I'm a relatively novice player who's reached the $1M, 10+ ship fleet part of the game 2-3 times. Invariably, I stop playing because it's somehow become less fun, and the main culprets for that (for me) are the many small areas where the UX needs improvement and polish. For a pre-v1.0 game it's in great shape and I'm very impressed with it, and sincerely hope that the UI/UX receives a lot of polish before it hits v1.0.
It's definitely possible that some of my suggestions are already in the game but that I've somehow missed them - my apologies if that's the case!
1) Problem : some things in the game happen so quickly, you are barely given any time to respond. E.g. a superior hostile fleet has just been spotted. If you emergency-burn and/or change course to evade in the split-second their hostile nature is reported, you'll escape them. If you wait even one second, they'll get you and destroy your whole fleet.
Suggested solution : auto-pause.
A list of possible auto-pause conditions (preferably all individually toggleable, as some people will want an auto-pause for X whereas others won't) :
- On detection of new hostile fleet
- On detection of new hostile fleet significantly stronger than you (150%+ OP maybe?) (this one's a nice-to-have)
- When you're about to have less fuel / fewer supplies than it takes to immediately go to the nearest known non-hostile planet/station
- When you're about to have less fuel / fewer supplies than it takes to immediately go to system X to fulfil a mission you've accepted
- When you're about to run out of time to journey to system X to fulfil a mission you've accepted
2) Problem : when hovering over a fleet (e.g. while they're still chasing you), it is often very difficult to estimate how strong it is compared to yours. You're told the max. burn, the number of ships (if you count them all up) and each ship's hull type (barely). From this you can work out various stats, but it's very tedious (and borderline impossible for new players).
Suggested solution : present some more summary information :
- an estimate of that fleet's total OP
- a percentage estimate of that fleet's total OP compared with yours
- an estimate of that fleet's total cargo space
- an estimate of that fleet's total fuel space
- the name of each hull type (this one might clutter up the UI for a big fleet?)
All of this information is already present, because you can get it all from the hull types, which the game already shows. Currently you need to have encyclopedic knowledge of what each one looks like in order to deduce the above information. Right now, novices are being penalised because of this. Even if it didn't, it's still bad UI design - this information should be presented and immediately accessible.
If the fleet contains a hull type your character hasn't encountered before, then it could be omitted from these stats, with a note saying such (though expert players on a new playthrough would still know what they are anyway, so this would be penalising novice players again).
3) Problem : numerous times I've visited an unexplored system, explored it but found things I couldn't/didn't want to fight or salvage then, e.g. domain probes. I wanted to leave them and come back later when I had more firepower and/or more cargo space. But the game doesn't easily report to the player "hey, this system you've explored still has a probe to fight, there's still a reason to visit this system again."
Suggested solutions : A) Allow the player to make notes on the map, at both system and sector/galaxy level
B) The game should report a summary of the known interactable entities still in that system, e.g. probes, research stations, equipment caches, planets not yet fully surveyed, etc.
(A and B here are not either/or suggestions; the game should allow players to make notes on the map anyway, regardless of other issues)
4) Problem : when on the deployment screen, it's often difficult to know how much more OP you're about to deploy than the enemy has.
Suggested solution : present (an estimate of) the total OP of the enemy fleet in the deployment screen.
5) Problem : when outfitting ships, finding specific weapon roles (e.g PD weapons) can be tedious.
Suggested solution : in addition to the Owned/Legal/Illegal filters, there should be filters for specific weapon roles, e.g. PD, Assault, etc.
6) Problem : when outfitting ships, finding the best weapon for your purpose for a slot can be tedious. E.g. finding the weapon with range greater than X (or equal to Y) that does most damage to shields/armour/hull/overall. Yes, you can hover over each weapon, but that and comparing the weapons manually can take a lot of time when there're 8+ different options.
Suggested solution : the weapon list should be able to be sorted by various stats, not just OP. E.g. range, DPS, DPS per OP, damage to shields/armour/hull/overall (with overall taking a 1:1:1 ratio for each of the three types), etc.
7) Problem : whenever I open the refit screen, the selected ship is too small/zoomed out to see what weapons it has, and I always end up zooming in. This might not be such a problem for Capital ships, but it's pretty annoying for smaller ones. This screen otherwise has loads of space left unused.
Suggested solution : default zoom level in the refit screen should be set to the current max zoomed-in level.
8 ) Two small keyboard improvements : the numberpad doesn't work for choosing options 1, 2, etc., and some keyboard shortcuts are hardcoded, e.g R and G in the salvage/loot screen - it would be nice to be able to rebind these.
Combat9) Problem : combat can often take *forever*, with ships just putzing about a lot of the time.
Suggested solution : allow combat to be sped up, just as you can when outside combat (maybe just build the SpeedUp mod into the base game?)
10) Problem : combat can often take *forever* to finally take out that last ship.
Suggested solution : allow combat to have an option to auto-resolve, once the main part of a combat is more-or-less done.
11) Problem : numerous times I've entered combat and discovered that I've deployed the wrong combination of my ships for the situation, e.g. I've deployed a ship with an Aggressive officer when I shouldn't (and now they've been overwhelmed and blown up), or I've deployed a Cautious officer without sufficient other firepower. The end result of this is very unnecessary ship losses and/or "combat" whose only outcome is my ships burning all their CR.
Suggested solution : on the deployment screen, in addition to showing which ships have officers, tell the player that officer's personality.
12) Problem : I've been on the end of quite a few battles against very superior fleets that have pounced on me, where my best option is to retreat right from the start. My slower non-military ships need escorts to keep them safe; the Escort orders seem to work decently. But once the escorted ship has retreated, the escorting ships still hang around, and separate orders need to be issued. This is a little tedious and, if you're not paying enough attention, can lead to your escorting ships engaging the enemy and being swatted.
Suggested solution : have an "automatically retreat once all to-be-escorted ships have retreated" order.