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Author Topic: Inventory Management  (Read 11584 times)

Adraius

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Inventory Management
« on: September 29, 2015, 10:45:53 PM »

In the relatively near future (perhaps as part of the next major release after .7), I think the inventory system needs a significant quality-of-life rework; much of the impetus behind this suggestion is the large number of weapons and increased number of star systems due to mods, but some of these address issues already apparent in the base game, and as the base game expands in those aspects, the need for these changes will become more pressing.  This is both a list of things I think are needed as soon as is reasonable, and things it would nice to see eventually as the game nears completion.

Regardless of whether the current grid-based system is the final inventory scheme or something altogether different is implemented, I've identified four areas that need improvement.

1) Item Organization
The current inventory screen is lacking any ability to organize or filter below the level of 'all weapons', which is inadequate given the sheer variety of weapons that now can appear in a single campaign.  Ideally, I'd like to see the following features in an inventory system:
  • the ability to sort or filter my weapons by slot size, slot type, and damage type, including combinations of these
  • the ability to search for a specific weapon by name
  • the ability to have all weapons of a specific type automatically marked or tagged wherever I see them (for example, to easily see weapons I'm looking for in markets)
  • the ability to apply custom markers or tags to individual weapons or groups of weapons in my inventory (for example, to earmark them for use on a specific ship retrofit)

2) Ease of Transference
Moving large numbers of items should be quick, and there should be options for quickly selecting certain subsets of items based on groups or filters.  Features I'd like to see:
  • [ADDED] some form of drag-a-box or shift-click selection
  • sorting or filtering schemes that are persistent between inventory locations - ex. if markers/tags are used as above, those should stay applied; if a folder system is used, those folders should be copied over with the items
  • options for 'take all' and 'deposit all'
  • options for taking subsets of items: 'take/deposit all items of [slot size/slot type/damage type]', 'take/deposit all items with the tag/marker [xyz]', 'take/deposit' all items needed for ship loadout [xyz]'

3) Refit Sorting
The pop-up scrollable list in the refit screen is simply too small to accommodate the the number of weapons in the game - trying to fill a medium or large universal slot is particularly egregious.  Features I'd like to see:
  • the ability to filter by slot size, slot type, and damage type
  • the ability to filter by weapon role (Close Support, Point Defense, etc) and weapon range
  • the ability to filter by custom tag/marker and item source (Cargo Hold, Military Supplier, Black Market, etc.)
  • a warning dialog box before buying weapons to complete a saved loadout originating from the Black Market
  • a pop-up showing what weapons are used in a loadout when hovering over a saved ship loadout

4) Sector-wide Holdings
With mods, the sector can be a pretty big place; in the next update, the core game's sector will be significantly expanding as well.  The player can store items and ships at any of dozens of different markets - but if your memory fails you, there's no indication whatsoever where you can find your stuff!  The game needs a way to manage your overall holdings, with at least a few features:
  • the ability to see a list of all your ships and weapons stored at each market in the sector
  • the ability to search for a specific type of ship or weapon you have stored at any market
  • possibly, the ability to order some of your stored ships and/or weapons be transferred to another market where you have bought storage, with a significant fee based on the quantity of ships and items being transferred, and taking an amount of time based on the distance between your location to the place where the items are stored to their final destination
  • possibly, (and this feature may belong on another screen altogether) the ability to send out a market request via the relay system searching for a specific item/ship in exchange for a significant credit fee

Thoughts?  Anything else people would like to see?  Again, much of this is long-term, but I think some of these would be a significant improvement right now, even in the base game.
« Last Edit: September 29, 2015, 11:20:05 PM by Adraius »
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Xaiier

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Re: Inventory Management
« Reply #1 on: September 29, 2015, 11:51:17 PM »

1 & 2)
While I appreciate and agree with the sentiment here, I also can't say that these are changes I would have ever suggested myself. While some basic type filters might be nice, the scale of the game (both now and in the foreseeable future) doesn't appear to demand such a complex system.

One thing I would like to add would be a "take to fill" button, for supplies, fuel, and commodities that you typically want to top off.

3)
If anything, the refit screen is where I would prefer to see improvements. It is by far the most frustrating part of the interface due to how poorly it displays your options to you, especially as those options grow. I agree with all your suggestions.

4)
I like the idea of being able to see what assets you have, but I think both of your 'possibly' things are bad ideas.

possibly 1:
The issues I see with this is that it demands either magic-teleportation, which is dull for the player and breaks continuity of the universe, or that a fleet actually appears and takes your stuff from one place to another, which runs into a whole pile of issues of that fleet being intercepted by your enemies or whatever. Neither option is without flaws and it doesn't appear to add anything significant to the gameplay.

That being said, it gave me an idea about the possibility of other controlled fleets which you could order around and give specific tasks for them to carry out for you, which have a number of other interesting applications.

possibly 2:
I think the requirement of cruising around looking for stuff that you need is a critical gameplay element. This effectively promotes not playing the game. It's basically Space Amazon, great in real life but terrible as gameplay.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2015, 12:04:31 AM by Xaiier »
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Tartiflette

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Re: Inventory Management
« Reply #2 on: September 30, 2015, 12:08:07 AM »

Those are mostly concerns because of mods, I'm not sure Alex would change that since he already put tabs.

1) Weapons are already sorted by slot size, other suggestions have been proposed in there:
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8418.0
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8281.0
And mentioned in a few others.
As for the weapon marker, personally I just keep the ones I want first in the inventory, and the new ones I loot just stack to the bottom. It's not perfect but work well enough. In any case, a tag should only change the stack color or something like that, but shouldn't prevent selling them, otherwise it will be tedious to un-tag them when changing your mind or looking for extra cash.

2) CTRL+click to sell a full stack instantly. The rest sound a bit extra precise, I don't see when it's going to be that useful, especially with a tagging system if it get implemented.

3) Discussed in a couple of threads like above and this one:
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8722.0
Instead of a warning I'd like the loadout name grey if weapons are missing, and red if it can only be completed with black-market items (I hate pop-ups).

4) It has been suggested,
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8343.0
But no reply from Alex  :-[
Although that may be probably solved when the game reach a later stage with industry and outpost building (thus allowing a player HQ)
« Last Edit: September 30, 2015, 12:19:15 AM by Tartiflette »
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Adraius

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Re: Inventory Management
« Reply #3 on: September 30, 2015, 12:27:28 AM »

@Xaiier

I must admit, I'm surprised the first two points weren't received as well as the latter two - those are where I feel at least basic changes are needed most urgently.  I'm something of a pack rat; unless I'm sure I won't ever be needing a specific weapon, I keep it in storage.  Seeing I'm new to the game and haven't thoroughly tried out most of the weapons yet, I sell weapons approximately... never.  I just finished my first Nerexelin playthrough, and towards the late-game, the inventory situation got fairly horrendous.  Without any way to sort items, I was forced to jury-rig a system: first row was ballistic smalls, then energy smalls, then missile smalls, repeating for each weapon size.  When I wanted to change home bases, it took several minutes of clicking to transfer that inventory to my ships, and again when I got to my new base.  When my collection of ballistic smalls outgrew it's one row of slots, I had to move 90% of my inventory down to give it a second row.  Whenever I encountered a new weapon I had to manually move around the other items on its row to fit it in the proper place. (I generally sorted by damage type, then range within rows) By the end of the game, I had three 'pages' of items to sift through whenever I went into my inventory.

In other words, manually managing large numbers of items in the current system is a pain in the ass, both in terms of clicks needed and information density (I'm sure there's a more space-efficient way to display the items).  I was only playing with the mods Starsector Plus, Interstellar Imperium, and Tiandong Heavy Industries - for my next campaign I want to add another ~6 factions - the sheer number of new items that'd introduce and the inadequacy of the current organizing scheme is the reason I'm considering only adding a couple more factions.

I realize this is only a major problem - for now - thanks to mods, and I don't expect the game to bend over backwards to cater to people's playstyles, but as I noted in the post I think a better organization system will be very necessary in the long run, unless the core game's weapon set is largely finished, which I was under the impression wasn't the case.

While I agree that scarcity and the search for better gear is an important gameplay element (thus, I play with Omnifactory off, and rare ships and expensive ships on), I disagree that optimizing the search constitutes not playing the game.  It feels okay early game when you're building up your small fleet - and by design that's when you'd be unable to afford the fee - but late game it feels ridiculous pulling my battle fleet off the front line of an ongoing faction war to go around checking SpaceMarts.  I end of trading my battle fleet for a few vastly speedier combat freighters that don't burn dozens of supplies a day - I don't see what gameplay that gives me that is superior to my proposed system.

I understand your objection to the first of the two 'possibly' suggestions - it's a time-saving measure, again, so that I don't have to pull my battle fleet out of an ongoing war to fetch replacement ships stashed in another system.  Why do I have to jump in a frigate and fly over there to fetch those myself?  I personally would prefer the ships are assumed to be traveling under a neutral flag and in a convoy large enough to deter pirates and would always arrive safely, but I left it open-ended, as I'd be happy to see this system in any form.

@Tartiflette

I grant you, I went a bit overkill specifying filters - sorting by damage type, for example, I probably wouldn't use much, nor grabbing items based on slot size/slot type/damage type.  What I really do need, though, is a better way to keep the good stuff in one area - and sorted by things like slot size and type - while keeping the chaff off the to the side without selling it entirely.  I didn't put it in my original post, but I describe how I've been managing my inventory so far in the first half of this one, and it is a pain.  Even giving me a few different folders/boxes/sub-inventories I could sort items between would be immensely helpful, so I could have one for items I'm actively collecting for refits, one for good items I don't have an immediate use for, and one for items I don't care for as much but want to keep around.  With that, the current sort-by-size would probably be good enough.

Tags are the most pipe-dream of my list of hopes for the inventory system; I'd like some way to separate the high-value items I'm earmarking for retrofits and a way to easily spot weapons I'm after in markets (Sabot Pods look a lot like other missile pods...); a right-click option like "tag all of this item -> select color -> orange' type system is what first came to mind, but I'm in favor of any system that lets me do those two things.

EDIT: A+ on the suggestions in the UI and Interactions Streamlining thread, btw.  Thanks for the links, I'll be reading through them as I have time
« Last Edit: September 30, 2015, 12:53:37 AM by Adraius »
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Tartiflette

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Re: Inventory Management
« Reply #4 on: September 30, 2015, 01:06:39 AM »

a right-click option like "tag all of this item -> select color -> orange' type system is what first came to mind, but I'm in favor of any system that lets me do those two things.
I would rather go for a double click to toggle a red outline on the stack:



or the box (better imo):



 and that's it. Easy to use, no drop-menu, no pop-up or confirmation on selling that item (you can cancel a transaction anyway), just a visual cue.
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Adraius

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Re: Inventory Management
« Reply #5 on: September 30, 2015, 01:15:23 AM »

Yep, that would do it!  Ideally it would appear on all items on that type, though, so they'd be more visible in markets.

Also, I don't recall suggesting that there be a confirmation dialog when selling or anything - I hardly ever sell weapons in the first place. =P The markers are just for organization, and that second outline effect would do nicely.
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Tartiflette

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Re: Inventory Management
« Reply #6 on: September 30, 2015, 01:18:43 AM »

Also, I don't recall suggesting that there be a confirmation dialog when selling or anything - I hardly ever sell weapons in the first place. =P The markers are just for organization, and that second outline effect would do nicely.
You didn't, but your suggestion could be interpreted that way and personally I wouldn't like it.  ;)
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Xaiier

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Re: Inventory Management
« Reply #7 on: September 30, 2015, 08:21:02 AM »

I must admit, I'm surprised the first two points weren't received as well as the latter two - those are where I feel at least basic changes are needed most urgently.  I'm something of a pack rat; unless I'm sure I won't ever be needing a specific weapon, I keep it in storage.  Seeing I'm new to the game and haven't thoroughly tried out most of the weapons yet, I sell weapons approximately... never.  I just finished my first Nerexelin playthrough, and towards the late-game, the inventory situation got fairly horrendous.  Without any way to sort items, I was forced to jury-rig a system: first row was ballistic smalls, then energy smalls, then missile smalls, repeating for each weapon size.  When I wanted to change home bases, it took several minutes of clicking to transfer that inventory to my ships, and again when I got to my new base.  When my collection of ballistic smalls outgrew it's one row of slots, I had to move 90% of my inventory down to give it a second row.  Whenever I encountered a new weapon I had to manually move around the other items on its row to fit it in the proper place. (I generally sorted by damage type, then range within rows) By the end of the game, I had three 'pages' of items to sift through whenever I went into my inventory.

In other words, manually managing large numbers of items in the current system is a pain in the ass, both in terms of clicks needed and information density (I'm sure there's a more space-efficient way to display the items).  I was only playing with the mods Starsector Plus, Interstellar Imperium, and Tiandong Heavy Industries - for my next campaign I want to add another ~6 factions - the sheer number of new items that'd introduce and the inadequacy of the current organizing scheme is the reason I'm considering only adding a couple more factions.
I can't say that I've ever felt the need for such organization. I can understand better organization in the refit menu (and supported it as such), but what is the purpose of organizing within your cargo? Perhaps what I am saying is that I would take your suggestions for 1 & 2 and stuff them under 3 where they would be more useful.

I realize this is only a major problem - for now - thanks to mods, and I don't expect the game to bend over backwards to cater to people's playstyles, but as I noted in the post I think a better organization system will be very necessary in the long run, unless the core game's weapon set is largely finished, which I was under the impression wasn't the case.
I think that's a fair assessment, but again in my experience I don't see the necessity. I'm currently playing with SS+ and three faction mods and the game is only just beginning to feel content rich enough that it doesn't seem empty. The only place I feel overwhelmed is in the refit screen.

While I agree that scarcity and the search for better gear is an important gameplay element (thus, I play with Omnifactory off, and rare ships and expensive ships on), I disagree that optimizing the search constitutes not playing the game.  It feels okay early game when you're building up your small fleet - and by design that's when you'd be unable to afford the fee - but late game it feels ridiculous pulling my battle fleet off the front line of an ongoing faction war to go around checking SpaceMarts.  I end of trading my battle fleet for a few vastly speedier combat freighters that don't burn dozens of supplies a day - I don't see what gameplay that gives me that is superior to my proposed system.

I understand your objection to the first of the two 'possibly' suggestions - it's a time-saving measure, again, so that I don't have to pull my battle fleet out of an ongoing war to fetch replacement ships stashed in another system.  Why do I have to jump in a frigate and fly over there to fetch those myself?  I personally would prefer the ships are assumed to be traveling under a neutral flag and in a convoy large enough to deter pirates and would always arrive safely, but I left it open-ended, as I'd be happy to see this system in any form.
I think perhaps this draws from the stock game's complete lack of a real endgame, something Nexerelin only somewhat addresses. If anything, I would rather see a more advanced and widely useful system (such as sub-fleets and interstellar management) take up the slack here instead of patching the system with a quick fix.

The problem I have with what can be most easily described as Space Amazon is that it reduces the gameplay to a few clicks and maximizes combat over everything else. What this effectively does is turn the lategame campaign into the combat missions available in the menu. While I think the functionality itself could be useful, I think it would be better implemented as a part of a whole that expanded all features of the campaign.
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Megas

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Re: Inventory Management
« Reply #8 on: September 30, 2015, 08:26:42 AM »

I like to see the return of ship sort by class featured in pre-0.6 versions.  Some of my storage bases have a lot of ships, and it is annoying scrolling down pages to access my frigates and fighters.
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Serenitis

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Re: Inventory Management
« Reply #9 on: October 03, 2015, 03:18:51 AM »

The only thing on that list I definitely would like to see is the player holdings list.
Granted there were only a couple of systems not too long ago so something like this was never an issue, but as the sector grows this is going to become more and more of a "must have" feature.

Item stacking though, is a thing that really bugs me.
It is inconsistant.
Sometimes the game will let you pile things up in a stack as big as you like. Sadly, more often it decides that stacks of things can be no more than 1000 and so creates multiples to clutter up the space.
This also affects buying/selling - As it seems that you can only trade 1000 units of anything in one "action" via the slide bar regardless of how many units are available. (This might be intended though.)
Using ctrl-click to buy an entire stack of something will usually separate said stack into blocks of 1000 when it is tranferred to your fleet. But again it's inconsistant. Fuel and supplies almost always get split, while commodities seem to be more likley to remain stacked. But not always.
In your storage you can sometimes stack up huge mounds of things, other times you're back to a wall of 1000s.
Okay, there is infinite item space so functionally this is not an issue. But it looks utterly horrendous and is a never ending trigger for my tidy compulsion which can not be resolved. Ugh. please help
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Harmful Mechanic

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Re: Inventory Management
« Reply #10 on: October 05, 2015, 01:44:23 PM »

Yes, please. I would really appreciate this, and also the ability to search for ships by hull name in the codex and shipyard screens.
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