So, i've haven't played a lot of 0.7.2, and came into 0.8 with a pretty fresh view of things after a year or so. While you've no doubtedly heard a lot of 'balance' 'nerf fighters' and 'nerf mora', i want to focus on the UX/UI here.
For my Let's talks about the campaign progression go here:
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12256.msg208065#msg208065For the skills Let's talk go here:
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12158.0
Let's start with matters that affect overmap/sector travel:
- Freelook should either be a hold and drag, upon unpressing the button, the view snapping back to the fleet, or a toggle, as is now, but again, snapping back to the fleet when it's turned off.
- Clicking all the objects in space flashes the round circle of 'confirmation that you clicked'. The 'unidentified signatures', do not. They should. (also the tooltip delay setting doesn't apply to fleets/items?)
- Push and hold for the very-often used feature like laying a course and such should not be used. It also is especially bugging when you don't have other or more than one option. I've mentioned this before, but moving that feature to the right click, laying course default with left click would do wonders. (also, left click to drag the map around)
- Nonsticky drag and drop item trading movement? Or just disable it altogether and just keep clicking as a move action between containers. (while we're here, superfluous items we don't pick up during salvage should drop as pods)
Map/intel map:
- The ship icon shown on the map should be a different icon, not a 'star' icon. Hard to differentiate.
- Having system/sector view is fine, but tab should always 'tab' through them and then out. Tab-Sector map-Tab-System Map-Back to fleet view. It's always quicker to mentally know to do 'two tabs' to get back to the ship, rather than tab-q-tab or other intermediate considerations.
- Either show 'important missions' (let's be honest, quests/missions you undertake) on the main map (yellow (!) maybe), or allow setting course from the default intel 'map' not the 'log' (atm, i click Intel, click the thing, click the star system where it is, which takes me to the show info, which i go 'lay in course' which lays it in for the system, not the exact location, and then i have to remember, and... yeah, no)
- 'Done' events shouldn't have an active icon on the intel map anymore, just logged
- Bigger 'steps' in zooming in/out of the intel map, are tiny right now, ideally scaling up to the largeness of the map
- Still, given all this, personally, i'd rather the entire map structure be integrated into the small intel map.. it just seems cumbersome to have two similar yet different map systems. Hell, they almost have the same filters for system map. The sector map can be kept separate if wanted/needed, but for me it just feels like i go to intel to go to the map to go to the sector sometimes.
Stations/planets:
- It's getting clear that the station interaction interface is becoming unmanageable. At this point once you 'dock' on a station, you can and most people already do, just click anything (minus info) and then use the bottom bar for getting around. I recommend either outright removing the bottom bar when docked, so you always have to get back to the dialogue menu to interact or moving all the standard actions (that won't go away or change) to the bottom bar, and having the whole bar switch to a different background when in station (with Comms and extra staples 'in the future'), and no dialogue option (apart from forced/trader/etc).
- Warning when you undock with overflowing cargo/fuel/crew.
- Move storage icon first, next to the market/black market, and have it be the default grid when you open up, if you have storage there, if not, open Market normally and when you have 'storage' selected, i suggest the entire inventory/fleet selection grid background just turns a slight green hue. If we're going with that, a slight orangey hue for black market would make it consistent. So you know STORE ship does what you think it does, and also to make it easier to swap ships in/out effortlessly. Also, following items, it should be possible to CTRL-click to instastore/sell/buy.
- Refitting in stations, have them all sort via OP, no matter illegal/legal, and have a single instance for all items. You want Antimatter blasters. It has the 'storage' mention and you have only one. You pick it up and place it. You go to put another one, now it you have a choice to pick it up from Market/Military (there is no difference between them right now in tarrifs), and Black market. Where you click on the button decides which you use.
- In refitting, while writing a shipname/custom type, holding down shift and pushing backspace deletes the entire text string. Just tiny annoying, and not something any other text processor/service i've used so far does.
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I've definitely forgotten a few but eh. I'm sure they'll spring up soon enough.
