A couple of weeks in, some game mechanics and Quality of Life questions/suggestions

[Maebius]

Hello everyone.

I love the game so far, having put a couple of weeks of quality playtime and quite a bit of research on the mechanics.

I have a few questions for the good people here.... I've searched a lot before asking them but bear with me if they've been answered. If they have, well, that answer isn't found easily .
So, here goes!

1. Opening Map, auto zoom in on your self or on the target you've selected
-How do I turn this thing off? At the very least, the initial zoom level should just cover the sector I'm in
-I think I spend a good 5%-10% of my gametime zooming out
-While on the subject, sometimes when you select something in the map, like a drone and sometimes a ship, it MAX zooms in, I mean why?

2. Switching ship (that you've been piloting) and the assigned captain goes and docks "somewhere", even several systems away (the last one it was docked?)
-Where do I set it so when I leave a ship, any ship, the relief captain does nothing and stays put? Let him die.
(ship has no orders when you exit the pilot seat, but if you teleport or say board another, it suddenly has, I can understand the reasoning of that, I don't want it)
-Tried the global commands but tbh I couldn't figure something that pointed to that

3. Boarding operations
a) How can you cancel one or modify the strategies (weak/strong etc)? (the boarding mission in logs has no abort)
b) After you've started one vs a ship, why can't you start a second one with another ship?
Or at least, the non player controlled ship can just stay put somehow and launch the pods?
Right now, even with keep at distance strategy, it will go towards a random side of the enemy ship, wonder about and launch the boarding pods at random point (while sometimes being broadsided by the other side I hadn't cleared turrets )

4. Weapon Types/Heat
a) Is the heat dissipation rate the same with all same class ships? Like actual numbers we can crunch, I like min/maxing stuff on occasion
b) You really need to put some actual descriptions on the ingame Encyclopedia... I mean, how would I even imagine that a thermal disintegrator pierces shields? (no, not Google)

5. Containers/Cargo in general
-Trading between ships while docked, between containers etc.... extremely counter intuitive
*I feel that the Build/General/Water/Solid container change was completely unneeded and added a level of complexity that served little purpose*

6. Default External Camera Angles (2nd F2/F3 Keypress)
-Can we set them to something else? Again what's with all the zoom in?
-At least once you've left the F2-F3 view you had set, when you press it again, it goes back to the view angle/distance you previously had (unless you change ship ofc)

7. Map Filter
-Is there one? (not sort by)
~I want to select to only view freighters, or fighters, or capships or.....

I'm not going into other, more complicated commands or features, as I haven't gotten around to a lot of stuff yet, but several of those above make me struggle with my enjoyment of the game.

Any thoughtful answers appreciated.
All and all, very nice job so far, keep up the good work and get even more plots in!

Cheers

[af_2017]

b) You really need to put some actual descriptions on the ingame Encyclopedia... I mean, how would I even imagine that a thermal disintegrator pierces shields? (no, not Google)

Actually the info is there if you will be so kind to put enough attention to weapons description it says how much damage to hull it does on shielded target. Aight, that's how shield penetration looks on paper)

*I feel that the Build/General/Water/Solid container change was completely unneeded and added a level of complexity that served little purpose*

I feel that container/solid/liquid types are legacy types from old games when the types used were quite obvious

[Midnitewolf]

The movement and fleet commands in this game are a mess. What your experiencing is caused by the fact that all orders operate on a que system. For example you tell a ship to dock but then an enemy appears so you tell it to attack with the expectation it is going to drop everything else and attack. However, since it is on a que, the ship is going to DOCK FIRST, then undock and finally then attack. You have to literally remove their orders each and every time you want them to do something different and if you don't remember to do that, everything turns into one great big mess of frustration and anger.

I have been trying desperately to find an updated version of an old, abandoned mod that actually allowed you to give priority commands that basically delete all orders in the que and cause the ship/fleet your commanding to immediately execute that order. So far no luck at all finding any other mod that does this sort of thing and there hasn't been any updates to the mod in like a years. I have even posted a request in the mods section for someone capable of doing it to re-create this mod but I have not clue if anyone will.

It would also be amazing if the devs would just add these sort of immediate commands to the base game but despite probably hundreds of posts regarding how much people struggle with the UI and its commands structure, to my knowledge Egosoft has never did anything about it.

[Maebius]

Yeah I can understand though that some things are more difficult to fix though.

Any solution for the "little" things? (map zoom, map ship filter, ext.camera default angles/zoom level)
Those little things keep adding up to the frustration sometimes...

As for commands, clearing orders to give new ones is a major hassle.
I mean ok, your ships don't seem to move to attack that station... that's an AI problem, ok it might be hard to fix.
Now you have to clear orders and click move order, then attack and that adds to the extra steps you need to take to counteract the harder to fix AI problems.

Most games that you can queue orders with work as follows:
-Right click to "do something" clears all previous orders with the new one
-Shift+Right click adds to the queue, if any

Don't know the reasoning behind how this is done now.

If they expect that we will be queuing orders most time, if the first one given is shift+click, then all the rest for that ship can be added to queue (with no longer needing to press shift).
If you reselect that ship, any new order give with shift+click adds to the queue and re-enables "queue mode".

Problem solved, no?

Fighting with the interface is a major nuisance and it's one of the main reason that these games aren't more popular. Shame.

[Maebius]

If any Dev gets a chance to read this, any input on my suggestions, especially the "small" stuff? (in order of nuisance )

1) Opening the Map should not zoom in so much. I also strongly dislike it being centered on your target, but that might just be me. If it weren't so zoomed in, I might not mind so much.

2) Ships Autodocking when leaving them: To somehow be able to change the default behavior of all ships, so as not to go and travel to dock when you leave them (if they hadn't some orders already)

7) Map filter (view only selected types of ships). Could add an option to show containers/drops as well (or am I missing something?).

6) External Camera Angles (the adjustable ones on second F2/F3 press) should not reset when you get back to them, unless you select another ship.

Thank you for your time

-Ted

[dtpsprt]

I can give an answer as far as 2) is concerned.

When you give up your seat and until the "relief" pilot is settled the ship remains without orders... Once the "relief" pilot is settled and you have left the ship (to go to another) then the pilot, having no orders to the contrary, will resume his last one (it can really be useful)... Best thing to do if you want toe ship to stay put is to remove all orders and assignments from the ship before leaving it... which means wait for the relief pilot to settle in. He will not do anything by himself, waiting for your "go on"...

[Endealon]

I fully support this post and hope the developers will give it a careful look. +1

For my part, the list of necessary things that this game needs for "quality of life" is so long that I wonder how or why EgoSoft considered it commercially viable to launch a product in this state. And I speak since update 4.0.

[Endealon]

As for commands, clearing orders to give new ones is a major hassle.

I just read this and selected it as a sample from my previous major.

The last order given must be the first to be executed.

[Endealon]

Let's analyze what happens to another simple command: "Protect ship" as "Default behavior":

In its current implementation:

Step 1: I select the ship that will act as an escort / protection.
Step 2: I select the "Information" screen
Step 3: Click on the "Attitude" button
Step 4: Click on the "Default behavior" button
Step 5: Click on the menu item "Protect ship"
Step 6: Click on the ship selection button "Ship to protect"
Step 7: Right click on the ship to protect, option "Select"
Step 8: Click on "Confirm".

Eight steps just to set a default option. I guess it's not disrespectful to the developers to claim that this is ridiculous and only frustrates the player unnecessarily. The entire UI / UX system is in dire need of a deep overhaul.

[Endealon]

Context-based behaviors are also frustrating. Please take a look at this example. In this first image I am inside my ship, from the perspective of "admiral" (there is a captain ruling my frigate):
Img. 1




The ship that should be the primary contextual focus of any action is where the user is at the moment, both from an "admiral" and a pilot perspective. But notice what happens in the following image:

I just clicked on the hotkey that shows the map of the galaxy. Watch what happens:

img. 2



The left panel does this well, and selects my ship (USS Falcon Rogue I) in context. I am there now, ready to give any order. But the same is not the case in the panel on the right. The selected ship is out of context (UMC Colossus C1). I don't need that ship selected, I need USS Falcon Rogue to be selected in context to give immediate orders.

I really absolutely love this game and I plan to support it by purchasing all the DLC and anything EgoSoft needs for its development. I just hope they are aware of the need for a UI / UX overhaul in order to reduce frustration and smooth out new players' first contact with the wonderful X Universe.

Additional note: if a mod or developer wishes I can gladly collaborate with a complete review, which contributes from a player's perspective to changes or improvements in quality of life.

[Endealon]

This ┐:

(...) For example you tell a ship to dock but then an enemy appears so you tell it to attack with the expectation it is going to drop everything else and attack. However, since it is on a que, the ship is going to DOCK FIRST, then undock and finally then attack. You have to literally remove their orders each and every time you want them to do something different and if you don't remember to do that, everything turns into one great big mess of frustration and anger.

Can any mod or developer tell why it was designed this way? What is the intention behind this design? And what is most disturbing and incomprehensible to me as a software developer: how is it possible that 4 updates later this is still a good feature in the eyes of EgoSoft?

In my 25 years as a player of strategy games, I have never seen an order system that forces the user to manually delete previous orders to execute the current one.

This thread could be very very long.

[dtpsprt]

This ┐:

(...) For example you tell a ship to dock but then an enemy appears so you tell it to attack with the expectation it is going to drop everything else and attack. However, since it is on a que, the ship is going to DOCK FIRST, then undock and finally then attack. You have to literally remove their orders each and every time you want them to do something different and if you don't remember to do that, everything turns into one great big mess of frustration and anger.

Can any mod or developer tell why it was designed this way? What is the intention behind this design? And what is most disturbing and incomprehensible to me as a software developer: how is it possible that 4 updates later this is still a good feature in the eyes of EgoSoft?

In my 25 years as a player of strategy games, I have never seen an order system that forces the user to manually delete previous orders to execute the current one.

This thread could be very very long.

I am not a mod or a developer (at least not in the last 20 years), but I can tell you the logic behind this. Consequent orders. Since, very unfortunately, 90% of automation is "hidden" behind high (usually unachievable in early stages) pilot skills, the player has to give consequent orders to his/her ships, specially where trading and mining is involved. If the change (from FIFO to LIFO) was implemented then the players would have to give multiple orders in reverse!!!

The, obvious to me, solution would be for the player to be able to issue "override" orders, which unfortunately does not happen (actually it is poorly implemented).

[Maebius]

The solution is very simple, as far as overriding orders go.
They either keep it that way and by, say, shift+right click, the order given clears all previous ones.
Or they do it like all games (I can think of) that have queued orders, with shift+rightclick, everything is queued.

So, about the map zoom?

[Baddieus]

I fully back the #1 request ... my mouse wheel is wearing out from un-zooming every time I open the map.

[rudi_pioneer]

Sometimes I do want to add more orders to existing queue (for trading), but sometimes I think want order to happen first (combat). There are exceptions of course. My ideal solution would be having “add next order to queue” or “do next order first” toggle in the orders menu so we can do both options.

[Max Meritus]

This ┐:

(...) For example you tell a ship to dock but then an enemy appears so you tell it to attack with the expectation it is going to drop everything else and attack. However, since it is on a que, the ship is going to DOCK FIRST, then undock and finally then attack. You have to literally remove their orders each and every time you want them to do something different and if you don't remember to do that, everything turns into one great big mess of frustration and anger.

Can any mod or developer tell why it was designed this way? What is the intention behind this design? And what is most disturbing and incomprehensible to me as a software developer: how is it possible that 4 updates later this is still a good feature in the eyes of EgoSoft?

In my 25 years as a player of strategy games, I have never seen an order system that forces the user to manually delete previous orders to execute the current one.

This thread could be very very long.

Considering they already have queue override, demonstrated when someone finds a lockbox, you have to assume they intentionally do not provide this and many other QOL features. The question is what is the design philosophy behind such decisions?

[Midnitewolf]

Hello everyone.

I love the game so far, having put a couple of weeks of quality playtime and quite a bit of research on the mechanics.

I have a few questions for the good people here.... I've searched a lot before asking them but bear with me if they've been answered. If they have, well, that answer isn't found easily .
So, here goes!

1. Opening Map, auto zoom in on your self or on the target you've selected
-How do I turn this thing off? At the very least, the initial zoom level should just cover the sector I'm in
-I think I spend a good 5%-10% of my gametime zooming out
-While on the subject, sometimes when you select something in the map, like a drone and sometimes a ship, it MAX zooms in, I mean why?

2. Switching ship (that you've been piloting) and the assigned captain goes and docks "somewhere", even several systems away (the last one it was docked?)
-Where do I set it so when I leave a ship, any ship, the relief captain does nothing and stays put? Let him die.
(ship has no orders when you exit the pilot seat, but if you teleport or say board another, it suddenly has, I can understand the reasoning of that, I don't want it)
-Tried the global commands but tbh I couldn't figure something that pointed to that

3. Boarding operations
a) How can you cancel one or modify the strategies (weak/strong etc)? (the boarding mission in logs has no abort)
b) After you've started one vs a ship, why can't you start a second one with another ship?
Or at least, the non player controlled ship can just stay put somehow and launch the pods?
Right now, even with keep at distance strategy, it will go towards a random side of the enemy ship, wonder about and launch the boarding pods at random point (while sometimes being broadsided by the other side I hadn't cleared turrets )

4. Weapon Types/Heat
a) Is the heat dissipation rate the same with all same class ships? Like actual numbers we can crunch, I like min/maxing stuff on occasion
b) You really need to put some actual descriptions on the ingame Encyclopedia... I mean, how would I even imagine that a thermal disintegrator pierces shields? (no, not Google)

5. Containers/Cargo in general
-Trading between ships while docked, between containers etc.... extremely counter intuitive
*I feel that the Build/General/Water/Solid container change was completely unneeded and added a level of complexity that served little purpose*

6. Default External Camera Angles (2nd F2/F3 Keypress)
-Can we set them to something else? Again what's with all the zoom in?
-At least once you've left the F2-F3 view you had set, when you press it again, it goes back to the view angle/distance you previously had (unless you change ship ofc)

7. Map Filter
-Is there one? (not sort by)
~I want to select to only view freighters, or fighters, or capships or.....

I'm not going into other, more complicated commands or features, as I haven't gotten around to a lot of stuff yet, but several of those above make me struggle with my enjoyment of the game.

Any thoughtful answers appreciated.
All and all, very nice job so far, keep up the good work and get even more plots in!

Cheers

I couple weeks in and that is ALL the suggestions you have

I honestly could write a essay on the QoL things I would change or add including detailed instructions on exactly how to fix them. Most of them revolve around streamlining the UI and command interfaces and enabling a few more options that IRONICALLY are already part of the game code but for some reason aren't enabled like having access to give immediate orders that automatically delete all previous orders and execute immediately. It is already possible to do this with a mod but that mod is no longer being updated so we are SoL for some reason because the Devs didn't add it in to native. There are TONS of things like this, luckily most of them DO actually have a mod that "fixes" or "adds" in these functions/commands/behaviors.

Speaking of which, I would seriously look for mods that address those QoL issues that are causing frustration. I tried a vanilla playthrough and came very near to quitting the game and uninstalling it entirely on multiple occasions because of stuff not working like it seriously should work. As soon as I started modding to solve these frustrating mechanics, the game move up to another level for me and I am loving it now....mostly anyway. There are just some things that there isn't a mod for, case in point those Immediate Orders I so desperately want to have access to.

[Endealon]

Regarding the problems with the zoom of the galaxy map, I discovered something yesterday that may help a bit (and will not wear down your mouse wheel as much):

1. "Options" screen -> "Settings" -> "Controls" -> "Navigation menu"

2. Scroll down to "Map" section

3. In the item "Sector view" -> Assign the same shortcut key that you already associated with the opening of the map.

Thus you make a first click to open the map, and a second click to zoom the sector view.

The zoom level doesn't fit the entire galaxy, but your mouse wheel will appreciate it.

Additional note: I suggest assigning a hotkey adjacent to the one already assigned to open map in -> "Area view". That way you can switch between different levels of automatic zoom with just 2 clicks.

[Endealon]

It is already possible to do this with a mod but that mod is no longer being updated so we are SoL for some reason because the Devs didn't add it in to native. There are TONS of things like this, luckily most of them DO actually have a mod that "fixes" or "adds" in these functions/commands/behaviors.

I would like to answer that in two apparently contradictory ways.

First, thanking you. Can you please tell me where to find that mod?

The second (the contradictory one) and that is not directed at you, but at the developers: when a game needs mods to be good, it is not a good game or it is on the way to being a bad game.

[Maebius]

I couple weeks in and that is ALL the suggestions you have

I honestly could write a essay on the QoL things I would change ......

Yeah well two weeks for me means 2 weekends and one or two 2hour weekday sessions due to work

I haven't even used miners/traders or even built a station yet!

I thought I'd start with the ones bugging the the most since writing an essay will probably make most requests go unnoticed.

As for mods, yeah, I know I can try some but I want to avoid it, especially with "basic" core QoL issues that bug someone that has (right now) played less than 5 full days... yeah 4!

I'm not new in the X games and I can only imagine what it's like for newcomers.... No newcomer is gonna look for mods to "fix" immediate orders or the default camera angles hehe

It's a shame how uninviting the user interface can be.