So without further ado, here are some not-too-outlandish thoughts for tweaks and improvements going forward. Click on links to read more.
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Map screen and encyclopaedia tooltips 1
Map screen and encyclopaedia tooltips 2
Ship info, missing ware/blueprint and full order tooltips
Map commands, ship interactions
Issues addressed:
- We're getting to a point where the encyclopaedia has some interesting entries in it. Unfortunately they might as well not exist since they're hidden away and navigating back and forth is very awkward (like accidentally cancelling out of ship buys or station builds when checking entries).
- A lot of the time is spent playing from map and empire management screens, yet we're blind to any pings or messages within them
- For advanced players, the game is difficult to efficiently control via keyboard compared to previous titles
- Although only pictured here, the message bar/ticker could be a semi ubiquitous fixture, as it can easily be added to other screens that currently lack any way of interaction with the log. It also has the advantage of being able to scroll back in the log where most needed (empire management).
- Log entries for player property destroyed also ideally need to list the last command the destroyed object was carrying out, as well as who or what they were assigned to.
- Note that when the annotation says 'hover over this for x amount of time' intended behaviour is that mouse/control has to be unmoving as to minimise accidental tooltips. If you wobble over the hover target, nothing should happen.
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More factionalised dock interface
Issues addressed:
- Currently, stations and factions feel quite samey - welcome messages are fairly generic and due to semi universal modules it can be hard to even tell what faction you're dealing with. While not really a solution per se, something like this would add a little more visibility to faction identity, background, and relations for newer players. Could also be a great addition for dynamic relations mods since it can be hard to tell who likes who (in vanilla, certainly, when everyone loves to trade with you).
More immersive and functional trade interfaces
Why not show people what they're crafting?
Or trading at the trading corner?
... or what blueprints and/or licences they're buying?
Issues addressed:
- The trade interface feels like an incredibly cramped spreadsheet (boring), ware lists are difficult to navigate and adding/removing filters is awkward through the trade interface itself
- To a lesser extent, this lack of flavour is also true for crafting, trading corner, blueprint, etc. trade menus.
- This is another case of, we have all this neat stuff in the encyclopaedia, why don't we use it? Item animations and descriptions add a lot of flavour, and I doubt most players new to X4 have ever taken a look at them. While I understand the idea of having a compact and elegant trade menu that can pop up anywhere, there's really no need to be quite so stingy with real estate (it's not like you can really do anything else while queueing the trade).
- Module blueprints should use the actual module animation and description instead of being blank as of right now.
- To be more precise about the bigger trade menus: even if filters are set, all wares available at the target could be listed in a greyed out manner, with applicable filtered for wares listed normally at the top, followed by traded wares that are in the ship's cargo hold (if applicable) and finally the rest of the list. Filters could then be adjusted either by clicking (start fresh selection/delete all filters) or shift clicking (add/remove this ware from filter set) wares in the list.
Refactored buy/build ship menu
And the same for stations
Issues addressed:
- Now that we have a more sizeable list of equipment, the current menu system for ship and station layouts is getting a little unwieldy.
- Ship equipment and deployables lack any flavour, identity or description unless you go encyclopaedia diving, unlike earlier games where most players would have been able to tell you what an IRE or PPC is.
- The iconified buttons for guns, shields and modules definitely would have to be fixed up, this really is only a rough approximation of what a sleeker and more immersive as well as informative build screen could look like.
Making the logical overview a logical station planner
Issues addressed:
- Planning stations still requires third party tools if you want to do it well. Now that we have an ever prettier station editor, this aspect could use some TLC as well.
