Serious Attempt to get into X4 as a Totally Blind Player

[oasis1701]

sent two logs.
I do wonder if it's a good idea to reinstall the game or delete the egosoft folder in my documents, if there's something wrong with my game.

edit: reading the log, i wonder if it doesn't like it when i try to enter my ship and there's no AI pilot for it to de-man the ship?

edit2: indeed, if the ship has no captain, it fails to transport you into the pilot seat, but if it has an ai captain, it will de-mann the AI and puts you in the pilot seat so it works that way.
We must have missed this since i played on my save for a long time, in which i had an ai pilot with me at all times

[kuertee]

yup, you're right. i just saw the log and knew instantly that that's what it was. am fixing now and will release in an hour.

[kuertee]

Accessibility features
(for the visually impaired)
https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/748
by kuertee

Updates:
========
v4.2.08, 18 Jan 2022:
-Bug-fix: Exiting and entering a ship's airlock was broken if the ship has no AI pilot.

v4.2.07, 17 Jan 2022:
-Bug-fix: Paginator: Page and Previous buttons were not shown properly. In this version, "Page X of Y" is shown. In the previous version, only the first page showed "Page 0" and only the last page had the Previous button.
-Tweak: "Stations In Sector", "Ships In Sector", "Unknown Stations" and "Unknown Ships" are listed in their separate categories.

[oasis1701]

Hi kuertee
Thanks, entering/exiting works perfect now.

Wanted to report another issue and also had a question.
On some of the stations, The Terran ones for example, teleporting to npcs is impossible; the command hangs and this is the error in the log that i get:
[Scripts] 1690.94 *** Context:md.kuertee_accessibility_features.TalkTo_MovePlayerToNPCRoom: $npcSlot_best: <componentslot:0x826dec,con_commander001> (con_commander001), component: 0x826dec, $tags: [tag.npc,tag.service,tag.stand_terminal_forward]
[General] 1690.94 ======================================
[=ERROR=] 1690.94 TransportPlayerToTarget(): Failed to retrieve player floor component
[General] 1690.94 ======================================

It always happens on the Terran wharf and the surrounding stations located in the mars sector, let me know if you need the entire log file.

A question about containers and lootboxes, what's the best way for us to find these so we can get credits and items from them?

[kuertee]

i'll need to find another way to move the player to the npc.
that error occurs if the mod "moves" you to an invalid standing spot - e.g. on a desk.
will try different methods over the week in between my other stuff.

this worked on non-terran stations, right?
that's what i remember from my tests - not on terran stations.

[oasis1701]

i'll need to find another way to move the player to the npc.
that error occurs if the mod "moves" you to an invalid standing spot - e.g. on a desk.
will try different methods over the week in between my other stuff.

this worked on non-terran stations, right?
that's what i remember from my tests - not on terran stations.

Yeah at least on argon stations it works great, I remember you had to implement some workarounds as well to teleport us onto the npcs so we could trade andgive them items for missions.

[oasis1701]

Hi kuertee
I was wondering if you've made any progress with the teleporting to npcs

Also a question, if I own a mining ship with a captain in it, can I tell them to auto mine and sell their load to a station?

[Metran]

I haven't really read any of the 13 pages of posts in this thread so it might be that what I'm about to say have been mentioned before. Some back story, the last 4-5 years my job has been to test software in various forms and on many platforms (Websites and Mobile Apps) against the American (Section 508) and EU (WCAG 2.1) accessibility guidelines, while there presently aren't any specific guidelines tailored specifically towards the Gaming Industry, I have been told that the people behind WCAG is working on making some guidelines for this industry (will probably be published in a couple of years).

Accessibility has 3 main areas of which people have disabilities/difficulties:

1. Perceivable - Visual disbility
2. Operable - Physical disability
3. Understandable - Cognitive disability

Now i know it's a difficult task to make a video game somewhat accessible, at least a game that is heavily reliant on the visual information and cues. There are a few things that have been improved recently in the latest expansions, such as having both visual and audio cue, used to be only audio, for :

• Data and Signal leaks.
• Long Range Scanner.

To vastly improve X-universe's accessibility features I would start by making it possible to navigate the UI using only keyboard and add support for known Assistive Technologies (AT), like Screen readers. On that note, I don't think it's something that Egosoft should spend much time on this for the time being. Accessibility is something that should be included in the game design from the very start of development, not something added after launch, as it would otherwise be exponentially more difficult to add at later time in development or after launch.

The TL;DR is that if you make UI keyboard accessible and make all UI components accessible to AT, you will have done a lot of the foundation to expand upon.

[oasis1701]

I haven't really read any of the 13 pages of posts in this thread so it might be that what I'm about to say have been mentioned before. Some back story, the last 4-5 years my job has been to test software in various forms and on many platforms (Websites and Mobile Apps) against the American (Section 508) and EU (WCAG 2.1) accessibility guidelines, while there presently aren't any specific guidelines tailored specifically towards the Gaming Industry, I have been told that the people behind WCAG is working on making some guidelines for this industry (will probably be published in a couple of years).

Accessibility has 3 main areas of which people have disabilities/difficulties:

1. Perceivable - Visual disbility
2. Operable - Physical disability
3. Understandable - Cognitive disability

Now i know it's a difficult task to make a video game somewhat accessible, at least a game that is heavily reliant on the visual information and cues. There are a few things that have been improved recently in the latest expansions, such as having both visual and audio cue, used to be only audio, for :

• Data and Signal leaks.
• Long Range Scanner.

To vastly improve X-universe's accessibility features I would start by making it possible to navigate the UI using only keyboard and add support for known Assistive Technologies (AT), like Screen readers. On that note, I don't think it's something that Egosoft should spend much time on this for the time being. Accessibility is something that should be included in the game design from the very start of development, not something added after launch, as it would otherwise be exponentially more difficult to add at later time in development or after launch.

The TL;DR is that if you make UI keyboard accessible and make all UI components accessible to AT, you will have done a lot of the foundation to expand upon.

Thanks for your post!
I believe the first part of your suggestion is already included in this game; almost the entire UI is navigable by keyboard or a controller.
The second part of it, sending the UI element that's focused and other information to the screen reader I have suggested to Egosoft but as you've mentioned perhaps now that their code is in place it's hard to implement that; I'm guessing that they have decided against doing so since it's a while we heard from them, perhaps they think about it for their next game?

Besides keyboard and screen reader support, there's always the third element, things like navigating maps, stations, finding npcs and such, which can be resolved by mods or additional audio cues.

I do hope that developers begin to recognize and include features that lets us play games at some point; in the recent months, modders like kuertee made games like hearthstone, stardew valley, slay the spire, hades and now recently wWOW classic totally accessible and hundreds of completely visually impaired players play those games. would be great if this was not all weighed on the shoulders of groups and modders to do so.

[kuertee]

Hi kuertee
I was wondering if you've made any progress with the teleporting to npcs

Also a question, if I own a mining ship with a captain in it, can I tell them to auto mine and sell their load to a station?

hello!

now that i've released a chunk of stuff that i wanted to release (for my other mods),
i can get back to this now (as an insert between other mods, of course).

sorry for not keeping up.

have you found the same problem in Split stations and ships? they are relative tight, and think that they might have the same problem when trying to find the best place near an NPC to teleport the player.

[oasis1701]

Hi kuertee
I was wondering if you've made any progress with the teleporting to npcs

Also a question, if I own a mining ship with a captain in it, can I tell them to auto mine and sell their load to a station?

hello!

now that i've released a chunk of stuff that i wanted to release (for my other mods),
i can get back to this now (as an insert between other mods, of course).

sorry for not keeping up.

have you found the same problem in Split stations and ships? they are relative tight, and think that they might have the same problem when trying to find the best place near an NPC to teleport the player.

Hi there!
I've landed on free families stations and i can teleport to them actually.
For now the only stations that i found that i can't talk to npcs is the Terran ones.

[kuertee]

Hi there!
I've landed on free families stations and i can teleport to them actually.
For now the only stations that i found that i can't talk to npcs is the Terran ones.

have you found the first quest yet? Boso Ta's quest? I might have asked this before. I don't remember.

[oasis1701]

Hi there!
I've landed on free families stations and i can teleport to them actually.
For now the only stations that i found that i can't talk to npcs is the Terran ones.

have you found the first quest yet? Boso Ta's quest? I might have asked this before. I don't remember.

I think i have but i've never followed up on it, IIRC they're not accessible to us yet.

[oasis1701]

also if you think it's better to spend your time elsewhere, i can not play terran at the moment and play argon instead. i'd like to own a station or have a fleet or two if i can. sounds like that i have to follow the main quest line to get some benefits first, though.

[kuertee]

hey oasis, i'm sorry about this delay.

i was distracted by my other mods. i went into a collaboration with another modder with one of my other mods and i was trying to get that out of the way.

i'm now back on developing this further. my other tasks (for x4) is only to release updates to my other mods. but no new development on them is ongoing.

EDIT: i figured it out. i needed to press esc and then insert-r for NVACCESS to read the next screen. ignore all below. END EDIT.

Spoiler

Show

anyway, i ran NVACCESS, ran the pipe server, ran X4. all is good with:
1. press n to open the navigation computer
2. press insert-r to get the ocr to read the object list
3. press the arrow keys to read it line by line
4. press the insert-numpad-slash to move the cursor to the line with the object i want to interact with. e.g. a station 50km away.
5. press enter to open the command list for that object.
6. the command list for that object is listed in the navigation computer. e.g.: autopilot to station, target station

BUT THEN ... the ocr result is still on the previous list.
i.e. when i use the arrow keys to read the navigation computer, NVACCESS reads the object list and not the command list.
i.e. the commands "autopilot to station" and "target station" is not read by NVACCESS. instead it reads the previous object list.

do you experience this? i may have forgotten a step on how to use NVACCESS.
any advice?

EDIT: i'm getting the "already in content recognition result" when i press the insert-r while in the command list. END EDIT.

[kuertee]

actually, i am having a bit of problem with NVACCESS.

when i find the line in the mod's Navigation Computer that i want to interact with, don't i press numpad-insert-numpad-slash to move the mouse pointer to that line?
i kind-of remember that this is how i used it.

but now, the pointer is set to the middle of the screen - instead of on that line.
so when i try to "click" on that line with the enter key or the numpad-slash key, it clicks the line the mouse is on instead of the line the OCR read.

[CaplinCaplin]

Hey,

I'm happy to hear work is starting up on this again.

As far as I know the commands you are using are correct. I'm not sure why the mouse would be behaving that way, I suspect something may have been set unintentionally in the x4 settings.

Oasis1701 and I have also been experimenting with alternative OCR systems, since NVDA has some unfortunate limitations that have come to light in trying to play other games. The weird way it reads data in columns is the most obvious example. I guess the one advantage it does have is that the program is free.

I just thought of something else. Check to make sure the game is running in borderless fullscreen mode. I know other titles sometimes behave weirdly if not.

Hope you can get the behavior sorted.

[oasis1701]

Hi there
I'm glad as well
Just in case i'll just write the process of using the OCR feature. as Caplin mentioned, make sure the game is not on full screen mode. it needs to be either on windowed mode or window borderless.
first, you press numpad insert, which we call it the NVDA key and R, so NVDA+R to OCR
Then you use the numpad keys or the arrow keys to navigate the text results. i use numpad 7 and 9 to move line by line, or 4 and 6 to move word by word.
then, when you find a text you want your mouse to be over it, you press NVDA+numpad slash, this should move your mouse on top of the text. then left click with your mouse or press numpad slash to perform the left click button. let me know and i can record a quick video for you
edit: numpad toggle on your keyboard should be off by the way

[kuertee]

thank you both. i'll check my video settings then try it again this weekend.

i tried several times of getting the NVDA+numpad-slash to work: disable different mods, etc. but it worked before with my other mods enabled. anyway, all my tries failed.

also ... that is how i use NVACCESS, oasis. no video required, thank you.

EDIT: another weird thing that suggested that something was interrupting NVACCESS was that it was reading the word "change category" as "c hange category". hahaha! that was the only line that NVACCESS was truncating the first word into two. and it kept happening even after restarts of the game. which suggested a system-level interruption rather than from within the game. END EDIT.

[oasis1701]

How can i see the storage of my ship? is it different than the items that my player holds?