[TESTREQUEST] Station Editor

[Zloth2]

Yes, so that it will easily snap to connectors without having to reposition the camera for special axis rotations. Usually one builds more than one module in a row and would speed up the process if you rotate one and then have the subsequent one keeping the same rotation.

If you're placing multiple of the same module you should use the copy function from the right-click menu. That makes a copy with an identical orientation.

Because right-click also does rotation, this often results in the module rotating as well as showing the menu item. Control-z undoes the rotate, so it isn't too bad if you know about control-z, but I don't think many people know that trick.

[X2-Eliah]

Some notes on the controls for station builder / editor...

The increased amount of rotation is neat, but honestly making (simple) stations is more frustrating now than it was before the change.

1st problem: How can I distinguish between "right click on module to rotate" and "right click on module to open the mini menu with "remove selection" etc. options"? Because jeez is it frustrating as hell when i try to get that menu to open and the module just spins around. And - idk if its down to framerate, or needing to keep the mouse perfectly still (won't happen with a high dpi / sensitivity mouse), but almost every time I want to bring up that right-click-menu on a module, it just rotates instead.

2nd problem: How can I lock the rotation around one of the axes (x, y, z) instead of the module seemingly selecting a random axis to rotate around? It's nice to have the ability for free rotation, sure, but from the interface I have no clue how to properly control that rotation. Looking at notes, there is supposed to be some auto-selection of the nearest axis? Well.. whichever axis gets selected, often does not coincide with the global axes of the sector.
Ideally a transform widget - like you have in Blender, Maya etc. - would be best, or *at least* being able to toggle a rotation (and translation) axis-lock. With the station builder I don't feel like I ever have control of all 3 dimensions when I'm moving things around.

[Incinerator]

Seems the sector view is not loaded correctly here.

Yup something similar happened, I was designing station in another sector, while on autopilot and my ship being in another sector elsewhere entered a highway, and boy did it mess up the designer view.

[G315t]

Yup something similar happened, I was designing station in another sector, while on autopilot and my ship being in another sector elsewhere entered a highway, and boy did it mess up the designer view.

I was also not in this sector but standing on the bridge of my destroyer in another sector.

[Zloth2]

Everything rotates around the center of the object, even when connected. It does not rotate around the connection. Furthermore, if the object is symmetrical, rotating still breaks the connection! For instance, attach a Protein Paste to a Teladi L Storage. Rotate the camera around so you are looking straight through the center of the PP module to the connection. Rotate the PP module 90 degrees so it's on its side. Rotate back around and you will see the connection arrows are back between the storage and the module.

This causes quite a few disconnects in large stations if you don't rotate first then attach. When you click on the very first module, only some of the station gets highlighted because attachments are broken.

I finally turned on the free camera. Not being able to use the mouse wheel is a pain but, if that's the price of the accelerating move speed, I'll take it. The free camera is far, far better at zooming into tight spots than the mouse wheel.

Any chance we could do the chunky rotate by default and hold shift down to do the free rotation? I find I almost always want the chunky rotate.

[steph_m37]

Hi !

1. it's better after some training and testing!
   (I too use Blender, inventor, SolidWorks, and Catia too, and rotate an object is simpler in these programs, we must leave it aside with x4)
   
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2. and more difficult because the axis are not corresponding with the x y z view.
   
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To turn a module that is no longer oriented with X,Y,Z views, well it's really not practical at all, to achieve this alignment
it took me a lot of tests and it is necessary to proceed in stages in the rotations.

We have these beautiful nodes, with the X, Y, Z axes, represented on the module, why not use them! Directly to turn the module by selecting them.
Two keys on the keyboard to browse the nodes of the module, with highlighting to find your way around.
and on the selected node a right click on X, Y or Z and turn your module or you want exactly, without worrying with the main view.

The way X4 works may not allow what I said before, it is certainly explained somewhere on the forum , Everything is in English hard to find.

Steph

[G315t]

The problem here is, that players, that have no experience to work in 3D Modeling space or CAD software will probaply be even more lost with the controls of the station editor than we are right now. I can see people give up on the feature very fast if they can not get easy access to the controls. If I weren't so stubborn and stress-resistant, I certainly wouldn't want to deal with it.
I spent almost 35 minutes yesterday aligning 5 modules. Especially the rotation of the TER 3 E Docks has driven me crazy because it changed its position again and again when "snapping" to the connector (which was due to the fact that the construction area was not wide enough, but I noticed that much too late).

[Withidread]

The new rotation, for me, is completely unusable. I'm bordering on 2k hours in x4, but this would force me to put down the whole game. I can't even build a simple station from scratch, let alone the huge complexes I'm used to building.

Being able to see the rest of the sector in the background is a nice feature, and really useful for things like editing loadouts on defense modules, but I'd rather it be a toggle.

[Zloth2]

When doing the loadouts, we really need something for the fonts for the turrets/shields. If you're working with Terran station parts, the white text is being drawn over the white station parts background.

Also, the station architect start is being done with Mars hanging around (at least for me, might be different if I didn't have Cradle of Humanity). Orange'ish production station parts against the red of mars is visible, but a bit difficult.


Withidread, I've got no experience in CAD software at all. If you keep the camera floating above (or below) most of the time, the rotation will be just like always. Here's some tips:

• Control-Z to undo! If you right click to pop up a menu and the module rotates on you, just do a control-z before selecting the menu option you want. If you try to rotate something and it doesn't work out the way you want, control-z puts it back. If you decide the placement you did a few minutes ago was bad, control-z a few times to undo what you've done until it undoes the bad thing. The key is hugely handy.
• Rotate before placement. Just drop your new module in empty space, then do your rotations, then attach. Remember, you can only rotate around X, Y, and Z. If you're silicon wafer factory is already at a diagonal, you aren't going to be able to spin it around its own long axis.
• Hold the shift key down when rotating so it jumps at 30 degree angles.
• Just like in 4, when you first try to place a new module, the item will often appear WAY far away or even behind your camera! To work around this, keep a cross section module a little ways away from your station. If your new module piece doesn't want to behave, place it on the cross section first.
• If you do find you need to spin a piece that's already placed, the piece will get unattached after spinning. You'll need to pull it away then place it back on its anchor again.
• Hover over your initial module from time to time to make sure the entire station is getting highlighted. Deal with any portions that aren't highlighting.
• Save often! I don't mean saving the game, I mean saving a template. Crashes happen. Undo lists normally have some sort of limit, too, and you don't want to find out what that limit is the hard way.
• The 'creative' start will let you start with any station you have a template for. You can use that to see how your station looks and double-check how many modules you have as you go without having to wait for the whole build process to happen.
• The free camera option is good for fine control, but you lose the ability to zoom with the mouse wheel. If you want to make a big station, you're going to need that fine control. If you're just doing a quick station, the old way is more convenient and works well enough.

Many of these are likely to change with upcoming betas.

[Raptor34]

What if I want to build according to the galactic plane? Is it still easy? Or would the new freeform building make it go out of alignment?

It starts in standard orientation so if you just place the first module and then attach more to it it will allways be aligned to the plane.

I'm thinking of if I want to rotate it around.
The new system makes it sound like rotation would be based on camera orientation, which makes it sound easy to rotate wrong, so to speak.

[ubuntufreakdragon]

1st problem: How can I distinguish between "right click on module to rotate" and "right click on module to open the mini menu with "remove selection" etc. options"? Because jeez is it frustrating as hell when i try to get that menu to open and the module just spins around. And - idk if its down to framerate, or needing to keep the mouse perfectly still (won't happen with a high dpi / sensitivity mouse), but almost every time I want to bring up that right-click-menu on a module, it just rotates instead.

just don't have the module in question selected, than rotate is not an option.

[Zetoss]

I feel like the station pieces might need a little bit of additional variety to make the rotation feature produce good looking results, specifically the connectors from almost all races are very "thou shalt build thine station in a squaaare!" type, they only provide 90 degree increment angles. Would be nice if just like 2 or 3 "oddball" connections were added, like one that bends 22.5 or 30 degrees and some reskins of the Split 3 way to match other races. Anyone else thinking the same?

[Zloth2]

I was thinking some sort of sphere-connector would be nice. It isn't hard to get a lot of nasty angles right now. For instance, place a Paranid disk down then tilt it 30 degrees. Hook a Paranid Y connection to the upper or lower rim. Now try hooking anything to either of the other two arms of the Y. It can be done, but it's rough!

I sphere connection would allow. say, three connections at any angle. That would increase the freedom for pure-Argon or Teladi stations to break out of the box, it would also provide a way for players to quickly deal with those difficult situations. Naturally, such a powerful piece will need something extra in the cost. Perhaps a little nividium?

(No clue if the technology will allow anything like this. To look good, the shape of the sphere-connector would have to morph depending on the angles used.)

[G315t]

Wow I never knew the Entry lane of those docking modules was so long!

[Withidread]

The new rotation, for me, is completely unusable. I'm bordering on 2k hours in x4, but this would force me to put down the whole game. I can't even build a simple station from scratch, let alone the huge complexes I'm used to building.

Being able to see the rest of the sector in the background is a nice feature, and really useful for things like editing loadouts on defense modules, but I'd rather it be a toggle.

So, after working with it more, I think I've finally, mostly got it figured out. But this *really* needs a good tutorial, and a recommendation for experienced players to go through it. I still don't see myself actually *using* the new rotation capabilities, but I'm to the point where they aren't hindering me like they were.

[WoodyAut]

Hi,

The possiblities with the new editor are really great, but i would really like to have the basic (current) one, just for building kind of standard stations and , with the possibility to switch to the advanced mode for professionals to have complete freedom.

Just a hotkey including the message "please read the manual in the egosoft forum to use it" would make life much easier for beginners to start with their first stations, because the new editor mode is not really easy to handle in the current state, but in case some wants to have all three axis enabled - yes....do what ever you want...

Just my 3 cents...

Best regards
WoodyAut

[WoodyAut]

One more thing....

Maybe i am really too stupid to get the logic of the new editor, but i just managed it once a little time ago to add a module on the headquarter on one of the connectionpoints outside the 90° - no idea how i did it, but now i am failing to add another module at another connectionpoint....and yes....i read the manual....i guess any newbie would be pretty demotivated at some point....

I am really hoping for some additional options for easier building....or the possiblity to switch back to the old editor, which was much more intuitive....

Best regards
WoodyAut

[Alith-Ahnar]

Free Camera YAY!
This is a big Step in the right direction.

Tested the Station Editor with the free camera unlocked.
A few things I did stumble about or would like to be changed (added).

1. Right now the camera controls are aligned to the perspective of the Camera, I rather would prefer it to be static XYZ.
2. 15° rotation steps would be amazing to simulate increments of either half steps of the 120° and 90° angle connector.
3. Mapping module rotation to the Num-Pad, please.
4. Building in-game (unpaused) causes the background perspective to shift if the player model moves (travels on a ship) would be great if this would not happen.
5. Some keybind changes to the camera would be appreciated WASD for up, left, down, right and z, x for forward and backward would be greatly appreciated giving the input scheme more we look at the blueprints than we actually fly inside the scene vibe.
6. Rotating a module can pretty fast turn into frustration with the POV relative rotation axis a UI-based transformation tool would go a long way.
7. The Station Editor scene illumination is close (identical) to the sector resulting in overpowering or dark scenes the option to switch to a baseline illumination would improve visibility a lot.
8. None Focus modules in the loadout view are rendered with extremely low LOD and without surface modules (weapons/shields) I would love those to be rendered either in full detail or if performance is a concern near full detail possible a darker shade.
9. Station modules missing direction indicators for mass traffic ports and docking lanes, the one would help to guide the station traffic the other could help to fix potential docking issues before they happen.
10. The L/XL docking Exclusion Zone for all modules is way too extensive no Ship is even remotely ever use the space, trimming those substantial down would go a long way. Extensive testing prior to the clipping purge did show it would not have any noticeable impact.
11. For Orientation inside the plot some sort of ecliptic or grid would go a long way IMHO.

And now back to Station building.

[Volko]

I think it's great that you can now rotate the modules freely.

But it's also problematic.

How about new key assignments:

Shift + Q / Shift + E == yaw
Shift + A / Shift + D == roll
Shift + W / Shift + S == pitch

[Ketraar]

At this point the rotation issues have been repeatedly made clear and various suggestion brought forward. Not to sound ungrateful, but about that specific features I think we can say that all has been said. Lets wait for any updates on that and then have another go at another round of feedback.

MFG

Ketraar