Any plans at all for improvements for station planner?

[Caedes91]

Some time ago I requested some improvements for the station planner.

viewtopic.php?p=5225095#p5225095

To summarize:

• add the option to display unbuilt modules in their normal textures or at least completely remove transparency. This is absolutely horrible to deal with on bigger stations.

• increase station plot size limit (Why is there an arbitary limit of 20km to begin with?)

• add more connection modules with more different lengths and heights like 0,5x1, 1,5x1, 2,5x1, 3x1, 5x1 and maybe wider connection modules like 2x3, numbers based on one cross-connection module or CW-docking module. Should lessen the module count of stations, since you for example don't need to use "base connection 1" + "base connection 2" to bridge a 3x1 gap

• adjust snapping distance for modules, so for example sequences don't jitter around so much

Further requests:

• Temporary box outside of the build plot for the player to temporarily place modules or segments for later use. Like Windows clipboard, that disappears, when you close the station designer

• Favourite window for the player to save their most used modules

Most of them are minor requests and should be easy to implement. So my question after 2 major patches and after looking at your recent roadmap, that lists nothing in regards to station building for the next 2 years:

Is improving the the experience and lessen the frustrations with station designer just not a priority at all?

[Eyeklops]

Some time ago I requested some improvements for the station planner.

viewtopic.php?p=5225095#p5225095

To summarize:

1. Add the option to display unbuilt modules in their normal textures or at least completely remove transparency. This is absolutely horrible to deal with on bigger stations.
2. Increase station plot size limit (Why is there an arbitary limit of 20km to begin with?)
3. Add more connection modules with more different lengths and heights like 0,5x1, 1,5x1, 2,5x1, 3x1, 5x1 and maybe wider connection modules like 2x3, numbers based on one cross-connection module or CW-docking module. Should lessen the module count of stations, since you for example don't need to use "base connection 1" + "base connection 2" to bridge a 3x1 gap.
4. Adjust snapping distance for modules, so for example sequences don't jitter around so much.
   
   Further requests:
5. Temporary box outside of the build plot for the player to temporarily place modules or segments for later use. Like Windows clipboard, that disappears, when you close the station designer.
6. Favourite window for the player to save their most used modules.

Most of them are minor requests and should be easy to implement. So my question after 2 major patches and after looking at your recent roadmap, that lists nothing in regards to station building for the next 2 years:

Is improving the the experience and lessen the frustrations with station designer just not a priority at all?

1. This functionality is possible in the stand-alone station designer, though it would be nice to have this option for the in-universe station designer.
2. 20x20x20 is pretty big. I can't see myself going larger but also can't see an issue with other players doing so. Like how much larger do you want? 25x25x25 or something insane like 100x100x100? I wonder what the cost of the "insane" size would be right up against a gate...lulz.**
3. I am 1000% for the idea of more connection types. We got a few new ones with the latest DLC. I will say that I'd not want too many more without the ability to filter by faction type. Scrolling through a list of 20+/per faction connection types would be tedious. I typically only use one faction type of connecter per station for aesthetic consistency.
4. Not a bad idea. I swear the station designer has mind reading ability, but is also malevolent. When I'm working on a large station and copy, or copy sequence, of a part I want to place on the next connector over (the connector that is in the center of my screen), it will auto-snap EVERYWHERE but the one I want. I finally get so frustrated I'll let it snap anywhere. On the second move, what do you know...it will easily snap to the intended connection. SUPER frustrating. Maybe this could somehow help.
5. Another 1000% agree. Currently, dealing with any module considered to have an "invalid" placement is a nightmare. You can't even right-click-delete them!!
6. This goes under the nice-to-have-but-not-frustrating-to-not-have category for me.

**- Found the answer here. By that calculation 100x100x100x1000x5 = 5 billion for a station plot up against the gate.

[adeine]

The worst issues I find myself having with the station planner right now still are:

· Inability to shift select multiple modules for movement/rotation. This means you have to trick the game into thinking modules are connected when they are not if you want a station you can move as a whole with unconnected parts.

· Inability to easily apply loadouts for multiple modules from a template.

· Zoom and camera movement breaks after a while of using the editor; the only fix is saving changes, closing the editor and reopening.

[zeppelin_dsv]

Add the ability to select module coordinate systems when connecting them.

[stooper88]

• Not a bad idea. I swear the station designer has mind reading ability, but is also malevolent. When I'm working on a large station and copy, or copy sequence, of a part I want to place on the next connector over (the connector that is in the center of my screen), it will auto-snap EVERYWHERE but the one I want. I finally get so frustrated I'll let it snap anywhere. On the second move, what do you know...it will easily snap to the intended connection. SUPER frustrating. Maybe this could somehow help.

One thing I really dearly miss from X3 is the 2D-orthogonal projection design of the sector map interface which also came to use for station and station complex building. I understand that X4 leverages an entirely new 3D-centric engine for the universe map and station design interfaces. But when navigating large and/or crowded regions and especially building stations, the X4 map/build interface is so brutally cumbersome and unwieldy. The old 2D projections of the XZ and XY planes in X3 combined with the visible XYZ coordinates of the cursor made inspection and placement 100% precise and unambiguous. In contrast, I would say the current system in X4 is not just malevolent, but schizophrenic. It's nearly impossible to know where a new station module will appear (or even be allowed to appear) once selected from the build interface. Moving the mouse just the slightest bit can cause the camera or module position to jump completely erratically. I so dearly yearn for the X3 interface with 2D projections and support for keyboard controls.

[Falcrack]

One thing the station planner really needs is the ability to manually add resources and workforce to the station, so we can see how it functions in terms of production.

[Eyeklops]

One thing the station planner really needs is the ability to manually add resources and workforce to the station, so we can see how it functions in terms of production.

Budgeted/Custom start designer needs this as well.

[moako]

In general I agree that some improvements are necessary.

BUT I completely dissagree with the following statement:

• increase station plot size limit (Why is there an arbitary limit of 20km to begin with?)

I recommend highly a reduction of the existing plot size limit but the player HQ station or at least a much bigger plot size for each of the jump gate.

[Baconnaise]

I find the plot sizes to be rather large. What I would prefer to see is an improved way to upgrade station modules. My aim is more along the thought of FPS and general performance of the game especially mid to late game. Mega stations and plots are cool but kind of pointless if most folks can't even enjoy them IS. That's why I would like to see stat bumps to modules themselves so we can build streamlined stations perhaps with different coloring to mark what upgrades we have completed. In my case I've ended up either modding modules myself or using other mods to change storage limits or production values to help keep footprints streamlined and enjoyable.

[Raptor34]

I find the plot sizes to be rather large. What I would prefer to see is an improved way to upgrade station modules. My aim is more along the thought of FPS and general performance of the game especially mid to late game. Mega stations and plots are cool but kind of pointless if most folks can't even enjoy them IS. That's why I would like to see stat bumps to modules themselves so we can build streamlined stations perhaps with different coloring to mark what upgrades we have completed. In my case I've ended up either modding modules myself or using other mods to change storage limits or production values to help keep footprints streamlined and enjoyable.

Especially considering no one attacks your production stations anyway.
Since I've heard that a balancing issue would be that smaller stations would be easier to defend, but well, when has that ever been relevant in X4.
So in such cases, the performance benefits of letting us compress stations outweigh the basically non-existent balance considerations.

You could also argue that you save money on plot prices, but generally when you're building that many modules that compressing them into one actually matters, money wouldn't be an issue anymore.

[Caedes91]

Very frustrating to deal with:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 3415834870

[azaghal]

• Temporary box outside of the build plot for the player to temporarily place modules or segments for later use. Like Windows clipboard, that disappears, when you close the station designer

This seems useful, but I think it could be covered by a bit more substantial overhaul of how the station design state is handled. This might require more work, but I think it would work out better in the long term (in my personal opinion). Short overview of what I had in mind (was planning a separate thread on this for some time now, but heck, there is too many same-topic threads on forum anyway):

• Player should be able to reset the current station design from within the planner (a reset button with confirmation dialog). A minor QoL instead of having to reopen the station planner.
• The current design should be automatically saved (but not applied) when player closes the design window. These saves would be per-station, and _separate_ from templates. Some form of configurable notification should be shown when doing so (for player to be aware that the changes have not been applied). This would let player quickly get out of design menu when something urgent happens without accidentally losing progress and without having to go through the whole pause/save template dance every single time. Basically - auto-save current design progress without applying it.
• Player should be able to easily identify which stations have WIP (unapplied) designs going.
• Allow player to freely plan outside of plot bounds - including changing module details, detaching modules etc. Prevent player from applying such design changes (committing to construction phase). This would allow to easily mess around with smaller segments of station or to temporarily get things out of the way without risking automatic removal of whole chunks of station.
• Allow player to freely modify details of a module which is overlapping other modules - including attaching/detaching things etc. Kinda similar to the above.
• Never, ever automatically remove modules that are in some kind of invalid state (out of bounds, overlapping etc). Maybe add an explicit button for this operation. Nobody likes losing large chunks of their progress just because the editor sometimes throws a hissie fit.

Is improving the the experience and lessen the frustrations with station designer just not a priority at all?

But, but... New content!

Some small additions that are "missing" from the original post's list:

• Ability to set build order directly in the list by moving items up and down.
• Ability to restore removed station modules (without having to reset the entire station design).
• Ability to restore state of particular (moved/reconfigured) modules without having to reset the entire station design.
• Buttons for enabling/disabling background and station module overlaps should be accessible directly on the design screen. I find myself often wanting to toggle them on/off to verify where the station is facing etc.
• Ability to expand plot size directly from within the planner. With controls that make sense (should be clear to player, irrespective of current plot orientation, what side will get enlarged). Just a bit of QoL so you don't have to interrupt the build and mess around in the map when you realise you are missing a bit of space.
• Ability to align one or more modules (including entire station) relative to the plot boundries (one of the sides, centered etc). Should preserve the connections etc when aligning the entire station.
• Fix the camera behaviour. This is kinda what adeine posted, but I would say that camera handling in the game is just broken. Half the time I feel like I am trying to trick the game into getting the camera into correct position, and controls often seem to behave relative to some arbitrary point.

While at it... One bigger change (somewhat gameplay-related) that I would find interesting would be to allow repositioning the modules without having to rebuild them. So, if modules are just being moved around, don't deconstruct them. I would not even mind if this was not a fully free/instant operation. For example, you would still need to expend some energy cells for it, and have a builder assigned - maybe it would even evict all the docked incoming ships during the process. There is a whole bunch of side-effects around this that might not be easy/possible to handle, though (like when you are moving docks with ships flying in and out of them). This would have the following benefits/use-cases:

• Sometimes you mess up the station orientation relative to gates, common routes, etc. And then you are stuck with it unless you want to mess around with basically rebuilding the entire station - which can also be effectively impossible in case of larger stations.
• Makes applying template updates against existing stations easier. Might be even nice if the game would try to keep existing station position when applying such updates (maybe you pick a station module within a plot to act as anchor point). This way you don't have to think about maintaining perfect alignment when designing the templates and making slight modifications to them.

Best regards,
Branko

[adeine]

If we're talking adding new features, the main addition I am hoping for at some point is a proper production/consumption overview to balance stations as you build them without having to rely on a third party station calculator.