Interface thoughts.

from Stardock Forums

Wow it's like you've made a game just for me.  Seriously, outstanding work.

After a handful of games though there's a couple interface things that keep me hunting around even when just playing or just miss if I'm not paying attention to that area of the screen.. 

1- when placing a tile it would be super handy to have all existing buildings of the same type be highlighted.  Differentiating between some electrolysis plants and other things attached to my base when looking to place something to get the adjacency bonus often means that I have to zoom way in and compare silhouettes,  I'm sure it wont be a problem after another dozen games or so.. but starting out it feels like a minigame of where's waldo.

2- when stock prices change, I'd love to see the background change color (green or red) depending on the amount of change instead of the little triangles.  So for example when a stock crashes the background would be red (the bigger the drop the brighter the color) this would let you just see that something big has happened to the market instead of a glance.  The little up and down triangles feel like they're too easy to miss unless you're staring at the market.

3- please put the on map symbol next to the resource type on the market.  when I see a grey triangle on the map, i don't have a way to see what it is unless i hover over the tile and wait for the detail tip to show up.   I know this will not be an issue after 10 -20 games, but starting out it feels like I'm hunting for information that the other players already know.

So far I'm Loving it. (placing pirates seems a bit troublesome, maybe a tutorial level where you do nothing but perform black market things would help in the learning process)

 

 

 

4,656 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

I pretty much agree with this post. The game seems promising, but the UI could be improved. Another situation where highlighting would be useful is when trying to scrap buildings; I'd like to be able to highlight all coal mines, for example, if I have lots of coal and the market price is low. Now I have to click around trying to find the correct buildings.

 

Other than the difficulties with the UI, the game seems great. I will write more about my thoughts when I've had the opportunity to play more.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Hi Drakkeim,

1. I completely agree that this needs to be improved and that is a good idea.

2. Another good idea. We're trying to balance the amount of stuff on the interface with what the player needs to know and it's a bit tricky. We don't want to overwhelm a new player but we also don't want to not give enough information to an experienced player. We're likely going to be making changes with this and I'd love your feedback when we get them in.

3. That's something we've struggled with since early playtests. The on-map resources and the resources you gather are a bit different and we haven't worked out how to best connect them. 

FrozenFalcon's comment - finding your own buildings is something that the UI doesn't do well currently and we need to work out a solution for.

Thank you for all your feedback! We're working hard to make the game better. Please expect slow, steady progress. We're a small, dedicated team that wants to make an amazing game, but there is no way that we can fix all these problems within the next update. We hope to fix a number of the biggest things and then fix the next biggest things and so forth until it's crazy good. Please have patience with us and know we're working hard to make you happy.

Thanks again!

-Scott-

TouchTasks - Access tasks with ease on Windows touchscreens.
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Another UI tweak that would help (a lot) is to shrink down the width of the building panel, as there is a lot of unused horizontal space in that element which is taking up a lot of screen.

I guess this would mean changing the top as I believe that's the only part that is actually full.  Everything else is like 1 or 2 structures tops.

EDIT: From watching a stream I just found out you can hover *_* over the resource and a popup shows the buildings for that on the side.  This wasn't immediately obvious which is why I've been playing with the huge build window open non-stop.

This pretty much negates my earlier frustration and eventually I assume people will all figure out this feature.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Hey,  also just working through the tutorials and enjoying things so far. I didnt want to create another thread on GUI so have put some further questions here:

 - Is it possible to spy/see the income of other corporations? 

 - Also is there any way to see who sabotaged you?

 - Any log of other corporations trades on the market? Would be nice to see who is selling/buying what.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Hey Icarus007,

Currently there's no way to see other player's incomes, nor to see who sabotaged you (except for mutinies - if you steal an advanced building you can see it on other player's stock line). You can though see other players' trades by watching the ships flying between their HQ and the colony. You need to know what those resources are, but it is a small tip.

-Scott-

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

When I hit the number keys (1-4), during the tutorial, I thought it let me look at the other player's resource pools.  I don't remember if it showed me their income.