Unintuitive

[wombat]

Juste some suggestions about stuff that I found unintuitive at my first go:

 

Selling/Buying

Does the price for each object sold/bought change with every unit previously sold/bought? If so an indicator of what the average selling price will be before the sale, would be nice. This would help to control how much profit/loss one makes.

Maybe make the sale work with buttons instead of typing in the amount with the keyboard. Buttons for selling 1/5/10/all objects could double as space for the average selling price.

 

Is it possible to sell/buy turrets and system upgrades (like the increased radar range)? If so, it is not clearly marked how this works. Maybe include it in the tutorial (i.e. buy your first mining turret) or as a tooltip somewhere in the inventory/shop.

 

Dialog boxes

If open more than one dialog box, for example in the ship building mode, they overlap. I can't resize the boxes, so I end up closing them to see the other box or my ship again, only to open them again for the next action. Could the dialog boxes be resizeable and/or maybe docked to certain positions on the screen?

 

Ship building mode

The first thing I always do in Ship building mode is using a thruster block to determine the direction my ship is facing. Maybe a clear indicator which direction is forward could help out (like an arrow).

 

The first size for blocks is not in the predetermined blocks list. Is this only an issue for the demo? If not it could be included there.

 

I can only fire in the direction I am looking. An Auto fire for turrets on the rear of my ship would be helpful.

 

Camera

The camera always moves behind the ship, which is useful for piloting. But it would be nice to have the camera (and aiming system) to move free around, so I can fire broadsides or just look at my ship while it flies towards the camera. A mode that disconnects the moving direction from the looking direction or a mode that fixes the moving direction while aiming in different direction, would be nice. Maybe switching between this mode and the mode already implemented would be useful as well.

[koonschi]

First off: Hello and welcome to the forums!

 

Selling/Buying

Does the price for each object sold/bought change with every unit previously sold/bought? If so an indicator of what the average selling price will be before the sale, would be nice. This would help to control how much profit/loss one makes.

Maybe make the sale work with buttons instead of typing in the amount with the keyboard. Buttons for selling 1/5/10/all objects could double as space for the average selling price.

Prices change depending on how much stock of a good the station has. We're working on improving the UI, too.

 

Is it possible to sell/buy turrets and system upgrades (like the increased radar range)? If so, it is not clearly marked how this works. Maybe include it in the tutorial (i.e. buy your first mining turret) or as a tooltip somewhere in the inventory/shop.

This is not possible in the demo, it is in the full version though. There are equipment docks and turret traders, but their tooltip will state that you can't buy or sell turrets or upgrades in the demo.

 

Dialog boxes

If open more than one dialog box, for example in the ship building mode, they overlap. I can't resize the boxes, so I end up closing them to see the other box or my ship again, only to open them again for the next action. Could the dialog boxes be resizeable and/or maybe docked to certain positions on the screen?

The boxes in the building mode can all be opened with hotkeys, which should make editing easier once you know about it. C for colors, Space for the building inventory, for example. Again, we're still working on improving the UI though, thanks for the feedback!

 

The first thing I always do in Ship building mode is using a thruster block to determine the direction my ship is facing. Maybe a clear indicator which direction is forward could help out (like an arrow).

The first size for blocks is not in the predetermined blocks list. Is this only an issue for the demo? If not it could be included there.

Thanks, we'll fix those.

 

I can only fire in the direction I am looking. An Auto fire for turrets on the rear of my ship would be helpful.

We're planning on introducing blocks or upgrades that you can use for auto-firing turrets, we just need to come up with a good concept on how they would choose their targets, but it's definitely something we want as well.

 

Camera

The camera always moves behind the ship, which is useful for piloting. But it would be nice to have the camera (and aiming system) to move free around, so I can fire broadsides or just look at my ship while it flies towards the camera. A mode that disconnects the moving direction from the looking direction or a mode that fixes the moving direction while aiming in different direction, would be nice. Maybe switching between this mode and the mode already implemented would be useful as well.

There's a secondary steering mode where you control your ship and camera directly. Press F2 to switch, this mode is intended exactly for what you mentioned.