So, I've put many hours into the game so far, and here is a list of some of the things that are making the game 'not fun' and harder than it should be.
The question is: Am I doing something wrong, or is this how it should be.
1. Trading. I am struggling to understand things here. I know the very basics of "buy food at agriculture and sell to industrial" things, but only in the loosest sense. The most frustrating thing is that I cannot see the prices of things when I am not docked at that station.
So I am at station A - I see all the prices. I look for a commodity which is exported to a nearby system, and I look at the stations in the destination system, and I find a station which imports it. Great! So, I buy some. I then travel to station B and sell it and make a bit of a profit. All good. But now I am at station B, if I go into the commodity market, I cant see any of the prices at station A anymore, even though I was just there 5 mins ago.
I've tried changing the dropdown on the Galactic Average column to an "unsorted list", I find the system I was just at, and it simply says "Exported To" or "Imported From", which tells me nothing.
2. Mining
a. Asteroids do not show up on scanner and you cant target them. I can kinda see why this is, because if they showed up, your sensors would be full. But not targeting them is a pain.
b. Getting things in your cargo scoop is harder than it should be. And yes, I know practice helps. But even sometimes when it is right in line, it just bounces away at the last minute.
c. You should be able to scan the asteroid to see what is in it before wasting time mining it
d. Chunks that have been knocked off disappear not too long afterwards - I've had a few which disappear as I'm flying towards them.
3. Docking
a. It highlights the docking pad for me - Great. But it also highlights all the other docking pads for anyone else nearby, so I fly into the station and 5 of them are highlighted. Makes it very tricky to see which one is which. Surely, some augmented reality display that just points me in the direction of my pad.
b. The docking display doesn't show up until I am really close. This just makes it harder than it should be.
c. The graphics are nice, but I'm now completely bored of it having to turn me around when I launch.
4. Travel
a. This is the most annoying part. The supercharge flight overshoots my target 99% of the time. This is so frustrating. I engage the flight mode, set my speed to the blue bar, point it at the target, and watch it increase the speed, and then slow it down. But most of the time it overshoots. I've read something about gravity wells affecting it, but this is almost every time, and it is a pain - because you then slow down, turn around, find it again. speed up, possibly overshoot it a second time. Just a nightmare. This makes the game not fun to play and just harder work than it should be.
5. UI
a. What a complete pain. I'm slowly getting used to the keyboard controls to navigate around menus, but there is no 'back' key. I have to move my mouse to the exit button. And pressing escape returns to the main menu. It's just a nightmare and not at all user friendly.
b. Navigating around the system view is also a nightmare, moving the cursor around until it goes over something. The left and right keys here should allow you to cycle through the available stations.
c. From within system view, you should be able to target something. Right now, I go into the system view, find the station I want. Then I have to repeat its name in my head so I don't forget it, while I go back to navigation, and then select it from there. Again, this is just making it harder than it should be, and therefore less fun.
6. No proper guide
I know the game has a learning curve, but having to find answers to fundamental questions online in various forum posts, a lot of which is old information from the beta is really not fun. And the online sidewinder guide is out of date and wrong in places. Maybe some people like having to hunt around gaming forums to get answers on what some of the things on screen mean.
The video guides they have done online are excellent though - I don't know how you can play without watching these. I just wish there was more of them
The question is: Am I doing something wrong, or is this how it should be.
1. Trading. I am struggling to understand things here. I know the very basics of "buy food at agriculture and sell to industrial" things, but only in the loosest sense. The most frustrating thing is that I cannot see the prices of things when I am not docked at that station.
So I am at station A - I see all the prices. I look for a commodity which is exported to a nearby system, and I look at the stations in the destination system, and I find a station which imports it. Great! So, I buy some. I then travel to station B and sell it and make a bit of a profit. All good. But now I am at station B, if I go into the commodity market, I cant see any of the prices at station A anymore, even though I was just there 5 mins ago.
I've tried changing the dropdown on the Galactic Average column to an "unsorted list", I find the system I was just at, and it simply says "Exported To" or "Imported From", which tells me nothing.
2. Mining
a. Asteroids do not show up on scanner and you cant target them. I can kinda see why this is, because if they showed up, your sensors would be full. But not targeting them is a pain.
b. Getting things in your cargo scoop is harder than it should be. And yes, I know practice helps. But even sometimes when it is right in line, it just bounces away at the last minute.
c. You should be able to scan the asteroid to see what is in it before wasting time mining it
d. Chunks that have been knocked off disappear not too long afterwards - I've had a few which disappear as I'm flying towards them.
3. Docking
a. It highlights the docking pad for me - Great. But it also highlights all the other docking pads for anyone else nearby, so I fly into the station and 5 of them are highlighted. Makes it very tricky to see which one is which. Surely, some augmented reality display that just points me in the direction of my pad.
b. The docking display doesn't show up until I am really close. This just makes it harder than it should be.
c. The graphics are nice, but I'm now completely bored of it having to turn me around when I launch.
4. Travel
a. This is the most annoying part. The supercharge flight overshoots my target 99% of the time. This is so frustrating. I engage the flight mode, set my speed to the blue bar, point it at the target, and watch it increase the speed, and then slow it down. But most of the time it overshoots. I've read something about gravity wells affecting it, but this is almost every time, and it is a pain - because you then slow down, turn around, find it again. speed up, possibly overshoot it a second time. Just a nightmare. This makes the game not fun to play and just harder work than it should be.
5. UI
a. What a complete pain. I'm slowly getting used to the keyboard controls to navigate around menus, but there is no 'back' key. I have to move my mouse to the exit button. And pressing escape returns to the main menu. It's just a nightmare and not at all user friendly.
b. Navigating around the system view is also a nightmare, moving the cursor around until it goes over something. The left and right keys here should allow you to cycle through the available stations.
c. From within system view, you should be able to target something. Right now, I go into the system view, find the station I want. Then I have to repeat its name in my head so I don't forget it, while I go back to navigation, and then select it from there. Again, this is just making it harder than it should be, and therefore less fun.
6. No proper guide
I know the game has a learning curve, but having to find answers to fundamental questions online in various forum posts, a lot of which is old information from the beta is really not fun. And the online sidewinder guide is out of date and wrong in places. Maybe some people like having to hunt around gaming forums to get answers on what some of the things on screen mean.
The video guides they have done online are excellent though - I don't know how you can play without watching these. I just wish there was more of them
