QoL - those little things that aren't game breakers

[M00ka]

First up: This is not a request, not a suggestion (otherwise it would be in the suggestion sub-forum right), not a , not a whine, just a couple of things that would be nice but don't break the game, don't stop anyone playing, don't break the BGS - okay Let's just try to keep this to a list of things that would be nice, but you can live without FD dropping all other work to fix. They might be a little annoying, but you can put up with them.

Here are some from me to start:

Plotting a course: With the new and improved course plotting, FD have been nice and now include a nice little icon showing you where you need to refuel. But how often is that a system with no stations and you don't carry a fuel scoop? Wouldn't it be nice if the system recognised the fact the ship doesn't have a scoop and plots the course accordingly? Even if was an option like fastest route, most economical route ones. I wonder how many players have assumed that 'last fuel star' icon on the map actually means the last one you can scoop, not the last one you can divert to a station for a refuel.

The Hud: I have noticed that on some ships, especially those with the cockpit set back from the nose, that information displayed to the player is often hidden from view. It almost seems the hud is projecting in front of the ship and the body of the ship or even the frames of the canopy obscure the information. These are normally navigation information like the targeted planet distance etc. This is information that would be generated by your ship, so you should be able to see it.

Haulage Missions in stages: Loving the new haulage missions but I think they could be made even better. Wouldn't it be nice if you could take a mission to delivery lets say 120 T of food cartridges (or whatever), but your ship can only carry 80T so it takes you two trips. You still have to complete the mission within the nominated time frame of course. FD has already shown it can count D) by being able to split a massacre mission, it keeps count of the number of targets you have killed and you can actually do the mission over several gameplay sessions. So why can't we do the same with other missions like haulage? This would open up these types of missions to the beginner player, or those that prefer smaller ships.

Commodities as Mission Rewards: I don't think anyone likes getting a miniscule quantity of some commodity as part payment for a mission. You either sell it straight away or the items just take up valuable cargo space in your ship. Or worse, you don't have the capacity to accept the so called rewards and it stops you completing the mission. (Actually what is worse than that is when you forget you got the damn things and drop into a RES and every damn NPC pirate starts demanding your cargo, and you think to yourself, what beeping cargo lol). If FD want to continue with these rewards - for all I know some actually like them - how about having the option when handing in the mission to immediately sell these commodities back to the faction at a discount like 25%, hell I would even settle for 50% lol.

Anyway, just some QoL things I have noticed that hasn't stopped me playing or enjoying the game, just very minor irritations so to speak.

 

[dru1d]

On your first point, never trust the course plotter to account for fuel. I had to self destruct a 20m credit vulture after running out of fuel at an M class star that was apparently scoopable. It wasn't.

 

[Cmdr Ultra]

Somewhere a Fuel Rat just died.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Or worse, you don't have the capacity to accept the so called rewards and it stops you completing the mission. (Actually what is worse than that is when you forget you got the damn things and drop into a RES and every damn NPC pirate starts demanding your cargo, and you think to yourself, what beeping cargo lol).

That part I like.

 

[Jack Schitt]

There are effectively two HUDs at play in our ships: the holographic stuff that floats in 3D space inside the cockpit such as the weapon status and comms panels, and the navigation info such as target reticles and orbit lines. The latter are projected onto the "glass", so should be visible anywhere other than pillars and other canopy hardware, including "on top of" visible ship structures as long as there's "glass" between you and the target.

If you're seeing anything other than this, such as ship structures "outside" the cockpit blocking HUD elements, it sounds like a bug.

I like the other ideas, especially splitting cargo shipments. It would require the clients and servers to remember more state information so probably wouldn't be a trivial thing to implement, but it would definitely be a QOL improvement and add to gameplay choice.

 

[Jimbodiah]

1.) Don't be cheap, buy a fuel scoop

4.) Some of those items you need to unlock engineers. And I ussualy dump all of the reward commodities straight away. BTW, you can complete the mission just fine once your cargo is full, the new reward commodities are just deleted the moment you hand in the mission. You only need free cargo space to accept the mission, not to cash them in.



Other QoL I can think of would be:

- Engineers; list what upgrades they can do in the summary page. Do we really need to check Inara for everything?

- Docking: Shortcut key to ask for docking permission instead of going through the menus everytime.

- Combat: Two extra fire buttons so we can hook up scanners and not need to switch between fire-groups endlessly (and fire on that anaconda instead of scanning it).

- More space for Materials and Data, at least double.

- Divide the last module space in the ship into smaller sections to allow for size1 scanners. Anaconda specifically is a huge waste of space where you add a size1 scanner into a size4 slot.

- Remove the Planetary Approach Suite slot; you can't reconfigure it and thus is completely redundant to show it anyway

- ThermalRadiator module: Draws power, takes up space, dissipates excess heat.

- No animation while outfitting ship to save time

-

 

[GreyAreaUK]

But how often is that a system with no stations and you don't carry a fuel scoop?

Never.

Never ever.

Always carry a scoop. The first thing I bought for my starter Sidey? A scoop.

Your scoop is your friend.

 

[M00ka]

There are effectively two HUDs at play in our ships: the holographic stuff that floats in 3D space inside the cockpit such as the weapon status and comms panels, and the navigation info such as target reticles and orbit lines. The latter are projected onto the "glass", so should be visible anywhere other than pillars and other canopy hardware, including "on top of" visible ship structures as long as there's "glass" between you and the target.

If you're seeing anything other than this, such as ship structures "outside" the cockpit blocking HUD elements, it sounds like a bug.

I like the other ideas, especially splitting cargo shipments. It would require the clients and servers to remember more state information so probably wouldn't be a trivial thing to implement, but it would definitely be a QOL improvement and add to gameplay choice.

Re the hud info (thanks for that), I definitely noticed it when flying the Courier and FdL, I will try to get some screen shots if I remember to explain it better but the nose of the ship is obscuring the nav displays.

In regard to splitting the cargo, FD can already do this with massacre missions and such, even when you are doing a salvage job picking up canisters, the count is kept in the mission description in the Transactions tab, so the mechanism is there, it just has to implemented to cargo mission side of things.

 

[M00ka]

1.) Don't be cheap, buy a fuel scoop

4.) Some of those items you need to unlock engineers. And I ussualy dump all of the reward commodities straight away. BTW, you can complete the mission just fine once your cargo is full, the new reward commodities are just deleted the moment you hand in the mission. You only need free cargo space to accept the mission, not to cash them in.



Other QoL I can think of would be:

- Engineers; list what upgrades they can do in the summary page. Do we really need to check Inara for everything?

- Docking: Shortcut key to ask for docking permission instead of going through the menus everytime.

- Combat: Two extra fire buttons so we can hook up scanners and not need to switch between fire-groups endlessly (and fire on that anaconda instead of scanning it).

- More space for Materials and Data, at least double.

- Divide the last module space in the ship into smaller sections to allow for size1 scanners. Anaconda specifically is a huge waste of space where you add a size1 scanner into a size4 slot.

- Remove the Planetary Approach Suite slot; you can't reconfigure it and thus is completely redundant to show it anyway

- ThermalRadiator module: Draws power, takes up space, dissipates excess heat.

- No animation while outfitting ship to save time

-

I'm not cheap, just have better uses for that slot on my ship than a scoop that I would rarely (if ever) use. I would get one however if I was going to do some long Exploration venture, but for getting around where I am, don't need one. My query about it was the way the plotting function on the map assumed you had one, that is all.

I was under the impression that the Engineers only needs mats, not commodities. I have no problems receiving mats for mission rewards, it was the commodities that was the issue.

I do like the rest of your QoL ideas, one I would like to add is a 'HOME' button on the Nav Screen (left hand panel). You nominate your home station in the map via a special bookmark (there is only one), and when you have completed whatever you are doing, just open the left hand panel and click the 'Home' button and the course is plotted back to your nominated station. Heck (damn nearly said hell), GPS units today have that function, did we forget our smarts in the next 1200 years! lol

 

[M00ka]

Never.

Never ever.

Always carry a scoop. The first thing I bought for my starter Sidey? A scoop.

Your scoop is your friend.

I would buy a scoop if I ever thought I would use one, but at this stage I have much better uses for that slot on my ships.

And the first three things I buy for every ship I have purchased:
1. Advanced Discovery Scanner, easy money when jumping
2. A Class Life Support - the number of times that 25 minutes has saved my butt, especially in the Vulture that has a tendency to lose the canopy, or so I have been told
3. Docking Computer, cos I am lazy, I like the music, it can dock faster than I can, useful when you need to get in without being scanned (full throttle thru the slot, once thru, cut back to idle, the DC kicks in and gently lands your ship). Never had a problem with the DC, never caused any damage to one of my ships, guess I am lucky

 

[Hadarmil]

1.) Don't be cheap, buy a fuel scoop

4.) Some of those items you need to unlock engineers. And I ussualy dump all of the reward commodities straight away. BTW, you can complete the mission just fine once your cargo is full, the new reward commodities are just deleted the moment you hand in the mission. You only need free cargo space to accept the mission, not to cash them in.



Other QoL I can think of would be:

- Engineers; list what upgrades they can do in the summary page. Do we really need to check Inara for everything?

- Docking: Shortcut key to ask for docking permission instead of going through the menus everytime.

- Combat: Two extra fire buttons so we can hook up scanners and not need to switch between fire-groups endlessly (and fire on that anaconda instead of scanning it).

- More space for Materials and Data, at least double.

- Divide the last module space in the ship into smaller sections to allow for size1 scanners. Anaconda specifically is a huge waste of space where you add a size1 scanner into a size4 slot.

- Remove the Planetary Approach Suite slot; you can't reconfigure it and thus is completely redundant to show it anyway

- ThermalRadiator module: Draws power, takes up space, dissipates excess heat.

- No animation while outfitting ship to save time

-

1) It's not being cheap. A larger scoop takes space from other modules and one might prefer to stop for a refuel instead of losing cargo space.

4) Lose all commodities not used by engineers. Why do I need cargo space to take a murder mission?


And yeah give us the option to skip hardpoints, decrease types of mats or increase space, extra fire buttons.

in addition:
- Colored bookmarks!!! Maybe even let us write a short description.

 

[Lunchmoney]

First up: This is not a request, not a suggestion (otherwise it would be in the suggestion sub-forum right),

Looks and reads like a list of suggestions....

 

[GreyAreaUK]

I would buy a scoop if I ever thought I would use one, but at this stage I have much better uses for that slot on my ships.

And the first three things I buy for every ship I have purchased:
1. Advanced Discovery Scanner, easy money when jumping
2. A Class Life Support - the number of times that 25 minutes has saved my butt, especially in the Vulture that has a tendency to lose the canopy, or so I have been told
3. Docking Computer, cos I am lazy, I like the music, it can dock faster than I can, useful when you need to get in without being scanned (full throttle thru the slot, once thru, cut back to idle, the DC kicks in and gently lands your ship). Never had a problem with the DC, never caused any damage to one of my ships, guess I am lucky

1) is just replacing one module for a better, equivalent module.
2) is a core internal slot, not an optional slot (where a scoop would fit).

That leaves 3 - and I'd argue that a scoop is far more useful than a DC. But, to each their own.

in addition:
- Colored bookmarks!!! Maybe even let us write a short description.

You can edit them - I have a couple that read 'CG - DESTINATION' and 'CG - GOODS FOR'

 

[Conch]

the QoL i would like to see is, being allied/friendly with controlling faction gives you access to your fav pad.

i prefer to land on the pads on the end of the station..

 

[GreyAreaUK]

the QoL i would like to see is, being allied/friendly with controlling faction gives you access to your fav pad.

i prefer to land on the pads on the end of the station..

Not so much pads, but it might be nice to have discounts on modules, ships etc. Maybe even access (or greater access) to rare items (which would involve removing​ access to rares from non-allied Commanders, which might not go down too well!).

 

[M00ka]

the QoL i would like to see is, being allied/friendly with controlling faction gives you access to your fav pad.

i prefer to land on the pads on the end of the station..

Good idea but I think you would have to be allied, not just friendly. And even if it is deemed too hard to have a reserved landing pad it would be nice if, as an ally of the controlling faction you got preferential treatment if there is a queue to land - kind of like jumping to the head of the line cos the bouncer at the mail slot knows you

I also like the idea about a discount on modules, ships - doesn't need to be a big discount, nothing more than say 5%, just signifying the fact you have put the hard yards in for that faction.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

I just want a [ ] Lights indicator under [ ] Cargo Scoop.

 

[M00ka]

I just want a [ ] Lights indicator under [ ] Cargo Scoop.

So sayeth us all

 

[CMDR IPL Victim]

One big QOL change I’d like to see is giving a reason for the various sensor grades aside from an almost meaningless minor range change and a massive increase in power draw. Set the various sensor modules beyond E rating with an increasing number of internal slots that can hold a scan related module.

• E rated: no slots. all scanners must be outfitted in other locations
• D rated: 1 utility slot that can hold any utility scanner (no pd for instance)
• C rated: 1 class 1 slot for scanners only, 1 utility slot
• B rated: 2 class 1 slots, 1 utility
• A rated: 2 of each type

As part of this, Perhaps larger class sensor modules justify their rediculous mass vs just as capable smaller class modules by negating the mass of some of the embedded scanners. must still cover power demands though.

• Class 7+: no embedded modules count toward ship mass
• Class 5-6: 1/2 class 1 scanner and no embedded utility class count toward ship mass
• Class 3-4: 1/2 embedded utility class scanners count to ship mass
• Class 1-2: no mass savings (all embedded mass counts)

Alternately, this could be expressed as a 100%, 60%, 30%, and 0% mass reduction/savings on embedded modules respectively.

 

[[VR] Bac Ho]

Just two little QOL that I would like to see in the game.

1. Able to toggle on/off supercruise lines.

2. Remove the "press J to abort jump" when jumping to a anarchy system. This is one of my pet hates and I have no idea way FD put this hand holding in the first place.