Beyond Series: Improvements I would like to see Implemented in 2018

Hi Frontier,

Here is a list of mainly minor things I would like to see improved in the coming year. Quality of life improvements primarily to enhance/improve current functionality. Thanks for reading & looking forward to what this year brings.


Bookmarks: Significantly increase bookmark limit beyond the 100-120 or so currently.
Bookmarks: Introduce colour system (say 5-10 colours) to help categorise the type of bookmark you have.
Bookmarks: Ability to see in the system map, what your bookmark is named if you have bookmarked the system and not an object within the system (these currently do not appear in the system bookmark tab & make it hard to figure out what the bookmark is without trying to find it in the master list)
Bookmarks: Surface coordinates bookmarks

Material Storage: For the per-material limit to be flexible based on the frequency of use of items. Base of 100 is great, but some may warrant 200 or 300. For example some materials are used more often than others, such as Niobium for FSD boosts where 100 limit will limit the number of premium boosts to only 33 where in the current system I can store up a lot more for a longer exploration trip.

UI Panels: For progress to immediately display when you increase rep etc. No more delays! Should not need to log off to see progress change.
UI Panels: For these to work in Hypercruise tunnels (perfect time to quickly check things between actions).

Mail: For responses to immediately be received in your inbox (I have had up to a 7min delay on rep increase emails being received!)
Mail: For the filters to be fixed so I do not have to clear filters ever time a new email comes in to read it.
Mail: Mail from the same faction to be grouped together rather than displaying as individual items. Click on the group and it expands to show all the items received from them.

Ship Outfitting: For the UI to be streamlined to greatly reduced the number of clicks in and out to outfit your ship. Between finding items in storage, selling, browsing, switching between item types like weapons to internals and everything takes far longer than it needs to be.
Ship Outfitting: Preset loadouts for a one-click swap of the layout of your ship. Up to maybe 5 loadouts per ship type.
Ship Outfitting: For module storage to be increased or based off of a per-ship limit to allow for specific loadouts/greater flexibility.

Modules: For the engineering improvements to be brought to the foreground, so you can quickly identify what module is what, and what changes the engineering has made. Some icons/colours would also be welcome. Right now you have to go into the sub menu to see what these are when they could easily be included in the main stat page.
Modules: Allow to dump extra fuel & disable additional fuel tanks.
Modules: Allow regional search for a specific items (and ships?). No more going to external sites or blindly trying systems till you find what you need.

Galaxy Map: Option to Apply All & Clear All filters for anything that has more than a few options. Resetting filters takes a long time and discourages me from using them except in specific circumstances especially as a HOTAS user where this may take longer in general than one with a mouse.
Galaxy Map: Heat map similar to the powerplay overlay for your CMDRs influence (ie where you are allied/friendly/hated). Stronger the heat map in locations where you have multiple allies (Green). For areas to show orange or red where you are not welcome.
Galaxy Map: Heat map for systems visited. Currently there is only an option to show which have been visited and which have not which I find isn't too helpful.
Galaxy Map: Filters for POI found in your travels. These should only appear/unlock on the map when you have visited them once. Options to filter systems to find Megaships, Alien Bases, Crash Sites, Asteroid Bases, Generation Ships, Abandoned Bases, Listening Posts, Unregistered Comms Beacons, Rare goods etc. This could tie into the Codex improvements slated.

System Map: A quicker way to see who controls what station on a planetary surface. Right now, for stations you can just hover over the station and it will inform you who runs it, but for a planetary surface you need to zoom all the way in to the surface, rotate to select the base to see this info.

Route Plotting: Alternative path selections. If you come across a main corridor that other CMDRs frequent, that you can reseed that path (where available) to re-route another route along the same direction (Up/Down/Longer etc).
Route Plotting: Better management of blocked/limited regions. Out exploring I get a lot of route plotting failures, when in reality there is multiple paths to the location I am wanting to visit. Route plotter should be able to take a wider route plan, longer route plan around such things.
Route Plotting: Waypoint management to set specific locations along a route you would like to visit without having to re-plot the entire route.
Route Plotting: If you are at a neutron star, to allow the boosted jump to be included in the route. Right now it seems I need to make that first long jump then plot my route, otherwise it returns message saying its out of range.

FSD Boosts: For the slider to work better (seems to get out of alignment at times) & also for this to be more accurate in the distances. There have been times where my distance is very close to the target, such as 0.2, 0.3 lys within the range but it will not plot the route. Playing with the slider sometimes brings this good again, so may be some sort of bug here.
FSD Boosts: To have an option to include jumponium boosts in a route plotting. For this to calculate if you can make it based on the number of boosts you have in storage. To work in a similar way to including Jet cone boosts in the route.

Jameson Memorial: To get a unique/different interior or station design.

Stations: In general, I would love to see some different architecture for different factional powers. Empire systems should look different to Federation. There may be some crossover & hybrid locations too where systems are in dispute or on borders.

Systems: In general, I would like to see the population play a bigger part in the visual activity. Larger the population should be represented when you are traveling around (ie number of ships in space) & in systems with billions there should be a visible highway of ships moving around (not just 5-20). Other POI & spawn rates should also tie to this.

Markets: Less static, more fluid. Ways to cut off supplies or use up supplies without it automatically regenerating over a short time. Would encourage me to play the markets more.

Community Goals: This is a great tool, but significantly underdeveloped in my view. Firstly, I think there should be more going at any given point, these should scale from the headline CGs we have now, to smaller/specific/local ones. The duration needs to vary, with some potentially staying open till they are completed. Not all rewards should be credit based, could offer permits, new mission types, permanent or temporary discounts on goods/ships/modules in area, unique skins or mods outside of engineers (these might even just be visual changes). Could also be a tool to change factional power/control in systems. PvP CGs, Coop CGs are just a few things that come to mind.

NPC Chatter: Greatly increase the variation of the responses! Please! Could even expand on these to use these as clues for mini-story arcs in an area or one-off mission sets, or to other things going on in the vicinity too. Things to find & explore rather than just noise in my comms panel. Make some funny ones too!

NPC Crew: Should occupy spare seats & offer some limited level of interaction.
NPC Crew: Should not take cut when not in use. They may get a basic wage (retainer) but not the usual cut.
NPC Crew: Should be a way to recover a lost crew member, via a mission, picking up an escape pod or something else.

Exploration: Greater risk, greater maintenance required. It should be more taxing on a ship to traverse the galaxy. System failures, ways to repair by landing and sourcing materials. Mis-jumps!
Exploration: Chance rare encounters with NPC explorers, with unique stories or possible missions attached. Not just abandoned sites.
Exploration: Ships with extra seats should be able to take 1 or 2 etc passengers as ship crew without a passenger module needed. You should see them in the cockpit too! Give some company on the longer trips.
Exploration: Let us know what our scans are worth while out in the black.

Permit System: Increase the benefits of getting a permit to a system or location. Make the locations unique with one-off assets/stations/POIs, offer different missions or NPC response in these stations. Some unique discount for a commodity or ship module. Allow it to open up access to another faction (similar in the way engineers unlock). Give the player a special feeling when traveling in the system, a more personalised experience in these areas. Make achieving these permits more than just reputation based, make it a challenge, make it worth the effort & increase gameplay elements around them.

Military Rank Systems: Should be more to it than just unlocking some ships. Grind is large so should also offer more military based gameplay. Different missions offered at some locations based on military operations in the area. Specific goals or requests as part of your service. Medals, different NPC responses at stations based on your rank, tours of duty to complete, military module access (military drives?). You should only have one active Military at a time, although ranks could improve with both. While one is inactive the benefits are cancelled. Access to military installations, moons, locations, battleship docking, different USS etc.

System States & BGS Interaction: Great visibility of what the states mean and how a CMDR can use these to influence the system is needed. Its a complex system that needs more information in the game to help the average player understand more clearly what they can do to changes things & what the current state of affairs means.

Cockpit: Please match up the animations to the ED bindings set for HOTAS users. These do not map my actions as I have different Yaw/Roll locations and use full range throttle. Rudder pedal animations could also be added. More animations of the CMDR in the cockpit would also be welcome outside of the flexing of the hands and random head movement.

HoloMe: Allow us to smile :) (more facial animations in general would be most welcome)


Thank you.
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