Celestial bodies information without accessing sys.map? EASY!

[Caramel Clown]

I've created similar thread long time ago, but I've felt that my idea was sound enough to remind of it again(everybody likes their own ideas)
Right, the thing that bugged me all the time during exploration is that every tiny bit of information I want to know about targeted celestial body is only accessible from system map. This always pulls me out of the mood slightly.
We also have unused tabs in the left hand panel, that are only active when you target ships. So why not use them for information display when we target stars and planets?
Thoughts, ideas? Am I wasting my time here asking for an irrelevant feature?

1.

Spoiler

2.

Spoiler

 

[Tadeus72]

Well. They could but I don't care. I'm opening the galaxy and system maps hundreds of times during the exploration trips (for other things than planet info) so the immersion is ruined anyways.

 

[DocLooshkin]

Hello, Caramel Clown.

That's a huge +1 from me.

I have to admit, I'm not at all keen on the SysMap. The problems I had using it in 3D initially put me off the thing - but even since they were somewhat fixed, it's not grown on me. There's nothing wrong with it, as such - it looks good enough and it does it's job - but it's just too slow and unwieldy to be of much practical use. There's rarely any information that I personally want from it that isn't better served via the GalMap.

If it was much faster to load, or had a more useful mode, like a really good trading information view, or a more navigationally-informative display of surpassing beauty - like, say, oh, I don't know, an orrery - it might be a different story. It doesn't... so, no.

Occasionally, I'll want to go and look at a black hole or something, but otherwise, 99% of the time, I only ever use it when I want to bookmark a specific location in a destination system. I do this for every location I feel I'm particularly likely to revisit, so I can plot a complete course via the GalMap's bookmarks - and never have to open that system's SysMap ever again, if I can possibly help it.

Anyway, back to somewhere more on point, aside from your own excellent suggestion, if another solar system is selected, Sub-Targets could load and show it's major astronomical bodies (including a few basics like star classes, etc) and Inventory could show it's headline political and trade information.

It wouldn't do anything to make the SysMaps useful, but it would be a good step closer to the pick-a-direction-and-jump trading experience I remember so well - and miss so terribly - from the original Elite.


PS: Just out of curiosity, are you actually a clown and are you actually caramel-flavoured? I ask purely for information.

 

[Caramel Clown]

You know what I mean, right? Those panels could have so many more nice uses to them. Also, system and galaxy maps could use more improvements too. Especially when it comes to trading. It's really hard to find good trading loops without using third party websites. I wish it wasn't the case.
Answering you last question - yes, and yes. Kind of...Sometimes I say something silly and people laugh at me - that makes me a clown. And I'm pretty sure I ate enough caramel by this point to be permanently flavored as one too