This was a suggestion of mine way back during the alphas and betas, but it is time to repeat it. I am talking about this bit of the UI:
In Elite Dangerous, what it does is it shows you a simplified model of the target, be that ship, starport, etc, and shows you its absolute orientation in space. Essentially, it shows us from the side that you would see if it were teleported in front of you without either of you rotating.
There used to be a different approach to this, for example in the excellent X-Wing Alliance:
https://youtu.be/w9x3YNIx6b0?t=6m56s
If you watch closely, you will see that the target hologram shows the object relative to you. In other words, it shows you what you'd see not if the object were teleported in front of you, but what you would see if you turn around to look at it.
The main effect of this is that you can immediately see at a glance whether a ship is flying straight at you, away from you, or perpendicular past you, because you always know its orientation relative to you. Meanwhile, in ED's absolute orientation hologram, you'd have to use the scanner to know its exact location to determine what the orientation means in relation to you. You can do that, but only very, very roughly, and not at a single glance at the target hologram either.
The best solution would be a simple switch in the right hand "Functions" panel that toggles between these two modes, so anyone who prefers the way ED does it know, can keep it that way, everyone who prefers the X-Wing Alliance way, can switch it to relative mode.
In Elite Dangerous, what it does is it shows you a simplified model of the target, be that ship, starport, etc, and shows you its absolute orientation in space. Essentially, it shows us from the side that you would see if it were teleported in front of you without either of you rotating.
There used to be a different approach to this, for example in the excellent X-Wing Alliance:
https://youtu.be/w9x3YNIx6b0?t=6m56s
If you watch closely, you will see that the target hologram shows the object relative to you. In other words, it shows you what you'd see not if the object were teleported in front of you, but what you would see if you turn around to look at it.
The main effect of this is that you can immediately see at a glance whether a ship is flying straight at you, away from you, or perpendicular past you, because you always know its orientation relative to you. Meanwhile, in ED's absolute orientation hologram, you'd have to use the scanner to know its exact location to determine what the orientation means in relation to you. You can do that, but only very, very roughly, and not at a single glance at the target hologram either.
The best solution would be a simple switch in the right hand "Functions" panel that toggles between these two modes, so anyone who prefers the way ED does it know, can keep it that way, everyone who prefers the X-Wing Alliance way, can switch it to relative mode.
