Launch button should require a long press

Anything that requires and extra step or extra time, as in waiting for a

I'd hardly call something that can be counted in milliseconds a UI efficiency reducer. I don't intend to invoke an appeal to authority, but I have spent a good amount of time designing UIs and can say that while long-presses are something I use very rarely, they do have their places. This isn't a "lowest common denominator" issue. There are certain functions that irritate users when something akin to a long-press or confirmation isn't implemented. This is an obvious candidate.

Another easy candidate is "Eject all cargo". Were that to be a long-press, or at least have the option of being a long-press, I'd bet it wouldn't be de-facto removed from bindings outright.
 
I'd hardly call something that can be counted in milliseconds a UI efficiency reducer. I don't intend to invoke an appeal to authority, but I have spent a good amount of time designing UIs and can say that while long-presses are something I use very rarely, they do have their places. This isn't a "lowest common denominator" issue. There are certain functions that irritate users when something akin to a long-press or confirmation isn't implemented. This is an obvious candidate.

Another easy candidate is "Eject all cargo". Were that to be a long-press, or at least have the option of being a long-press, I'd bet it wouldn't be de-facto removed from bindings outright.
If you must quote me, please do it in context. My entire post was:

Anything that requires and extra step or extra time, as in waiting for a progress bar to fill up, is less efficient. ED already has enough time wasters in it.
If you actually need help in this area, just enable the launch checklist.

The solution to the problem is already in the game. :)
 
Launch button only gives you authorization, but taking off would require the same procedure as on planets. Only once the ship has actually taken off, does the pilot lose access to the station menu.
Brilliant. This solution already exists outside of stations in Horizons (taking off from a planetary surface outside of a station). Shouldn't be too hard to make it work similar from pads.
Pressing launch should give you a 30 seconds clearance to start your engine and take off. If you didn't take off within that 30 seconds, clearance is cancelled (no fine) and you stay docked. Pressing vertical thrusters down towards the pad for more than 1 second should also cancel takeoff.
 
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Prolonging all your launches to prevent your accidental launches is not a "fix" :)

In fact, it's one. You have to confirm a significant action in all good UI (like deleted a file, closing without saving,...)

Hi, that was an irritated response to the troll's insistence that something in the form of a silly long minigame (like the pre-flight checks) would somehow be a "fix" to prevent accidental button presses.

Incidentally I just activated the pre-flight check to test something out, and if you accidentally launched you're going to launch anyway after the pre-flight check, because you can't even cancel the minigame. SMH. So it's proven some people spewed nonsense all over the first page and shouldn't simply post on the forums, at all.

Having an additional layer of security to get past UI chokes like an "are you sure?" screen, or considering this scenario the long press is definitely the way to go. I did make a point on the first page the long press is how you do it on console all the time for a decade or more, and the trigger can be on such a short delay it's seamless to your gameplay - except it's still impossible to accidentally activate things just by tapping a button.

Edit: @Ettanin 's observation we already have a functional solution outside stations gets even better. It seems a design oversight it doesn't apply to pre-expanded content.
 
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Yeah i think that is Frontiers philosophy of UI design, extra steps are good, especially in a game, where spontaneity and immersion dont matter.
Regarding immersion, the current launch button was always a problem for me. Being able to take off at the second you decide it, without having to wait for control tower clearance and implying that our engine was always on, has always felt very gamy to me. I got used to it, as I understand the wait could get tedious (not as much as the check list idea) ; although I'm not sure how tedious it would be as I've played game that had cinematic for such moments, and I would get used to it. But I still have this in the back of my mind everytime I take off a starport or a station. It kind of ruined my immersion a bit, but I kind of also appreciate not having to wait to be on my way. The long press (which is called like that just because it takes a couple of hundred milliseconds more than a normal click) is not a wait.

With that mindset though, it could be argued that we should probably have to wait a bit more for docking too, but since we're in motion, landing isn't instantaneous, and as there's an audio cue to have us believe we have chatted with the control tower, it feels more like a natural ellipsis about what would really happen. I wish there was something similar before we take off. but I understand it would get on the nerves of less patient players that are not that interested in the simulation part, but in the gamy part.

Back to the suggestion and regarding immersion, UI lag and accidental launches are still quite frequent (actually it shouldn't happen), and are way more immersion breaking, like totally.

your mention of "spontaneity" reminds me that in Frontier:Elite II, on planet starport, you had the choice to take off without asking for clearance, but it would make you wanted, and you would be chased by dozens of police vipers. That was a bit extreme, but I liked that we still had control over our ship and could take risky choices (for example, for an assassination mission when following a target). But you could accidentally hit that button. That was counter-balanced by the fact that the game was offline and could be saved at any time.

In that case, and in the current situation with the launch button, being able to take off by mystake (whether because of the ui, or because you decided too quickly) is immersion breaking as it reminds you you're in a game, since in reality you would go through a different process ; that doesn't mean we need a check list everytime. It means there should be just the right amount of involvement, a small audio/visual cue that plays out like a quick ellipsis to express what you would been doing in reality, and that could fix ui problems on many machines.
 
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A very old problem, although the latest version of the menu makes it less likely to happen, accidentally firing the "Launch" button can still be an issue sometimes
I imagine two possibilities :
  1. Launch button requiring a long press (something around 500ms) ; visual feedback could either be the button filling in with blue for instance (horizontally or vertically), or via a smaller loading bar or circle
  2. Launch button only gives you authorization, but taking off would require the same procedure as on planets. Only once the ship has actually taken off, does the pilot lose access to the station menu.
1 Is an excellent idea and really should be implemented.
2 This doesn’t work so well for me as it is the launch request that releases the docking clamps etc.
 
Something tells me that as many of us have the Spacebar bound as both UI confirm, and Vertical Lat, this will end with a lot of in station crashes due to lag. You would need to make this feature togglable.
 
If that were the case, this wouldn't be a repeated complaint. Which anyone who spends time on this forum knows it is.
There's lots of repeated complaints. Don't see this as a big one. Personally I don't really care.

I wouldn't complain if the same take-off mechanism was used thats used on planet take-off. It would make sense and add to the consistancy of ship operation. Nice little warm-up graphic. It would slow things down so some would complain.

I do NOT like pb's that the user must press for an extra time with no obvious feedback.
 
Yeah, it's not a serious issue by any stretch. Just one of those QOL details that would be nice. I'm not gonna shed a tear when it never happens, which is the safe bet.

Making it optional would be great.

I definitely posted this as a suggestion for QoL improvement that seemed rather easy to implement, nothing more, without breaking the flow of the game.

The "not a big deal" argument is at the same time obvious and pointless. Pretty much any suggestion can be labeled "not a big deal" anyway, depending on anyone's perspective.
 
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