Overall Thoughts
I like that it's trying to unclutter it a bit more and leave less empty space that was held by info screens and menus, but now selecting places seems very indirect, and requiring too many interactions and workarounds compared to Horizons, or less information than previously available.
Having the bookmarks organized by Systems, Bodies, Stations, and Settlements is nice.
The UI seems to be designed by and for someone sitting at a desk playing and is able to switch between HOTAS and Mouse and Keyboard at will, rather than console players in its current state. The amount of inputs required for selecting things in the menu in seems to have increased.
Galaxy Map:
Specific Issues:
1. The selection indicator (both upon hovering over a system and having selected it) is off-center. This shifts over on top of the selected point if focused on, but can get hard to figure out what exactly you're selecting , especially if two things are extremely close together as is the case for some systems. This is a problem for System Maps (both map and orrery mode) as well.
2. Bookmarks from the farthest out menu only plot to the star, not to the specific landmark in the system like was done in Horizons. Workaround available in going to Manage Bookmarks, but why am I having to go into a menu that's filed beside the types of landmark rather than the bookmark itself?
3. Cannot quickly edit or delete bookmarks like in Horizon, requiring going to Manage Bookmarks.
4. No way to tell where you made a first discovery or first footfall.
5. Many colors used to highlight one object from another are close, and can make it difficult to tell which is which, such as starter areas, the engineer base, and bookmarks icon being the same color. This can also apply to different government, economy, and faction state types under their respective filters.
6. No way to know what services are available within a system without visiting it first. This makes finding a specific service or commodity much more difficult than necessary.
7. Despite the menu being reduced to mouse-over icons, the total space taken up by info panels on both sides of the screen feels often MORE than in Horizons when both sides are used, leaving less area on the map to actually see what you're doing. The menus and info panels use a large amount of negative space between the spacing and margins that squeezes into the center of the screen heavily from the sides.
8. Between Stations, Planetary Ports and Settlements, and Fleet Carriers, looking at market information means having to sift through a high number of possible import/export locations. And some Settlements seem to only have small landing pads when that information is also unavailable unless you already know what type is there.
9. Powerplay view no longer highlights the area a given power has influence in, and no ability to turn off viewing certain powers. This makes finding systems under a specific power more difficult.
10. Prohibited Commodities list no longer available from Galaxy Map or System Map.
Suggested Fixes:
1. Attach it directly to the body? It being off-center may simply be a bug, but may also be involved with the 3D generation of the selection point.
2. Enable a small menu on the info panel for the system similar to the one in Horizons, and actually select the bookmarked landmark in the system as the plot target if applicable.
3. Fixable in same way as 2 by keeping the Manage Bookmark menu option.
4. Add an option to view and select these under Visited Systems.
5. Use more varied colors for different icons, or allow players to set colors.
6. Allow BGS states and Services information to be available as part of Trending Trade Data. Black Market availability, Interstellar Factors, Fleet Carrier vendors and administration, and Material Traders are all business transactions of some form, and can logically be a part of Trade Data. Also allow a lower level of data (faction states, economy type, and services, but not commodity prices) being acquired for a small radius of systems around a visited star, maybe around 10-15 Ly.
7. Lower the size and spacing of text of the UI panels some, and use the same smaller icons as system map for bookmarks instead of the larger pictures if that landmark is part of a list. Shrink or remove the unnecessary large ship pictures for Stored Ships, but still say the name and type of ship it is.
8. Add filters by type of landmark (orbital stations/outposts, planetary ports and bases, settlements, Fleet Carriers), and landing pad size availability for markets. This will help players find a specific point to sell to much faster.
9. Add a filter to turn off viewing a Power's area on your map, possibly with the ability to remove those locations from route planning.
10. Make the Prohibited Commodities list available as part of the Market information in both Galaxy Map and System Map.
System Map:
Specific Issues:
1. Same issue as in Galaxy Map of selection indicator being off-center unless the landmark is focused. The aura denoting atmospheric planets also seems to be off center, but is static around the planet/moon, and more noticeable on smaller bodies.
2. Loads in much slower than Horizons. Possibly due to the other graphical bugs on the Planetary Tech side of things, when bodies in the system attempt to load in with their features, including stars all appearing as black voids. May also have been part of why the first system in the Alpha loaded so slowly, as it had a higher number of planetary bodies to load than most systems.
3. A large amount of fleet carriers in a single system can leave a System map extremely cluttered. This is especially noticeable in more popular systems.
4. Settlements in a system are all in one long list for every body in a system, split by type, rather than being selectable from the body itself but without zooming in on the body and manually finding it. Systems with a large amount of settlements can make finding a specific one more difficult than necessary.
5. Minor Factions only show one of the states they are in on System Map, when they can be effected by multiple states simultaneously.
6. Prohibited Commodities list no longer available from Galaxy Map or System Map.
7. Settlement economy type is not displayed at a glance. This is useful information for traders and people looking for specific materials.
8. Planetary information no longer available at a glance (the hover info in the System Map in Horizons). This will slow down players looking for planet type searching for a specific planet or ring type, raw materials, or terraformability, especially explorers and miners, if no third party tools are used.
Suggested fixes:
1. Same as in Galaxy Map.
2. Work on the graphical bugs involving Planetary Tech. Many people wanted Odyssey in no small part for the graphics update, and having the lighting, gamma, and terrain generation problems as they are feels like a downgrade from Horizons, and that working correctly and smoothly may help here.
3. Make Fleet Carrier placement around a body an expandable icon around that body if 4 or more carriers are orbiting the same body. Icon can easily be a Fleet Carrier Symbol with a small chevron beside it to allow selection between different carriers orbiting the same body. If the player owns a fleet carrier around that body, or it's a megaship for an NPC faction (for a Community Goal or station rescues for instance), then that should be its own separate icon outside of that. This can also be applied to Squadron members' Fleet Carriers, giving them their own selection menu.
4. Make a trimmed selection list menu for landable ports on a selected body as applicable, available from system map without needing to zoom in on the planet, including reputation and (wanted status if applicable) with the controlling faction of that port.
5. Show all of the states a faction is currently in on system map.
6. Make the Prohibited Commodities list available as part of the Market information.
7. Add settlement type into it's description in the external panel.
8. Combine the Planetary Information panel with the Description panel. Make that information pop up upon hovering over the body (and vanish if the cursor is removed) and when the description tab is selected. The long-form description of the type of body can be collapsed into a toggleable info panel within that info box. The Features tab when a station/settlement is selected can be merged into this the same way.
