Several small quality-of-life improvements to improve the experience

[spacePilotAl]

After playing Elite for 450 hours I have some suggestions on several small ‘quality of life’ improvements that I think would make the game much better and the ‘grind’ aspect a great deal more bearable.
I am sorry if some of these have already been suggested but hopefully most commanders will agree with me.

Galaxy map

1. When adding bookmarks allow the user to enter comments and or tags. If tags are used then the user should be able to select from existing tags and add new ones.
2. Be able to mass-delete bookmarks and or select multiple bookmarks to delete.
3. Allow the exporting of bookmarks to a text file that includes the system, planet / station and or planetary coordinates along with the bookmark comments.

‘Transactions’ tab – Contracts

1. Add the ability to sort contracts by either of the following ways:
   1. By system
   2. By reward
   3. By travel distance
2. Add the ability to group contracts by system

SRV / planetary navigation

1. Add the ability to add custom waypoints and name them using approx. 40 characters
2. When one or more custom waypoints have been added that are on the current planet allow it to be selectable from the ‘Contacts’ UI tab like any normal target and have it show in the radar so you can drive towards it.
3. Retain all custom waypoints between game sessions. This can easily be achieved by the game creating an XML file (or similar) with the system name, planet name, latitude, longitude and the custom name
4. Have the default ‘Drive Assist’ setting to the game’s options screen so that. Having to re-disable the drive assist each time the buggy is launched is annoying and most players stick to on or off for their play-style
5. The area of the HUD that shows the latitude, longitude and the planet’s gravity is almost impossible to see sometimes. I suggest putting these numbers in a box with background that automatically and dynamically opposes the colour of the text (or is always black). The display of this box can be toggled via a graphics setting in the menu.

Mission board

1. For potential missions to a system where you have already accepted another mission show a special icon. This will make planning out your routes much much easier. NOTE you can’t simply use colours because each user changes their UI’s colour

Commodities market

1. When items can be sold or purchased and icon should be shown in the items’ cell in the ‘Sell’ or ‘Buy’ column for that line like an up arrow or down arrow to indicate it’s comparison to the galactic average. That would make it much easier to see those items you need to exchange.
2. You should be able to filter the list by those with the following categories:
   1. All
   2. For sale
   3. To Buy

Ship control

1. Be able to set bindings to select a specific fire-group directly rather then having to cycle through them in sequence. For example I have no. 5 fire-group setup to allow me to fire multiple seeker missiles with one button and I would like to be able to jump straight to that group when needed without wasting time cycling.
2. If you have a second screen on your machine, be able to use if for the galaxy map / system map. If used like that I suggest the second screen is tabbed so that you can easily switch between the two.