Forums » Suggestions

Small vs. Large vs. Cargo vs. Mining

Dec 16, 2004 Knight_Of_Order link
Ok, now i KNOW we need a new GUI for the station. -----just the buy and sell section though-----

i kindove like it the way it is, but what i think needs to be changed is the: S L and C.

it should look the same but leave a little room ate the top for four.
_______________________________
| Small | Large | Cargo | Mining |
---------------------------
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(after the ~ = what is now)

this would SIGNIFICATLY remove cluter And make it faster to find what you are looking for. not to mention easyer to find it.
Dec 17, 2004 The Noid link
Small | Large | Cargo | Mining | Ships

Putting ships there would give a much more usefull overview of what ships a station has.

Selecting a ship should work in the same way. Having to browse through all your ships, of wich 90% is in some different station isn't efficient.
Dec 17, 2004 ananzi link
i like these ideas a lot.
Dec 18, 2004 Weasel link
Also I do think it is necessary to overwork the in-station GUI,
at least a simple overwork to provide better overview. I might also suggest a more complicated overwork:

In order not to clutter the main tab (and possibly to open up the path for further visual improvements), I suggest a two-layered approach for the station GUI. And since no one will understand what I mean with it, let me explain:

Make a main station screen, with (at least) following options:
- "Goods Merchant" (will lead to Cargo store)
- "Ship Merchant" (will lead to ship & weapon store)
- "Bar" (guess)
- "Mission Centre" (obvious)
- "Options" (or, more intriguingly, "Personal Workpad" or such;
leads to options, quit, ...
It could be done *REALLY* nice by painting/rendering an in-station image, with different doors/gates leading to each of the options/merchants. Then by clickediclick on the gate that looks like a hangar gate, you'd end up at the ship merchant...

The ship merchant would then again give you some tabs with a list each (like suggested: small, large, mining, ships) and of course with the other suggested improvements [*grin*] (cargo expand, engine, battery, sensors) etcetc.
For a mindblowing optical experience, again the ship could be displayed on a pad in the screen center; with sth like "closeup views" attached to each of the small/large/engine/cargo... ports; you'd then have a good impression of both the ship and its equipment.

The Goods merchant would possibly just be a tab similar to the current one, with a background image of an overfilled store... and imagine that at the bar, you could talk to the barkeeper (somewhat similar to what the mission computer does), and he would provide rumours such as "well, I heard of ion storms in Edras I3" or "Lin finally placed a 250K bounty on gamespy, but the sector guard must not know" ...
Dec 19, 2004 ananzi link
weasel that is a nice idea, but i feel the original posters' idea has a much better chance of actually being implemented, because it is a relatively simple change to the existing system.
Dec 19, 2004 Weasel link
@ananzi

true.

Knights idea should be relatively simple to implement and if the devs start to work on it, it's probably done within a week.

However, I like to also make suggestions for a larger timeframe; they may require more work to implement (a couple of months), but also significantly improve gameplay experience. Let us not just address small issues and suggest simple work-arounds for them, but also sketch visions!