Whats so bad about the UI????

[Q]

Atrocities said:
I suggested a while back that a pre-designated slot system be implamented. This way a player need only click on a component to add it to the design. The game would automatically add that component to a pre-designated slot in the hull. The drag and drop system would still be present and usable, especially if you wanted to move something. But having pre-designated spots for everything would be far more efficient. Armor to the outside, weapons to the out side forward, other components like cargo, supply, and such fill up the center section, with spots in the center for the bridge, crew quarters, and such. Of course make this system completely moddable so players can adapt its use for mods and such.

Excellent idea!

[AstralWanderer]

Atrocities said:
I suggested a while back that a pre-designated slot system be implamented. This way a player need only click on a component to add it to the design. The game would automatically add that component to a pre-designated slot in the hull. The drag and drop system would still be present and usable, especially if you wanted to move something. But having pre-designated spots for everything would be far more efficient. Armor to the outside, weapons to the out side forward, other components like cargo, supply, and such fill up the center section, with spots in the center for the bridge, crew quarters, and such.

The difficulty here is how you deal with items that could be inner or outer hull (or both) depending on design philosophy (shields, supply/ordnance units, religious totems, sensors). Component distribution between decks needs consideration. And this has to be done for every shipset.

Going OT a little, it would be nice to see component placement given more importance - for instance being able to specify weapon facing (which would in turn determine arc of fire - with special mounts, aka "turrets", capable of increasing this) and for Armour/Outer/Inner placement to vary by deck (top and bottom decks should have more A and O slots to account for their top/bottom facing with the middle deck having more I slots).

[Slick]

I think it is a great idea. For components that can be in multiple locations, priority should be inner to outer, finding the first available space. That way you could design the ship with the most vital components first and ending with least vital components. Sure, you'd still probably have to do some component movement manually, but AT's system would cut out a hellova lot of mouseclicks.

[Captain Kwok]

Auto-complete can work well for this purpose.

[Atrocities]

Captain Kwok said:
Auto-complete can work well for this purpose.

Can you be more specific? Are you saying that the idea is pointless because we have auto complete, or are you saying that auto complete can be modified for this purpose?

[Captain Kwok]

I am saying that auto-complete puts all the stuff on the design and leave you only with a bit of tweaking to do. It's about an equal click operation as double-clicking on a component and having it add somewhere on the design - especially with the Balance Mod where there is about double the number of design types that make good auto designs.

[Q]

I disagree Kwok.
Auto complete makes a ship as defined by the AI design instructions. That may be completely different from what I want.
What Atrocities proposed is a completely human design just more efficiently made. I am still convinced that the exact location of a component is rarely relevant for the outcome of a combat therefore to specify the prefered location (inner/outer hull/front/rear/sides) for each component would absolutely be sufficient for most cases IMO.

[Atrocities]

Thank you CK for giving us a more detailed statement. I however have to agree with Q. While it would be great to use the auto design, it lacks the ability to allow the player to add his own components. Components should be added at a single click.

Also the downward scrolling of the component list just seems impracticle and combersome to use. Having more of the components listed across the entire window from left to right with arrors to move it would be a far better system than the current one.

Hell a Tab window or multiple choice Tabs filled with components would be better. Weapons, Combat Support, Required, Engines, Etc would go a long ways to improve the ship design UI. But that isn't going to happen so here we are.

If we must live with what we have, and the auto-design is it, then I guess having a good easy to use editor for setting up mulitple pre-designs would be the next best thing.

This way players can spend some time setting up their own design for use with the auto-design feature of the game.

But still having pre-specified slots for components would be the better choice overall as Q described above.

[Captain Kwok]

Don't get me wrong I wasn't criticizing AT's suggestion and of course it would help - I was just saying that auto complete is sometimes not a bad alternative in the meantime.

[Captain Kwok]

A tab is more-or-less equivalent to the current right-click filter in terms of time. More important is a logical order of components by default!

Moving the mount option to the right side and yes maybe even making it a pop-up instead (I know, I know) might be ok as it would provide space for 5-6 more components.

There are already system functions for spreading out each component that the AI adds, so it's not really too hard to add AT's idea as a double-click functionality.