SE5 Demo Bug Reports & Annoyances/Requests

[VanderVecken]

Here is what's wrong and right with the demo as I've played it (so far) in a simple analogy. Imagine the actual game is a fantastic engine to a car. More powerful and able to do more than lasts year's model (exactly what we asked for and now have. But to move the vehicle and get it to do all these great things, they made buttons and knobs to allow us to get to some levers and switches to get that engine to do what it was made to do. Also this car's hood has a nicely updated paint job but they did it on a Semi-trailer sized hood where we really wanted some that would keep the Car/game more aerodynamic/intuitive.
So, yes ... I'm a little sad the UI reminds me of another car I bought a few years ago called MOO3, but at least under the hood, which has 3 latches, and a push pad to get it open; there IS a turbo-charged engine instead of Moo3's often barely adequate V-4 with a leaky head gasket and a slightly bent main trans-axel. I'll need to play more to see if this instant aversion is something I can overcome, because there is a heck of a game there. And although I just don't have time to do so myself ... the Modding potential for SE:V looks better than just about any other car you can find on the Auto dealer's) lot.

With the past history of this game's designer, I'm sure most Bugs wil be squashed in a timely fashion. And any game balance issues as well.
But I just hate to see this new LOOK(Data screens that are 1/4 to 1/3 flash) and a clunky interface attached to what is supposed to be (and has the potential) to be the next step in 4x Space gaming.

P.S. I also have issues with the ship design boxes. I actually like the idea, and directional combat is something that I certainly can take. But when I buy a Bridge Module for 10 Tons and a Rock Colony Module for 100 Tons and the each take up 1 square I loose interest in that part of designing ships. Each Ship desgn should have a number of possible 5(Ton) boxes equal to approx. 125% of that vessels tonnage. <Fighters could use 0.25 or 0.5 Ton boxes.> Each component should have boxes to fill equal to tonnage devided by 5; so that placement isnt fixed like some games but that IT matters more than the current game at hand. (just remember that in space-combat your current vector doesnt matter much for weapons fire as with even modest spin rates over various axis's most weapon could come to bare in seconds, even on quite huge vessels. You'll never see a wet Navy Battleship move much off the XY 2-D grid (except when she give a broadside that'll rock the boat, hehehe) but a space battleship could be spinning like a top on any number of diff. XYZ plots.
In addition, the smallest vessels should have a very limited # of Inner boxes, so that you really had to think about what you wanted to protect.
The Bridge ... keeps that experienced crew/captain alive
Maybe a few engines ... in hopes of getting away
Or your best weapon ... make em pay to kill your ship
or ... can you see the potential.

Also Capital ships should have yet another layer, the 'C' Core, which due to the shear bulk of these behemoths, are protected even more so than 'I' Inner boxes. Most weapons and engines due to their functionality couldn't be put at Core boxes (or could be put there but only could be used when all 'O' outer boxes have been removed.) I love the look of the new ship designs but they are currently more work for the little gameplay we gain, would get a slightly better review if not also saddled with another UI backstep (even with Shift-click, it's graphics should be shrunk a bit to get more components in view. (everywhere this is needed. shrink the views a little and keep borders THIN.)

By the way, Thanks all who helped get this Car onto the test track, I'm hoping that the UI can/will be modified before they put it on the lot, or the hard work of the designer(and testers and even MM) will not pay the dividend the engine under the hood deserves to reap.

Whoa, sorry, I should have seperated this into 2 or 3 Replies. I'm back to game now. I can hear the Engine still running and I want to drive some more .. if I can just find the lever to unlock the Accelerator pedal.

remember: the greatest farmer in the world doesn't wear a Tux to the stable (I'll take clean utility over burdomsome Pizazz)

[Captain Kwok]

boran_blok said:
And another one, when editing ship type the ship list in the ship designer overview does not update to reflect the changed type.

It does, but it doesn't show it until a refresh is done (either by selecting filter or upon re-entering the screen). It's one of a few bugs releated to refreshing.

[boran_blok]

I slightly agree with you, but take into account that you're used to SEIV. Swithing from anything you're used to to anything you're not used to is not always intuitive. I for one really LOVE that the right click has gotten it's functionality back.

[VanderVecken]

Yea, right click functionality is a GOOD thing. Lots of good things in there.

[Phoenix-D]

Yeah, my opinion of the interface improved after I learned it a little more. A lot of the initial dislike was "this works differently from SE4!". Not that there aren't still issues.

SE5 is going to need a good manual though, to explain the effort-saving tricks if nothing else. And given the track record in that regard I'm not hopeful. :/

[Captain Kwok]

It took some time but I've become quite efficient with most operations in the game. I've sent in lots of little suggestions recently regarding optimizing specific operations like cargo transfer or combining like-units etc., so hopefully those will start cropping up in patches. What's the level of the help-text in the demo, does it give name of object and description?

[Phoenix-D]

It gives the whole shebang. Doesn't explain stuff like where you can right click to get what menu, or tht you can click in the middle of the percentage bars to set a percent.

It also doesn't have a delay, which makes it a bit spammy.

[Captain Kwok]

Yep. I Keep spamming MM with that 1-sec delay for the pop-up.

I usually only play with the short description these days just to keep me in the know for some of the less-used orders.

[Raapys]

The right-click menu does seem a bit like an afterthought?

[Captain Kwok]

Raapys said:
The right-click menu does seem a bit like an afterthought?

Not necessarily, although most would agree that the arrangement of orders could be optimized.