I understand how it works quite well, and I am not one of the "I won't play anymore because I hate it" people. I am approaching this from a usability perspective. I design software for a living, part of which is UI design. From my perspective, they've made some changes which are user-hostile. They made these changes to a frequently used core mechanic, which is a problem. They may not realize this until they get feedback from hostile users. Developers are inherently more technical and can sometimes not see things that are fairly obvious to non-technical people. It takes a different thought process, and sometimes just a lot of experience listening to non-technical people complain about things, for someone with an engineering background to be able to put themselves in the shoes of a "normal person" and see it from their perspective. I know that certain advanced operations are easier than before, e.g. you can mine directly into an HV cargo box or whatever. But certain operations are harder than before, as well. And judging from complaints & feedback, there are more people who think it is now harder overall, than easier overall. If you read enough feedback and reviews, you will see that @Ranger_Ric probably represents the majority opinion. All of the new features that have been added, could have been added without diminishing the usability of what was already there. (I am specifically talking about logistics; mass/volume constraints are another topic.) Internal storage is one of the things that they could have kept in the design that would have helped acceptance a lot.
Totally this. The problem is also that is 9.0.3 and they are still hostile to revert it back. They are not listening the playerbase. Is confusing and hard to use for normal people. I have 3000 hours and is making me sick configuring every single constructor,furnace etc. Before i had 10 contructors and 10furnaces on my base and i was using them like containers. now i need to build one container controller and one container extension for everyone of them, setting them up in infinite menu. Before i just drop down my contructor or my furnace and put inside my materials and i was good and happy physically accessing to them. Is tedious to setup and is tedious to use.
It would be nice if there were a button you could press when choosing a Device and get a sort of short-range ghost-drone view. Move it to point at what you want, and hey presto you've used your spatial knowledge of its location instead of sorting through a potentially-bothersome list (especially if you haven't labeled your boxes). Actually... that's a huge thing right there: A lot of people probably never bothered labeling their boxes, relying on spatial memory instead. . . ...Player spatial memory needs to be integrated with the logistics as an alternative to the text-based labels! Not everyone thinks/learns/remembers the same way...
Ok, a question for people that like logistics using this image: How i can process every different ore separating them? The answer is possible but take 1000x times longer than before I need to set up a separate box for input and output for every single furnace i have... and this is easy and not tedious? Before i could put erestrum in green one, neodimium in brown one and directly pullout refined ore without doing all those passage. How much time require setting up 10separate furnaces before? 10 seconds How much time will require to setup 10 separate furnaces now? Probable way more than 20minutes.(if i dont missclick one of the 20 containers i just made only for this without taking in account the other 40 or 50 boxes for constructors to keep stuff separate) FOR DOING THE EXACT SAME THING! SMELTING AND KEEP SEPARATE ORES!
It would help if the game would automatically link boxes if you used certain arrangements. For example, the first box you place touching a furnace could be automatically assigned as its input, and then the second could be automatically its output. That doesn't change the need for 2x+ (or 3x+ if you want separate Input and Output) as many blocks to get the storage effect back, but it would help... The trouble is that all of this logistics interfacing is trying to replicate conveyors without the intuitive, spatial, kinetic, tangible interface of a 3D model. For hands-on people, that's really frustrating, even if the more abstract types don't mind it. On top of that, the boxes are a two-step process due to the controllers, rather than using a behind-the-scenes merge/split system based on standardized cargo modules...
And here is another point we can agree on: Usability. The Logistics Screen is a nightmare to navigate, that is pretty much a fact. What i then proposed in an post earlier, IF the system stays like it is, we open the drop down and then can scroll through the entrys witht the mousewheel and after finding the right container left click anywhere to select/open the highlighted Container. Now since then i gave it some more thought and came up with something different: How about we cut down on two rows in the Logistics Screen on both sides, remove the Dropdowns for the specific Containers and use the newly aquired space on the sides to display a list with the specific containers names + maby if it is possible to mimic the Groups in the Devices Section in the control Panel add that too to differentiate certain Containers from each other. The now pretty much empty space over the containers UI's could be replaced with an icon based Selection system(in the style of the Construction Queue) to then simply just select. Here an example pic of what i mean: Now going through with the removal of the Dropboxen, why not re-rework the constructor interfaces again. I thought about using the empty input and output boxes as an "Select one container from the list below" (text is placed on the current dropdown box for the selcetion). Once you have choosen one from the list, if you wanna remove the selection, just click the button(previously the "Select one container" thing) to remove the Selection and it turns back to the List of containers. Here an example Pic to help understand what i mean: So what do you think, also speaking of @paxxo1985 with the Constructor UI/Logistsic UI changes? EDIT: concerning the constructor UI, the internal Inventory should be located above the Last used Section in the lists.
First of all i want to be optional and not like now. Second if needed i want that can be implemented like this with multiple inputs Hovering over an icon of furnace/cargobox/deconstructor added will show the content inside
Hmm having multiple Inputs might not be a bad idea either. Especially considering that FP's need both perishable and non-perishable inputs, althought someone suggested allready to have an cooled Cargo Controler and Exstensions for that, even thought we would run out of slots befor we would reach the Volume limit, wich these Containers were intentionally designed for.
Exactly ! Why wasn't there a new interface created for the second toolbar ? It still shows as "lights" in the controls section, wich is simply not so anymore. Switching lights on/off on the fly doesn't exist. Regarding the unintuitiveness of the whole new implementation of the system i concurr with many posters here. The game has turned in to a overly left brained thought process wich is all good if you're a mechanical computer, but we are not. In fact, the very unbalance of this mechanised thinking is what causes the strain to use this system. Doesn't matter if you are an old or new player. Change is only welcome and usefull if it improves over the previous way. If we are talking about large quantities , automatisation has its benefit. Therefor this automatisation should follow in a later state of the game. To cut down on the running around for that matter. In terms of quality , flow of the gameplay, it is disastrous when needing to use dropdowns and box interfaces every turn we make. It might look all smarty-smarty and 'logical' , but that is an illusion imo, not wise. Intellectual logic alone doesn't cut it, it is mere a part of wisdom.
So I'm limiting this post to the Main logistics GUI: and I have lots of nits about the interface - but i assume most of those are just bugs... so I'm going to just skip those. 1. Please go and steal from EVE - (which is THE definitive LOGISTICS Space Ship Game!) with how they select and move various items around - There is an option in their interface to view all items as pics as in your interface (instead of the usual spreadsheet - unless you want to have that...), if you just stick with that and play around with the sorting/selection and movement options they have and incorporate the ones that make sense it would go a long way to helping the logistics GUI. 2. Another perhaps unique idea is to be able to have a one to many display - where the inventory the toon or a "container" of a ship is displayed on the left and all other containers are displayed as little boxes on the right - maybe these boxes are just big enough to display the first 5 characters of the "ship's" name and 5 characters of the container's name below it, and below that the roughly available space (3 significant digits like 1.10k, 100k, 987, 10.5 etc) . This display will not work with LOTS of ships/containers in the available network but for most play would be great for sorting loot, and the output of constructors, - potentially save a lot of clicking! People would get used to naming their ships and containers in a way that makes sense for this display fairly quickly (if they want to use this). 3. Of course you have to find a way beyond the 64? unique item limit. And you need to be able to have more than one person access a container at a time. But I assume these are on your action list already.
Previously the Constructor used its output slots for input also. Now if I have, say, Electronics in output I have to close the constructing interface,open F4, select left box (move mouse - click - move mouse - click), select right box (another two moves + two clicks), close F4 and use the constructor again, all this just to put Electronics back to input - click count and mouse mileage skyrocketed in A9. Dropdowns are also a very simple to program but a very bad idea. Clicking something to access the list is always worse then having that list from the beginning. Imagine a big base with 20 boxes - how much would you move your mouse to get 19th and 20th on the screen? What if there are hundreds of containers? I'm with the @The Undead Watcher and @IronCartographer on this - let it be a panel of icons, so the spatial sense would kick in, "I need second one in the first row and a blue one from below". A simple test - outside of the game take a mouse, move cursor to the left border of the screen, then to the right, repeat for a minute. Does your wrist feels ok? I doubt that. Long moves should be limited to the bare minimum because they give a lot of strain and it accumulates with time. X-series had a lot of menus to control the fleet down to every item in the cargohold of each ship and factory, and they managed to avoid UI hell by splitting lists to smaller sections, hotkeying most actions and using arrows and enter+esc to navigate, less stress for the hands to type then to swipe. The Eleon seems to be in the dire need of UI expert, making streamlined and efficient interfaces is not a secondary task that could be done overnight as a hobby. Usually it is safe to go with industry best practises, "not invented here" shouldn't become an obstacle.
In the experimental topic, I proposed creating a dedicated ore storage block, like the O2/Fuel one. It would accept only ore, but have a greater capacity than a general use cargo block. This way, you could replace all those cargos blocks in the picture with only one of these dedicated ore blocks. =)
It seems the constructor will use the contents of the output box as well as the input box to make things. Not sure if this is a bug or not, but it might help with not having to do the above move.
Umm...you mean the SE Inventory System? Might work, but you also pointed out its greatest flaw. True, not many will have more than 10 Cargo container, but someone like @paxxo1985 with his 40 Cargo containers will suffer immensly from it. Aka, a Logistic System can only be truly called a Logistics System once it actually takes work away from you(automatic Item/resource Distribution) and only based on what you tell it to do. You need to be in full control, that means: Where are the Items going? When are the Items allowed to go where we want them to go? How many are allowed to move?(Kinda managable with 2) Actually thinking about it is even better, with an Icon System instead of a list, you could double the amount of Containers displayed. + You could manage the Icons, to display a Container for a Container(duh!) but when it comes to In- and Outputs for specificDevices like the Constructors(external Storage) you could simply display the Device in question with an Green arrow pointing towards it(Input) and an Orange arrow in the opposite direction for its Output. For Devices that use Internal Inventorys no arrow needs to be displayed, unless only one way uses the internal Inventory(either In- or Output). Example: You have a specific Container for your Furnace Input(Iron ore) but you want your smelted Ingots to stay in the Furnace. So your Input will be a Furnace Icon with an Green Arrow and the "Output" will be a Furnace. Now if you wanted to use the Furnace as an Input for a Constructor, that would be a Constructor Icon with an Green arrow pointing towards it. Now you wanna shove the Output of this Constructor into an Storage Box(for whatever reason and for demonstration purposes) that would simply be a Constructor Icon with an Orange Arrow pointing away from it. Now groupe the In- and Output of each machine thogether, althought multpleinputs will be a problem? Idk, my brain isn't functioning right now, need some sleep.
Have you checked that the Output isn't set to [=input]? Because then the In- and Output are the same. Otherwise post a bug report right away.
One of the suggestions I had in the experimental thread was that there should always be a default. Simply defaulting to the closest box for input and output is better than defaulting to nothing. It is one of several things that would make it easier for a new user to figure out.
This part is already true, just not in an automatic sense. It allows you to skip the old double-step move involving the player's inventory. The trouble I was referring to is that, being completely virtual, some people will have difficulty keeping the flows organized mentally--and everyone will suffer through the current menu system with so many options to choose while setting up the connections. Physical connections offer the advantage of clear visualization. We need that clarity without the performance and rigid "Engineering" constraints of real connections. Some sort of 3D interactive "Device selection interface" would allow endpoint selection without sifting through a long list of awkwardly labelled boxes and devices.
One thing we can take from this...what was pretty simple and intuitive before, has spawned a nightmare of different ideas of how to "fix" the recent changes. Just put it back and forget about all this nonsense..pouring over the technicalities of it all . It's nauseating trying to comprehend it.
