Large scale navigation

[cami]

Being an explorer-type player [1], the navigation interface of VS is of
great importance for my gameplay experience. Let me remark some random possibilities of improvement in that regard.

Overview:

I. Less monotonous travel
_1. Time warp
_2. Skip uneventful passages
_3. Interstellar autopilot

II. Improved navigation
_4. Making distant systems faint (comment on existing suggestion) [2]
_5. Zoom should move camera
_6. Quick Info
_7. Sector map
_8. Search by name

III. Exploration Guidance

I. Less monotonous travel

Although real (space or not) travel more often than not is literally uneventful, time spent in a game should always be prime. Possible measures for reducing waiting time and repetitive tasks include:
_1. Time warp - simply let the game's clock run faster than the player's clock.
_2. Skip uneventful passages - future encounters can be precomputed very quickly. Advance clock to the next event directly when the player requests this.
_3. Interstellar autopilot - Relatively small improvements of the autopilot allow accounting for the limitiations of your starship and can safely auto-navigate you through wormholes. (this suggestion is related to the docking autopilot)

II. Improved navigation

Equally important, at the least, is comfortable interstellar navigation. The following suggestions focus on the starmap.

_4. Making distant systems faint - It has already been suggested to reduce saturation for systems far from the camera. In practice, I think attenuation based on distance to POV (in relation to distance between POV and camera. see below) is more appropriate.
_5. Zoom should move camera - instead of modifying the view angle. This only makes a difference in 3D view, but is extremely useful when systems are too close to (or even behind) the camera there.
_6. Quick Info - On mouse hover or selection, sector, owner, and important targets (no vessels) in a system are displayed
_7. Sector map - For a large scale overview, a map of (partially or completely) known sectors is available, coloured by dominating faction. Two sectors are shown linked if any (known) system in the one sector is linked by a wormhole to any (known) system in the other sector.
_8. Search by name - Find a system or sector by name or pattern.

III. Exploration Guidance

Finally, exploration might benefit from slight assistance. When you are to be the first to discover a place, of course there's nothing but "getting there and taking a look". However, in VS interstellar relationships are tight and probably the merchant in the bar can tell you about close-by systems commerce stations, and the confed officer about fortifications and engagements.

[1] http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm
[2] http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/wiki/ ... era_.5B.5D

[athomic1]

Time warp actually was a feature in 0.4.x. I believe it was more of a debug tool, though. If I recall correctly, it was a little buggy, and so was removed, or at least disabled in 0.5.0. I don't know what plans there might be to get it back.

In most cases, autopilot SPEC will get you through the uneventful passage fairly quickly. The trip from Atlantis to Serenity and back IS a longish one, even in SPEC, but the separation among planets and other points of interest is most other systems is MUCH less. With autopilot taking you everywhere, the most time you'll spend waiting will be getting out of planetary gravity wells.

The interstellar autopilot is an interesting idea. I could see that being implemented without a LOT of trouble, if the nav system can autoselect the next jump gate and then autopilot to it. On the other hand, perhaps it's possible to make things a little TOO easy...

I'm not going to comment much on section II, there, except: On 5, you can effectively move the camera by double-clicking a system to center the view there. I'm not sure moving the camera vs. changing the view angle wouldn't introduce problems of its own. I'm not sure what you're proposing in 7, but it would be nice if the map showed more of known space than just the systems you've visited, and neighboring ones. Being able to limit the display to nearby systems would be helpful, too, especially after extensive exploration has overcrowded the map. As for finding systems and sectors by name, I believe the nav computer can already do that, at least for systems. I don't know about pattern searches, though.

I like the ideas about info from the fixers. I think the news stories could have more to offer, here, too. You'll occasionally see help wanted notices, reports on nearby resource demands or surpluses, and possibly other potential opportunities, but I have yet to see any way to take advantage of them, if they're even realized in the gameplay itself. (I've wanted to ask if the help wanted ads actually mean anything, but haven't got 'round to it)

[Frank_Valenti]

like the idea

[Sarin]

Well....in 0.5.0 the time acceleration is still there, but it is not binded to any key. After 0.5.0 came out, I've been asking the same question. Turned out that all you need to do is to add the keyboard bindings to config file. So if you want it back, put it back...here is what you need to do. You should change the keys it's binded to tho, they're now used for volume adjustment

<bind key="function-9" modifier="none" command="TimeInc"/>
<bind key="function-10" modifier="none" command="TimeReset"/>