my SVN laundry list

[drinkypoo]

This is my laundry list of things which have pissed me off :) in SVN. I am posting them here to receive commentary before I go open/search for a raft of bugs. (Searching these forums is absolutely horrendous and I haven't met a forum yet with a useful search engine. Trying to use these forums at all over a modem is utter pain, what with all the crap they are crapped up with - by which I mean all the javascript crap, needless links, etc.)

But anyway, I digress. The point is, here is my long list of complaints. Some will be wish list items, I guess.

* Small asteroid fields look like the contents of popcorn poppers - I have one like this around the jump point from Cepheid 17 to 17ar (dunno if it's always there, or just me.)

* Nav computer sometimes won't allow selection of current system as source (but destination works)

* In systems with many ships, approaching a jump node reveals ships orbiting the node, apparently without inertia (they change direction in zig-zags.) When you approach the node they seem to realize they're being watched and they leave on their courses.

* HUD text is often unreadable. What century does this game take place in? Obviously there's a way to dim the screen or else every time you oriented towards a sun you'd go blind.

* I have a jump (again, dunno if this is a standard feature) in yneeldah that appears to be inside a sun. Snarky comments about flying into nuclear furnaces aside, the jump gates are drawn by my computer, right? So why should I ever be unable to see them (aside from those out of range and thus not drawn by the computer?) Well, this one is invisible. And it's not just because the node color is hard to see on yellow-white.

* The aera go after me when I am at -10 even with confed ships sitting right next to me. Are they really in the habit of attacking the least offensive enemy first?

* Jump gates are only picked (with 'p') when their center is in your view. I should be able to pick a jump gate any time I'm inside of it (or, I should be able to jump through non-targeted jump gates.) This makes escaping all too inconvenient.

* On the subject of picking, picking will pick targets which are WAY WAY WAY outside of the reticle. It also frequently picks targets further away than other targets inside the reticle. Picking should be in increasing distance order.

* If you respawn from a save docked at a base, often you will appear far away from the base's dock point. Why?

* Nearest dangerous hostile function frequently picks relatively unarmed craft far away over something right next to me that's actually shooting at me.

* homing missiles show ready when your radar is destroyed and targeting is impossible. Missiles which cannot be fired should be color-coded somehow to signify this.

* Rlaan starfortress both untextured and just plain broken model. Looks like overlapping faces and possibly also bad normals. It has only one open end - how many should it have? But I was able to fly OUT of the top point or something, definitely not the way I flew in. Look back? Solid wall.

* Shift-M should close the nav window whether you have the nav comp up or not - by that token, perhaps it should be Alt-M, or Ctrl-M?

* Weird specs with franklin & gawain (so far.) Overdrive seems to screw up loadout substantially on gawain, or it did for me, dropping the upgrade space to 20 and listing me with warp cap capacity. Overdrive may be the common thread here, I don't recall, I haven't done stringent testing. How do I use -p flag? Trying to find new places to buy these ships is much harder in SVN than it was before, so testing is harder.

* Widescreen resolutions are wonderful, but the aspect ratio is incorrect on... well, everything. Is the game designed from the beginning for 4:3 aspect ratio? I don't know if you've looked lately, but it's more or less impossible to find a laptop with a normal-size screen that isn't widescreen, and laptops are becoming the machine of choice for most everyone. Mine has the next-to-best mobile graphics (literally) but I can play at 1680x1050 with everything turned up and get over 50fps any time there's not many ships blowing up at once. But literally everything is squished...

* The SPEC indicator is now all but useless. It is only lit while you are traveling at SPEC speeds now, is that it? Really, I can't actually tell what it's supposed to be doing now. All I know is that I frequently cannot go through a jump gate because I am still in SPEC, but there is no visual notification.

* All of the indicator lights are FAR too dim. The jump and spec indicators in 0.4.3 worked well because they were in your view and they had high contrast. Neither is the case with the new HUD indicator lights. A warning light is useless if you don't see it.

* By the same token, the Lock light flashes in two situations: when people are at extreme range, and when people are shooting at you. Does anyone else see the problem with this? Most of the time I just don't notice it at all, especially when I'm in a system with a yellow background. What good is a warning light you can't see when you need it most - when visibility is shot anyway?

* Saving the best for last: Docking with ships just. Doesn't. Work. At least, not for me. I use alt-0, I get the docking squares, I can't dock. Double-checked SPEC; it wasn't on. I did use home to match speeds. I was definitely in the square. It doesn't matter what kind of ship it is; I still can't dock with it. Oddly enough, even after my patch to prevent missions from having ships in them, I managed to get ONE mission where I was sent to dock with a ship. Unfortunately, I have to cancel this mission. I tried flying out and docking with three different ships. Looking at the console output I see:

Asking to undock
Asking to undock
Asking to undock
Asking to undock
Asking to undock
Asking to undock

This corresponds to me hammering the 'd' key asking to dock, not undock. I'm not docked! How could I possibly undock!? Perhaps this is the key to the docking problem?




Wish List

* Since cargo weight is now a factor, and inertia is therefore now a major factor, can we get an inertia gauge? I mean, drift racers have these today... Also an inertia status light so that you know if inertia is off. Could help prevent many collisions. In the really real world - which I know we're not dealing with, but still - you'd have a collision alarm, too.

* It would be nice to replace the bitmap in the right VDU (target view) with the 3d model, showing facing. The current view is useless aside from quick recognition, which is nice but mostly a waste of screen real estate.

* It's a lot harder to see some of the docking points in 0.5.0 than in 0.4.3. With some of the mining bases, the way they're oriented etc, it's almost impossible to see where you have to fly to dock due to being on their dark side. It would be nice to have better landing lights (just one in the hole would do!) or some headlights on one's craft - just one would do the job.


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Anyway, as you can see there I am encountering some serious problems, and I (who the hell am I anyway? but don't hate the player, baby...) also have some serious issues with what has been done to the game between 0.4.3 and 0.5.0. The rebalance issues are a matter of opinion so I won't complain about them here :) but it seems that a lot of user interface changes were made without any thought to good design. The interface is prettier but it's not actually as useful as it was before. Even my car has a more useful dashboard. At least when a warning light comes on, I can tell. (lock light) When the brights are on, it lets me know. (spec light) And when a corner marker goes out, that turn signal flashes fast to let me know (missile status when you can't fire them anyway.)

I realize that "we have it in the real world on cars now so it should be in the spaceship" doesn't get any code written, but in at least two of my examples above, 0.4.3 was MORE functional!

Please don't take this as just me pitching a bitch, if you can help it. I'm more than willing to make a contribution of labor. I will even go file bug reports once I have figured out which ones to file, and I'm more than happy to put in work anywhere that I'm qualified. Unfortunately, my promise to myself to learn python has yet been unfulfilled, the only things I need it for are modding games and tweaking various Linux distributions which seem to be abandoning the venerable and useful perl for it. Perl is still more useful for me for getting work done, but I understand why you wouldn't choose to embed it :)

I welcome comments on my comments, but please, try to come to this in the same spirit I have - seeking improvement, not just a flamefest. I fully expect to hear "WON'T FIX" or "coming in the nebulous future" more than once...