Usability stuff

japan_de

japan_de

Spaceman
Hi there,

I just played the privateer remake and (besides I LOVE it!) I have some remarks that have probably been made before (but I did not find them in the forum).

1. When I enter the load/safe menu and click "new" I get a message that includes something like "are you sure you want to load?" - that seems to make no sense to me ( the button should read something like "restart" if it is about starting a new game).
2. Just after trying several times to safe a new safe-game (using "new" - which obviously does not create a new safegame) I just overwrote an existing one. The way to change a safegame name is not very intuitive...
3. I bet this has been adressed before... I simply could not find any information on how to change keys. The standard keys just do not make any sense when using a non-english keyboard. (By the way - mouse support is so much better than in original privateer :) ).
4. I was able to fly through star-bases when not pressing "d" - will there be an automatic landing like in the original?


Regards
japan_de
 
some of these have been fixed for 1.0 which will be out...soon like in 1 or 2 days
as for your keyboard you'll probably have to find equivalents and modify vegastrike.config

as for savegame you need to type it in... New_Game is a proxy game for starting a new game

as for auto landing zone--we have one for planets only starbases are mostly to fly around close...alnding automatically would be annoying
 
Hi again,

great to hear you fixed that one :) Thanks for the help with the keyboard - is there a chance that keyboard customization can be done in-game some day?

Two more thingS:

1. the Buttons in the save/load menu read "cancel" on the left and "load" (or "save") on the right. The standard in most programs is, that the positive button is on the left and the cancel is on the right...
2. When I start the game some pixel-mix appears for some seconds before the splash screen appears.

Regards
Japan_de
 
oh, another thing with the "load/safe" menu: the message "safe game written sucessfully" is written on a red background - a green background would be much better :) red should be used for "failed" messages. I also think the box for the messages is much to big - the message just covers about 10% of the box.

Regards
japan_De
 
There's nothing preventing the keybindings from changing in game except that we have no code for such a user interface :)
 
Well, finally found the right thread. I got some usability ideas as well.

- Is it possible to show a load/save/exit/pause menu when ESC is pressed, no matter if one's within the cockpit or on a base? (I know saving within the cockpit doesnt make sense, but loading does).

- If one deactivates the HUD in flight mode (pressing F1 twice) and switches to the turret view, the HUD is reactivated. However, if the HUD is deactivated in turret mode, it remains deactivated when switching back to cockpit view. Would it be possible to always keep the preset of the HUD? It's a little annoying to always have to press the sequence ] - F1 - F1.

Great work anyway with the remake, it certainly made me addicted to Privateer again!

Cheers, Boris59
 
Hey-o...

Would it be possible to put some force feedback into it? My joystick is rather ... limp, and it's difficult to centre (apart from being badly calibrated). Force feedback would pwn. :)
 
Try changing
<var name="force_feedback" value="false" />
to
<var name="force_feedback" value="true" />
in vegastrike.config

No gaurantees it will work, I have no way to test it, and the joystick dev has been gone for a long time.
 
Usability

Love the game, etc, etc..

A few usability notes:

1) Menus are confusing and difficult to use - especially when buying/selling weapons and ship equipment.

2) What exactly is 'Repair ship' supposed to do? It doesn't seem to fix hull/armour damage, at least.

3) The map buying interface is also weird. You get no feedback on which maps you already have.

Btw, is there a bugzilla or other bugtracking system for this project?
 
You are supposed to repair each component individually. Some components don't show up in the buy/sell menu (like your HUD instruments) so general repair fixes those.
 
the message "safe game written sucessfully" is written on a red background
Click to expand...
I might add, it's a bit annoying having to click OK each time. Perhaps, instead of changing the color to green, the message should come up if saving was NOT successful. Also, when clicking on a savegame, there's a delay of like 2 seconds before the name gets transferred and one can click on save. (Linux version, running on a 1.6 GHz Athlon.)

EDIT: Also for the to-do list: Enabling mouse-wheel scrolling for scrollable lists, like savegames and upgrades.
 
Talking about save-games... it would also be sweet to have a (system) timestamp for each savegame. I have a tendency to make way to many save-games and not remember which is newer.
 
That reminds me. There's no particular ordering to savegames. I think it would be best for them to be sorted chronologically. Is the saving screen eventually going to look something like the original PDA? It would be neat to have the same idea, but with a more modern PDA look: hi-res LCD, mouse-wheel scrollable. It could perhaps also be used later for in-game setup adjustments, like mouse-sensitivity, or music selection.
 
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