That is what I was trying to convey in my mind but I’ve just noticed I totally confused it by talking about scaling the grid 
I think it’s too much to display and not essential for conveying movement, as for its use in actual navigation, a single time to intercept number is sufficient for my needs.
Personal preference may vary 
My use of the term space dust is very loose as I even include planets in that term due to the sheer scale it needs to cover.
When in supercruise in ED, you see the orbit paths of planets and stars, but you don’t see any intermediate lines or markers that might help better communicate a visual sense of distance or movement through that space.
Even just radial lines and concentric circles coming from a central point would tie everything together for me. I would love to be able to switch on a massive stellar sphere grid and have my target’s indicator show a connecting line to 1 or more reference planes.
Some may not like that level of clutter, but that’s easily fixed via a toggle. You can still have a time to intercept indicator as well. The more ways to view information the better IMO.
I agree, but of course there isn’t time to implement them all.
By discussing ideas we can hopefully arrive at the solution that gives the most bang for buck.
1 Like
I don’t mind what you use to give the feeling of motion, just so long as I can turn it off and drift through space with my view unobstructed.
6 Likes
We can’t really know what will be effective until we see the changes to the warp mechanics and what they have as a basic HUD.
I am still of the opinion that less HUD elements is better! I don’t want to watch representations of stuff and data, I want to see the real things!
This whole “lack of sensation of movement” is only going to be a problem in deep space away from stations and planets. This is likely not going to a place players spend much time in! We may be streaking between planets so fast it’s not really a problem, with slower movement near the gravitational disruption of planets.
So will we actually need a reference? We’ll have to wait and see how the warping works and how fast it is.
1 Like
I agree with wanting an unobstructed view.
My desire is simply for all players to be able to jump in and enjoy the game and not get annoyed with overshooting stations, crashing into atmospheres, etc.
I would love this to be achieved with great warp mechanics and for no HUD elements to be necessary.
1 Like
A simple answer would be to have a toggle-able ‘auto throttle’.
Select a target while in warp and engage auto throttle. The throttle automatically will go down when you are close to the target, and displays an ‘exit now’ message when within a certain distance, perhaps depending on ship type.
Of course, for balance reasons, it won’t be as fast as doing it manually.
This will allow new players to avoid a steeper learning curve while training them what do to and how to be better.
1 Like
If you are not willing to learn how to fly your ship to another place you should play some other game.
And the flying throught the system is part of this game.
I agree with the sentiment, however the issue of overshooting was the number one gameplay issue new players had during the pre-alpha weekend, from what I understand. Having a sort of primitive auto-pilot would not only teach the player how to fly, but also get rid of some frustration with constantly crashing into planets.
Just one suggestion, I’m not saying it’s a good one, just a possibility.
1 Like
Don’t know if I’d use that word As long as respawn is relatively quick (which it is currently) I think the learning curve with the flying is pretty good! It doesn’t take long to pick it up. 
In fact, that being the first challenge is pretty appropriate for Battlescape’s mood and certainly gives me lasting satisfaction whenever I now land successfully!
5 Likes
The new players are just need a tutorial to explain how fly and land on a planet…
The games are easier these days because the players want a easy and assist gameplay. It’s an error for me.
I agree with Sab concerning satisfaction whenever i land successfully ^^ You must find right balance but it’s ok.
I think that players must accept learning curve.
2 Likes
I don’t think there should be a tutorial and I don’t want it to be easy.
I just want it to be a good gameplay experience.
An analogy: Archery isn’t easy. If you try it and suck you can still see how it works and know that it’s simply a matter of practice. Easy to pick up, difficult to master.
The current warp is like a thorn covered bow with fluctuating springiness - OK once you get to grips with it, but its not easy to pick up and it’s less refined even once mastered.
1 Like
I think you’re confusing “showing the principle of how it’s done”, which is tutorial’s definition, with “mastering the process and putting it to good use at the right time, the right moment”, which is the learning curve.
Sincerely, I hate all games that don’t include any tutorial. It can be as simple as key bindings map for very simple gameplay to heavily scripted scenarii or an officiel video like ED does.
It doesn’t mean the game assists you in-game: rather you know, before entering the “real game”, the rough basics of the action.
I don’t think there should be a tutorial because I think the basics should be intuitive and not require one.
I wouldn’t call a key bindings map a tutorial.
True, the “key bindings map” was a bit extreme ^^ I had the simple images / text description we currently have for I:B.
As for GUI ergonomics… well, it really depends on the game’s complexity.
Playing ED, not showing how to dock properly, especially how to ask permission from station, is highly frustrating at first. Once you’ve been shown how it’s done, I still remember the left panel is to be used months after I’ve stopped playing.
However, being able to smuggle goods with a quick docking is a real mastery that arguably can’t, nor needs, to be shown.
In a sense, I agree with you: the more intuitive the GUI is, the better for the player and the less tutorial is needed. But I still consider basic mechanics, depending on game’s complexity, would still require some kind of tutorial.
People are missing a big point about how warp works with gravity wells. Getting down onto a planet or moon’s surface is actually the easy part. You can learn to do that consistently and efficiently with time.
For stations though? You’re screwed.
A ship approaches a station from above, the gravity well it is entering makes it slow down, so the pilot is trying to work with a system that is getting their ship to slow down automatically. The controls get finer and finer as the ship approaches the station so it can be easy for the pilot to use a small tap (that before would have slowed the ship down a great deal*) that does basically nothing, and have their ship barrel straight passed the station overshooting.
A ship approaches a station from below, the ship is escaping the gravity well and accelerating at greater and greater rates, so the pilot needs to fight against that and do far more to slow down so not to drastically overshoot. The controls for setting the speed get less and less accurate meaning it’s incredibly easy to undershoot and just stop dead too.
And then a player needs to be able to work out exactly how the warp speed setting is going to function from every possible angle between those two examples listed. And then they need to do that for multiple different sized gravity wells and for stations at different altitudes.
And all this is before you start dealing with moving targets, like ships.
If you have a brain that can do that, well good for you I guess. Everyone else is kinda screwed if they want to drop out of warp right on a station without it being fiddly and vastly sub-optimal in terms of how long that final approach takes.
It’s not something that can be fixed with better instrumentation.
*although this applies to planets/moons too, it is something that can be learned as it’s consistent every time
I’d go for locking onto a station to give it an artificial gravity-well the same as a planet gets when you want to get to it reliably. (Only for when you lock it and want to fly there, or it’ll slow down ships that just want to fly passed it.)
4 Likes
I’d like to point out that despite the above, I do enjoy the current warp system. That said, it does need actual improvement in places that go beyond UI markings.
2 Likes
Well …
Instead of removing the actuall influence you can remove the influence on the input.
Instead of the bar on the right representing “Target Speed from 0 to Max Currently possible” it could be “Target Speed from 0 to light speed”. That way the controlls always do the same thing. No?
I think it should be possible to adapt the controlls to the dynamics of the warp system and not the other way arrround …
It’s going to get change anyway, yes, but the current system and the perception of its problems still influence the decision on future systems.
Actually, the bar could allready work the way I proposed … anyway … I think the target speed input is the problem.
1 Like