How would you improve the UI?

[Pathogenic]

It's a popular complaint about X4 that "the UI sucks". Personally, I find the UI fine. I like the UI. I may be an outlier, but I find the UI for the game generally does what I need it to do. There are a few minor things to be sure that I would change, but for the most part, I can do what I need to do, even if it sometimes requires more clicks than I would like.

But for those complaining about the X4 UI, what would you do to improve it? Would your suggestions involve removing options? Adding options? Retaining the options, but changing how we access those options?

[Thomas - Sohn von Hubert]

Originally posted by flywlyx:

Originally posted by Thomas - Sohn von Hubert:

The UI is one of the most moddable components of the game.

Not this game—UI is one of the most challenging aspects to mod, right alongside character models, as far as I know.

Tried it myself a while back.
I actually found it quite manageable and easier to get into than the XML based modding.
The main issue is probably compatibility, as the UI code is often heavily worked on with each release. That's what Kuertee's UI Extensions and HUD mod is for.

But yeah, if you want to make significant changes, they will be hard to keep track of and maintain.

If it's just about filtering, sorting, or hiding information in certain menus or tables like suggested here, that should actually be quite easy.

[flywlyx]

Originally posted by Thomas - Sohn von Hubert:

Tried it myself a while back.
I actually found it quite manageable and easier to get into than the XML based modding.
The main issue is probably compatibility, as the UI code is often heavily worked on with each release. That's what Kuertee's UI Extensions and HUD mod is for.

But yeah, if you want to make significant changes, they will be hard to keep track of and maintain.

If it's just about filtering, sorting, or hiding information in certain menus or tables like suggested here, that should actually be quite easy.

I think the discussion is creating an overhaul mod for the interface, aimed at improving long lasting issues like behavior changes, crew assignments, or command placements.
But yeah, if the changes fall within the scope of Kuertee's UI Extensions, they aren't too difficult to implement.

[trooperrob]

I would like:
The cameras like in X3, where you could put a view of the target or another ship in a right or left window.

The ability to scan a ship while targetting subsystems.
The ability to go on the map to the location of a ship under attack after it has alerted you, rather than have to leave the map to see its location, then go back to the map and either remember or search for the sector....

[Bobucles]

The X series has an enormous amount of information to display, an enormous amount of ship commands, and many different play styles happening all at once. That in itself is fine, this game is very ambitious and that's what players love about it. The way that all the game features are organized, on the other hand, is absolute garbage. Players have to dive through layers and layers of menus for everything. Nothing is where you expect, combat menus are bloated to hell, and economic menus are often lacking in vital functions.

Ultimately, what the UI needs is to be organized. What "organized" actually means, is you pick a main objective for the player., and that main objective dictates what the UI needs to provide. Then you build a UI which accomplishes only that objective as excellently as possible.

What sort of objectives are there? Well, the X series is no stranger to the 4x gaming archetype: explore, exploit, expand, exterminate. The game has a lot to provide in all those areas, it's as good a starting point as any. In fact, X3 menus were basically organized in this way. Maybe we can try defining those 4 major archetypes? Maybe it'll guide us towards a good UI?

- Explore. We need to see how everything is doing at a glance. We need scout ships. We need to move ships around. Nothing complex, only simple orders. We need to deploy simple exploration tools like satellites, nav beacons and the like. No detailed information is really needed beyond where are your guys, and what can they see. Seems like a very good generic peace time interface.
- Exploit. Mining is exploiting. Trading is exploiting. We need mining ships. We need trade ships. We need to find asteroids. We need to find stations, trade routes, and assign economic ships to the various economic tasks in the universe. This is more about the micro level day to day business that happens all over the place. Trading is plenty complex, and this is the place to manage it.
- Expand. There is a whole branch of the game about building stations, managing fleets, and managing supply lines. It's not really trading. It's more macro level organization of your fleets, your stations, and playing the empire game.
- Exterminate. Combat is fast. Combat is furious. You do not have time to dig through 10 menus in a dogfight, so any UI bloat is unacceptable. Commands need to be fast and effective, menus need to be very small, information needs to be combat focused with few distractions. If it takes more than 2 seconds to construct a command, it does not belong here. If it is a spreadsheet, it does not belong here. If you can not return to your ship and respond to an immediate threat, then the combat UI has failed.

That pretty much covers everything in the game, right? It provides a solid baseline for organizing the interface. There are four major UI layers, with four independent goals, and four unique sets of commands. Each layer accomplishes a major game objective, and has little bloat or redundancy to muddy the waters.

Obviously it will take much more work to define all the details. But if you can't get an overarching view and define a clear vision, then give up. You won't be fixing anything.

[Gibbo]

I'm ok with the ui more or less. Just an option to hide ships that are not in a fleet. A bit of declutter. I suspect the ui will change when we get diplomacy? Dunno? In any case that would be a good opportunity for Egosoft to make any changes.

One thing I would like is the ability to highlight fleets/ships in the property list so I can highlight any that are in battle and that may save me some precious seconds? Once I've built 6 or 7 fleets I can be fumbling through them all to get what I want. If I can highlight then I can see straight away. I mean sometimes fleets take ages taking out stations. I can and have designed entire factories during combat.

[Meme Turtle]

Originally posted by Pathogenic:

It's a popular complaint about X4 that "the UI sucks". Personally, I find the UI fine. I like the UI. I may be an outlier, but I find the UI for the game generally does what I need it to do. There are a few minor things to be sure that I would change, but for the most part, I can do what I need to do, even if it sometimes requires more clicks than I would like.

But for those complaining about the X4 UI, what would you do to improve it? Would your suggestions involve removing options? Adding options? Retaining the options, but changing how we access those options?

Neuralink. It's the only way..