Join us today as members of the UI feature team throw a bone at answering your questions about the upcoming UI changes coming in Alpha 3.23 including mobiGla...

Guests:

  • Gabriel Hector, Systems Designer
  • David “BONE” Gill, Technical Director for UI
  • Zane, UI everything man
  • Emily, UI Programmer

TL;DW:

  • If you’re sitting in a ship map will zoom out to a system level, if you’re standing around it’ll zoom in to local one.
  • Map will start zoomed out a bit more than it currently is while on foot.
  • Separate keybind for local map is coming.
  • There will be map filters for easier POI selection in the future.
  • Map will feature more info about POIs in the future (icons, type of location).
  • All the PU map improvements will be ported back to Squadron 42.
  • Persistent map pins will come in the future, not ready yet due to server meshing.
  • Map pins will be sharable with your party.
  • We should be able to plop pins anywhere on the star map.
  • Plans for landing UI:
    • Hangar door brackets.
    • Ladder/track to help guide to the hangar.
    • Ship and ground display when landing.
  • They got a little too excited when trying to make the UI cool and holographic and dialed it back after the feedback. There were (and are) some bugs that caused additional issues with readability as well. Trying to find a balance between super plain and movie UI.
  • Sometimes work gets released before it’s ready - in regards to UI readability and polish.
  • “Readability isn’t as straightforward to solve as we thought it would be.”
  • Trying to figure out the best way to deal with exposure compensation.
  • They want to implement settings for color blindness and font sizes.
  • Building Blocks still requires a lot of optimization.
  • Main cause of readability issues is UI being diagetic instead of drawn on top of everything.
  • Planned mobiGlas updates:
    • Org app (comms and other “grand plans” for that).
    • New inventory app.
  • Looking into how to solve the issue of UI clutter.
  • Chat is slightly improved but more work to be done in the future.
  • Compass and altimeter will be improved.
  • Ship HUD will be cleaner and will get more options to toggle info.
  • In the future planets in the star map will be renders of actual locations rather than just generic models.
  • Animation for activating the mobiGlas will be sped up but won’t be instant.
  • Routing between zones is fixed with a temp solution for now, proper fix will come after transit refactor.
  • Ability to keep track of your ship over longer distances will come in the future.
  • Widescreen support will be based no an aspect ratio slider, can be changed by user.
  • They want to make the lens UI the best they can before they start looking into customizability (like moving widgets around).