The UI megathread

[nikokespprfan]

7 minutes ago, John FX said:

As this seems to be the place where UI issues are put, I would like there to be a way to scroll up and down the part information in the R&D building, currently if you move to the slider the info box vanishes. also a better way to do the same in the VAB. Currently if there is info in two places with a scroll bar you can only scroll the outer one (that shows Isp)

Noted down. But I can't seem to find the place with the two scroll bars in the VAB. The thing that shows ISP and other info has only one scroll bar, which is controllable via the scroll wheel.

[John FX]

6 minutes ago, nikokespprfan said:

Noted down. But I can't seem to find the place with the two scroll bars in the VAB. The thing that shows ISP and other info has only one scroll bar, which is controllable via the scroll wheel.

I`m playing RO and RSS so sometimes the info on thrust, ignitions and so forth in the little box to the right of the image above the description is larger than the box and you get a scroll bar. It is not possible to scroll it. If there were a better way of fixing the information window in place and clicking on elements inside it in the VAB and R&D that would fix both issues. I don`t think any information is not visible but it would future proof the display of information in both areas.

[nikokespprfan]

6 minutes ago, John FX said:

I`m playing RO and RSS so sometimes the info on thrust, ignitions and so forth in the little box to the right of the image above the description is larger than the box and you get a scroll bar. It is not possible to scroll it. If there were a better way of fixing the information window in place and clicking on elements inside it in the VAB and R&D that would fix both issues. I don`t think any information is not visible but it would future proof the display of information in both areas.

Try right-clicking on the part icon, wonders will occur.

 

In the R&D facility though, it doesn't work.

[John FX]

9 minutes ago, nikokespprfan said:

Try right-clicking on the part icon, wonders will occur.

 

In the R&D facility though, it doesn't work.

It`s mainly in the R&D that I would like to see what a part will do before I research that node as in RP-0 and KCT each node can take over a year to research. Even in the VAB if you right click the part to get extra data you can`t then click the scroll bar or the window vanishes. I find I can only scroll with the mousewheel and that does not scroll the smaller scroll bar and it also moves the view up and down at the same time.

It just seems like the method of displaying that data needs some love in both places.

Edited March 4, 2016 by John FX
view moves up and down, not zooming

[piratecheese]

simple idea

COM dry and wet mainly for SPH

so many minuets wasted dragging fuel gauges back and forth finding the perfect place to put my center of lift so it's balanced all the way until it runs out of fuel 

[Octa]

4 hours ago, piratecheese said:

simple idea

COM dry and wet mainly for SPH

so many minuets wasted dragging fuel gauges back and forth finding the perfect place to put my center of lift so it's balanced all the way until it runs out of fuel 

Maybe a slider to fill/emtpy all fuel tanks at once? Maybe with a list so you can select the resources

Slider |--x-------|

• [ ] Monopropellant
• [x] Liquid Fuel
• [x] Oxidizer
• [ ] Ore

[UPDATE] (Button)

 

My thoughts on UI:

• General: At least, i want the ability to drag informational panels on a 2nd screen. A fully adjustable 2nd screen where you can switch between other views (tracking station, map view, maybe cameras added by mods) would be very, very nice.
• Ability to toggle the display / snapping function of incative ships and their orbits in map view. Orbits and Ship icons can be visible at mouse-over, but not selectable. This way you can defocus missions/projects that are not of interest at the moment.
• More sophisticated craft/assembly management that can differ between launch-stages, payloads and multiple launches of the same craft. (A bit meta, though, hard to explain)

[richfiles]

That makes me think how AMAZING it would be if KSP could open the map view in a pop-up window. Just that ALONE would be amazing! I could drag that to one of my monitors, have the main game on the center monitor, have a delta-V map open in my browser on the other side monitor... 

Just being able to view the map and the main window at once would be amazing. Maybe someday. I would happily settle with just a pop-up map view, or map view in a second window, but I would second the idea of other views as well, such as the tracking station being available too. I think that would be incredibly useful! Also, the resource sliders option is pretty cool too.


Another cool option, I think, would be the ability to set up tanks as "groups", and establish automated "fuel pump" priorities. This would be similar to the GPO Speed Pump mod. Basically, by designing your craft correctly, you can set up any tank within the crossfeed region of a stage to basically auto balance. rather than drain fuel only from the top/forward most tank, the mod basically "pumps" fuel equally from all tanks on a set "pump level". With the mod, it's possible to configure stations, launchers, refueling tankers, and landers that ALL automatically move fuel where it's needed. A tanker would have the highest level fuel pump staging, so it would automatically fill up a station if it docked to one, as long as crossfeed is active across the docking port. If you have a transfer stage, a station could be configured to automatically fill it... and I mean all tanks, even little tiny tanks in poorly accessible regions. No right clicking. I've made entire collections of vessels with that mod that automatically keep fuel where it needs to go. tankers to stations to shuttles and transfer stages to landers and probes. If there was EVER a mod that I thought deserved incorporation, that one would be it. I could see adding a fuel pump, and a bidirectional fuel pump into the tech tree, to make it something you have to earn.

Ultimately though, while I prefer my rockets, some people like space planes and even regular planes. The nice thing about GPO Speed Pump, is that you can set al your fuel tanks to the same pump level and set them to balance... No more CoG shift as tanks drain, cause they drain equally, in a distributed manner. Adding such a function to stock would be pretty cool! It also adds some impressive options for fleet building and plane flying.

[Broco]

I like this Thread. I really would love to see categories for missions in the Tracking Station, also the map shouldn't zoom while I scroll through the missions.

Also you should be able to align the active missions as you see fit and the game saves the current state, new missions are added to the bottom. Basically you now have to rename every craft to know which mission you're up too or else you have to figure it out first, which is a waste of time. Especially when you dont play KSP every day it's hard to find out which craft is assigned to which mission or which crafts belong together.

At least sorting missions by name in alphabetical order would be cool so you can name vessels like Minmus-Base_Tanker Minmus-Base_Rover and they would be always together.

[nikokespprfan]

Look at the post below.

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Edited March 12, 2016 by nikokespprfan
accidentally replied twice

[nikokespprfan]

Maybe a slider to fill/emtpy all fuel tanks at once? Maybe with a list so you can select the resources

Slider |--x-------|

• [ ] Monopropellant
• [x] Liquid Fuel
• [x] Oxidizer
• [ ] Ore

[UPDATE] (Button)

I think we should have a recources app in the craft editor, this would fit into that.

[Madscientist16180]

One thing i'd really like would be for the maneuver planned to show the phase angle when i target another body out if the SOI i'm currently in. Would help determining wait time for the next transfer window. I know there's stuff like MechJeb that can just plan it for me, but i like to do my own math. Eyeballing the angle or even taking à protractor to my screen kinda work, but is not precise enough.

[Loren Pechtel]

Simple one:  When you hover a tourist it shows you what that tourist wants.  (Show the portion of the contract listing that applies to that tourist.)

I just found myself sorting out which of the 15 tourists belonged on the bird heading to Mun and it was a pain.

So far I've only hit it in the VAB but I can easily imagine the issue arising in orbital crew transfers as well.  While I don't think it would be much of an issue in the SPH I'm sure the crew handling is identical so there's no reason not to include it.

[GalFisk]

RCS and SAS should be possible to turn off and on by clicking (I think it was in earlier verisons?)

Everything that has a hotkey should display a tooltip for that hotkey, for instance hovering above symmetry mode in VAB should show that hotkey, hovering above Brakes should show B and so on. Right now hotkeys are poorly documented inside the game, and it's easy for beginners to hit something you don't know what does and struggle/google to get it back the way it was.

Showing a hotkey list ingame for different views would be helpful too.

[Loren Pechtel]

One more thing:  When you press ESC and get the Resume/Space Center/Revert/Settings menu I want one more option:  The tracking station.

[Pr0xyWash0r]

I need the option to scale the UI. The game doesn't follow Windows Scale options, and there is no option in-game.

Im playing on a Surface Pro 4. Love being able to do my thing on the go with super lightweight machine, but hating having to lean 6" away from the screen to read anything with the default WIndows resolution of 2736x1824. 

[pandaman]

On 22/03/2016 at 4:25 PM, Pr0xyWash0r said:

I need the option to scale the UI. The game doesn't follow Windows Scale options, and there is no option in-game.

Im playing on a Surface Pro 4. Love being able to do my thing on the go with super lightweight machine, but hating having to lean 6" away from the screen to read anything with the default WIndows resolution of 2736x1824. 

Hi, and welcome.

There is a 'scale flight UI' option in the settings menu.  I'm not 100% sure, but IIRC it is only available on the start up settings menu and not the one accessible in game.  Give it a whirl, it may help.

[DoToH]

On 20/12/2015 at 9:20 PM, pandaman said:

An old one, often mentioned, but repeating it here...

A 'folder' system for organising flights in the tracking station.  And the same thing for organising ships in the editors.

^^ This ^^ . The ability to create and edit new ship categories in the tracking station/map view would complete it.

[richfiles]

When right clicking on a docking port or the Claw, there should be resource [IN] / [OUT] / [STOP] buttons, like what you get by right clicking fuel tanks

With this feature, you could, with a single menu, refill ALL resources of a vessel (say a lander) from another vessel (like a refueling tanker, a station, or a C/SM). This would allow a complex vessel with many small tanks (including tanks that are inaccessible due to surrounding parts) to be easily and quickly refilled, without having to somehow find every single tank and Alt-Right Click each and every one of them.

Edited March 24, 2016 by richfiles

[Loren Pechtel]

4 minutes ago, richfiles said:

When right clicking on a docking port or the Claw, there should be resource [IN] / [OUT] / [STOP] buttons, like what you get by right clicking fuel tanks

With this feature, you could, with a single menu, refill ALL resources of a vessel (say a lander) from another vessel (like a refueling tanker, a station, or a C/SM). This would allow a complex vessel with many small tanks (including tanks that are inaccessible due to surrounding parts) to be easily and quickly refilled, without having to somehow find every single tank and Alt-Right Click each and every one of them.

Yes, yes, yes!!

[JacktoseIntolerant]

Having just seen a bit of 1.1, a couple very tiny UI suggestions:

• In sandbox mode, still show the button for Mission Control, but have it say that it's not available in sandbox. This would prevent the confusion that Kasper had, and players will surely have.
• The cool new buttons to show more/fewer Kerbal faces in the bottom right—move them to the right edge, so you don't have to go chasing them to click more than once.
• When a fairing is in clamshell mode in the VAB, and you mouse over it, have it expand in a clamshelly way. It appears to still be doing it in the piecemeal way in the VAB.

Edited March 25, 2016 by JacktoseIntolerant
another suggestion

[nikokespprfan]

On 24-3-2016 at 7:29 AM, JacktoseIntolerant said:

Having just seen a bit of 1.1, a couple very tiny UI suggestions:

• In sandbox mode, still show the button for Mission Control, but have it say that it's not available in sandbox. This would prevent the confusion that Kasper had, and players will surely have.
• The cool new buttons to show more/fewer Kerbal faces in the bottom right—move them to the right edge, so you don't have to go chasing them to click more than once.
• When a fairing is in clamshell mode in the VAB, and you mouse over it, have it expand in a clamshelly way. It appears to still be doing it in the piecemeal way in the VAB.

I took a little while before I knew what you referenced to, .

1- I am going to add to that, the R&D building and the Administration Building, for consistency's sake. I wonder why the flag pole is in there as well.

2- Same as with the first idea, I advise you also put it on the bugtracker, it is a place where players can report bugs, so SQUAD can look at them. .

3- Since your request is about the way the fairing model is shown, rather than the UI, I think the suggestion having its own thread would suit it better .

Edited March 31, 2016 by nikokespprfan

[KerbonautInTraining]

When naming a new save it shows this:

"Player name: default"

When it should really be something along the lines of:

"World name: Default"

E: I made a report in the bug tracker, it's going to be changed in the next pre-release 

Edited April 1, 2016 by KerbonautInTraining

[ImmaStegosaurus!]

I'm not sure if this is right thread but I think some sort of drag and drop folder structure to VAB and SPH would be a great help to get spacecraft designs organized. Having all the things in one pile is fine as long as there are few saved rockets but after there are dozen or so different rockets with two dozen or more different payloads each it gets pretty messy. It would make it easier to keep prototype and service ready designs separated.

[Loren Pechtel]

7 minutes ago, ImmaStegosaurus! said:

I'm not sure if this is right thread but I think some sort of drag and drop folder structure to VAB and SPH would be a great help to get spacecraft designs organized. Having all the things in one pile is fine as long as there are few saved rockets but after there are dozen or so different rockets with two dozen or more different payloads each it gets pretty messy. It would make it easier to keep prototype and service ready designs separated.

Yup, and it would be nice to have "designs" that consist only of mate booster X to payload Y.  Basically an extension of assemblies.  It wouldn't see much use in the SPH but it would be nice in the VAB.

Edited March 31, 2016 by Loren Pechtel

[*Aqua*]

KSP 1.1 pre-release addresses some of the issues mentioned in the OP:

Building Specific Subjects:
Craft editor
Staging diagram layering - putting the staging diagram behind the new/load/open/launch/exit bar in the craft editor.
-> It works like this now.

Flight screen
Navball cluster - Make SAS and RCS lights click-able buttons
-> They are now click-able buttons.
general - Enable the movement of UI elements
-> Part context menus are now movable and stay where you put them. Other UI elements are still fixed in their places.
Navball markers - Sharper navball markers
-> They stay sharp even at 150% UI scale.
Part glow - Disable the green part glow when in F2 mode (No UI mode)
-> Parts don't light up in F2 mode anymore.
1.1 crew portrait - move the (show more/less kerbal portraits) buttons in between the portraits and the screen edge
-> Add/remove portrait slot buttons pop up if you move the mouse over the portraits. I could switch between 0 to 4 visible portraits. I don't know if 4 is a hard max or depends on screen resolution. A 5th portrait would overlap the nav ball on my screen [1920x1200].

KSC screen
1.1 building buttons - add the buttons for Mission Control in sandbox, but upon clicking, tell the player the facility is closed.
    ^-- on that note - add buttons for the Administration Building and the R&D Center as well.
-> All buildings now have buttons in the lower right corner of the KSC screen. The buttons for the Admin. and R&D buildings are still missing. When clicking on them in sandbox mode you are told that they are closed.

Main menu's
new save - Change "player name:" to something "world name:" or something along those lines.
-> It says "Save name" now.

General and Miscellaneous:
misc
Hotkey list - Because hotkeys are currently poor-documented, add a list with all key bindings
-> Already there in the settings menu that you can reach through the main menu.

 

I didn't check the suggestions about tourists and stuff that only works in campaign mode (for example R&D) and stopped in the middle (I ran out of free time). Maybe someone can continue this list so the op can be updated.