First Impressions UI Feedback

[Skorj]

 

Very first impressions before I stop noticing the problems. Don't take this post the wrong way, just posting the bad things b/c that's the useful feedback:

• Why is there a AAA game launcher screen. Ug. Literally no one likes these (except corporate management I guess).
• I shouldn't have to skip the intro movie every time I launch the game.  Well, at least it's skippable.
• A lot of pop-ups and text in my way.  Go away, I want to explode Kerbals, not read a novel.
• KSP2 breaks the lighting on my Logitech keyboard.  Whatever you did for clever integration, was too clever by half. Why?  Makes it very hard to play.
• I can't even with the font in the VAB (OAB?).  Worse than comic sans.  Is there an accessibility setting somewhere to get a font I can actually read?  Serious question.
• Can't figure out how to scroll up and down in the VAB.  Why doesn't shift-scroll wheel work?  Did I change the default in KSP1 and forget I changed it, or did KSP2 change the default keybind for some reason.  Can't find it in the keybind list.

To be continued after I can see my keyboard keys again.  OK, continued after orbit and return:

• OK, this Logitech keyboard integration seriously needs to go.
• Basic flight UI: no bad first impressions.  I eagerly await modders though (my heroes).  Where's my KER post-burn PE?    But that was always mod stuff, not base game.
• P.A.I.G.E.?  More like C.L.I.P.P.Y.  Seriously, needs a big 'X' in the corner to make it go away.
• I like the color coded part sizes, but red and green for the basic two sizes?  Really?  Have we learned nothing about accessibility?
• I can't figure out how to slide/adjust individual part locations at their attachment points - another VAB thing that was changed and the new way confuses me.

Edit for more feedback:

• Pressing F9 from the base game menu (not the launcher) should load the most recent save.
• Double-clicking saves doesn't load them.  Double-clicking save ships in the VAB ship load menu doesn't load them.  C'mon, this is basic UI stuff.
• VAB: button to show delta-V has an arrow that points left, but the menu slides up.  Expanding right was the KSP1 behavior, so the right-facing arrow used to make sense, but it's just confusing now.

 

Edited February 24, 2023 by Skorj

[magnemoe]

You can usually launch the game directly by using the game executable for KSP 1 its KSP_x64.exe.
The launcher tend to have some functionality like setting the game resolution and some graphics settings before starting the game and often to patch the game. 

[Skorj]

OK, the VAB has confused me to the point that I'm out of patience and frustration tolerance and have to stop for a while.  what is going on here:

Here's my ship before I click on the side-attached tank on the left:

And here's the ship after I click on the tank:

Why did clicking on the tank part delete the symmetrical part, but select the whole rocket?  Seriously what?  Note that the part is still attached, not like KSP1 where it detaches and you're holding it.

[Skorj]

More after Mun landing:

• When warping to maneuver, when timewarp stops it has the wrong message "timewarp cancelled due to proximity to celestial body"
• The font in the burn timer box (manuever node) is very small.  Basic accessibility fail.  Use a consistent font size please, some of us aren't so young.
• The burn timer doesn't show burn time.  Seems rather important.  
• When planning a Mun intercept with the maneuver node / burn timer, I can't see the planned flyby path with that maneuver (as in KSP1).  Focusing on the mun all I see is SOI entry and exit bullseye thingies.  Not good.  But maybe that because the maneuver mode doesn't work.
• The maneuver node /  burn timer doesn't work.  Really?  Really.  Executed the planned TLI burn, and needed to keep burning for another minute or so to actually get my planned orbit.  Do better, guys. Do better.
• Double-clicking on the Mun does nothing.  Again with the basic UI stuff: double clicking takes the default safe action. C'mon.  Double-clicking on the Mun should focus it.

Stopped playing after Mun landing.  Sadly, I don't want to exceed 2 hours play time.  Can't believe it has come to that, but here we are.

[prc]

I agree with the OP. You should cram the launcher to a black hole .. (I did have something else in mind...).

[modus]

6 minutes ago, Skorj said:

• Double-clicking on the Mun does nothing.  Again with the basic UI stuff: double clicking takes the default safe action. C'mon.  Double-clicking on the Mun should focus it.

 

yes

2 hours ago, Skorj said:

• P.A.I.G.E.?  More like C.L.I.P.P.Y.  Seriously, needs a big 'X' in the corner to make it go away.

 

OMG YES

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Also want to add that manoeuvre planning seems very cluttered. Doing a moon intercept I see so many labels (things sticking out of the icons right there on orbit) it's hard to see what actually is going on. I also found it not possible to right-click an apsis to get the readout to stick, so I could fine-tune the burn. 

[Nazalassa]

1 hour ago, Skorj said:

OK, the VAB has confused me to the point that I'm out of patience and frustration tolerance and have to stop for a while.  what is going on here:

Here's my ship before I click on the side-attached tank on the left:

And here's the ship after I click on the tank:

Why did clicking on the tank part delete the symmetrical part, but select the whole rocket?  Seriously what?  Note that the part is still attached, not like KSP1 where it detaches and you're holding it.

I think the issue is that the fuel tank is the root part of your vessel. So selecting it will delete any symmetric parts and move the whole vessel I guess...

[Fluke]

7 minutes ago, Yaar Podshipnik said:

also found it not possible to right-click an apsis to get the readout to stick, so I could fine-tune the burn. 

This was absolutely maddening to me.

Tried the maneuver tutorial in case I was missing something. I had to give up because of things like this after 2 hours. I'll give it a fresh start after work again and post more helpful feedback. 

[Skorj]

32 minutes ago, Nazalassa said:

I think the issue is that the fuel tank is the root part of your vessel. So selecting it will delete any symmetric parts and move the whole vessel I guess...

Maybe, I can't tell.  I mean, I certainly didn't deliberately change the root part from the capsule I put down first to some random fuel tank, but with this UI?  Who knows, I might have.

[Lorunification]

Regarding the new UI, I am most interested in knowing why everything takes up so much space.

It feels the UI has been developed with touch in mind. The list of parts is humongous. Even when playing at 3440x1440 the UI takes up a significant portion of the screen in VAB.

When in flight, all the elements are unnecessarily large, fonts are huge etc. My suggestion would be to add the possibility to at least scale the whole UI down.

[EngineeringWaffle]

I'm on a 1080p monitor and I feel like I'm playing on a 480p laptop or something. Everything is blown up so huge. And the lack of shift scroll in the VAB is absolutely killing me. As far as I can tell there is no way to move the viewport vertically. Makes building very difficult.

 

Also, it's impossible to close the color manager. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edited February 24, 2023 by EngineeringWaffle

[whatsEJstandfor]

I would love if the Parts Mangler were displayed as a heirarchical tree, maybe with stages indicated for each part as well.

Command Module
├── (S3) Decoupler
│   └── Methalox Tank
│       ├── Methalox Tank
│       │   └── (S2) KS-25
│       ├── (S2) Radial Decoupler
│       │   └── (S1) SRB
│       ├── (S2) Radial Decoupler
│       │   └── (S1) SRB
│       ├── (S2) Radial Decoupler
│       │   └── (S1) SRB
│       └── (S2) Radial Decoupler
│           └── (S1) SRB
└── (S4) Parachute

idk  wat im doing or if this is good, just a mock-up

Edited February 24, 2023 by whatsEJstandfor

[Skorj]

4 minutes ago, EngineeringWaffle said:

I'm on a 1080p monitor and I feel like I'm playing on a 480p laptop or something. Everything is blown up so huge. And the lack of shift scroll in the VAB is absolutely killing me. As far as I can tell there is no way to move the viewport vertically. Makes building very difficult.

Center mouse button works to scroll.  Or at least it did for me.  I far prefer shift-scroll, but it's something.

[Lorunification]

22 minutes ago, whatsEJstandfor said:

I would love if the Parts Mangler were displayed as a heirarchical tree.

Not sure about that, but the current version is super inefficient with the available space - I also assume it's pretty buggy. For me, for example, it doesn't show tank content during flight, so it not only shows all the parts of my rocket that I may or may not currently be interested in, but it also does not show any meaningful information about those parts.

For example, if I want to deploy solar panels, I am interested in seeing the information of the solar panels part. Instead of showing me what I want to see, it litters my screen with 90% irrelevant information I have to sift through before getting to the single button I actually want to see and click. This, on top of every single element being way too large, is a super unpleasant experience.

In addition to all of that, the orbit visualization is convoluted at best, entirely unusable if being honest. Look at the following screenshot of a very simple correction burn to achieve a proper Mun encounter.

AP and PE markers are unclickable, if I even were to figure out which is which.

Edited February 24, 2023 by Lorunification

[MagicCuboid]

In addition to above comments, we really need to be able to see TWR and review our fuel per stage, at a minimum. Ideally I'd also be able to see total burn time per stage before fuel is out.

[sunsetteOS]

56 minutes ago, Lorunification said:

Not sure about that, but the current version is super inefficient with the available space - I also assume it's pretty buggy. For me, for example, it doesn't show tank content during flight, so it not only shows all the parts of my rocket that I may or may not currently be interested in, but it also does not show any meaningful information about those parts.

For example, if I want to deploy solar panels, I am interested in seeing the information of the solar panels part. Instead of showing me what I want to see, it litters my screen with 90% irrelevant information I have to sift through before getting to the single button I actually want to see and click. This, on top of every single element being way too large, is a super unpleasant experience.

In addition to all of that, the orbit visualization is convoluted at best, entirely unusable if being honest. Look at the following screenshot of a very simple correction burn to achieve a proper Mun encounter.

AP and PE markers are unclickable, if I even were to figure out which is which.

Yeah, that's one of the immediate things I noticed when I was playing.  It's way too hard to read what's going on in a lot of regards with the orbital stuff.

[TheoBrandt]

6 hours ago, Skorj said:

 

• OK, this Logitech keyboard integration seriously needs to go.

 

Kinda agree, I built my pc after using a gaming laptop with cooling issues for a few years so my keyboard gives me CPU and GPU temps for peace of mind. Not getting that read out is making me nervous.

[Tripzter]

The UI is extremely extremely cluttered but the useful information written on it is minimal.  There's no reason why there's huge 400 pixel borders around every item when the buttons them selves are smaller than  that.    The huge borders make it seem like you're playing on 600x400 resolution even at 1440p

[dr.phees]

I agree that the UI seems to be made for touch devices. Everything is too large, finding a part is complicated and if I want to do something with two parts, I have to scroll a lot and by that lose the first part again.

This game is no new KSP, it is KSP again. Any many choices are weird, especially when they deviate from KSP 1's for no discernible reason. KSP has grown from a lot of player feedback and does many thinks very good, just on a bad and unstable code base. I had hoped to find new game in the sense of solving the old issues of KSP while taking the good of it into the new game.

Let's lean back, now. I will watch KSP2's progress but will stick with KSP 1 for now.

[EngineeringWaffle]

5 hours ago, Skorj said:

Center mouse button works to scroll.  Or at least it did for me.  I far prefer shift-scroll, but it's something.

Holy excrements, you are a godsend! It is way worse than shift scroll, but it works!

[MilongaDelAngel]

I found it very difficult to parse the icons in map view. Aside from the bugs with overlapping UI elements and being unable to pin them, there's some really bad aliasing on these icons. They are clearly made to look monochrome, low-res and retro, which would be neat if it didn't interact with scaling and nearest-texel filtering in the worst way. The only way I figured out what this image was supposed to be was by zooming way in.

[Lucky Spacer]

9 hours ago, Lorunification said:

Regarding the new UI, I am most interested in knowing why everything takes up so much space.

It feels the UI has been developed with touch in mind. The list of parts is humongous. Even when playing at 3440x1440 the UI takes up a significant portion of the screen in VAB.

When in flight, all the elements are unnecessarily large, fonts are huge etc. My suggestion would be to add the possibility to at least scale the whole UI down.

But then look at how hard the text of terrier stats are to read. Not sharp or crisp.  The actual rocket looks great but text is really hard to read.

 

Edited February 25, 2023 by Lucky Spacer

[EngineeringWaffle]

38 minutes ago, Lucky Spacer said:

But then look at how hard the text of terrier stats are to read. Not sharp or crisp.  The actual rocket looks great but text is really hard to read.

 

I feel like they made the terrible decision to use a title font for everything. If they used a normal monospaced font they could get the same feel and a high level of readability.  TBH though I don't know why they are choosing to use monospaced for everything. It's just hard to read. They could make all the text half the size and still be twice as legible if they just used normal fonts.

[Nuke]

can we talk about the size of the part icons? they are huge.