A few suggestions regarding UI/UX in the VAB and in flight

[indyK1ng]

During the recent Steam sale I picked up KSP2 and ultimately refunded it. Aside from the bug I already reported (and one or two more I should ensure are reported), here's a few changes that I think would resolve some of the problems I had:

1. Make the VAB's default scroll wheel action up-down instead of in-out again. KSP 1 had it so the scroll wheel in the VAB moved the window up-down the height of the rocket and ctrl+scroll zoomed. Since most of the time spent building rockets is going up and down them, returning to this behavior would be preferred. Or at the very least, give me an option that isn't middle-click+drag. Given the size of rockets and the slow rate of movement I experienced, that was supremely annoying to try to navigate even a modest rocket.

2. Group parts by the sizes they go with, not the size they are. When I went to get the equivalent of the Mk 16 parachute and had filtered by size, I couldn't find it because it was in a different size category than the capsule(s) it went with. Really quite unintuitive for finding related parts.

3. Bring back Part Action Windows. Managing the PAM was more time consuming than it should have been.

4. Allow the navball to be centered. Some of us fly by the attitude indicators and sticking the navball in the corner is a recipe for neck stiffness or missing what's going on in the center of the screen, especially for people using ultrawide monitors. This is actually something I realized would be an improvement after I played KSP1 again.

[Spicat]

1 hour ago, indyK1ng said:

1. Make the VAB's default scroll wheel action up-down instead of in-out again. KSP 1 had it so the scroll wheel in the VAB moved the window up-down the height of the rocket and ctrl+scroll zoomed. Since most of the time spent building rockets is going up and down them, returning to this behavior would be preferred. Or at the very least, give me an option that isn't middle-click+drag. Given the size of rockets and the slow rate of movement I experienced, that was supremely annoying to try to navigate even a modest rocket.

Yeah, they should have a SHIFT + scroll wheel to move the camera up and down, as already stated in this topic. I use the middle-click on a part (to center the camera) right now because it's slow to hold middle-click and dragging.

1 hour ago, indyK1ng said:

2. Group parts by the sizes they go with, not the size they are. When I went to get the equivalent of the Mk 16 parachute and had filtered by size, I couldn't find it because it was in a different size category than the capsule(s) it went with. Really quite unintuitive for finding related parts.

Hard disagree, sometimes you want to build wacky stuff and in your example, if I want to have a parachute on top of a part of the same size like a fuel tank I will have a hard time with your proposition.

1 hour ago, indyK1ng said:

3. Bring back Part Action Windows. Managing the PAM was more time consuming than it should have been.

Agreed, both need to coexist. A really good topic made on this, not so long ago:

1 hour ago, indyK1ng said:

4. Allow the navball to be centered. Some of us fly by the attitude indicators and sticking the navball in the corner is a recipe for neck stiffness or missing what's going on in the center of the screen, especially for people using ultrawide monitors. This is actually something I realized would be an improvement after I played KSP1 again.

I disagree that's the navball should be centered, at least for default but they need to put an option for moving things. I can't find the source but they said that it's something planned, it's probably a low priority right now. 

In the meantime, there is a mod for that: https://spacedock.info/mod/3391/I Wish They Made UI Customizable

Edited July 11, 2023 by Spicat

[The Aziz]

6 hours ago, indyK1ng said:

KSP 1 had it

Forget it. It's not KSP1.

Middleclick instantly focuses on the part you choose, no need to move your hand. 

Remember we're working in workspaces now, up and down on scrolling makes no sense when you have a plane next to your rocket in there. Scroll for zooming is a norm in most 3D spaces.

6 hours ago, indyK1ng said:

Group parts by the sizes they go with, not the size they are.

What about size adapters? Which size they go?

6 hours ago, indyK1ng said:

sticking the navball in the corner is a recipe for neck stiffness or missing what's going on in the center of the screen

Counterpoint: you can now actually see what's in the center because the navball isn't blocking the view. But configurable UI would be nice.

[Stoup]

Maybe instead of grouping by the size they go with as you suggest, there should be an option for a UI overlay that places a little size indicator directly on the nodes of parts, so you can see exactly what size part is meant to attach to each node on any given piece. Like, a small (XS) indicator on top of the mk1 pod for example

[indyK1ng]

On 7/11/2023 at 2:19 AM, The Aziz said:

Forget it. It's not KSP1.

This is an ultimately self-defeating attitude. Creating a worse user experience just to be different isn't going to bring in players or create a long-lasting community.

It's not KSP1 but it should be better than it. Why would I buy "not KSP1" when it's worse?

[AngryBaer]

4 hours ago, indyK1ng said:

a worse user experience

Because this is subjective. It's a very common thing to receive complaints about UI just because the user's muscle memory doesn't apply after an update. Personally I find the update was worth it in this case, the new UI is better, with some kinks to iron out and pending more customizability. I say this after nearly 5000h of KSP1 muscle memory.

[cocoscacao]

9 minutes ago, AngryBaer said:

It's a very common thing to receive complaints about UI just because the user's muscle memory doesn't apply after an update.

True. This is one of the reasons I can't play Ksp 1 anymore. Well.. I can, but building stuff is just tiresome. Is there room for improvement in ksp 2? Absolutely, but it still beats ksp 1 in almost every way. One pet peeve of mine is separating move/rotation controls into two groups...

[TechDragon]

On 7/11/2023 at 2:19 PM, The Aziz said:

Remember we're working in workspaces now, up and down on scrolling makes no sense when you have a plane next to your rocket in there.

At over two hundred hours, at least 25%, possibly closer to 50% what with all the construction glitches requiring so much rebuilding from scratch as though save didn't exist at all... of which has been spent in the VAB... and I still don't intuitively understand whats going on with Workspaces + Vehicles... 

The glitches ruin any trust I have in putting more than a single vehicle in a workspace, heck I'm not even completely confident vehicle construction glitches cant permanently break an entire game save file... If I want to be able to ever use a rocket again I have to ignore whatever the intent of the entire save system design was, and very specifically use it a certain way in order to isolate bugs and prevent losing multiple craft designs and the hard work that I put into them...

After they fix the construction glitches, because nothing will matter if I still cant trust the game with more than 1 vehicle per workspace... after that... if they want the whole Workspaces and Vehicles thing to make sense, they need to do a lot of work on the UI... I have no idea what has been saved and not saved, what groups of part are named (and saved) vehicles, the autosaves get mixed in and make it hard to find which vehicle I want to open once I have more than a half dozen vehicles... its just such a damn mess. 

Edited August 9, 2023 by TechDragon

[adaniel87]

On 8/9/2023 at 2:41 AM, TechDragon said:

At over two hundred hours, at least 25%, possibly closer to 50% what with all the construction glitches requiring so much rebuilding from scratch as though save didn't exist at all... of which has been spent in the VAB... and I still don't intuitively understand whats going on with Workspaces + Vehicles... 

The glitches ruin any trust I have in putting more than a single vehicle in a workspace, heck I'm not even completely confident vehicle construction glitches cant permanently break an entire game save file... If I want to be able to ever use a rocket again I have to ignore whatever the intent of the entire save system design was, and very specifically use it a certain way in order to isolate bugs and prevent losing multiple craft designs and the hard work that I put into them...

After they fix the construction glitches, because nothing will matter if I still cant trust the game with more than 1 vehicle per workspace... after that... if they want the whole Workspaces and Vehicles thing to make sense, they need to do a lot of work on the UI... I have no idea what has been saved and not saved, what groups of part are named (and saved) vehicles, the autosaves get mixed in and make it hard to find which vehicle I want to open once I have more than a half dozen vehicles... its just such a damn mess. 

at this point I'd like to be able to trust even 1 vehicle in a workspace. The overall construction/building process just feels like it has so many fundamental issues. Like struts, wings, none of those seem to totally survive save/loads.

And yeah, the workspaces+vehicles save setup is one of the most confusing things in the game. I can't for the life of me wrap my head around how to actually save and load ships. And until those problems are fixed, I can't ever last more than an hour before I get frustrated again and close the app.

For VAB UI, more than anything I want to be able to scale it, and I do not understand why it's exempt from the recently added UI scaling option. I cannot stand that nearly a third of my screen real estate is ALWAYS covered by the giant parts list

[uglyduckling81]

On 7/17/2023 at 1:25 PM, AngryBaer said:

Because this is subjective. It's a very common thing to receive complaints about UI just because the user's muscle memory doesn't apply after an update. Personally I find the update was worth it in this case, the new UI is better, with some kinks to iron out and pending more customizability. I say this after nearly 5000h of KSP1 muscle memory.

CNTRL + wheel is universal scroll in and out.

Don't reinvent the wheel.

Edited August 25, 2023 by uglyduckling81