UI / UX Feedback Megathread

[Dakota]

Hello friends!

A couple weeks ago I asked you all what are the top 10 requests you have for KSP2 and your responses have been tremendously helpful. I've had multiple meetings with the team going over your requests and now I'm back with another question!

Our UI / UX team is curious what specific changes you'd like to see made to the UI and User Experience. There's a lot of improvements coming in For Science! but they're doing some Spring planning right now and want to make sure to prioritize what's important to you all!

To help with this, think of UI / UX as everything you see or interact with in the game - minus construction, physics, and the rendered world. All of these are UI / UX: settings, PAIGE, hotkeys, maneuver node, navball, etc

Hearing specifics about what you'd like to see or an issue you have with the UI would be fantastic. "I can't read the UI font that well because it's pixelated" is way better than "make the font better"

Also, you don't need to provide a solution to an issue! Describing a problem in detail (when, where, how, etc) is way more useful to the designers who then can craft up solutions.

As with the last one, don't worry about scope of the changes. 

If you already posted feedback here on the forums, feel free to link it in this thread too!

Appreciate ya!

[18Watt]

Howdy Dakota!

Here's a request:  Be able to map controls to different buttons.  Specifically Rover controls, but the rest of them as well.

[Badoobicus]

Hello, I've got a couple suggestions that I think would make the VAB experience just a bit smoother. I've noticed these when playing post-0.1.5:

1. It's difficult to see inside built fairings in the VAB - they stay rather opaque unless your mouse is in just the right spot, which can make working on upper stages difficult if you've already built the fairing.

2. When repositioning one end of an already-built strut, the camera re-centers itself on the other end of the strut, which can be kind of annoying if you're only looking to move the grabbed end a little bit, since your camera is pulled somewhere else entirely.

And another one for the map view/maneuver planning:

3. When planning a capture maneuver for any body, such as the Mun, you can't place down the maneuver at Mun periapsis when viewing the intercept trajectory in the Mun SOI. You either need to plot the capture maneuver on the craft trajectory from Kerbin's SOI (which may not be particularly close to the Mun's current location), or wait until your ship is inside the Mun's SOI, then plot the maneuver. This issue isn't specific to the Mun though - it's true of any capture burn in any SOI.

And in the tracking station:

4. The behavior might be intentional (assuming my comment is actually correct), but I do find it unintuitive. I think it'd be helpful to unlock timewarp when switching directly from flight view to the Tracking Station, rather than needing to visit a go-between menu to unload the craft or reset the available warp speeds:

 

 

 

Edited December 1, 2023 by Badoobicus

[TablesRUs]

Here are a few thoughts from a recent session:

• In general I find the pixelated interface to be both significantly less legible than KSP1's interface and aesthetically unpleasing
  • The dithered UI elements introduce a significant amount of high-frequency visual noise which make the interface look cluttered and busy
  • The pixelated icons (e.g. in the "apps" toolbar of the VAB) are hard to recognize and suffer greatly from inconsistent visual weight due to apparent aliasing
  • The hard edges of the pixelated style results in very nasty artifacts when video compression is involved. For instance, the following elements appear to be at best a wash of color when I play via Remote Play:
    • the three-arrows icon in the "expand delta-v panel" button of the VAB
    • the "-------" pattern in the title bar of windows (e.g. the part picker in the VAB)
    • the dithering at the edges of the navball
  • The whole effect is not helped by the fact that the style isn't even consistently implemented. For instance, many elements in the VAB use (IMHO far more legible) vector icons. I have large doubts that the pixelated style can be easily implemented across the entire interface in a way that will scale gracefully across pixel densities and screen sizes; for this reason I sincerely hope that the style is reconsidered.
• Relatedly, text is rather hard to read
  • For instance, the dots in the middle of the "zero" character, coupled with the narrow character width and aliasing, make the character quite hard to discern and add a considerable amount of visual noise to numbers
  • The formatting of numbers (and, in particular, times) is hard to parse, especially coupled with the general text legibility problem. For instance, consider the "time-to-point" indication of the maneuver plan interface. This particular case is especially bad as the interface insists on padding each number with leading zeros; one is therefore faced with walls of text like "T+000y, 000d, 00:04:22". The amount of visual noise makes this element nigh unreadable.
  • The monospace font coupled with the pixelated style and aliasing render the "APPS", "ORBITAL INFO", "TIME WARP", "VESSEL RESOURCES", etc. window labels unreadable, especially when video compression is involved.
  • Similarly, the system/planet/craft label in the top left corner is illegible due to its small size and typeface
• The VAB
  • Strangely, disabling the fairing of an engine plate (e.g. MEM-125) in the parts manager also hides the "length" field, which controls the position of the interstage node. This seems like a bug; perhaps the interstage node should just cease to be if the fairing is disabled?
  • The fairing editor is a regression in usability relative to KSP1 as each adjustment of the fairing's width or height requires a separate click-and-hold operation (after moving to the appropriate arrow widget, no less). This is particularly painful as I often find myself iterating several times on each dimension.
  • While I haven't dared to build large enough craft to run into this yet, I fear that the stages in the stage panel are far too large; it's not uncommon to have often ten stages with several parts in each; this fits comfortably on the screen height in KSP 1. Currently I can fit at most a dozen parts/stages on the same screen in KSP 2.
  • The part details given in the extended ("Shift") view of the part picker are not nearly as complete as they were in KSP 1. For instance, I know of no way to clearly determine whether an aerodynamic part will function as a control surface.
  • It is currently possible to zoom "through" the vehicle you are constructing. This should not be possible. Zooming in should "center around" the vehicle that you are currently editing.
  • It would be nice if there were a way to move up/down the craft using just the keyboard as middle-click-dragging with the mouse is rather RSI-inducing.
  • The "delta" character in "delta v" label in the delta-v panel is strangely heavy compared to the "v" it sits next to
  • The contrast of the text of the "part details" panels is both too high and too low. The light-grey-on-dark-grey text can be hard to read due to low contrast while the white-on-dark-blue text in the extended details panel (as seen after pressing Shift) is a bit too high-contrast.
  • The heuristics for reconstructing staging after picking up and and re-placing a portion of a vessel seem far worse in KSP 2 than 1 (which was already pretty bad in this regard)
  • Positive: The "ball" showing the location where the mouse has "grabbed" a part is a great improvement compared to KSP 1, making it much easier to tell where a part will be placed after you drop it.
  • Positive: The "blueprint" view is a brilliant addition
• The flight view
  • The text on the navball is quite blurry and is very hard to read.
  • The positive/negative signs in from of the time-to-ap/pe are far too hard to see (c.f. notes above on text legibility). This had lead to more than one failed orbital entry.
  • It is not possible to determine resources' rate of change in the "vessel resources" window. This makes it very hard to tell whether you can safely time-wrap.
• The parts manager
  • While it can at times be a useful overview, but too often I find myself wanting to persistently focus on only a subset of the parts of the vehicle (either to actively manipulate or passively monitor). For this use-case the current design is a significant regression compared to KSP1.
  • In general the information density of the parts manager is low. At most I can fit two parts' of information with my screen height; this is simply not enough. This is in part due to the very general vertical padding given to elements in the window.
• The map view
  • The "splashes" on entering/leaving a sphere of influence are great. However, it can be very hard to remember which splash is entering and which is leaving.
  • Reading the, e.g., time-to-periapsis label after "pinning" the periapsis is nigh impossible. The label will typically look something like "T-0yr:0d:01h:04m:18s". The jumble of letters, numbers, and symbols, coupled with above-noted visual noise and small size make it very hard to determine the time, much less to do so quickly.
  • There needs to be some way to filter the vessels shown on the map view; even in KSP 1 it was very hard to clearly see and select the desired vessel in during a long playthrough.
• Maneuver plans:
  • It's quite unclear why one cannot plan more than one maneuver plan at a time; presumably this is just a temporary limitation but it is certainly a serious regression that makes mission planning quite hard
  • Manipulating maneuver plans is very hard; there needs to be a way to manipulate the maneuver gizmo without having the burn-point on screen. I often want to adjust a maneuver while focusing on the destination of my burn; this is simply too hard to do as-is. KSP1's use of a separate window for the maneuver gizmo wasn't great but at least made this possible.
  • Currently it is very difficult to reliably make precise adjustments to a maneuver plan. While pulling on the arrows of the maneuver gizmo is a bit more predictable than the same operation in KSP1, the lack of the range slider means that you are limited in dynamic range.
  • It is impossible to determine even qualitatively which directions a particular plan spans. For instance, if I accidentally "pull" on, e.g., the radial axis, I have no way to know this, much less accurately correct for the mistake (short of deleting the plan and starting over)
  • There is no reason to disallow maneuver plans that exceed the craft's available fuel; this limitation is quite baffling to me
• The burn timer:
  • The burn timer interface needs to mention how much delta-v is needed in the burn
  • When one "over-burns" the "progress bar" should, e.g., change color; currently it is very hard to tell on which "side" of the end-of-burn on is currently on as one approaches the end
  • Positive: The fact that burn calculations account for burn time start-of-burn indication is excellent.

Edited December 2, 2023 by TablesRUs
wordsmithing

[Sea_Kerman]

I second the need for a better parts manager. Often in KSP1 I found myself having several part windows up, like when piloting an SSTO on Laythe I would have one of each priority group of my fuel tanks to monitor when I would be nearing bingo fuel, my engine, to monitor the thrust output, the service bay to open and close it, and all of my science instruments. Currently in KSP2 there isn't a way to have quick access to a specific subset of your parts, you have to scroll through the part manager one at a time.

Perhaps the answer to this might be the ability to throw together a custom "control panel" with specific readouts and controls from desired parts. I'd want just the thrust and mode of my R.A.P.I.E.R., just the fuel level of those specific tanks, just the deploy limit of the cargo bay, etc.

Another thing I miss is a lack of the ability to edit a maneuver while you're not specifically looking at it. A copy of the node controls in the HUD instead of on your orbit in the map would be nice.

[Periple]

All right, summarizing here!  

• I have real difficulties with maneuver planning and orbits. Specifically:
  • I can't always distinguish between SoI exit and entry splashes
  • When zooming into a SoI I'm not in, the splashes obscure relevant info (e.g. planning a Jool gravity capture)
  • The encounter markers aren't clear, especially for planetary bodies -- finding an encounter is much more hit-and-miss than in KSP1
  • Since there's no fixed control for editing a maneuver, I have to zoom and rotate the map in all kinds of awkward ways to have both the maneuver node and my target SoI in view at the same time
  • I can't see the Pe marker in the target SoI like I'd expect to
  • In sum, I'd go back to the drawing board on this one, just shamelessly copying the KSP1 solution and only modifying it if there's an actual good reason for it, because that's one UIUX thing that eventually, finally worked really well there!
• I find the in-flight parts manager + other managers counterintuitive and clunky to interact with
  • The PM contains lots of parts that have no functions or real info, e.g. fuel tanks, but don't link to the manager that does stuff with them, e.g. the resource manager
  • The PM takes up a lot of space, if I'm only interested in a single part, I right-click on it, and I don't want to see the full list
  • In sum, I would ditch the in-flight PM altogether and instead have different managers for different types of parts, with the right-click on the part bringing up the relevant manager (e.g. the resource manager is a big improvement over resource transfer in KSP1)
• I find the navball and related controls hard to read, because:
  • Markers on the ball contrast poorly with its background sometimes
  • The pixelated font is hard to read especially if it doesn't mesh well with screen resolution
  • The visual fluff around the surrounding indicators are distracting and take up space unnecessarily
• I would really like to be able to fly with my controller; if HOTAS was properly supported I might even buy myself a set of those!

 

Edited December 1, 2023 by Periple

[Bej Kerman]

9 hours ago, TablesRUs said:

It is currently possible to zoom "through" the vehicle you are constructing. This should not be possible. Zooming in should "center around" the vehicle that you are currently editing.

I agree with most of your suggestions, except this one. I don't see why this is a necessary change - if you're zooming through a vessel and this isn't what you want, what's stopping you from just middle clicking the part you want to zoom in on?

[Snips]

All right, here we go:

• As soon as you have a couple of ships orbiting a planet / moon, the readability in the map mode is getting worse. The icons don't get smaller while you zoom in.
• The readability of the new pixelated font is semi-optional
• I need a tool to precisely plan maneuvers. This is a reason I can only test a new patch if @schlosrat updates his maneuver-tool-mod
• The SOI-indicators should become smaller when zoomed in, and it sould be clear which on is the enter- and which one is the exit-indicator
• An option to disable the color-change of the navball at 60 km high
• The burn-time-indicator-window is way too big.  I love the kind of implementation in KSP1, as it huddles agains the navball
• I also want a read-out about the dV left, not the time
• Display the AP and PE indiactors directly in the SOI
• And last but not least: Please rework the save-mechanism. I love the idea of workshops with different vehicles, but just make it useful.

[PDCWolf]

As for things that should be changed:

1. Navball sizing and styling. It occupies about 40% more space than it should for the information it gives and said information is presented in a really bad way.
   1. The tapes are completely useless, as deriving relative speeds from them is pretty painful and requires complete distraction from flight.
   2. There's both negative space and with the borders. One or the other, preferably the later as to not waste more space.
   3. Vector icons (prograde, retrograde, velocity path, whatever else you might wish to draw on it) should have interlocking lineup hints, be it empty little spaces or whatever for other icons to line up with and make such alignments more accurate. Dot on dot has always been the worse way to do this, specially when one dot can be bigger than the one it is occluding.
   4. Disregard space wasting curves, embrace straight lines. This has been basic HMI theory since the 60s. The only things that need to be a circle are the navball, and certain analog gauges which the game doesn't have.
   5. Make labels consistent, readable.
   6. Put it where it goes, in the center, or at least give me the option to do so. Making it good and readable and small means it can go in the center without intruding. You made your own self fulfilling prophecy by making it uselessly big and then having to shove it to a side.
2. The PAW is objectively bad, go back.
   1. Clicking a part and having a window filled with similarly named parts come up is a nightmare.
   2. Having all parts in a single window doesn't allow me to re-align and re-sort them to my needs like I could in the prequel.
   3. Fuel transfers and pretty much anything else that requires two parts open are a pain thanks to 1 and 2.
3.  The UI noises should be way less invasive and obnoxious.
4. The settings UI needs to be much clearer on what is on and what is off. Checkboxes will always be the superior option instead of ON/OFF sliders.
5. The camera controls in the VAB suck. Sorry, should be caps, SUCK.
   1. Just go back.
6. The new game UI is confusing as hell, though this is probably personal.
   1. If I'm picking colors, I shouldn't have to click confirm for the colors to apply to my save, same with the flag.
   2. The save system is confusing in itself, and the new game UI doesn't help. Again, might be personal.

[Bej Kerman]

29 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Navball sizing and styling. It occupies about 40% more space than it should for the information it gives and said information is presented in a really bad way.

Where'd you get 40% from?

30 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

The tapes are completely useless, as deriving relative speeds from them is pretty painful and requires complete distraction from flight.

I think the tapes are helpful FWIW.

30 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

The UI noises should be way less invasive and obnoxious.

They can be turned down.

[regex]

Font size and choice, everything's too big and pixelated.

"Whitespace" is excessive. All the space around the navball should be removed to produce a more compact view. The throttle is ... stupid large and also takes up a bunch of empty space.

Basically I'd just ask to make the whole thing more compact, it takes up way too much space. Maybe take some inspiration from mods like KER and MechJeb with their compact and configurable information windows (not the look obviously, but the layouts). Playing KSP can benefit from a ton of information and the current layout privileges empty space; tighten it up.

Edited December 1, 2023 by regex

[Aviationftw936]

I took a stab at rearranging the navball. What do you guys think of it?  Is this closer to what we would want?

Spoiler

If any one else wants to try, here are the deconstructed navball elements I made.

Spoiler

Also, I'm sure the team is already aware of this, but I'd like to point out in this thread that the flight UI font does not scale properly on non-1080p resolutions. Here is the UI at 1080p:

And at 1440p:

Notice the irregularities on the slashes, and on symmetric characters like the W in Workspace.  It seems to me like this is an inherent issue with a pixelated style, but one way or another I hope that this issue is able to be resolved.

[regex]

11 minutes ago, Aviationftw936 said:

I took a stab at rearranging the navball. What do you guys think of it?  Is this closer to what we would want?

No, the throttle is still excessively large and takes up too much space and the tapes are completely useless, and should be removed in favor of those "externally mounted" displays.

[PDCWolf]

16 minutes ago, Aviationftw936 said:

I took a stab at rearranging the navball. What do you guys think of it?  Is this closer to what we would want?

  Reveal hidden contents

If any one else wants to try, here are the deconstructed navball elements I made.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Not only are some elements still excessively big, being curved means they're wasting space they don't need, plus a lot of them can really just go or be reduced to very faint queues. There's also no reason they couldn't combine the atmosphere indicator with the altitude tape for example.

[Snips]

@PDCWolf, @Bej Kerman and @regex: As a non native english speaker, what are those "tapes" you are talking about? Just to follow your conversation.

[regex]

Just now, Snips said:

@PDCWolf, @Bej Kerman and @regex: As a non native english speaker, what are those "tapes" you are talking about? Just to follow your conversation.

They're the scrolling portion of the altitude displays (above and below the surface and ground altitude displays).

[RileyHef]

I have one major suggestion to offer: improved pop-up window management.

Whether it be the VAB or during missions, pop-up windows are everywhere. I'm fine with this, but I get very annoyed by having to constantly move and resize windows that overlap each other or not seeing all info due to default window sizing. I'm worried this will only get worse with 0.2 as it seems science is once again managed using pop-up windows. I'm ok with the concept, but there is one major QoL feature that would make the entire VAB/mission process easier:

- Save pop-up window sizes and locations set by users.

When I'm in the VAB and I want to paint a part I want to reliably go to the same space on my screen every time. I want my parts manager window to be sized to my liking and consistent from mission to mission, even between campaign saves preferably. If I set a pop-up[ window somewhere, I want to always have it appear in the same place and the in the same orientation. I want to fully utilize my ultrawide monitor's space without spending time during each mission having to reposition each pop-up window. If the game simply remembered where and how I place my pop-up windows I wouldn't need to worry about all the visual clutter and focus on the game itself. I even had trouble finding certain features in-game because they were hidden behind another overlapping window. I feel this improvement, or even just reworking the default location for pop-up windows, would greatly improve the understanding of game mechanics for new users and become a nice, subtle customization tool to improve QoL for experienced players.

[LoSBoL]

In general
*First off I'd really like to see other then 16 by 9 native resolution support in the settings menu, 21:9 and 32:9 work flawlessly when manually manipulating setting.json and I found no issues at all playing widesceen and superwidescreen appart from the loadingscreen pictures being stretched and cropped, 

In Flight
*Please make all Flight UI elements and gauges completely modulair so I can place any element where I'd want to.
*I would like to be able to select a part of the vessel for the screen to focus on, I think its currently set to COM, for large vessels that is not very handy and frequently need to zoom to far out to my liking.
*I'd like to be able to select the field of view.
*Opening the Part Manager covers part of the UI of the Kerbals, very minor, could be neater if it didn't.

Mapview
*The 'next orbit'button is missing in the manouver tool, which makes it impossible to plan a manouver beyond your current orbit, this makes it difficult to get a rendevous or encounter. This is the biggest show stopper for me from enjoying the game (How do others do it? Mods???).

VAB
*I really like the 'Rotate and Translate' Tool, execpt for it being right above the part which makes it a bit hard to see what I'm designing, I'd like to see that the tool would be a little offseted.
*New PAW's opening behind ahother, very anoying.

 

Did I already mention to please make all Flight UI elements modulair?

 

[Poppa Wheelie]

UI Elements and pop-up windows

• Ability to move any of these objects to anywhere on the screen
• Ability to move any of these objects completely off the screen, as stand-alone windows outside the game window, including onto another monitor
• Ability to re-order the kerbal headshot cameras

Coloring Tool:

• Ability to specify RGB
• Ability to "color pick" colors of a part already present in the VAB

Parts:

• Ability to name any part of an existing craft, while in the VAB or in flight

Vessels:

• A vessel naming priority system, similar to KSP1
• Docked vessels should take on the appropriate name
• Undocked vessels should each retain the appropriate names

One button screenshot capability, like the F1 from KSP1

Better lighting in the VAB, especially during in-game night

 

[Bej Kerman]

36 minutes ago, Poppa Wheelie said:

Better lighting in the VAB, especially during in-game night

+1 on this. Adding to this, being able to simulate the lighting on a planet at a certain time would be critical for placing lights.

[cocoscacao]

Multicolor trajectories, so I can differentiate them.

MN visible behind a body. 

Toggable MN fine tuning.

[shdwlrd]

2 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

There's also no reason they couldn't combine the atmosphere indicator with the altitude tape for example.

This is a usable idea to free up some space.

My biggest gripe is with the Flight UI. The lack of consistency with the fonts and a 16 bit color palate makes it really hard to read. The ability to change the colors for the nav ball and tapes would go a long way to help with the ease of deciphering what they are displaying.

[The Aziz]

Oooohohohoho you know you just activated my trap card.

Let's start, in no particular order, might mix and repeat things. All of below has been recorded on 23" 1080p monitor.

The clutter. The various windows and instruments take a lot of screen space. This is an issue even on nearly 90% of Steam Survey users who have a 1080p screens. Here's why:

Spoiler

Can you tell that there are three other windows hidden behind those visible? They all go over each other with no regard to other's positions, and dragging them around to find the one you need is tiresome. Especially since they are sooooo big while also having a lot of unused space inside, with tiny fonts. And while you can resize some of them, it's not what I'd call helpful:

Spoiler

This is the maximum horizontal width of parts manager in VAB. See the issue? The thing could hold two columns and keep twice as much data on the same space. All windows should be as flexible as possible.

 

Inconsistency, that may be long.

Spoiler

Because for some reason, of four windows visible here, each one has a different style. The sizes, the fonts, the colors...  Even the title bars are different. Some are resizeable, some aren't... And it follows throughout the entire game.

Spoiler

On this single screenshot here I can spot at least a dozen of different fonts styles, sizes and whatnot, often within a single element.

Spoiler

One piece of the navball has four, can you notice? Then just below that..

Spoiler

The fifth. Aaaaand below the navball...
 

Spoiler

3 different fonts, 3 different sizes, why on Earth is the time smaller than the altitude?

The launch button has three as well, and then there's staging, also with at least three:

Spoiler

And the flight report...

Spoiler

Why exactly is the right half different from the left? And also, I've noticed...

Spoiler

What's with the alignment? Two baselines? W H Y ?

And even if the font happens to be the same (I like the smooth one) it comes in at least six sizes. All across one interface. That's not a very unified UI if you asked me.

Spoiler

Minor thing but needs noting. Some switches are presented as actions, some as status. I think I'd rather also have a On/Off switch for the engine instead of a button. Engine activated: Green. Or dark if deactivated.

 

Now, the thing I hate the most. Form over function. It's something I've dealt with before with another game (https://www.reddit.com/r/Forspoken/comments/zhdr1m/can_we_talk_how_terribly_designed_the_interface/) although this was a demo prior to release. The thing with interface, is that its most important function is being easily readable and clear to the user. Unfortunately, KSP2 isn't that.

Get an average person with glasses, make them sit in front of average-sized screen at perfectly reasonable 1080p with 100% UI scale, and show them one of the fullgame screenshots above. Ask them to read the navball or time to PE or fuel consumption of a Dawn engine without leaning forward.

I can't do that. And the new additions don't really help.

Here's a real size orbital mode navball sphere:

Spoiler

Lots and lots of white lines crossing each other with little to no spearation between them. And it's not the worst part.

Spoiler

I zoomed in on the screenshot to take this, but it didn't make anything better - can you tell, at a glance, what's in the circle? I can't.

I even went for a comparison with KSP1 and huh, who would've guessed...

Spoiler

While only slightly larger (it could've been me, it's an old screenshot) and everything is clear and easy to read. Sorry to say, but KSP2 is a regression.

And you had such great ideas during development:

Spoiler

It's as clean as day and even has hints where other attitude markers are, it's glorious. And it followed on the entire interface, I believe, even with few hiccups (the LCD font in places etc) it was one of your best yet.

Spoiler

Same with VAB. Nice, clean modern design, smooth iconography, perfect for a space age game

Spoiler

You even had the same or very similar icons in the interface in the last 4 years, but decided to pixelify them. Shame.

Please note I'm not talking about layout - it's fine with me.

Forgot to mention that the iconography gets even worse in map/tracking station while zooming in or out...

Spoiler

Good luck targeting the moon. Of course, Only fixing the scaling would help, but the smoother icons would look so much nicer.

All in all, it would be for the better if the retro pixely style was gone and sent to where it belongs - in the museum. Give us the Dragon, not the Starliner (that never went anywhere)

Spoiler

 

Ease of use.

Deleting parts in VAB. There are few days around it, Del button, or dropping them into part picker. However, the dropping, which is what I use the most, comes with one problem. It can only be done in few places:

Spoiler

Drop them elsewhere, and you either close the part category, or pick another part. Annoying.

Better explanation or refinement of saving system. I got that fairly quickly but there are still many people who don't and have a hard time grasping the idea of workspaces. I know that what you save in VAB is a workspace (read as: a document, and it's what you're opening with editor of choice) and below that a vehicle (a page or paragraph) that you choose to launch directly from launchpad/runway. Overriding saving a document under the same name will make you lose the content saved previously, that's obvious - but not clearly explained in the game when it looks like this

Spoiler

Save vehicle, then it shows saved vehicles, but they're not actually vehicles but workspaces... You get the idea. It's all over the place. Now onto the other thing..

Spoiler

That orbital info... there isn't enough info to be actually useful. And I'd rather not switch between seeing AP/PE and inclination/whateverelse. Plus relative inclination to target, angle from prograde... All those need their own space together. But I picked this particular screenshot because it has one problem - the timer ends at 6 hours (Kerbin day). If your AP/PE is more than 6 hours away because you're in very high orbit... you won't know it from there.

Also, the window titles.. look like some dev variables. But I think that's it for now. More reading in:
https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/219151-can-we-talk-about-accessibility/
https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/220482-why-has-the-ui-to-be-so-ugly
https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/210240-the-new-ui-for-ksp2-improvements-and-regressions-from-previous-concepts/ (this one is even from before release, right after EA announcement)

[Scarecrow71]

Oh my goodness do I have a few things I'd like to jot down here.  Most of what I'm about to say has been said, but it's better to make sure you know about it than to guess.

• VAB
  • The camera controls are not friendly.  Having to hold the middle mouse button and then move the mouse to move the view up or down is cumbersome.  Not to mention that if you try to do this over a part then that part somehow becomes the focal point of the craft until you hit the Home key.  KSP1 allowed you to move up/down with the scroll wheel, pan left/right with arrow keys or holding the left mouse button, and zooming in/out with +/-.  I cannot overstate how often I fight with the controls just to zoom in on one tiny part.  Please, for the love of everything Kerbal:
    • Revert the controls back to KSP1 VAB camera controls; OR
    • Allow us to map the camera controls to whichever buttons/keys/etc. we find most comfortable.
  • A minor aesthetic to be sure, but any chance you can open the wall up that is supposed to be facing the launchpads?  I like knowing where the launchpad is relative to the craft I'm building as I always rotate the command module/pod/probe core so that depressing S in flight turns the vehicle over to the East.  And I know how to orient every pod in KSP1 based on being able to see where the launchpad is relative to the build.  Again, aesthetic.
• Flight UI/Navball
  • Allow the option to move the different elements, such as the navball or staging information, where it makes most sense for each individual player.
  • On that note, allow the option to show/hide elements.  For example, I don't need to see the Kerbals that are in the pod until I'm actually ready to have them go EVA.
  • In my honest opinion, the color scheme of the navball - and, by extension, the rest of the UI elements - is ugly and hard on the eyes.  An option to customize this as we see fit would be nice.
  • Bring back the ability to switch between Ground and Sea Level altitude.  If this exists, I haven't seen it yet (and boy would it be nice if someone would point out how to switch between them).
• Maneuver Nodes
  • The ability to use the scroll wheel on the node controls (prograde/retrograde, normal/anti-normal, radial in/out) for small increments would be a boon.
  • I've noticed recently that maneuver nodes are actually hidden from your view if they are on the opposite side of the planet that you are looking at.  I can provide a screenshot if necessary to show what I'm talking about.
  • Sometimes the controls on a maneuver node are stacked an top of one another, making it hard to actually see which control you are pulling/pushing, which can then lead to bad maneuvers, which then forces you to start over.  Could we get something that allows us to tell the maneuver node "Hey, I want to alter this control"?
    • On that note, is it possible to get a stock in-game option box/text field/etc. to put in actual dV values for each of the directions?  Some of us know how much dV we want to spend, not to mention that it helps to fine-tune the maneuvers if we can enter in 1 m/s or .5 m/s instead of trying to pull on the control in a specific direction slowly.
    • Any chance we can get the option to add number of orbits before node execution?
    • Any chance we can get the option to bring back the old way of seeing burn times (instead of right now where it's time to start, go back to the KSP1 way of knowing how long to burn and then starting at the half-way point of that)?
  • This may be more of a mechanical thing than an actual UI elements, but when moving maneuver nodes, if you hold click and hold still, you can literally watch the node move and change the Ap/Pe of the node.  Even when you aren't moving it.  Can we get an option to click the node and move it with arrow keys so that it actually stops when you aren't pressing a key down?
• Map View/SOI
  • In map view, when you rendezvous with a craft and get really close, the markers for both the craft you are piloting and the craft you are coming up on are on top of each other, which means you then can't select the one you want at times.  Can we get some control to pull up a list of craft you want to focus on?
  • SOI changes are horrible to look at.  Those concentric circles are confusing, and they don't really tell you which direction you are traveling (where you are entering an SOI, or where you are exiting).  Can we get some kind of directional marker, like an arrow, to show this?
    • Personally, I'd like to see the concentric circles go the way of the dinosaur here.  They are confusing as all get-out.
  • I'd like a way to center the currently-selected planet/moon in my view from the north pole of said celestial body.  Top-down view, with orbit lines in full view, with the north pole center of the screen.
• PAM/PAW
  • Overstated way before I showed up, but I'd really like to see the individual PAW's return.  Keep the option to bring up the entire list, but I don't need the entire list when I'm literally right-clicking on one part I need to deal with.  And it's so hard to find a singular part in that list when you've got hundreds of parts to scroll through
  • Is there any way to remove parts from the PAM/PAW that you can't interact with or that don't have options to toggle?  For example, struts don't have anything you can do to them once in flight; is there a reason these need to be displayed in the PAM?
• Agency Colors
  • The ability to enter values as RGB values would be keen.  I know what the values are for the color package I'd like to select; I'm not so good with moving a slider here.
  • On this note, what about being able to enter an actual value for Opacity?  Or even pre-scaled percent values?
  • Another one that might be a bit of a mechanical thing, but only 2 colors allowed right now?  I know there's a mod available that will store multiple color schemes, but wouldn't it make sense to have a list of pre-defined favorite colors and then select which color you want AND whether it's primary or secondary?

That's about all I got for now.  I'm sure as soon as I hit SAVE I'll think of something I forgot.  Please keep in mind that these are my personal opinions and may not in actuality represent the thoughts or opinions of others.

[The Aziz]

3 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

A minor aesthetic to be sure, but any chance you can open the wall up that is supposed to be facing the launchpads?  I like knowing where the launchpad is relative to the craft I'm building as I always rotate the command module/pod/probe core so that depressing S in flight turns the vehicle over to the East

The door facing the launchpads has a rocket painted on it. Now mind you, the VAB is now to the south relative to the pads so turn your rockets appropriately.

5 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Bring back the ability to switch between Ground and Sea Level altitude.  If this exists, I haven't seen it yet (and boy would it be nice if someone would point out how to switch between them).

Click on the altimeter. Wouldn't that be the first thing to come to mind while looking for the feature? Assuming you knew how to switch between surface and orbital modes for velocity.

7 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I've noticed recently that maneuver nodes are actually hidden from your view if they are on the opposite side of the planet that you are looking at. 

Reported as bug.