UI / UX Feedback Megathread

[cubinator]

I spent some time as I was playing today to write down things I noticed bothering me. Here are the relevant ones:

VAB stuff:

• Middle clicking on a part in the VAB to focus on it doesn't go well, especially when 'middle click + drag' is supposed to be the way you scroll up and down the vehicle. I often have my camera transported to some unhelpful place while tediously trying to move to some part of the vehicle because I accidentally middle clicked somewhere I shouldn't have - it doesn't even seem to have to be on a part!
   
• On that note: Middle click + drag is an awful way to have to move up and down the rocket. I'd rather the scroll wheel just be used for scrolling up and down, maybe with a modifier key to zoom in/out when that's needed. I think changing scale as you're working on something is going to be useful less often than changing position, so the position controls should be more convenient than they are now.
   
• Having the part manager as one big window with all the parts sorted by type isn't actually useful for what the part info is usually being used for. For instance, if you're clicking on wings you typically are trying to focus on aerodynamics, trim, control surface deflections, etc. You don't need electrical charge or reaction wheels in the same menu. If you're clicking on fuel tanks, you want to organize them by stage, not by the ID of the parts. The menus in KSP1 were intuitive by pointing info to all respective parts with little lines...Having all the parts nebulously pop up into a single generic window off to the side is unintuitive.
   
• Everything 'jumping' or 'teleporting' around when you click stuff is unintuitive as to what you're doing. In KSP1 things like the stages in the staging bar would glide along with your mouse as you dragged them along. In KSP2 it's hard to tell where something is going to end up when you try to drag it, and you only find out after you've moved it there.
   
• It's hard to move individual parts around in the staging menu, for instance trying to set up asparagus staging with 4x symmetric boosters. The menu is really strange about letting me split up those engines.
   
• Placing fuel lines and struts is really weird, for some reason I find the fuel lines much harder to place than in KSP1. The struts and fuel lines are also kind of hard to delete/'throw away' sometimes.
   
• As I was moving a set of parachutes to a different stage, the set 'collapsed' in the staging menu to show 'X number of parachutes' together in a single box. I needed to click on it again each time to show the individual parachutes before I could move another one, and that slowed me down.
   
• The TWR on the staging menu is too small a font, it doesn't give itself enough pixels on my screen to show itself well and I really have to squint at it to figure out what it says.

Flight things:

• Map view kind of goes nuts if you look down from the north pole, I have to watch out for that when looking at phase angles
   
• The map view scrolls really slowly for some reason when you look up from the south, and doesn't let you get all the way to the south pole with the camera. I don't see a need to prevent us from going there.
   
• Ascending and descending nodes not showing up if they're underground/behind me on a suborbital trajectory is unhelpful, because I still want to manipulate and keep track of them during flight.
   
• The parts manager lists all the fuel tanks but doesn't seem to be able to show how much fuel is in them. I'm not sure if this is a bug or if I've just missed some other way to get that information. I haven't been able to tell which fuel tanks are being drained on a complex vessel. If it's not a bug, then why have the fuel tanks listed there, taking up space?
   
• The targeted object's orbit line should be highlighted like in KSP1. I have a lot of things in low equatorial orbit and it's hard to pick out the line I'm trying to match.
   
• The targeted vessel should show its relative distance at all times when clicked/highlighted in map view. Otherwise I don't get that information quantitatively until it's within 50 km.
   
• It's difficult to change the order of stages in the staging menu. Again, weird teleporty elements needing to be brought to unclear locations on the screen.
   
• Scenes like the map view and flight view don't remember how far zoomed in or out they were, or what direction they were facing. This leads to a lot of unwanted scrolling while doing things that require switching in and out of map view frequently, like landing on a planet.
   
• When I click on an 'intercept' for a targeted vessel and hover over it, the first digit of the distance value tends to be covered up by my mouse.

A couple of random things I'd like:

• There should be a display for the phase angle between planets somewhere in the map view/tracking station. Even if the game doesn't reveal what the ideal phase angle is for transfers, or dates when transfer windows occur, displaying the phase angle would finally free me from having to literally hold up a protractor to my screen to go to other planets in stock KSP.
   
• When I was working on my Duna transfer today, I had the idea that the maneuver creation tool could get some more 'smarts' to it. Instead of blindly inputting a maneuver vector, you could simply tell it to set up a Hohmann transfer from Kerbin to Duna based on your current orbit around Kerbin, and it could line up the timing based on your thrust and whether you want to transfer on the next orbit or at the most optimal time, or someplace in between.

Edited December 29, 2023 by cubinator

[Pthigrivi]

I'll be making more specific critiques over the next few weeks but I will say Im not a great fan of the pixelated aesthetic. I think games really need to cater to accessibility as a default but especially in a game where players are rapidly glancing at multiple fast-moving number values instant legibility is absolutely paramount. All text needs to be in a much more readable font and stylization should take a backseat.  

[Superfluous J]

I know the font has been beaten to death, but there are way too many times where I could not discern a 0 from a 6 from an 8, and it's entirely due to the pixel font. My eyes aren't fantastic but I can read other fonts at smaller than that size.

[Thunderscreech]

I've seen some other folks express similar thoughts on the Parts Manager and I'd like to expand on some of those concerns.

I think I understand what the intention of the Part Manager is, to make a Single Source of Truth for controlling and configuring everything, but I feel that this comes with a greater harm to usability. 

In KSP1, there was a direct connection between what you clicked and what you saw/controlled.  Right clicking a tank brought out a connected window so there was no confusion about what was being changed and how it related to the rocket.  

The Parts Manager in KSP2, however, creates a visual disconnect.  Whether in the VAB or in flight, you click on something and suddenly a window pops up.  It may have auto-expanded the section relevant to the part you clicked, but for me it still takes some time to find it and even then, there's only a subset of options available especially if we're talking about something like a fuel tank which might require me to alternately go to the Resource Manager.

Making a disconnect interferes with my enjoyment because I spend less time flying or building the rocket and more time 'dealing with' the interface.

If this is a temporary UI meant to make the game usable during development, it's great for that.  If it is intended to be a replacement for the UI style KSP1 had, I feel like it's a step backwards and I hope consideration is given to addressing this.

Ideally, the UI should be working for us, not the other way around.

[Bej Kerman]

46 minutes ago, Thunderscreech said:

I've seen some other folks express similar thoughts on the Parts Manager and I'd like to expand on some of those concerns.

I think I understand what the intention of the Part Manager is, to make a Single Source of Truth for controlling and configuring everything, but I feel that this comes with a greater harm to usability. 

In KSP1, there was a direct connection between what you clicked and what you saw/controlled.  Right clicking a tank brought out a connected window so there was no confusion about what was being changed and how it related to the rocket.  

The Parts Manager in KSP2, however, creates a visual disconnect.  Whether in the VAB or in flight, you click on something and suddenly a window pops up.  It may have auto-expanded the section relevant to the part you clicked, but for me it still takes some time to find it and even then, there's only a subset of options available especially if we're talking about something like a fuel tank which might require me to alternately go to the Resource Manager.

Making a disconnect interferes with my enjoyment because I spend less time flying or building the rocket and more time 'dealing with' the interface.

If this is a temporary UI meant to make the game usable during development, it's great for that.  If it is intended to be a replacement for the UI style KSP1 had, I feel like it's a step backwards and I hope consideration is given to addressing this.

Ideally, the UI should be working for us, not the other way around.

I agree on most parts, but I don't think it was a step backwards, rather the opposite - the visual disconnect could largely be solved just by highlighting parts hovered in the PM. The problem in KSP 1 was that parts buried deep inside fairings and complex assemblies were cumbersome to reach because managing parts was directly linked to your rocket.

A suggestion I think could help with the clutter is by taking the both of best worlds - a button that culls the PM based on a box-select operation on the rocket.

[Sea_Kerman]

Another disadvantage of the PM is you can't have multiple parts open simultaneously. (well you can but only if they're next to each other in the PM list)

[hatterson]

42 minutes ago, Sea_Kerman said:

Another disadvantage of the PM is you can't have multiple parts open simultaneously. (well you can but only if they're next to each other in the PM list)

Although I agreed in general and I found myself saying "Man I wish I could open multiple parts at once" at first. As I played more I found myself not needing that.

The primary uses I had for that in KSP 1 were fuel transfers (now handled via resource manager), Kerbal transfers (kerbal manager), and science collection (science button if relevant). Rarely I'd use it for heating or similar on some descents but even that's not relevant with being unable to see part temperature in the part menu.

Out of curiosity, what are you wanting multiple parts "pinned" open in KSP 2 for?

The only real reason I've found this far is for resuming science experiments, but that's only due to the bug with the biomes and non-biome specific experiments so once that issue is resolved that use case goes away.

[Pthigrivi]

2 hours ago, Sea_Kerman said:

Another disadvantage of the PM is you can't have multiple parts open simultaneously. (well you can but only if they're next to each other in the PM list)

I haven't yet gotten to the point where Im building spaceplanes but they create a very specific use-case for this--manually pumping fuel between an aft and stern tank to manage CoM while descending. I don't know if a lot of players do this but its hugely useful for managing your reentry AoA and dialing your descent to the airstrip. 

Edited December 29, 2023 by Pthigrivi

[HebaruSan]

3 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

I haven't yet gotten to the point where Im building spaceplanes but they create a very specific use-case for this--manually pumping fuel between an aft and stern tank to manage CoM while descending. I don't know if a lot of players do this but its hugely useful for managing your AoA and dialing your descent to the airstrip. 

Doesn't that happen in the Resource Manager rather than the Parts Manager, though?

[Pthigrivi]

Just now, HebaruSan said:

Doesn't that happen in the Resource Manager rather than the Parts Manager, though?

Oh! I hope so! 0.2 is the first time the game has worked on my machine in months so I'll have to do more experimentation. 

[Bej Kerman]

45 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Doesn't that happen in the Resource Manager rather than the Parts Manager, though?

Yeah. No resource management is done from the Parts Manager so managing CoM is a moot point.

With that said, I like the RM and I find it vastly better than juggling windows in KSP 1.

[Sea_Kerman]

Another issue I have with it is it's unnecessarily huge

[The Aziz]

While you can resize it, the amount of white space combined with large-ish, yet still barely readable elements, don't make using it very easy.

[krbvax]

Here's a summary of my UI-related impressions from a couple of days playing with KSP2 version 0.2.0.0. I know some of these points have been raised before, but I'm including them anyway to add my voice to those observations.

PROS/LIKES

VAB

• I love the detailed stage view with delta-V/TWR/etc data, and especially that I can tune the delta-V calculations for specific atmospheric situations.
   
• Having the Kerbol system delta-V map available in-game (via the trip planner) is convenient. I don't find the trip planner tool itself especially useful, but it lets me easily check dV requirements without having to pull up a web browser and find one of the community-made charts.
   
• It's good that I can use Ctrl+Z to say "put the part I just grabbed back where it came from", so I don't have to worry if I e.g. accidentally pick up a booster instead of the separator it's attached to. KSP1 never worked consistently for me in this regard, and a lot of times I ended up having to reload my craft and redo whatever it was I was doing.

Flight

• The new navball is nice; I like having relevant data collected in one place rather than having to scan across 2-3 UI elements and maybe switch into map view to find it all. I also appreciate the light/dark color change indicating surface vs. orbit velocity, especially after burning toward the wrong prograde vector a few too many times in KSP1.
   
• I like that the SAS control icons change depending on the current velocity mode, particularly in showing an "up" instead of "radial-out" icon when in surface mode. This is another place I often selected the wrong vector in KSP1, generally when trying to point up while landing - I'm giving most of my attention to my landing site in that situation, and I found it very easy to overlook that I was in the wrong velocity mode before hitting the SAS radial-out button.
   
• Having a "warp to burn" button on the burn timer scratches a big itch from KSP1, where it was often hard to get a click to register on the right orbit segment to bring up that option.

 

CONS/WANTS

General

• I hate to be like the 2000th person harping on this, but the pixel font looks bad and is hard to read at a glance, especially compared to KSP1. (And I say this as someone with nostalgia for the monochrome terminals of the 1970s/80s. I could certainly believe that Jeb and friends are stuck looking at that sort of font, but that doesn't mean we players of the 21st century should also have to deal with it.)
   
• Also on the readability front, having a "." or "-" instead of a space in window titles ("TIME.WARP", "VESSEL-RESOURCES", etc.) exacerbates the difficulty of reading those small labels.
   
• Many UI elements feel larger than their KSP1 equivalents, with the result that I often can barely see the actual world because the screen is full of various UI windows.
   
• The pop-up alerts ("no electric charge", "lack of stellar exposure", "inactive vessel changed SOI", etc.) are much too intrusive. Some (like the SOI change and maybe even the solar panel warning) I would argue are completely unneeded; the rest can be top-center one-line text popups like the "no vessel control" message you get when trying to switch to a craft with no control. Pop-up alerts should be reserved for extreme events that require the player's immediate attention, like "inactive crewed vessel is on crash course" - and even then, they would presumably be so infrequent that the presence of the pop-up itself might confuse the player, so it may be best to just do away with the pop-up alert UI altogether.
   
• In "load"-type menus (load game, load ship in VAB, etc.), double-clicking a list item should load it.
   
• The facility names "Training Center" and "Tracking Station" look similar enough that I've already accidentally gone to the wrong one several times. Could "Training Center" be renamed to something else, perhaps?

Mission Control

• Why do we have to choose a single mission to track? It would be more convenient to just have the full list of active missions available from a menu as in KSP1, especially as more side missions start showing up. The tracking feature feels like a solution in search of a problem.

R&D

• The 1/2/3/4 page (tier) numbers look far too much like column headers. In my first look at the tech tree, I thought tier 1 was just "Starting Rocketry" and "Light Launchers", tier 2 was the "Solid Fuel Boosters" and "Orbital Rocketry" columns, and so on. I would suggest either using much narrower "page"-like icons, or moving the page indicators below the scroll bar so it's clearer they refer to a scale wider than the screen. (The latter option would also help the scroll bar stand out better - right now it's nearly invisible against the background of Kerbin on tier 1.)
   
• It would be nice to have facility buttons or at least an "Exit" button visible without having to open the ESC menu, much like Mission Control has VAB and R&D buttons in the lower right corner.

VAB

• I honestly don't see any benefit to VAB "workspaces" as opposed to KSP1's "ships", and I think it would be more straightforward to instead save individual assemblies separately and make them easy to merge. As an example, in KSP1 I made a generic "Launch-o-Matic" launcher (in fact several, for various mass classes) and merged that into whichever new craft I was about to launch. In KSP2, as far as I can tell my options are either (1) clutter up the Launch-o-Matic workspace with every new craft I create, or (2) keep the Launch-o-Matic in its own workspace and merge it in KSP1-style, in which case the "workspace" part is just added fluff that gets in my way.
   
• The load menu should not show autosaves separately from manually saved craft files; as presently implemented, there's no obvious difference between files I have manually saved and autosaves, and I have to focus on the description text to tell them apart. Either list autosaves in a "..."-type drop-down menu or similar, or just don't make per-assembly autosaves at all (though that's admittedly a gameplay rather than UI decision, and autosaves may be warranted while the game is still unstable). KSP1's method of a single autosave of the current assembly to an "Auto-Saved Ship" file when switching to another scene was plenty.
   
• Clicking "save" should just silently overwrite the current file, with a separate "save as" icon (or perhaps a tooltip saying "shift+click to Save As") to save under an arbitrary name.
   
• The delta-V data in the staging stack and launch button are extremely slow to update; updates should be instant as soon as you add or remove a part.
   
• There's no way to view current mission information without going back to Mission Control. (KSP1 had the contract list available as a pop-up window.)
   
• The propellant label and amount run into each other in the expanded stage view, leading to confusing labels like "CH40.3/0.3t" (what is CH and how do I have 40 tons of it in this tiny tank?). This could be fixed by not using the pixel font.

Flight

• Adding numeric suffixes to launched ships should at least be optional, if not removed entirely. I get the "STS-123" style reference, but I personally find them to be clutter and prefer to do without them, and I'd rather not have to rename them to get rid of the suffix every time I launch. Which leads to...
   
• It should be possible to rename a ship in flight, not just from the tracking station.
   
• While I do like the new navball overall, it's a bit big in terms of screen real estate. Could the throttle and atmosphere meters perhaps be packed into where the navball currently has those scrolling numbers (which feel like a cute callback to old aviation technology but not something worth the screen space they take up)? I'm not sure where one would put the velocity/altitude in that case, but one way or another it would be nice to pack everything there a bit more closely.
   
• The part action menu is rather unwieldy - I'm sure there are contexts in which it will be useful, but (admittedly as someone coming from KSP1) I find it much easier to right-click a part and get a PAW right next to it, instead of having to scan through the PAM window to find the part I just clicked.
   
• Similarly, I find the current UI for crew and resource transfers inconvenient. In KSP1, I could just click a command pod's hatch, click "Transfer" on a Kerbal, and click the target pod to do a transfer; in KSP2 I have to shift my attention away from the ship to the app bar, open up the submenu, click on Kerbal Manager, and only then can I start moving Kerbals around. (I actually wasn't even aware of the Kerbal Manager until doing a web search to see if such a thing existed, and I did my first few transfers with manual EVAs thinking that I had no other choice.) Once you get into those menus, they're not bad, but right now the overall UI flow requires too many steps to get things done.
   
• It would be nice to have a KSP1-style "vessel stats" display somewhere - I can't find any way to check the current mass or current stage's acceleration in KSP2.
   
• There is no indication of the minimum height for various time warp levels when you hit the cap for your current altitude. KSP1 had "Cannot warp faster than 100x below 123456m" messages, but KSP2 doesn't say anything at all when you try to increase time warp beyond the limit.
   
• The "science available" light (blue light next to the "Experiment" button in Vessel Actions) should not activate if all available experiments have already been returned to KSC (and thus would not grant any new science).
   
• Relatedly, clicking the "Experiment" button should not attempt to run experiments that have already been done, or multiple experiments of the same type at once.
   
• Individual experiment buttons should also not run if the experiment would be discarded - for example, I should not have to wait 10 seconds for an EVA report to find out that I actually already did that report once.

Map

• Maneuver nodes really, really need next/previous orbit buttons. I'm a bit disappointed this hasn't been addressed yet given how often I've seen it brought up, though I grant that it entails UI decisions which are probably less trivial than the actual game behavior change.
   
• Another often-requested feature, but there needs to be some way to plan maneuvers exceeding the craft's current delta-V budget - whether by having an option to model the node as an instantaneous burn a la KSP1 (my preference), assuming zero fuel consumption after exhaustion, or whatever. The whole point of a maneuver "plan" in my view is that it's just a plan, not a precise program that must be executed exactly. As an example from my KSP1 campaign, I captured an asteroid and set it up in a 60Mm Kerbin orbit as a refueling station for interplanetary travel. If I wanted to plan a trip from LKO to Duna, I'd look for an intercept path that also brought me close to the asteroid, but finding such a path naturally requires creating a maneuver node with a longer burn time than the craft can accommodate without refueling. Once I have that plan, I can then refine it to add the refueling stop, but I need a way to make the rough plan in the first place.
   
• Better fine control over maneuver vectors is needed, whether scrolling on the handle icons like in KSP1, a numeric vector editor, or some other interface. It's very difficult to fine-tune an encounter, especially a distant one, just by dragging the handles.
   
• The meanings of the maneuver node control icons (warp to point, discard, etc.) are unclear from their appearances - "does >>> mean advance to next orbit?", "is the trash can with circling arrows a discard or an undo button?", etc. - and could really use tooltips. I still have no idea what the green box icon does.
   
• There needs to be a way to set a maneuver node within another celestial body's SOI. For example, if I'm planning a Mun capture, I want to set one node in LKO for Mun intercept, then focus on the Mun and add another node in that SOI view at Mun periapsis. Right now, I have to instead place the node at the Mun periapsis point as viewed from Kerbin's SOI. (The vector control handles also do the wrong thing in that case, which I'll file separately as a bug report if it hasn't been done already.)
   
• The maneuver burn timer's "required dV" label should change to "remaining dV" and count down the remaining delta-V after starting the burn.
   
• Minor issue, but it seems a bit unnecessary to label AP/PE/other orbit points as "0yr:0d:00h:01m:23s" when the point is just a couple of minutes away. (Fixing this, and perhaps removing all the colons, would help address the screen clutter issue as well.) Also, there's no point in using two digits to write the hour when there are only 6 hours in a day.
   
• There doesn't seem to be a key to toggle the navball in map view (keypad "." in KSP1, unless I changed it from the default at some point). I thought it was impossible to bring up the navball until I realized that the "auto-hide navball" setting is mislabeled, which I'll file as a separate bug report.

Edited December 30, 2023 by krbvax

[BlarghAld]

•     Either the Load Game dialog or the Save Game one must have a 'Delete Game' option like the initial load game selection does
•     Staging view in VAB must remember its setting and not reset to 'icons only' every time the ship is changed. (KSP1 suffers from the same problem)
•     Staging view in VAB should default to the 'dV + TWR' setting rather than 'icons only'. (KSP1 suffers from the same problem)
•     Staging view in VAB should only have the 'icons only' and 'all info' setting choices. I personally, have never, ever, cared about the burn times but to each their own. dV & TWR are essential, always - the 'dV only' view is just noise
•     Panning the VAB view must not use Maya style middle-click-drag control. A long term gripe of mine,  just because 3D artists are used to that, does not make it an acceptable control for games. When Wavefront, Maya, et al, started that, mice had three actual, real buttons by default. Spare us the RSI please
•     Following up on the above, no in-game control system ever should use middle-click-drag for anything, ever, as default
•     In the KSC buildings, transfer to the current building must be disallowed (Mission Control -> Mission Control, VAB -> VAB). Transfer to all other buildings should be allowed. (VAB -> Tracking). Probably a bug
•     In Tracking, maximum warp must always be allowed
•     Ship (workspace) thumbnail files must be deleted off disk when the workspace is deleted. Currently, only the .json and .meta files are deleted but the images are not. Probably a bug

In general, more warp! Especially on smaller rocks - Ike, Gilly.... 10-15 minutes real-time wait for the ship to make its way to the surface is not fun. KSP1 suffers from the same problem. Or possibly suffered? I've never gone to either rock a second time in 2k+ hours in KSP1, so I've no idea what the situation is nowadays.

It's been mentioned quite a few times, but worth repeating - the fonts, especially the smaller texts, are utterly unreadable. In my case, both on the 24-ish inch 1080p side monitor and the 19-inch 4k laptop screen.

 

[Urus28]

In general, I'm not a fan of the font choice and the pixelated style of elements. I found all this quite ugly and with poor readability.

VAB

Moving arrows should be partially transparent to allow a better sight of what we are doing with small adjustments.

Center of mass, thrust and lift have a blurry texture that don't allow a precise adjustment of things.

Procedural wings, we should be able to type numbers, sliders are sometimes not precise enough. Also, could we have actual dimensions and angles instead of abstract figures, we have it for tubes, why not for wings ?

Map

I just hate icons, they are ugly too small or too large, I have no idea of the precise location of things... I would have preferred a point with a broken line and name with icon identification.

The screen to rename ships is almost impossible to read due to the choice of colors.

Filters should apply on visible icons and trajectories, and not just on the list of items.

Fly

The choice of white colors for maneuver and target on the navball making them difficult to identify with white marking, a yellow or orange color would have been better I think.

I think we need a specific command to activate wheels motors, we have it in KSP1 and it was useful when you have wheels and reaction wheels in the same craft.

[StrandedonEarth]

I don't know if there's a setting I'm missing or what, but probably my biggest peeve is that the dV/TWR/burn time readouts on the staging stack are too tiny. Even with my reading glasses on my old eyes, it's not readable to me beyond being barely able to tell if TWR is more or less than 1. I haven't bothered trying to use a magnifier to get a better look, figuring pixelation would still make it difficult.

[Pthigrivi]

Okay here are my UI notes. Overall the UI is really pretty solid, Im just listing the items for improvement to keep the list shorter. I'm still getting started honestly so let me know if there's something I've just misunderstood. Many of these have been mentioned previously, just adding data points.

General:
- It would help to have color consistency on "Training Center" + "Mission control" in the escape menu--just pick a color for each and use in both words.
- In settings generally "graphics" is next to "audio" in most games. 
- I might have missed it but I'd like to be able to rename my agency and set a new flag
- Several buildings are missing return to KSC/Go to Mission Control/VAB. Only hitting escape lets us transfer between
- As noted highlight/text contrast is so low when renaming vessels in the Tracking Station its impossible to read.
- Many menus have very low contrast, especially the handles/ dismiss button at the top. 
- (Bug) Several General settings are listed as both "on" and "off" until mouse over.

Tutorials:
- Im wondering if there's a way to interconnect missions and tutorials in a tighter way? Maybe there could be links in between before and after certain stages?
- It might just be the nature of the beast but the tutorials seem to jump around a lot--introducing stages in flight before going back and showing staging in the VAB, etc. Would it be better if there was more linear continuity? 
- It seems like the navball is introduced very late. Again there's a lot to talk about so maybe thats okay.
- Science and reentry tutorials are great but perhaps some mention of parts exposed outside the heat shield and recommendations on safe reentry angles? 
- I figured it out eventually but a tutorial on transmission + estimating power needs would be useful. 
- Im sure these are WIP but we should have tutorials on plane changes, Radial/Normal burns, intercept + docking, vacuum + precise landing, (and more Im sure)

VAB:
- Trip Planner should show dV to LKO when "Kerbin" is selected as destination. This could be the default unless another body is selected.
- Trip Planner should also be more dynamic, allowing us to select + add up destinations in a more custom way. 
- I'd love the ability to eyedrop colors in the color manager.
- Id like a way to group-select in the Parts manager, especially for setting action groups 
- I might be missing something but how can we see through fairings? I liked KSP1's explode/transparency on mouse over. 
- I think its because of atmo vs vac calculations but dV readout in VAB doesn't match when you go to the launchpad. Maybe save the settings?

Flight:
- Escape should pause the game
- Maybe "Go" button should change to say "Stage" after initial launch?
- It also took a long time to find the Kerbal Manager... maybe some of these menus should be covered in the tutorials? 
- Id also like to be able to rename and recover vessels in flight without having to go to the Tracking Station
- (Bug) When UI is scaled up the Research Inventory appears in a place that it cant be moved or dismissed because the top is above the frame
- Pinned Ap/Pe markers should stay pinned when switching between flight + map view. Focus should also stay fixed.
- Probably a bug but vessel icon scaling goes crazy when switching focus sometimes.
- (Bug) Time-warp seems to lose count when warping to maneuver - becomes paused when not indicating pause. 
- I would love to see time to reentry, time to impact, + time to intercept readouts—basically time to whatever is next with more specificity. This is super important for an alarm clock if/when implemented. 
- Add a ‘toggle antennas’ button next to solar action group.
- Safe parachute deploy speed is a bit opaque to me. What is the unsafe deploy speed?
- The Navball itself is a bit busy. Target markers should be in a different color (not white) to stand out.
- Agreed with others that the maneuver nodes are tough to use and labels frequently overlap and make manipulation + navigation difficult. Definitely add fine-maneuver tool with graphic + numeric input. 
- Also agreed we should be able to place maneuver nodes when paused and in other SOIs.
- The burn-bar should have squared off rather than rounded ends so its visually clear when you've completed the burn. Also agreed^ it should say "burn remaining" and tick down.
- Burn countdown lights are great but the colors are confusing. Make it more clear you're hitting Z at zero. 
- (Bug) I like the warp to maneuver feature but warp-stop notification says warp canceled because of proximity to celestial body.
- I would LOVE the ability to snap maneuvers to Ap/Pe/An/Dn. Maybe a right-click option?
- Id love if the science button had a subtle audio cue when lit/ new science available. 
- Research inventory should list experiments from newest to oldest so recent experiments appear at the top of the list.
- Agreed^ many experiments are repeating even after being submitted. "Transmit all" should also be greyed out when there's nothing to transmit.
- We absolutely need biome maps at the least. Topography would be nice too. 
- Agreed the SOI transition graphic is handy but a bit overbearing. 
- I'd love to get more diverse vessel icons back in map mode, and then some. 
 

Again Im really pleased with the progress thus far. Im sure a lot of this can be solved in the next year or so. Thanks for all you do, devs!

Edited January 1 by Pthigrivi

[cubinator]

More notes from today:

-A positive thing: The game loading into whatever scenario you were last in was very helpful the time I had to quit the game in the middle of a Minmus landing.

-The solar panel notifying me every five seconds when it goes out of sunlight was annoying and unhelpful. I was driving a rover while the sun angle was low, and I knew very well that the solar panel was going to be out of sunlight here and there. Also, the notification is only based on the angle and occurs even if the craft was in a terrain shadow anyway. I think such a thing might be useful in the case where you have a probe that's about to go on a long coast, but not as I'm actively rotating a vehicle.

-"EC" and the lightning symbol for electricity are redundant in the resource menu. Pick one, preferrably the text one - As we see in Blender, replacing too many real words with glyphs can make for an unintelligible UI.

[Jeb'sNemesis]

I've been back playing 2 again since For Science came out, and really enjoying it.  The UI is definitely a weak point on a number of fronts, though.

map view
- I don't hate the pixelated aesthetic as much as some people, but the map view in particular gets cluttered very quickly when multiple craft are in orbit. Icons should be slimmed down.
- I should be able to assign custom icons to each craft so they're distinguishable at a glance.
- Can I hide debris? I haven't figured out how, and  so I end up deleting it instead...while collisions are unlikely, removing the possibility entirely isn't my favourite fix for the map clutter problem.
- I do not like that all ships get a number assigned after them, and that landers and satellites the primary vessel releases get named "Default name".  They should inherit the name of the main vessel, and only then add a number.
  - also, great that we can rename in the tracking station, but would be great if I could do that while flying the ship as well.

parts/resources/staging
- I dislike that part and resource manager are separate things.  Parts manager should show my resources, and allow me to transfer between them.|
- I should also be able to rename and favourite parts, so I don't just end up with  a list of dozens to hundreds of parts, only 5 or 6 of which I'll directly interact with.
- I do like the transfer functionality of the resource manager, except that removing an element from the transfer side doesn't work (presumably a bug)
- Active engines should stay grouped if they're all burning equally.  On my "moar boosters and moar space tape" constructions, it's easy to lose sight of the liquid fuel engines in amongst the 20+ boosters firing at the same time with identical burn times.
- The staging button usually seems to need to be pressed twice to actually stage.  But not always. The lack of predictability is really frustrating.
- dV calculations need to be fixed.  They get confused when a secondary part becomes the primary ship

maneuver nodes
- Mousing over an AP/PE/AN/DN, closest approach node etc should work while I'm adjusting a maneuver node, not require me to click out of it and then make the element I want persistent in order to fine tune it.
- It should be easy to advance maneuver nodes to future orbits, or even days/month from now to try to find a transfer window
- Maneuver nodes should still be possible to create even when 0dv is detected. For burn time, it should just assume the most recent TWR persists.  This is particuarly important
- AN/DN often seem to just disappear when they get under 1º.

cheat menu
- Add fuel levels to the cheat menu (refuelling missions are boring, and clearly a vessel that's in LKO and has a docking port could be refuelled, so it'd be nice to be able to do that without savegame editing.)
- Would this be a suitable place to add a manual fix for the vessel state. Had to edit a savegame in order to get orbit lines and maneuver planning.  Can't see how I could have returned to the mothership without those.

VAB
- I find the save system very confusing.  I name the vessel I'm working on, but the workspace is still unnamed, so when I go to load something, I can't see what I'm loading.
- Need to see tracked missions while in the VAB
- Staging menu should include TWR.  Ideally both a local TWR for the body it's set to orbit, and a Kerbin-standard TWR to get an idea of acceleration speed.
- Copied parts should stay in the same stages, not automatically create new ones.

Flight View
- Switching to docking controls like in KSP1 would be great.  I find do translating movements with my right hand to be confusing.

[The Aziz]

5 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I might be missing something but how can we see through fairings? I liked KSP1's explode/transparency on mouse over. 

The eye button next to the fairing base. Unless it's bugged, it should work in some way.

5 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I would love to see time to reentry, time to impact, + time to intercept readouts

Technically you can for intercepts in map view, when you hover on the markee it shows the countdown. But it's not particularly useful when you have to switch to flight to actually perform the maneuver.

2 hours ago, Jeb'sNemesis said:

For burn time, it should just assume the most recent TWR persists

Disagreed. For all purposes, it should show the highest possible value with currently active engines, (and it's exactly what it does now) because that also determines the final trajectory which this game actually predicts. If you change the thrust limit for the engine, the final burn will change dramatically and the game has to reflect that.

2 hours ago, Jeb'sNemesis said:

Switching to docking controls like in KSP1 would be great.  I find do translating movements with my right hand to be confusing.

I think there is a docking mode? I never used it in any game so idk. Check the keybinds thread or ingame input settings.

[cubinator]

10 hours ago, Jeb'sNemesis said:

Can I hide debris? I haven't figured out how, and  so I end up deleting it instead...while collisions are unlikely, removing the possibility entirely isn't my favourite fix for the map clutter problem.

On a simar note, I haven't found an option to "Control" debris either. Sometimes when I have debris that is intersecting the atmosphere, I enjoy watching it burn up, even if I can't actually 'control' anything!

[Pthigrivi]

8 hours ago, The Aziz said:

The eye button next to the fairing base. Unless it's bugged, it should work in some way.

Ahh of course. Thanks! I knew some of these would just be me being dumb.

[Superfluous J]

15 hours ago, The Aziz said:

The eye button next to the fairing base. Unless it's bugged, it should work in some way.

It seems bugged at least for me. Clicking it DOES open the fairing, but only when my mouse is near the fairing base which is useless for when I want to edit the craft under the fairing.

For now I just yank the fairing and everything under it off from the payload, do my edits, and then put it back on.

[StrandedonEarth]

20 hours ago, cubinator said:

A positive thing: The game loading into whatever scenario you were last in was very helpful the time I had to quit the game in the middle of a Minmus landing.

Yeah, I like this, takes me straight back to the ship I was creating when I quit.