Escape should always be for escaping whatever is on my face.

[PDCWolf]

This was always an issue, but the new UI scenes in For Science! have made it more evident and infuriating than ever. It's a really simple concept: If I press escape, it's because I want to escape whatever is in my face. That I can press escape and the thing in front of me doesn't disappear is a sin against the basic foundations of how you handle user input. Here's a couple scenarios to serve as an example:

SCENARIO 1:

I am in the main menu, I open the new game screen but realize I haven't checked my graphics settings. I press escape to leave the new game menu and go back to the main. Nothing happens. This is also the case with any other sub-menu that branches from the main.

SCENARIO 2:

I'm in the R&D building, looking at the tech tree. I press escape to leave the building go back to the KSC.  I'm shown a menu instead. This is also the case on any other building. The problems with that menu and its design have already been pointed out so I'm skipping that, but just know that those same issues makes that menu popping up when I want to exit a building, way less than ideal, and makes the general KSC scene redundant since you expect me to look at a menu and select a building from there.

SCENARIO 3:

I'm flying my ship and I need time to think about whatever is going to happen. I press escape to escape the gameplay. Instead, I'm shown a menu, but the gameplay is not stopped and now I've lost control of my ship. This also happens in the map screen. Escape pausing the game is 101 stuff, there's no revolutionary UX design concept to try and pass as an excuse here.

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by PDCWolf

[modus]

I really really really agree.

Really.

[Superfluous J]

I click a part on my ship, say a solar panel, and a menu window comes up. I click Deploy. It deploys. I hit escape. The part menu window remains, and another menu comes up. At least hitting escape closes THAT menu...

[hatterson]

I like escape loading the menu when in a building. Being able to go VAB -> Mission Control -> VAB without having to load a building scene in between is useful.

I agree that hitting escape when flying should auto pause the game. I've lost more than one rocket (and had to revert a save) because one of my kids came up to me and I naturally hit escape to stop the game and pay attention to them. But then when I looked back at the game a minute or two later I either totally missed my maneuver or crashed into the surface or whatever. Perhaps there could be a setting to let time keep flowing in those situations if I explicitly and intentionally want to make the choice to leave it running.

[Superfluous J]

5 hours ago, hatterson said:

I like escape loading the menu when in a building. Being able to go VAB -> Mission Control -> VAB without having to load a building scene in between is useful.

Yes I love this too. However if ESC cleared the part window first I'd not be sad.

It should open that window for sure, but it should only do so after hitting ESC previous times cleared any windows that were already up.

[PDCWolf]

7 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

I click a part on my ship, say a solar panel, and a menu window comes up. I click Deploy. It deploys. I hit escape. The part menu window remains, and another menu comes up. At least hitting escape closes THAT menu...

52 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

Yes I love this too. However if ESC cleared the part window first I'd not be sad.

It should open that window for sure, but it should only do so after hitting ESC previous times cleared any windows that were already up.

My problem with these situations in particular is that clicking outside the window doesn't close it. We had a pin option in KSP1 if we wanted that to be the behavior, now you have no option but to search for the cross and click it, and the concept of the unified PAW that shows every part makes it worse. Another one I'd like to instantly get out once I click outside it is the painting assistant.