[Suggestion] Better Layout for funds in VAB/SPH

[Trollsama]

(First let me note, if this is too long for you, I have added a TL;DR for you at the bottom.)

I have been playing quite a bit of First Contract and overall it has been a good experience. it has added a lot of new elements to the game to really help change things up a bit... But alas as is expected in new releases, there are a few things that kinda bug me. Most of them have been mentioned already in other posts, there is 1 thing i have not seen anywhere else yet tho. and that is:

This is messy, chaotic and not user friendly:

Now With that stated, let me explain why i feel that way:

1. "Current funds" and "Cost" are not aligned
   
2. The numbers are hard to read (no digit group separator)
   
3. The "Cost" has a decimal place, where as the "Current Funds" does not.
   
4. Font and size differ largely between the 2 numbers.
   

First and foremost the biggest issue is the lack of digit group separators of some kind. with smaller values like 2100 and 3450 its no big deal. but when you are working with numbers like 1577387 it becomes a huge strain trying to read it. that is why its standard practice to use Digit Group separators on any number larger than 4 digits, Especially with finance/economics. but a close second is the fact that the cost numbers are not aligned with, and have smaller spacing's than the current funds. one of the first things you learn in math is how to show your work. and the first rule you learn for showing work is alignment of the decimal place.

[table=width: 500, align: left]

[tr]

[td]You Never See This:[/td]

[td]You Would See This:[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]100.31[/td]

[td]000100.31[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]12.56[/td]

[td]000012.56[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]61254.03[/td]

[td].6,1254.03[/td]

[/tr]

[/table]

This is again, for ease of reading, and comparison. Comparing the 3 numbers in Group B is much much easier to do with the alignment on the decimals.

The next issue is the decimal place. Why show us 1/10th of a Dollar in costs, but neglect anything less than 1 dollar in your funds. If we round to the nearest dollar for our bank, then our costs should do the same. else we are not seeing our full balance as the decimal place is hidden from us. in any case both the costs and the balance should follow the same rounding rules and show the same number of digits.

To better explain what i mean, I spent a few minutes in Photoshop making a quick representation of what I feel it should properly look like:

This Is Clean And Easy to Read:

Do note, that it was a quick toss-together in Photoshop meant only to illustrate a point. that using the same space, you can provide a much cleaner UI.

Notice how The cost value is now shown with digit group separation (,) as well as having the digits aligned with the current funds.( ones over ones, thousands over thousands) making it easy to read how much you are spending, but also easy to compare that spending with your current funds. In this example I added the decimal point to the current funds, But since there is nothing in the game that costs you less than 1, realistically it should just be removed from both numbers. You will also notice that the Dials showing your current funds are no longer just 1 long bar, but are actually 3 pairs of 3 each. (more digit group separation )

Its not perfect, as the bottom bar seems a bit crowded now (i did separate digits AND add in a 9th digit to the bars original 8 ) but it would be reasonably easy to fix with a little effort, considering how little time it took me to make the improvements i have thus far. Hopefully, somewhere along the lines, Squad will take these points to heart, and be it next update, or 10 updates from now, will fix this messy setup.

Thanks for reading my wall of text, gimme your feedback below, im interested to see how the rest of the community feels about this. but alas, from this point on will be for the too lazy to read group

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TL;DR:

The Numbers are not shown in a way that make having them all that helpful, They lack some basic Mathematical formatting such as digit Separation, and Value Alignment(AKA Decimal alignment).

With some minor changes, The UI could become drastically more user friendly(See Below), and easy to read/compare. I hope these changes will be made at some-point in the future.

[TMS]

Why use the altimeter readout style at all?

[Trollsama]

Why use the altimeter readout style at all?

to keep with the style of the game i mean its not necessary at all by any means but visually it fits in well with the rest of the game.

I personally kinda like it visually, its just functionally i find issues

[xEvilReeperx]

What if the top one were altimeter-style as well? That might be the most straightforward solution.

[Trollsama]

What if the top one were altimeter-style as well? That might be the most straightforward solution.

I did find it kind of weird they used 2 different styles between them. im sure there was some kind of logic behind it like making it easy to differentiate the 2 but who knows lol.

Having both use the same style would eliminate essentially all of the issues i have with it tho as you noted. visually im not sure how appealing it would be tho. i may play around in photoshop some more at some point, trying out different options and suggestions to see what kind of layouts work better. the one i used was really quick and messy. I can already see a few things that could drastically improve it but i didn't feel like going back to make the changes earlier

[TMS]

I did find it kind of weird they used 2 different styles between them. im sure there was some kind of logic behind it like making it easy to differentiate the 2 but who knows lol.

That's basically what I was getting at in the earlier post.

The two styles just look weird and give the impression that you're dealing with two separate concepts.

I'd have both read outs in the digital style, and colour one red to indicate expenditure.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Completely agree with anything that would unify the two readouts. Considering the primary job of them is to compare against each other (to see if you can afford the rocket/how expensive it is), the game makes that unnecessarily difficult.

[Sky_walker]

Agreed.

I'm not a big fan of this small zero - never the less: something needs to be done with these counters. They are needlessly confusing.

[pizzaoverhead]

That's basically what I was getting at in the earlier post.

The two styles just look weird and give the impression that you're dealing with two separate concepts.

I'd have both read outs in the digital style, and colour one red to indicate expenditure.

Placing a minus at the start of the cost would help too. The single decimal point on the cost is particularly bizarre. Are there even fractional amounts of funds?

[KerbMav]

Using a calculator style window for all three* would look better, I think, so I am on the "get rid of the altimeter" side.

*Yes, all three: available funds, current vessel cost, remaining budget.

[klgraham1013]

All has been said. I agree with this.

[DGatsby]

God yes please.

[Sirrobert]

I agree, the current system is a little messy. We need something that's consistant throughout