TAXINAUT

An open-world exploration game where you are a taxi-driver in space. · By mosgrom

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Suggestions

A topic by Daza created Mar 14, 2020 Views: 336 Replies: 13

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Daza4 years ago

First one is having a Ideas and Suggestions sub-forum and perhaps the Dev could stipulate if he would prefer 1 idea per post- so it can be discussed by others in the community such as why its a bad idea or an improvement upon the idea or whether we can dump a bunch of ideas in one post. These do tend to eventually go into the hundreds over time and duplicate ideas; and it can be hard to expect one to read through all of them to see if your idea has already been posted. Possible solution could be a public Trello page where the Dev or a moderator could move new suggestions into different columns- good thing about trello the cards can easily be moved around into different columns. Maybe users could be asked to limit their initial post to 2 lines - like a header overview and inside the card where you can write a description write the more fleshed out suggestion for sake of screen space etc. No doubt some players wont be bothered to go to the trello page if one is created and still post ideas here, but it could cut down on those and hopefully be more useful for the dev to sort out what ideas he likes or may consider on trello in a organised manner.

Anyway i have 2 suggestions for Mini-map;

1# Allow us to right click on the mini-map and we can place a waypoint, another directional triangle (if one direction finder is active - green) will appear as orange. So it would be possible to have 2 (max) waypoint direction finders on the screen a the same time. Orange is for custom waypoints. I am assuming on the map the filled in areas are high density city areas where there are likely to be more places to visit or even more likely more fares waiting?

2# Being able to toggle on/off current bookmarked waypoints onto the mini-map, these could be dots large enough to see its color that matches the bookmark icons in the panel below mini-map. Also (eg. show bookmarks on mini-map is OFF) if we click on a bookmark on the right panel it could show its position on the mini-map as per colored dot. This would be handy to see how far it is visually from your ships position on mini-map to destination. So if you have booked marked 2 medical centers you could immediately see which is closer to your current position.

mosgrom moved this topic to Suggestions 4 years ago

mosgrom4 years ago

Hey hey Daza!

As you see I've created a sub-forum for suggestion. At the moment there's no problem because you and I are the only ones talking on here ;-) but maybe in the future this will be useful (I hope so!). If people are willing to be so diligent as to check this forum for duplicates before they make a suggestion that would certainly be nice of them. Not saying you're taking it that way but just a "preemptive" for others perhaps: I don't want the forum to turn into some legalistic thing where people are going to tell each other what constitutes a valid post and what not etc. (I've seen this on other game forums).

mosgrom4 years ago (1 edit)

I've had making it possible to make a random point on the minimap your destination on my todo list for a while but it isn't high priority. I'm probably not going to mark every bookmark that the player has on the minimap but I'll think about what would be nice there.

The bookmarks aren't really the primary way to keep track of things. As soon as you fly into/over things they will be permanently known to you and you can find them back through your galaxy map at any time regardless of bookmarks. When you're in the zone-information (or planet-information panel as I should call it) and you click on a bright icon for a known site-type it will automatically select the nearest one that you know. I desperately need to make another video to explain a few things.

Looking at your second suggestion some more, I might look into adding an option like "toggle marker" on all bookmarks and/or site-information panels but I would have to think about this because what's shown on the mini-map can impact performance etc. and there might be some counter-intuitive situations or complications with other things (not technical) that make it a bad idea that are not obvious to me at the moment. (I've thought about all these things many a times over the past years and often things are simple for a reason (not so much technical) but I just don't remember what they were (I've documented some of my thoughts but not every decision I've made).

The color differences on the mini-map b.t.w. are just land v.s. water, nothing to do with density of buildings. There are items (scanners) that you can get that can find the nearest sites within a certain range etc.

Having said all that I do agree with you there are situations where you sort of want to see more than just one thing marked on the map. I will just have to think about it more thoroughly how to keep such an improvement simple and non-ambigious.

As I'm thinking about it: Maybe when you just click on a bookmark item it should show it's location on the minimap (as long as you have that boomark's panel open in the context-panel) the context-panel or even the hover could also say the distance to the bookmark which would go a long way in determining which is the best one to use (e.g. when picking between two clinics).

EDIT: As I'm thinking: Because most of this stuff should go through the galaxy-map maybe clicking on the planet name or mini-map should bring you straight to the planet-information panel (so you don't have to go: galaxy-map -> click star-> click info->click planet

Let me know what you think.

Daza4 years ago (3 edits)

Because of your reply I just discovered how to view planet destinations visited and being able to set destinations, glad to see that is there in the game. Originally in the Galaxy Map i hovered mouse over a planet and it said Todo in the popup so i presumed planet info feature was on the to-do list and didnt click on planet. But yes being able to click on the mini-map and the game will open up the planets menu (aka Galaxy Map one) listing these discovered sites would save a lot of time and also be more initiative for beginners too.

mosgrom4 years ago

Oh, yes, that TODO on the planets. I think I might have forgotten about that one. I'm going to see where to best have a shortcut to opening the information panel for the current zone. I could just make it an item...

Daza4 years ago

I dont think edit posts will show up as a new post so i will post what i added to this thread as i see you have replied since my editing.

I think my suggestion of being able to make custom waypoints is now redundant.

Talking about the Mini-map again going with deciding how close a bookedMarked site is what about if you click on a Clinic bookmark, it will show on the mini-map (flashing) and also display other Clinic sites you have discovered- that do no flash on the minimap? this would be better than my suggestion of toogling everything on the mini-map i think. Less Clutter too.

mosgrom4 years ago

Yes there's a good idea in there. I would have to think about it a bit as usual. It might be a bit awkward. It would have to be clear what's what. When you click on a clinic icon the one that's selected is already the closest one you know and there is no difference between clinics of the same type (well the people there will probably be a bit different). But I do like the idea of showing the other ones.

What might be best (but a bit unclear unless you know) that if you click on an icon (for a site-type) that the list of know sites (under the mini-map to the left of the planet-information panel) only shows sites of that type in order of distance to you.

Daza4 years ago

3# Bookmarks on your panel hud that are for a local planet could only appear when you return to that planet. Not sure if there is a hard limit to number of bookmarks - whether a scroll bar appears when you fill up all the slots? but having them only appear when at relative planet would be really handy and save clutter.

mosgrom4 years ago

I think you understand it now. The bookmarks are just a reminder. You can delete them if you want. Any location you've ever received a bookmark for or that you've discovered or otherwise has become known will be recorded in the galaxy-map.

There's no real hard-limit on bookmarks. When the panel is full you can page through it with the mouse-wheel.

Having bookmarks just appear when your on the planet they refer to is not handy because your destinations are often in completely other systems and that's often when you want to use a bookmark. (Say somebody gives you a bookmark to a weapon-dealer that's in another system) and you want to go there: If it only showed bookmarks of the current planet that bookmark wouldn't show.

Daza4 years ago

Spaceports and Liners;

I kind of guessed Starports would be in the center of the mini-map by default and i was happy to find it so, i presume this is for every planet?

However a side note- the ex-Taxinaut i spoke to who gives you advice etc. He told me Spaceports can have Galactic Liners where you can get transport to other systems more cheaply and they go further. However all i saw was destinations when i visited a Spaceport, so whether that was just bad luck none were there i dont know? how are the G. Liners displayed? is it a icon of the pilot that you can interact with?

I went to another planet in the system for the first time and upon landing on the planet i was expecting to land on the new planets Spaceport but it didn't. I think it would be handy if it did, so we can bookmark it and choose a new destination right away if we got the wrong planet or we are looking for a G. Liner to get a ride with. Also it would be nice if there was a bar and resturant at a Spaceport- this could be icons to the right of the Starport personel picture we see- the other two icons could be the same over everywhere a drink and food icon. Perhaps at these places there are more intergalatic travelers that have more info and gossip about other systems than say at a normal bar on the planet.

And perhaps when learning about something about a specific planet or system this info can be added to the popup of said planet or system (currently shows To do) this way we dont have to write down these notes and see them when we visit a systme and hover over a planet eg. "On Xenyu there is a garage that can add high qual armor to your ship." Or "Rumor has it a wealthy trader has a delievery job - no questions asked". I dont know if some side-quests will have a popup window listing system and planet and if we visit it- we can activate that ourselves or what. But i think having tidbits of info we learn through conversations will automatically apply themselves to the planet in question.

mosgrom4 years ago

There are 3 things (admittedly a bit confusing):

1. Spaceport: These are sites usually at the center of a planet that can assist you in departing from a planet when you don't have a anti-grav system or it's broken. Spaceports become automatically known (or should do so) when you descent onto a planet the first time (you shouldn't have to fly into it). There might be a bug where this isn't the case for the starter planet. Some planets don't have spaceports and on most planets you don't descent into the spaceport even if they have one but some do force descending into the spaceport by a tractor-beam (Xenis is one).

2. Travel-agents: These are sites that sell tickets for passage on a transporter. Transports leave from somewhere in the same star-system as the travel-agent and travel-agents have tickets to most other nearby systems (not all systems are serviced by transports, the system-info panel shows an icon for this). Transports are slower, cost more and can have a long boarding wait time which some passengers will not like.

3. Starports: These are sites on space-stations where galactic-liners arrive/depart. You can book a trip on a galactic liner to nearby starports and they will depart immediately. They also fly longer distances, faster and cost less than transports.

Daza4 years ago

Ah okay, it makes sense now. Perhaps that ex-taxinaut (moon dog was his name?) when he mentions Starports he could say "But do remember not to get confused with Spaceports. Starports are found in a system and Spaceports planetside.")

I wonder if having a Codex for the player would be an idea. The ingame tool tips are still useful but the more complex stuff can go over a new players head or too much information to absorb. I have been making notes. I like the depth to the game so in no way do i suggest streamlining that. I wonder if you have a codex that also has a search function, player types in keyword and information displays in the popup-codex. Even if you start with copy and paste the tutorial info already created you get when visiting new places like a motel or home for sale site for first time you get some conversational tips and some other concepts could just be a short paragraph for now. Being able to type a keyword would be faster than clicking on hyperlinks within the Codex, although you still might decide having a Contents landing page for the Codex, which would be good for new players whom do not know what to search for and want to read an overview of how things work.

This would be handy for players who might take a long break from the game and wish to return and need to remind themselves key gameplay points. For example i could type Armor and there could be 2 hyperlinks Personal Armor and Ship Armor. Also having a back and forward arrows on Codex pages like a web-browser could be handy as well, so we could go back and read about the other type of armor. I understand that would be a lot of work. Alternative is a browser based Codex or type of wiki where the community can enter in information or make changes to it when things are re-worked. Also a browser version instead could be handy for players to have it on their second monitor while they play, pause game and then search for something on the web Codex.

But i understand if you would prefer to do a Codex like this last once all the systems are locked and done, as you might make changes and that would mean re-writes of the Codex.

I know you have a couple of tutorial videos but i found it hard to follow as i am hard of hearing.

mosgrom4 years ago (1 edit)

There is a help in the main menu but it's incomplete. I do need to make that a lot better. My vision for the game is to be a lot about exploration this includes finding new items and the little 'game mechanics' that they bring with them. I find that when I play a game (say a strategy game like stellaris) what I enjoy more is discovering the interface and mechanics. Once I know these things I tend to lose interest. So for taxinaut I wouldn't really want to create a codex that talks about all these things. That's why all the items are together in one panel. I want there to be a sense there that there are no rules to what items can do/entail. I agree the galaxy-map and some other core aspects are badly documented. But I don't think that there are really that many of them. The items you can get should be able to explain themselves pretty well through their hover popup.

I will see if I can add sub-titles to the youtube videos, would that help? I'm thinking of making another one in which I explain some aspects a bit better (e.g. galaxy-map and passenger pick-up).

Really enjoying your feedback b.t.w. thank you very much for that!

mosgrom4 years ago

Planet/zone information panels show the icons of discovered site-types. You can often move the mouse over these to see what they sell there but not all sites provide this information.

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