Posted December 20, 2020
Short background: I played the Demo a few months back, and I thought the game was a bit clunky but had potential. We are now a bunch of months later and I decided to check out how things are going. I'd say that I really really want to like the game, but I feel like I'm constantly fighting against the UI, and the camera in particular, instead of the enemies; which doesn't make for a great gaming experience.
My gripes with the menus is pretty simple: scanlines make everything blurry and harder to read. They would be perfectly fine in the backgroud of the menu windows (like the game Starsector for example), but having them on top of the icons and even the text just makes reading and identifying icons harder. The option menu doesn't have those scanlines, it looks sharp and easy on the eye, I would prefer if the station menus were the same.
Now the camera is a bigger issue for me, but it's a pretty simple one: The camera is parented to the ship movements. That means if I want to maneuver my ship around a target I need to constantly compensate the movement of my ship to keep my fire on target. It is even worse in "360 degrees" mode where the camera isn't even tied to the mouse movements but instead is drifting toward the position of the cursor on the screen. (and don't get me started on the constant euler locks that ruin any chance of hitting an enemy above or below my ship while changing orientation)
I think the game would greatly benefit from a true orbital cam, untied from the ship's orientation. The game HAWX from Ubisoft did it with high octane fighter jet combats (granted, it was helped by a target lock), so it's definitely something that works even in a fast paced environment. Plus it would give a bit of a Nexus the Jupiter Incident vibe to the game and that's always a big plus in my book! Of couse such camera would work best if it isn't "smoothed", just a straighforward efficient 3d camera. In addition to that, I could add that having UI dots to show when weapons have caught up with the cursor, like Elite Dangerous or War Thunder have would be a nice touch, especially if larger and slower turrets make their way into the game at some point.
As for the default view, maybe there could be some form of "turn-ship-to-the-cursor" behavior triggered by either right click (instead of the zoom) or simply by moving the cursor far enough from the center. That would make out-of-combat traversing asteroid fields and docking a much smoother experience instead of constantly mashing buttons.
Sorry if I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to cameras and UI, but I really want to like this game! As it stands however, I feel I'm closer to just quit playing it.
My gripes with the menus is pretty simple: scanlines make everything blurry and harder to read. They would be perfectly fine in the backgroud of the menu windows (like the game Starsector for example), but having them on top of the icons and even the text just makes reading and identifying icons harder. The option menu doesn't have those scanlines, it looks sharp and easy on the eye, I would prefer if the station menus were the same.
Now the camera is a bigger issue for me, but it's a pretty simple one: The camera is parented to the ship movements. That means if I want to maneuver my ship around a target I need to constantly compensate the movement of my ship to keep my fire on target. It is even worse in "360 degrees" mode where the camera isn't even tied to the mouse movements but instead is drifting toward the position of the cursor on the screen. (and don't get me started on the constant euler locks that ruin any chance of hitting an enemy above or below my ship while changing orientation)
I think the game would greatly benefit from a true orbital cam, untied from the ship's orientation. The game HAWX from Ubisoft did it with high octane fighter jet combats (granted, it was helped by a target lock), so it's definitely something that works even in a fast paced environment. Plus it would give a bit of a Nexus the Jupiter Incident vibe to the game and that's always a big plus in my book! Of couse such camera would work best if it isn't "smoothed", just a straighforward efficient 3d camera. In addition to that, I could add that having UI dots to show when weapons have caught up with the cursor, like Elite Dangerous or War Thunder have would be a nice touch, especially if larger and slower turrets make their way into the game at some point.
As for the default view, maybe there could be some form of "turn-ship-to-the-cursor" behavior triggered by either right click (instead of the zoom) or simply by moving the cursor far enough from the center. That would make out-of-combat traversing asteroid fields and docking a much smoother experience instead of constantly mashing buttons.
Sorry if I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to cameras and UI, but I really want to like this game! As it stands however, I feel I'm closer to just quit playing it.