Post by Daza in Suggestions

Viewing post in Suggestions

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.

itch.io

Viewing post in Suggestions