Forums » Suggestions
Mobile controls
Dev responded to my review at goggle play regarding control issues stating he did not know what issues I had and there was a suggestion forum. Hope this helps...
Current setup is mobile unfriendly imo. Many keyboard commands are not mapped at all. The sub menus that contain the limited commands available are not 'on the fly' friendly when you are controlling everything with two thumbs. I dig the two map setup as a 360 view, I would suggest making each a toggle.. one which cycle thru targeting options with a simple icon or text readout displaying which is active, and the other setup similarly cycling thru the 6 weapon setups. The cargo display on the left side of the screen can be made Into a touch button opening the cargo menu. Flight control toggle needs to be a separate button altogether. The hold to open a menu, slide to pick a option, then activate, and swap again when needed is not effective when those thumbs are needed to fly.. everything must be touch and go on the fly. If multiple options must be included in a pop up menu, it must be one touch open menu, one touch, select option and it is activated.
The double click to open and close subsets in the inventory and other menus is very difficult with touch, and should just be a one click open or close.
Roll is not supported with gyro control active and should be mapped somehow..
I'm taking the time to write this because I think you have a great game here, and wish the touch format was as fully enabled as a keyboard/mouse, and/or joystick is. Hope this is helpful and taken in the spirit intended.
✌️
Current setup is mobile unfriendly imo. Many keyboard commands are not mapped at all. The sub menus that contain the limited commands available are not 'on the fly' friendly when you are controlling everything with two thumbs. I dig the two map setup as a 360 view, I would suggest making each a toggle.. one which cycle thru targeting options with a simple icon or text readout displaying which is active, and the other setup similarly cycling thru the 6 weapon setups. The cargo display on the left side of the screen can be made Into a touch button opening the cargo menu. Flight control toggle needs to be a separate button altogether. The hold to open a menu, slide to pick a option, then activate, and swap again when needed is not effective when those thumbs are needed to fly.. everything must be touch and go on the fly. If multiple options must be included in a pop up menu, it must be one touch open menu, one touch, select option and it is activated.
The double click to open and close subsets in the inventory and other menus is very difficult with touch, and should just be a one click open or close.
Roll is not supported with gyro control active and should be mapped somehow..
I'm taking the time to write this because I think you have a great game here, and wish the touch format was as fully enabled as a keyboard/mouse, and/or joystick is. Hope this is helpful and taken in the spirit intended.
✌️
Oh, need a third weapon button too like the keyboard supports
Really, the possibilities are endless. I suppose it would make more sense to toggle targeting with the target info screen turned into a button. Double tapping velocity could toggle thrust, double tapping steering could toggle flight assist. Any current info pane could be buttonized.. anyway. I will continue to check in hoping for the best.
First of all, thanks for coming over here and posting your thoughts. It's way more helpful to us than the few lines of text we get from Review feedback, and it gives us a chance to conversationally engage and understand what it is that people want. It's tough responding to the reviews, in only 350 characters.
I'm going to have to re-read some of what you've suggested a few more times, to get a better idea of what you mean exactly. I guess.. one thing that might help with that, is just clarifying exactly what it is that you're trying to do (in a given circumstance), and then illustrating how it isn't working, and what you might prefer. Like for instance:
"1) Accessing cargo is convoluted: When I want to access the Jettison menu, I have to do <X, Y, Z>, when I wish I could just tap on the cargo icons on the left side to open the Jettison menu directly".
The use-case may seem obvious to you, but the specifics are helpful to us, because there are sometimes limiting factors on the overall UX and UI design that you may not be aware of. But, if we understand the exact goal, it may be easier for us to come up with a solution that meets everyone's needs (yours, ours, etc).
I dig the two map setup as a 360 view, I would suggest making each a toggle.. one which cycle thru targeting options with a simple icon or text readout displaying which is active, and the other setup similarly cycling thru the 6 weapon setups.
What do you mean by that, exactly? Are you talking about the Radar displays, front and rear? What do you mean by "making each a toggle"? Like the radar control itself would be a toggle to some kind of unrelated functionality, like Weapon Group usage? (Strikes me that it might be really easy for a new user to trigger accidentally, and not understand what they've changed?).
Flight control toggle needs to be a separate button altogether. The hold to open a menu, slide to pick a option, then activate, and swap again when needed is not effective when those thumbs are needed to fly.. everything must be touch and go on the fly.
Well, the way the soft-definition UX is intended to work, is allowing you to re-configure buttons for short-term needs. So, flight mode toggling is more commonly a combative need, for instance, so while you're off botting somewhere you might have that button defined primarily as that, and then when you leave you can re-define it as something else. The intention was not for the user to be constantly swapping between button definitions all the time.
It would be better if players could define what buttons were present for all the bottom controls. But in terms of making dedicated buttons for everything.. there isn't enough screen real-estate, due to the minimum button size and device size.
Similarly, Flight control might be critically important to you, but to primary-trader and miner types, physics flight mode often goes completely un-utilized. That's another example of where the use-case of the particular player is a big factor in how they view the issues of UI design (which is why it's helpfu for usl to understand the gameplay situation that creates the particular challenge or need). The current default UI is intended to be a reasonable "mix" covering a lot of common cases, but not necessarily being ideal for any single one.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback. If there's a way we can do a simple pass on a bunch of this stuff, and implement it (like tapping Cargo to get to the Jettison menu), we'll try to do that sometime soon. Other things can get a lot more complicated.. but, that's why it's really helpful to get this kind of specific, nuanced feedback, because once we have a good understanding of what changes would be helpful, we can start to internally analyze them in terms of development difficulty.
I'm going to have to re-read some of what you've suggested a few more times, to get a better idea of what you mean exactly. I guess.. one thing that might help with that, is just clarifying exactly what it is that you're trying to do (in a given circumstance), and then illustrating how it isn't working, and what you might prefer. Like for instance:
"1) Accessing cargo is convoluted: When I want to access the Jettison menu, I have to do <X, Y, Z>, when I wish I could just tap on the cargo icons on the left side to open the Jettison menu directly".
The use-case may seem obvious to you, but the specifics are helpful to us, because there are sometimes limiting factors on the overall UX and UI design that you may not be aware of. But, if we understand the exact goal, it may be easier for us to come up with a solution that meets everyone's needs (yours, ours, etc).
I dig the two map setup as a 360 view, I would suggest making each a toggle.. one which cycle thru targeting options with a simple icon or text readout displaying which is active, and the other setup similarly cycling thru the 6 weapon setups.
What do you mean by that, exactly? Are you talking about the Radar displays, front and rear? What do you mean by "making each a toggle"? Like the radar control itself would be a toggle to some kind of unrelated functionality, like Weapon Group usage? (Strikes me that it might be really easy for a new user to trigger accidentally, and not understand what they've changed?).
Flight control toggle needs to be a separate button altogether. The hold to open a menu, slide to pick a option, then activate, and swap again when needed is not effective when those thumbs are needed to fly.. everything must be touch and go on the fly.
Well, the way the soft-definition UX is intended to work, is allowing you to re-configure buttons for short-term needs. So, flight mode toggling is more commonly a combative need, for instance, so while you're off botting somewhere you might have that button defined primarily as that, and then when you leave you can re-define it as something else. The intention was not for the user to be constantly swapping between button definitions all the time.
It would be better if players could define what buttons were present for all the bottom controls. But in terms of making dedicated buttons for everything.. there isn't enough screen real-estate, due to the minimum button size and device size.
Similarly, Flight control might be critically important to you, but to primary-trader and miner types, physics flight mode often goes completely un-utilized. That's another example of where the use-case of the particular player is a big factor in how they view the issues of UI design (which is why it's helpfu for usl to understand the gameplay situation that creates the particular challenge or need). The current default UI is intended to be a reasonable "mix" covering a lot of common cases, but not necessarily being ideal for any single one.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback. If there's a way we can do a simple pass on a bunch of this stuff, and implement it (like tapping Cargo to get to the Jettison menu), we'll try to do that sometime soon. Other things can get a lot more complicated.. but, that's why it's really helpful to get this kind of specific, nuanced feedback, because once we have a good understanding of what changes would be helpful, we can start to internally analyze them in terms of development difficulty.
We need customizable controls.
There is a Plugin named Droid Buttons that allows you to add additional buttons on the screen and make them do any function that you want. It is almost a necessity when playing on mobile devices.
I have it on my mobile devices and have added button for Jettison, turbo lock, and few others to control some other plugins. There is a long list that can be assigned and you can place the buttons where you want on the screen. Like it was said, mobile screen limits the number of buttons you can have, but you can add the functions you want and still have plenty of screen left. I think I have added about 8 buttons.
Also, a Bluetooth controller makes controlling the ships on mobile a lot easier.
I have it on my mobile devices and have added button for Jettison, turbo lock, and few others to control some other plugins. There is a long list that can be assigned and you can place the buttons where you want on the screen. Like it was said, mobile screen limits the number of buttons you can have, but you can add the functions you want and still have plenty of screen left. I think I have added about 8 buttons.
Also, a Bluetooth controller makes controlling the ships on mobile a lot easier.