Forums » Suggestions

In station Display

Oct 08, 2004 Gilliganxl link
The in station display is confusing and i thik it would be alot better if they had something like ENB. I came from ENB and i like how you could walk around from shop to shop and back to your ship and places like the lounge or disco (hidden in the jenqui base). I think it wouldn't be as confusing if they had this. ust don't have all the stations look the same that was realy annyoing with ENB but other wise it is a good idea.
Oct 08, 2004 Maelstrom link
You should be posting this and your other thread in the Suggestions forum.
Oct 08, 2004 stick link
[Move to suggestions?]
Oct 08, 2004 Forum Moderator link
What a good Suggestion. The moving the thread part anyway. There are no current plans to allow walking around anywhere. Currently the ship is your avatar.

[moved]
Oct 08, 2004 greggary link
What's so confusing?
Everything you can do is clearly displayed under the different tabs.
Running around in a station, looking from booth to booth which one had the stuff that you were lokking for was far more annoying. The rest is pure eye-candy, which wears off anyway and shouldn't bind any ressources.
Oct 08, 2004 CrippledPidgeon link
I've been playing Vendetta for years, and the station display still throws me off from time to time. Buying ships, for instance.

May I suggest a compromise between what I understand of EnB and the current Vendetta setup?

Something similar to the landing screen for Escape Velocity (in all its incarnations). Escape Velocity has had the same six tabs for years, and I think that they're easily applied in this case. You have the Shipyard tab solely for buying ships. Instead of a small button that's practically hidden among other buttons, make the shipyard stand out. An Outfit tab for buying weapons. A Refuel tab for refueling. A Trade Center (or whatever) for buying cargo. A Mission Computer for - surprisingly - accepting run-of-the-mill missions. And most importantly, a Bar, for accepting special missions, hiring escorts, checking up on the latest news, gambling, etc.

For Vendetta you can have a Shipyard, Outfit, Trade, Repair, Mission Computer, Navigation, Personal Stats, and Bar.
-Shipyard: Contains two sub-tabs: Buy/Sell, Garage. The Buy/Sell tab has three fields. The field on the left gives a list of all ships available to the player. A field in the top right gives a rotating 3D view of the selected ship. A field on the bottom right gives stats and descriptions. The Garage tab is similar to the Buy/Sell screen, except this gives a list of all ships that the player owns, what it contains, and its location. In this screen, the player can chose which of his ships he wants to fly. If more player based modifications (like painting, logos, etc) become available, then a new tab can be added for those things.
-Outfit: Contains two sub-tabs: Buy/Sell, Loadout. The Buy/Sell tab is similar to the shipyard tab, except it's for buying and selling weapons. The Loadout tab has four fields: Along the left side is a list of all the unequipped weapons that the player has bought, including which stations they're located in. In the middle, taking up a majority of the screen in a lineart of the player's ship, including clickable boxes denoting weapon ports, battery locations, engines, etc. If the player clicks on the engine icon, the engines available are highlighted on the left screen, and the player goes through the "equip" or "unequip" process similar to how it is now (just graphically). The top right field contains weapon grouping. The bottom right field isn't as large, and contains all special mission related items (scanners, etc) so that they're easily found.
-Trade: Very simply, a list of all cargo available for the player to buy, a list of all cargo that the player is carrying, costs, weights, etc. If a cargo is mission related, it is colored differently so the player doesn't accidentally sell it (but it won't prevent him from doing it either).
-Repair: I don't know if this needs a separate tab, but why not? It should work the same as it does. Maybe you can buy an "automatic repair card" so that your ship is automatically repaired upon entering the station (immediately upon entering, so repairs are deducted before transactions can be made) don't have to remember to repair your ship. Of course, it'll cost as much as it usually does, and if you don't have the cash, it won't repair past that point. A source of (admittedly minor) annoyance for many people -experienced and novice- is leaving a station and forgetting to repair.
-Mission Computer: Don't need to change anything.
-Navigation: Works as it does now.
-Personal Stats: Some slight changes - I think the player information should be displayed without having to click anything, but that's relatively minor.
-Bar: This is where all the cool stuff happens. You can bet on local duels. You can put your services up for hire on a bulletin board (a simple form including nation, guild, pay, etc.) - if you're offline, your offer is grayed out, and if you're online, players can hire you. If you don't follow through, they can report you to the board and money will be deducted or something. You can also put up ads asking for help. There can be local and/or national news. Local news can include reports of Ion Storms for that system (or a 5 sector radius - whatever), casualty lists, duel lists, amazing kill lists, etc. National News can be if a nation is planning on attacking another nation, player submitted reports of piracy, things like that. Of course, if more nation based missions are implemented (If you're Serco: Attack the Itani. If you're the Itani: Reports of impending attack - report to the front lines), the Bar is where you'd find them.
And of course, the chat screen below.

This could get crowded, but if it's fit into the current Station screen, I think it'd be quite functional. Ion Storms are made a little more avoidable (for instance, if I bot in a single system, I can avoid the storms there), but the player won't know about storms in other systems. And for me, at least, I think that my proposal is more logical for newer players (and older players alike), and would add spice to the otherwise bland station screen.

If this didn't make any sense at all to anyone, I may -emphasis on MAY- have time between playing Vendetta and playing Vendetta, to whip up some examples (they won't be terribly good, but I'll try to illustrate what i'm thinking about).

Pidgeon
Oct 08, 2004 Bored link
Nice ideas, pidgeon. I played EV too (in various forms, heheh) and personally, I really like the setup. It'd also be nice to see some sort of atmosphere in stations (picture? description? noise? EV had a nice setup as an example. And no, I don't want VO to be just EV plus a dimension heh)
Oct 08, 2004 Durgia link
ya I think the devs have known the station interface needs some work, but like everything else money and time are always a problem. Who knows though, we can always hope, pray, and Pay!
Oct 08, 2004 CrippledPidgeon link
In regards to betting on duels, I was thinking that betting might get more prolific if when a /duel command is made, it's registered with all systems (or maybe just a nation's systems?), and an odds calculation is made based on ship type, weapon levels, and some skill indicator (having to deal with #kills both player and bot, and how long the player has been playing Vendetta?). So for instance, if Eldrad and I were dueling (I use this example because Eldrad pasted me pretty quick), Eldrad has both higher license levels, and more player kills than I do (I still have 0 pks). He was using a Vulture, I was using a Centurion, so maybe the odds would be 20:1. Basically, the newbie against the experienced duelist. Two experienced duelists may be 2:1 or 3:2 or something closer. Make things interesting? But I digress a bit.
Oct 08, 2004 Bored link
Yeah, betting on duels would be very cool to see.