A lot of feedback

[ivra]

I bought Xenonauts as an Early Access game. As such, it gives me an ability to affect the development of the game, which I am going to use. In this document I have tried to gather my feedback in a structured way hoping that some of the suggestions and feedback would make it into the final product.

A) General

I know there is a new UI in development that will hopefully fix a lot of the issues that I will mention below. Still, I will like to go through it in case there are some new ideas.

Below are some general bugs/feedback/suggestions:

A1. The tip of the mouse pointer is below the actual point that is picked when clicking the mouse buttons. Often you have to point on the line below to select the line you want to select.

A2. The financial report that shows how much each region contributes cannot be accessed at will. It would be nice if it could.

B) Geoscape

I am happy with how the geoscape works, except one thing: The text sizes used are generally too small.

The texts marked with red are hard to read and should be larger in my opinion. The texts marked with yellow are ok, but it wouldn't hurt if they were larger, too.

C) Base Management

The base management screen is generally fine, but I think it can be improved with the following changes/additions:

C1. The text part of the window is a bit too wide in the sense that the dotted distance between the text and the corresponding number is too large.

C2. Numbers alone is harder to read than numbers and bars in a combination. I suggest changing this information to something similarly to this:

Each category gets a different color with a darker variant for ordered personnel that have yet to arrive. I think a bar like this is much easier to read than the current solution.

C3. The construction part is missing a description of the module. The text size of the module names and the module information is too small. What about something like this:

C4. Talking about storerooms, I have not been able to find the storage capacity of a storeroom, nor the amount of space my stuff takes up. Or has capacity been taken out of the game? That is, only one storeroom is needed in every base. If so this is an example of what can be put in the description of a base module.

Edited June 8, 2013 by ivra

[ivra]

D) Research

I like the sorting of projects into groups, which is an improvement compared to the original game. This screen also suffers from using too small text sizes, especially the project description and entire current projects sub window.

Apart from the text sizes I only have three suggestions:

D1. I miss a progress meter or something that tells me how far the project has gone. An estimate of how long a new project will take would also be nice.

D2. I assume lab space available is a parameter of the laboratory module, and that each laboratory module can provide work space for 15 scientists. This is information that should be included in the missing module description.

D3. The state of the group should be remembered. I.e. when I come back to the research screen I expect the groups I have opened to still be open. Now they are all closed when I come back.

E) Workshop

Again, I like the sorting of projects into groups, which is an improvement compared to the original game. This screen also suffers from using too small text sizes, which is marked by red rectangles.

In addition I have the following suggestions:

E1. This screen shows the progress of a project. I think it would be even more readable if a progress meter was added so that it was shown both graphical and with text.

E2. Similar to the Research screen, I assume workshop space available is a parameter of the workshop module, and that each workshop module can provide work space for 15 technicians. This is information that should be included in the missing module description.

E3. When a project is selected in the tree to the right, I would like to see details of it right away. It should not be necessary to start the project to see how much it cost etc. For instance, I have no idea how much money it cost to build a Foxtrot interceptor because all my hangars are full so I cannot start the project. Also show how much Alenium, Alien Alloys, etc. is needed for the production.

E4. The state of the group should be remembered. I.e. when I come back to the workshop screen I expect the groups I have opened to still be open. Now they are all closed when I come back.

F) Personnel / Training

I really the like ability to sort the soldier list by just clicking on the headers. That is very useful!

Again, I think the text sizes are too small. Furthermore, I would like to have both a numeric and a graphical representation of all the soldier stats (marked with a red rectangle.) An example of what I mean is showed in the picture. This double representation should also be used in the screen where you select new soldiers to hire.

G) Soldier Equipment

The role feature is neat, as is the TU after Penalties.

My normal complaint about using too small text sizes applies to this screen even more than the other screens. Especially the stats of the weapons are way too small. Other than that I would like to suggest the following:

G1. Show the name of the rank in addition to the symbol of the rank.

G2. As mentioned before, I think stats would be much more readable if they are represented by both a numerical and a graphical representation. Replace the dots with a bar that is filled up to the current value. Also, a nice feature of the original game was to use two colors; one for the original value of the stat when you hired the soldier and another one for the stat increase that the soldier has gained during missions.

G3. It is not possible to see which soldier is wounded in this screen. The same method used in the Personnel / Training screen would be sufficient: Red for injured and yellow for wounded with a percentage of how badly wounded.

G4. The information of a weapon can only be displayed if you have built one. I think it would be better if it could also be shown for weapons that you have researched but not built yet, and for weapons you have equipped.

H) Aircraft Equipment

I like the ability to be able to place the soldiers inside the drop ship, and the side exits of the drop ship. Nice.

Apart from the ever returning text size issue, here are my comments:

H1. Use the space available to the right of the soldier list to display more than 6 soldiers. In the picture above it would have been better if all 8 soldiers were listed.

H2. Probably a bug. I have two soldiers with number 1.

Edited June 8, 2013 by ivra

[ivra]

I) After Action Report

I think the after action report can be improved by adding the following features:

I1. Show the same medal popup info as in Soldier Equipment when holding the mouse over one of the medals.

My mistake. This is already working.

I2. Show the symbol for the rank in addition to the rank.

I3. Show the previous value as well, or how much the stat has increased.

Edited June 8, 2013 by ivra

[cybrbeast]

As such, it gives me an ability to affect the development of the game, which I am going to use.

As much as I hope the devs are willing to implement new features, the game is in Beta, which usually means feature complete, and feature freeze. However, the modding community might be able to do it, they are already doing amazing things, and I can't wait to see what they come up with.

[Sathra]

Most of this will be fixed in the new UI.

Ah, and I2: This should already happen, does it not? The mouse cursor and the hotspot is a bit off for the steam version.

[ivra]

Most of this will be fixed in the new UI.

Cool!

Ah, and I2: This should already happen, does it not? The mouse cursor and the hotspot is a bit off for the steam version.

Well, I1 behaves as you say. So that is not an issue. I2, however, does not show the symbol of the rank with a mouseover.

[Sathra]

Whoops, my bad. Wrong point.

Good point on the rank image though.