A must have interface improvement!

from Sins Forums
For easier navigation between adjacent systems please add the following GUI improvement:

Each phase lane has an arrow pointing towards the destination system that you can click so your view instantly zooms there. This arrow can be placed just outside the gravity well of the planet, but not too close to interfere with other stuff.

This makes navigating your camera from one place to another without moving your mouse too far much easier. It also leaves you less reliant on the less than responsive middle mouse button fast-zoom function.
21,797 views 15 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Totally unnecessary. Spend the 5 bucks on a mouse with a wheel, then, just put the cursor where you want to zoom to and flick the wheel forward. It's flawlessly smooth from 1 ship out to the whole galaxy, and back in.
Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
....the point of the empire tree and seamless zoom is to make minimaps obsolete.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
@efexeye:
It is bloody tiresome to zoom in and out all the time with the mouse wheel. GHASP! Yes, I actually do have a mouse wheel.

Ok, lets take one scenario here...

You want to move a ship from system A to system B.

As it is now you have to scroll out and click at the destination system, or figure out which of the planets in the empire-tree you actually want to go to next.

Or you could with two fast mouse clicks go to the destination system and give new orders without the zoomfest.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Or you could zoom out in the same amount of time with less distance to cover by moving the mouse. The chances of new game navigation features being added are very, very, very slim. It ain't an unworkable idea, though.

You really ought to consider playing with your mouse wheel sensitivity, or a different mouse.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Had this game been open source I would have set about programming this feature myself...
I wonder if the modding tools will allow me to make GUI tweaks.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

....the point of the empire tree and seamless zoom is to make minimaps obsolete.

End of quote


Ahem! cough* cough* What about making the "shift" key the "zoom-fast-button" instead of the current "zoom-slow-button"? lol

Or just give the secondary zoom speed key (default "shift") a bar for how fast it should be, either faster or slower than regular zoom, totally up to the player, but ill bet that 90% will choose it as a fast zoom button ^.^!
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Some of you might want to try the following default keybindings.

V zooms in, B zooms out. (IIRC)
Z, X and C have been set to useful zoom distances without any time wasted. X and C are useful anyway, Z is vanity view. ;)
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
and caps lock to zoom between system view and gravity-well view~ :]
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Ahem! cough* cough* What about making the "shift" key the "zoom-fast-button" instead of the current "zoom-slow-button"? lol
End of quote


You actually can adjust the shift-zoom multiplier in the settings files, IIRC. So you could make it a fast zoom if that's your fancy.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

Ahem! cough* cough* What about making the "shift" key the "zoom-fast-button" instead of the current "zoom-slow-button"? lol
End of quote


Something I frequently go into the settings folder to do for myself :D
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
I think it's a great idea, would love to have it implemented.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

....the point of the empire tree and seamless zoom is to make minimaps obsolete.
End of quote

Any tips for new players to use the empire tree? Once I get any size of empire or military, it's a loss on me- as it gets so cluttered...?
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

....the point of the empire tree and seamless zoom is to make minimaps obsolete.

Any tips for new players to use the empire tree? Once I get any size of empire or military, it's a loss on me- as it gets so cluttered...?
End of quote


What I like to do is disable auto pinning of everything except capital ships. Then, whenever I need something pinned (planet, group of ships, enemy planet, etc) I just select it and hit ~ to pin it to the empire tree.

This way it has just the planets/ships I want on it, and no cluttered junk :)
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
Caps Lock does that, if my memory doesn't play evil tricks on my mind. Forgot my Tin Foil Hat at the university.

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