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Hexagon markers over the target are a pain ITA

Deon Beauchamp shared this feedback ago

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Filled hexagon markers hiding the target, WHY?

Imagine the moon landings in 1969 with Apollo 11, and the moon is obscured by a relatively massive marker covering the moon. I can hear Houston come back over comms system, 'Abort mission the safety of the crew is impaired'.

The hexagon marker is only an improvement on SE1 when the target is not in view. When the target is in view, it needs to either move to the side of the target with an arrow pointer or the hexagon needs to become an outline so the target can be seen inside of the hexagons ring. You could even enlarge the hexagon ring if you are within 1km of it.

If the target is on an asteroid and I am on approach how can I tell which side of the asteroid the target is, if I can not see the asteroid? If I am travelling at speed I need to know whether to slow down early or to pass to the side to swing around the back. I can not do this with any certainty if I can not see the correct approach to the target.

The Transparent GPS Markers MOD helps, but does not provide enough clarity to view details.

The 'H' key does not have a mode where the markers are turned off. If it did that I could temporarily view what is under the marker. The 'H' key is not documented under the controls.

I have posted about this before, but I was giving SE2 another play through, another go, everything was going fine, the play felt good until I had the marker blocking the target view problem again, it completely broke my immersion and I started to look at the room around me, the frame of the monitor screen and the keyboard. So I got up up and walked away.

The markers themselves are fine, they are just not implemented in the best way for the game.

I like this feedback

Replies (4)

MachetePanda ●

Would be cool if they also scaled around the total volume of the object.(See image-only make it look cooler than my cross hairs. lol)

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Deon Beauchamp ●

Only a few step away from a tactical overlay, 2nd monitor to show intelligence details of scanned vessel.

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Semtex ●

steam deck. Other question?

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MachetePanda ●

huh?

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Semtex ●

So, in a complete sentence:

The infographic is awful because it's for the Steam Deck.

Steam Deck owners wouldn't be able to see more detailed and precise infographic on their mini-display.

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MachetePanda ●

So they are dev'ing for steam deck so the adults that work for a living are stuck with kiddo logos? :(

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Semtex ●

I don't worry about these problems anymore...

In an absurdly configured universe, the meaningfulness of infographics no longer matters.

As a nonsensical universe with nonsensical physics and chemistry, NMS is more than enough for me.

And their spacesuits are also nicer and work better.

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Deon Beauchamp ●

The thought of an alien giving me the keys to their fleet in exchange for a near meaningless task is bordering on being an obscenity of player pandering. NMS is a pretty game, it has the appeal of a feature harem that is almost effortless to obtain and a grind to maintain. So much, is the same over and over again. May be I will become mayor of a town or two.

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Semtex ●

How is that any different from the idea that some unknown benefactor sends you a package every fifteen minutes with "something to make you feel better"?

At least NMS doesn't pretend to be an "engineering simulator." And it doesn't make such grandiose claims:

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MachetePanda ●

Reminds me of Kingdomcome... the dev team are regretting (a little) the decision to be historically accurate and realistic. AS they plan expansions they are realizing they need to get more creative with things like chemistry ("since we cant do magic"). You can see a little of that with KD2 and gun powder. I dont think it hurts to get more into scientific theories. Wormhole tech and what not. (if they choose to)

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Marcus Parriott ●

if the icon just scaled a bit more the closer you got... that would be brilliant.. i dont need a block identifying a grid im looking at 600m away when im trying to target a Turret or Thruster on that grid.

this seems simple. but would 100% make trying different things in combat right now a LOT easier.

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Kiera Rose ●

Hello!

Just leaving my thoughts on this topic here for Keen SWH developers.

I understand that the four corners in rectangle with text above featured in Space Engineers may have not been the most aesthetically pleasing markers to look at for the average user, but they were minimal, simple and functional for the purpose they were designed for.

The new markers in Space Engineers 2 feel like they were designed for a 10-foot console layout, they somehow manage to be both obnoxious (in terms of how much screen space they take) and not verbose enough at the same time, causing unnecessary frustration.

Semantic Color Coding (or rather the lack-thereof): Having all unknown signals show up in green-color is incredibly illegible and hostile towards beginners, green in video games is usually associated with friendly and safe, curious individuals might chose to investigate unknown signals early on, wondering if they are going to see some NPCs or signs of life in the galaxy, only to get shredded by Gatling guns on approach. In a similar fashion, having all user created markers show up in deep blue makes finding specific locations you saved into GPS fairly annoying, as you can't tell at a glance which marker is the location you are interested in. Space Engineers 1 got it right by color coding hostile signals in red, neutral in white, and friendly in blue, whilst letting users set their own colors for markers they have created. The same applies to ores, why are ore markers all the same, forcing me to angle my camera such that I can read the overlapping text, just to see which ore patch is which marker?
Occlusion: Having all markers show up as large color filled hexagons with single color flat design icon is the worst possible design choice available. They occlude far too much of my surroundings or area of interest, draw too much attention to themselves and do not tell me enough about themselves in the process.

In short I'm asking for

Sensible Color Coding: Tint markers representing ores in a legible shade of the color of the ore itself. Tint unknown signals in color that at least looks "Unknown" instead of looking "Friendly", and allow us to assign custom colors to GPS markers we create.
Legible Icons: Ore markers don't need to all feature the same white rock icon, and grids don't need to all feature the same satellite dish icon. Players use markers for quick at-a-glance navigation and to orient themself, so why not make the icons unique? A grid marker such as from antenna or beacon on a ship could display the ship's cross section or 2D orthographic side projection, to make it easy to tell which ship is which marker at a glance, similarly ores could have distinct icons, maybe showcasing the ingot that comes out of the ore, or a small chunk of the ore, anything but the white stone glyph we have right now would do. And you could take this all a step further by materializing the markers too, make gold marker a shiny glittering yellow one, and make stone a cracked diffuse one, ship markers from antennas and beacons could have metallic appearance to signal it's a grid, etc... additionally you could feature the ability for users to change the icon to any from a set of custom glyphs such as trees, flowers, rocks, whatever, you get my point. If I make a GPS marker at a cave entrance, I can give it different icon than the marker on my base.
Less Invasive Design: You already have a keyboard shortcut for toggling HUD/Signal verbosity, so it'd be nice if all this fancy design didn't get in the way and only showed in the most verbose HUD mode, or when you get close enough to the marker. At a distance or when flying at a marker, I want to see what the marker is around, not what's around the marker.

Lastly, I understand that the current GUI/HUD is a placeholder, and may not reflect what the final one will look like, when the game releases, however, I fear that without feedback and criticism, it very well could, so I wanted to share a little bit of my mind here.

Kind Regards,
Kiera Rose

Semantic Color Coding (or rather the lack-thereof): Having all unknown signals show up in green-color is incredibly illegible and hostile towards beginners, green in video games is usually associated with friendly and safe, curious individuals might chose to investigate unknown signals early on, wondering if they are going to see some NPCs or signs of life in the galaxy, only to get shredded by Gatling guns on approach. In a similar fashion, having all user created markers show up in deep blue makes finding specific locations you saved into GPS fairly annoying, as you can't tell at a glance which marker is the location you are interested in. Space Engineers 1 got it right by color coding hostile signals in red, neutral in white, and friendly in blue, whilst letting users set their own colors for markers they have created. The same applies to ores, why are ore markers all the same, forcing me to angle my camera such that I can read the overlapping text, just to see which ore patch is which marker?
Occlusion: Having all markers show up as large color filled hexagons with single color flat design icon is the worst possible design choice available. They occlude far too much of my surroundings or area of interest, draw too much attention to themselves and do not tell me enough about themselves in the process.

In short I'm asking for

Sensible Color Coding: Tint markers representing ores in a legible shade of the color of the ore itself. Tint unknown signals in color that at least looks "Unknown" instead of looking "Friendly", and allow us to assign custom colors to GPS markers we create.
Legible Icons: Ore markers don't need to all feature the same white rock icon, and grids don't need to all feature the same satellite dish icon. Players use markers for quick at-a-glance navigation and to orient themself, so why not make the icons unique? A grid marker such as from antenna or beacon on a ship could display the ship's cross section or 2D orthographic side projection, to make it easy to tell which ship is which marker at a glance, similarly ores could have distinct icons, maybe showcasing the ingot that comes out of the ore, or a small chunk of the ore, anything but the white stone glyph we have right now would do. And you could take this all a step further by materializing the markers too, make gold marker a shiny glittering yellow one, and make stone a cracked diffuse one, ship markers from antennas and beacons could have metallic appearance to signal it's a grid, etc... additionally you could feature the ability for users to change the icon to any from a set of custom glyphs such as trees, flowers, rocks, whatever, you get my point. If I make a GPS marker at a cave entrance, I can give it different icon than the marker on my base.
Less Invasive Design: You already have a keyboard shortcut for toggling HUD/Signal verbosity, so it'd be nice if all this fancy design didn't get in the way and only showed in the most verbose HUD mode, or when you get close enough to the marker. At a distance or when flying at a marker, I want to see what the marker is around, not what's around the marker.

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