I would like to see in PI changes at least two improwements:
material icones includind material Tier level: now there diference between raw materials and the rest.
to reduce clicks there should be and option to save setup with all settings. So we could prepare some base use it easly on every planets and later add what we need.
There could be also a change in customer office that when we moving few smaller stack of some miaterial from ship cargo hold in to the customer office they are automaticly stuck in one.
Good changes, but if you add one posibility - copy facilities(what produce, where come production, from where is comming resource…) - it will be more effective and useable.
Great work on improving the PI set-up. I’m not the only one to have this idea but I thought I would elaborate. Since the game is set into the future it seems to me that the whole process should be more computerized/ automated.
I think that the way to greatly reduce the amounts of clicks needed to set-up a planet would be the use of templates - I basically have 2 types of planet set-up, extracting and factory (import). what I mean is that each of the 15 extracting planet’s layout is identical (warehouse, launchpad and factories clumped around it. Applying this template to each planet would save hundreds of clicks. Also having the ability to set multiple factories at ounce would reduce clicks greatly too, afterall the factories can only produce one thing that correspond to the resource extracted. why would I need to set each factory one by one?
Links and routes - that is redundant and doubles the clicks needed, again automation, the only manual input needed would be for customised routes.
Resources never really deplete, they just move around back and forth, but sometimes (often) shift out of range of initial extractor/ factory set-up this means suffering disapointing low production or destroy everything and start over somewhere else on the planet. when this happens we should have the ability to move selected pins to another location on the planet. Picture mobile platforms with wheels/ hover rockets after all this is the future and things ought to be automated by robotics…
If this seems too easy, a time delay could be set to offset construction or move. so instead of the player clicking 300 times per planet 10 to 20 clicks gets a template going which takes a given amoujt of time to deploy. Same with a move - select the installation(s) to move and a destination the computer calculates if the command center can sustain the links and the time it will take to move. This seems to me much more realistic too as opposed to fatories building themselves instantly when pressing submit.
Also permanant labels (not hover) would be much more useful than decorative holograms, as it is it’s nearly impossible to remember what each of 20+ factories of a P4 set-up produces without an external diagram.
Spliting up stacks of resources for import to factory planets is also a painstaking process, there must be a way to split multiple stacks at once. I really hope someone can figure that one out.
Got a chance to try out PI on test sever. Some great changes in here (route error notifications are fantastic!), however annoyances have been enhanced with regards to updating extractor heads.
When clicking on a planet now it zooms in even farther to command centers.
Now I wish more than ever there was a button next to ‘view planetary command center’ that was ‘view extraction head 1, 2, 3, etc’ This button does not need to restart the extractor–only move my camera over the node like it does with the View Planetary Command Center button.
My single biggest pain point right now is needing to click around the planet to find my extractors.
For the reset all extractors option that people have talked about i was thinking that it could be a button added to the comand center rather than anywhere else and it would also still force people to enter the planetary view and interact with their pi but just make life easier
Hi Folks,
I would like to recommend an extractor button that has extractor formations already set. Just like the scanning probes. If there were one or two extractor formations we could pick then modify if need be. That one change could eliminate half your clicks I am guessing because once you set up, its all about the extractors.
While the new PI-window list a lot more informations, i miss the old compact one. Not only it is faster in loading but also take not so much space.
Made both modes available!
Even the small one can get some UI-boost: with an additional button for each entry with “access CO” and “warp to CO” these commands are hidden in submenue of rightclick, same in the new ui.
Also the “warp to” button below is much more mouse movement than before.
Additional you alwas look for new ideas for radialmenue atleast the same as above: “access CO” and “warp to CO”
Feedback about the changes to Planetary Interaction.
Gameplay
New changes are a good improvement but they fall too short.
One of the most requested items are Templates. Ones that we could preferably share across all characters on an account. Why? Often you’re forced to switch your planetary building locations completely due to resource hotspots going dry in your area. So you basically have to redo everything again. If we could save templates would would most likely reduce the clicks from 150+ of the current system down to perhaps 10 or so at most. Templates would be a massive QoL update!
Another definite improvement would be Decommission tool. Currently there is only one “Decommission” button which deletes all your structures on a planet. This is of course handy when you want to completely switch from a planet but that does not seem to happen often enough to warrant its current use.
My suggestion would be that the Decommission button would be changed to a Delete Tool, just like the new “Create Link” tool is a wand, the “Decommission” tool would also be a wand which you can click on structures and they are instantly removed. This would be make deleting the old factory/harvesting operation and moving it to a different position on the same planet much easier. This would require Links to be automatically removed if the both “receiving” and “sending” buildings have been deleted. (Do note: Would require some sort of an ! like with the “Trash” and “Reprocesess” symbol or different placement as not to misclick from “Create Link”)
If also Templates are introduced (Please) then it would also be handy if you could have a way of deleting the entire template from the planet (Note: I do not mean delete the Template itself. I mean the factory complex you’ve set down from the template since you now want to place a new one) since this would save you from having to click trough all the individual buildings and make the process much faster.
Camera
While you are viewing your Planetary Colony the camera now zooms at a straight “wall like” angle at the planet. It does not move with the planet when you change from up to down, making viewing objects or doing different tasks quite problematic. Examples below.
Here the camera is level, once you’ve opened the planetary interaction window on a planet.
This is how the new camera is actually while its in use on the planet which makes the planet seem massive and creates a very distressing and alltogether uncomfortable user experience with how parts of the planet are massively closer while the rest is sloped in an angle. (As you can see by the building shadows)
One nice change would also be that instead of the camera zooming at mach 5 down to the planet (Okay the old zoom into planet was slow but this is a bit too fast) you could assign an area where the camera zooms to. Often especially on harvesting planets your harvester/factories are not next to the Command Center.
Alternative fix would be to assign that camera zooms into X building if making the “Camera zooms into X position” is not an option.
Graphics
There is a long persisting issue with the transparency of the Planetary Interaction harvesting nodes as it shows in the following picture. Issue being the scanlines which go at a 45 degree angle. It creates three layers for the eyes to see. The scanline, the resource node & the white background. The harvesting nodes “pulse” into blueish to transparent, and while the pulsing happens it can be extremely difficult and after a small period eyehurting to try to line up the nodes, against the white background (for the most optimal resource extraction) while the scanlines simply are in the way to strain your eyes more.
This was supposed to fixed several years ago in a patch.
Fixes
Graphics
Modified Planetary Interaction scanning effect to remove unintended lines.
This issue was fixed by the patch but it soon broke down in maybe few weeks and the scanlines were back. It would be great to have them finally fixed.
Another issue is with the Harvesting. Once you press “Start Extraction” the colors of the resources go away. Things seem to “freeze” for 5 seconds or so and suddenly everything pops back. Examples below.
Here is a picture while you’re about to press the “Start Extraction” button. Regular as usual
As you can see all the colors faded away. Nothing bad in itself, so then I begin doing something else, like I clicked on a building afterwards and then this suddenly pops up.
Without prompting it at all, the Extractor shows itself and brings all the colors back too. There is no reason to want to click the building again afterwards. It would make the process much smoother if the thought process was. “Open planet > Set new timers > Do everything else you need > Submit changes”
Very straightforward. This seems to want to make you stay on the “Set new timers” when you want to move onto “Do everything else you need part”
First of all, kudos for the life quality (saving) changes! I really appreciate the approach You are keeping in reviewing PI and the proposed updates.
In my experience, at a scale of just short of 50 colonies, PITA-issues comes form micro-managing menial tasks.
Placing extractors heads is number one on my list (which is a bit longer…).
Action on this could be at two levels, one conservative, the other radical.
First, conservatively, a couple of things could really help: automatic “no stacking” placing, compute the final place of an head as being the closest point to the cursor which does not stack on already placed heads; and grouped movement (translation and orientation, eventually scaling with extraction duration) of the heads: e.g. place the heads together in a nice honeycomb formation, group them and then move them around where they are needed. The same apply of course when the extraction is refreshed, that’s The PITA-time when Your dozens of colonies have all run dry! Translate, rotate, extractor 1 of 2 of planet 1 of 47 done vs. this one here, this other here, not just there slightly to this side, almost… ok, ok, good enough! 2 of 16 heads of planet 1 of 47 done! It’s more or less a 1/8 scaling of things to do, with a complete avoidance of the nerve racking tight placement of cluster of heads that we have today!
Second, radical solution, get rid of extractor heads placement (guessed I started to hate them?), when the extractor is set up with a number of heads compute a virtual placement (not shown) depending on the area covered by the extractor and the character skills for scanning resolution (thus affecting extraction efficiency). In case extractors overlap, the computation shall consider that the best point in the area of the first activated extractor are covered by the latter, and the second will place its heads on unoccupied points. Etc.
Fly safe o7
The most time consuming part of PI for me is moving extractors when resources are depleted.
Delete the old extractor
Scan for commodity
Position and build new extractor
Build link
Select commodity and program duration
Build and position extractor heads
Install program
Route extractor
Very little has changed in this update. It would be really nice if the app could remember the commodity and program duration for an extractor I delete and apply it to the next one I build in the same session.
Looks much faster, however some critical improvements still needed:
Now when opening planet it zooms very close to command center. Need to remember last position (sometimes extractors are far away from CC).
Sometimes when extraction is started, it open the menu again.
And VERY IMPORTANT QoL improvement:
!!! In structure’s Routes menu, double clicking on commodity should open routing menu (like it is when double clicking on commodity in storage/spaceport), NOT info panel. Info can be accessed anyway by clicking i on the right hand side.
“CCP Please” make sure that you create a window for the launcher that can be pinned in size.
Most important for interacting with PI.
Every day have to click and scroll that window 100 times…
Just read the post. Thank you from the bottom of my index finger! Also, thank you for removing the dang holograms when building! Yeah, that was never necessary (can throw them out entirely as far as I’m concerned).
Basically, you seem to have read my mind with all these changes, love them! I’m sure there will be whiners but after this, I’ll be a happy Planetary Interactor! Please change nothing after this.
Some kind of auto-routing. If I install a Chiral Structures schematic in a Basic Factory, and I have a source of Non-CS Crystals, why do I need to specifically route the Non-CS Crystals to the Basic Factory? Where else would I want them to go?
I usually use a Launchpad as a kind of “central pin” – all products get routed to the Launchpad, and all inputs come from the Launchpad. This is kind of a pain to set up manually, but “auto-route all products here” or “auto-source all inputs from here” would save a ton of time.
The ability to mass-move my layouts. Sometimes a patch runs dry, and there’s another one on the other side of the planet. The cost of long connectors is high, so I can’t just move the extractor head, I’d have to move the entire thing, forcing me to deconstruct and reconstruct the entire site. This isn’t fun.
“Why cant we just select multiple factories (via drag a rectangle over the factories - or SHIFT click to add factories ) and then give them commands that apply to ALL selected factories.”
A variation:
My thought, and suggestion, is allow us to PLACE multiple factories with consecutive mouse clicks by a similar mechanic:
Hold shift, click as many times as desired. Each click places another factory.
