Cubic Minimap, and Compass Directions

[Planetmind]

As it stands now, navigation is harder and more brain-twisting than it really should be. The only ways to even tell what direction you're facing are aligning your ship or doing some quick math with adjacent sector markers. We can do better.

The minimap is currently next to useless. Useless Minimap Here It's circular and 2D, clashing with Starmade's cubic sectors, which makes it very difficult to read. I think if it were cube-shaped, and oriented itself to match the player's view and orientation, it might be easier to read. Heck, maybe it could just display the contents of the current sector, centered on the player, and have the sector borders as the edge of the minimap. Unless that would take up more screen space than it's worth. Probably doable. EDIT 1: A small tweak; Objects in front-ish of the player should be a very slightly different color in the minimap than ones behind, to make it visually easier to tell where things are. Not sure if it should be darker or lighter though, but that's a detail that can worked out in development. Must be some way to make it easier for color-blind players though...

Anyway, I also think that adding visible compass directions would alleviate some of the unnecessary difficulty of navigating and further cut back on vertigo-inducing disorientation. If we had North, South, East, West, Up and Down printed on sector markers, the six faces of star sectors in the galaxy map, and on the now-cubic minimap, it would ease navigation vertigo a lot.
Mocked-up example of sector markers with compass

 

[Valiant70]

The current minimap is a major improvement over the original one, as it actually gives you readable information. I don't know how changing the shape of the map will help with situational awareness in 3D space. Some improved visual cues, or a larger display that doesn't cover up the power indicators might help, though.

I would like to have a compass heading indicator, however. In Star Trek, you often hear someone call out a heading. "There they are! 103 mark 30!" The two part number is needed because of the third dimension, as opposed to marine navigation which only needs one number to navigate on the surface of the ocean. Having a numbered compass and a conventional "north" etc. would be helpful for both navigation and communication. If you want to tell your buddy in the other ship where the radar-jammed enemy is, the best you can do is call out an "o'clock" direction from his nose if you can tell which way he's pointing. "Enemy six o'clock high!... wait, that's your three o'clock low, I think! Which side of your ship is up!?" Calling out a bearing would be much more helpful.

 

[Planetmind]

It's true, the current minimap is a noteworthy improvement over the last one. one thing that's often bugged me, though, is how difficult it is to tell where I am within a sector. The only indicators of exact position relative to the sector borders seem to be 1: measuring one's distance from each sector heading, which is so time-consuming that it's only useful when laying out a station, and 2: looking towards whatever station, planet or asteroids may or may not be in the sector's center. I just think having the minimap as a cubic representation of whatever objects are in one's sector would make it easier to get your exact bearings.

But yeah, just having better visual cues, a cleaner look and a bit more space would go a long way too. Likely take up less development time as well, as Schine would probably just be making a couple new textures. But they'd know better than I would, I just play here.

 

[Calhoun]

People use the minimap?