The MiniMap And You: A surreal Comedy

[Fellow Starmadian]

Lets Not beat about the bush here:
The minimap sucks.

Now I'm not demanding it be fixed, as I know how busy schema is, I just want to weigh in on it and see what other people think. If the responses are positive about my ideas, I might get my toes wet into the deep waters of Starmade modding and see If I can edit the minimap myself.

The current system has no markers to let you know where you are facing, and it seems Like I have to flip around to get my bearings when there is a cloaked ship sitting right next to me. Some of the orientation might already be there, I just cant figure out what that weird line in the minimap means.

Spoiler: some examples of good HUDs In my opinion

You can tell in an instant where everything is in these minimaps by realizing that; A. the wide circle is on the base plain, which is horizontal to your ship. B. the ships go up or down from that plain depending on how long the line is and in what direction it obviously travels in.
Ex1: Star shitizen

Even though this game is basically a giant Con-job, It has a better HUD than starmade.

Ex2: Elite: Dangerous

Very Clean HUD, I think the best out of the three.

Ex3: Flotilla

Very fun game, no HUD per-se, but its a turn based space battle simulator, so It gets a break. Still Much easier to tell where everything is in this game than Starmade, without going into build mode. and flipping madly around looking for that ship shooting at you from 4 Km away.

There are other issues too, like how most of these games listed in the spoiler have some sort of optimized ship sorting system that lets you easily pick what ship you want to get information from.

The System works, its "functional," but it lacks usability. Please feel free to leave comments, flames, and opinions below. :D
EDIT: forgot the closer, lol.

 

[Criss]

 

[Fellow Starmadian]

that is an Elite: Dangerous navigation HUD, right? It looks easy to navigate

 

[Pyre]

Could use some work, that one is pretty neat, I like the ancient wing commander style better though, flat with squares for targets and lines for elevation

 

[FunnyBunny14]

The minimap indeed could use some work.

 

[kupu]

New mini map has already been designed, complete UI overhaul is in progress.

Judging from the pictures, we're prototyping something similar to the star citizen example.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

New mini map has already been designed, complete UI overhaul is in progress.

Judging from the pictures, we're prototyping something similar to the star citizen example.

Good to hear that! Both that there is going to be a new minimap, and that the UI is actively being developed. I sincerely believe that this UI change will, together with your texture pack and the many other features that were added, make the game better as a whole. Which, may I add, almost seems impossible right now, as the game already is so good.

And now I need to add a good conclusion to this post, which is going to be hard to say the least. You know what, I take that back. It is actually very simple. Here it goes:

Great job, and good luck! Although luck has nothing to do with it, but it sounds nice to say so.

 

[kupu]

Thanks FunnyBunny14 I've been actively developing it now for maybe a month now? I'm pushing to get it done asap. The game needs this more than anything else imo. It's one of our biggest criticism points, and i can't blame anyone for saying so.

 

[Fellow Starmadian]

Well this takes the wind out of my sails, lol. Looks like I wont have to mod, and good to know there is going to be a new HUD.

Close to star citizen, huh? I dont know how I feel about that..

 

[FunnyBunny14]

I think he was talking about the way the map functions. I don't play that game myself, but one can assume that the minimap will be displayed in 3D, with all the icons spinning around (judging by the picture). Or something like that.

 

[Winterhome]

That type of radar seems to be pretty popular. Angled disc with elevation indicated by lines, I mean.

Previously, the most popular was the Wing Commander style one, where the center of the radar was directly forwards and the edge of the radar was directly backwards.

Either is a massive improvement. I just hope we get a radar distance setting on it.

 

[Jananton]

Presuming the minimap is currently that small mostly empty square at the right top of the screen, anything more then that would be an improvement.

Personally I've always been impressed how the minimap looked in Elite long ago. Yup I mean the original as I saw it long ago on my old faithful Acorn BBC-b. It's a very simple but effective way to show 3D space in a 2D environment, very clever.
I feel the Star-Citizen Hud looks too much as one in a jet-fighter, but that's probably just me, so I wait to be surprised by the upcoming developments.

Greets,

Jan

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Until two months ago I just thought it was a random square

 

[Mariux]

That type of radar seems to be pretty popular. Angled disc with elevation indicated by lines, I mean.

Previously, the most popular was the Wing Commander style one, where the center of the radar was directly forwards and the edge of the radar was directly backwards.

Either is a massive improvement. I just hope we get a radar distance setting on it.

Somebody other than me knows X3 on the forum... I'm not insane :p

 

[Pyre]

Somebody other than me knows X3 on the forum... I'm not insane :p

Yeah....skip X Rebirth for now though, it came out pretty gross. The astronomy was kinda cool, that's about it.

 

[Keptick]

I completely forgot that there is a minimap. It's like my brain filters it out, lol.

 

[aceface]

New mini map has already been designed, complete UI overhaul is in progress.

Judging from the pictures, we're prototyping something similar to the star citizen example.

OOOOOOOOOOOOH! here have an informative rating!

 

[Sha3es]

New mini map has already been designed, complete UI overhaul is in progress.

Judging from the pictures, we're prototyping something similar to the star citizen example.

Awesome !!!