UI frustrations / lack of consistancy

slayer.faith

IM loving subnautica but.....

.... does anyone else just mash mouse buttons and tab/escape whenever they want to quit a menu? I never know which one i should to be pressing.

There seems to be a lack of consistent design in the ingame UI (infact there are three)


storage chest, battery charger and pda:
* tab = exits chest/tool
* escape = game menu
although:
* PDA to storage chest is right button
* PDA to battery charger is left button (?)
* (other mouse button does nothing)
* clicking outside UI does nothing

build tool:
* tab = does nothing
* escape = exits tool
* left mouse button builds
* other mouse button exits tool
* (game menu not available while in this mode)
* clicking outside UI exits tool

Fabricator is a totally different UI again, even though it does the same thing as other tools (PDA/inventory transfer items to device, although ill grant it is multiple things to device). Didnt it occur to anyone to use the PDA interface for the fabricator, given that almost everything else is done via the PDA interface.
* tab = does nothing
* escape = exit tool
* left mouse button builds
* (right mouse button does nothing)
* (game menu not available while in this mode)
* clicking outside UI exits tool (clicking and missing closes the tool too, annoyingly given the buttons are relatively small)

So exit UI key is swapped between these some of these groups. One can access the game menu the others cant. Even in the common tools (pda/chest/battery) the mouse button to swap is swapped. Including the fabricator, thats 3 different UI systems when really it could all be done via the PDA (which would give a consistent UI *and* save on code.


Suggestion: Single user interface for devices in the game.
* In game, escape is game menu (save/exit/options).
* No game menu while inside other menu, but if you hit escape twice you go back to the game then get the game memu from there)

For UI, Tab brings up PDA window. Clicking on chest brings up PDA window for transfer. Using build tool brings up PDA (left hand) build tool (right hand). Fabricator brings up fabrication tab in PDA.
* tab & escape both quit back to first person game play
* always left (or right, i dont care pick one, always use it) to swap a thing from pda to device
* (negative: need new fabricator tab for pda, but PDA already has tab layout code and button code implemented)
* (positive: removes 2 other UI's, less code, makes single consistent UI interface)


Clever design is like a network interface, it's complete when there is nothing specific/custom to take out of it and it is just a common core that works with everything (rather than a having a lot of custom baggage to handle custom cases).

But still loving subnautica! ;-)

Rien

Agreed. The fact that the mouse button used to transfer items changes depending on what you're interacting with means I often eat or use something instead of transfering it to storage. I've seen plenty of streamers make this mistake too (so it's not just me being dense! Or not entirely anyway )

gamer1000k

Also agree. This has been an issue for a very long time, and it's disappointing to see that the devs didn't address it as part of the UI updates.

slayer.faith

Alas, too late now i guess. (I did raise it back in 2016 but it didnt get any comments)