My Top 14 Usability Issues

[NQdLDR8K]

1. Better support for high res monitor. Please let me adjust the UI font size at least. I don't care if it gives strange effects in some places. But having unreadable colonist names below the colonist bar icons is just a no-go.

2. Work tabs: if you have more than 10 colonists, finding one on the work tab or restriction tab is a pain. This is a serious usability issue. They are not even sorted by name! Please remove this unnecessary minigame of "find the colonist".

3. Make everything (that is, the menus) accessible via keyboard. The architect menu currently is a pain to use because the sub menus must be accessed via mouse.

4. Restriction areas. We have only max 5 and they are a pain to adjust to current structures. This should be changed to something that is either based on rooms or there should be a tool to allow easy adjustment of areas using rooms.

5. Work tab priorities. There is no reason not to allow setting priorities up to 9.

6. Task switching: we need sth to prevent colonists from switching between tasks too frequently, ie. hunting and wardening. One solution would be to somehow combine the work priorities with the restriction tab, ie. limit wardening to a specific time of day, set a minimum time for hunting, restrict cleaning to 3 hours of a day, restrict task changes by distance, set minimum amount of dirt to start cleaning, prioritize tasks based on last execution etc. etc. maybe even introduce in-game lua scripting for work managment so players can more freely adjust the logic to control their pawns.

7. Hauling: I don't want to exploit restriction areas to force colonists to get the harvest in and not let it rot outside while they are hauling BRICKS! So there should definitely be something to configure hauling priority, maybe based on item type. Or just include hauling corn with the grower task: a pawn could try to harvest only as much corn as it can haul in at the end of the day before going to sleep/eat whatever. Or just let the player set a maximum of harvested corn per pawn before they start hauling in the same amount.

8. In general the current task prio system does not work particularly well if you only have a few pawns. One example is cleaning. It should be high priority, but if you do that, nothing else gets done. In-game lua scripting with given counters would be nice as an allround solution to most of such problems. In the case of cleaning, some thresholds, cooldowns and limit of time spent (percentage?) could help.

9. Global work tab and restriction tab configuration save and restores: I tend to use different restriction setup for battles, harvest time etc., and switching between them is a pain. Plz let me save current work tab and restriction tab configurations.

10. Doctoring. Only the best doc for surgeries plz. There should be a medicine skill level requirement configurable by the player for surgeries. Or separate the work tasks from doctoring into nursing, basic treatments and surgeries. There should also be an option to block any stoned or sick doc from doing surgeries.

11. "Already reserved by", ie. when I want my best doc to do a surgery, all my other docs come in and block me. That's annoying. Just let me force it plz and dont make me draft all my other docs first.

12. Forbidden doors. Colonists should be allowed to repair them.

13. Rebuilding structures: the game should remember destroyed structures' layouts and colonists should be able to rebuild them without me having to re-layout them.

14. Material types used to build structures: somewhat related to the previous point, there should be a separation between structure layout and material types used. The structure layout should be something that is immaterial and constant. That would provide for a way to change material types easily when you run out of certain materials (which currently is a real pain) or want to upgrade structures.

[skullywag]

UI Scaling is coming in next alpha. So 13 things.

[NQdLDR8K]

NIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE!!!

[keylocke]

8. In general the current task prio system does not work particularly well if you only have a few pawns. One example is cleaning. It should be high priority, but if you do that, nothing else gets done. In-game lua scripting with given counters would be nice as an allround solution to most of such problems. In the case of cleaning, some thresholds, cooldowns and limit of time spent (percentage?) could help.

i actually want the work tab to be more integrated into the scheduling system.

ie :
instead of the vague "work" from X hour to Y hour. there should be an option for players to actually specify a task if they want to.

like, 8am-12pm : grow/harvest plants, 12pm-1pm : free time, 1pm-5pm : tailoring, etc..

^this would be a very powerful tool for a daily schedule, and it would be a more powerful tool if players would be allowed to keep a weekly schedule.

ie : i can set my cleaners to do a major cleaning at the end of the week, set my haulers to do a major hauling every other day, send my hunters out only once a week, etc..

it would also be cool if you can copy+paste someone's schedule to somebody else if they are doing the same tasks

--

anyways, the old system with vague stuff like "work" or "rest" or whatever, should still be there.

this gives the most level of flexibility for players since they can create both "flexible" schedules and "specific" schedules easily.

[Wex]

The 2nd suggestion is very sensible.
Try running a 50+ people colony, you'll see hell on work tab.