User Interface

Great job all round guys. You are to be congratulated. I was prompted to start some discussions on interface issues that crop up, so here goes.

My first observation after poking around for a while in the early stages, was the absence of clear savegame options both on station and in space. I know they're there, buried in the tutorial and instructions, but I'm a completed dolt and refuse to rtfm. I just wanna fire it up and muddle my way through without all these nested menus of different types from different screens (this is nitpicky, I know, but you said you wanted feedback). So suggestion 1 is to make everything a player can do in a given class of screen options or locales visible from one set of screen options.

I'm still exploring the wingman commands, but so far they look good. I just wish, as a spaceship captain, I had some more control over communications than simple proximity to affiliated vessels triggering a few options. There are no real comms, but I guess this is more of a feature issue than and interface one, so 'nuf said. Still, when it comes to even limited chatting with other spacers in this entirely new total conversion game and unique cluster, I'd rather see NO talking head than Cal's, but that may just be me.

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Hot4Darmat

I don't know how to replace that face. If someone figures it out, let me know. If they can be replaced, I have several ideas that can add bridge crew back into the game (which I miss from Iwar 1).

I guess I am not quite understanding the second paragraph. Meaning, do you wish that the hirable ships, or fences, had other features when you use comms with them? Or do you mean you wish you could dialog with your wingmen in some way?

The model and animation is located in resource/avatars/cal.

I would imagine that removing or renaming the textures (.ftu and .ftc) and setting up a 'null' LW scene would make the program skip right over the animation.

Or the stock textures could be adjusted and we could create a unique face/character.

New or different head-and-shoulder shots would be great, but barring alot of extra work, I was just thinking that no face (text only) would be better than Cal, that's all.

The second paragraph of my earlier post was just wishing that, from your ship in space, there was a way to select or target another nearby ship (any ship, not just wingmen or fences), open comms with it, then have a few dialogue choices to execute from there, like "hail" (from which a few possible responses might come back, depending on affiliation/reputation), "offer hire" (with a few responses from "not interested" to "you can't afford me"), "buy", "sell", etc. I admit I still haven't had time to explore all the comms available already in the game so forgive any 'wishes' that are already features. I know the buy and sell and hire options are there, too...I just felt like they weren't available to me as a budding space captain from the command chair of my ship while I was parked near the station.

This may not be feasible, or it may be that I just haven't progressed enough into the game, so I'll leave any further discussion on this point to another day.

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Hot4Darmat

One thing I think could be changed in the current ship to ship comms, is the range limitation. It seems a little bit too short right now. Once you are at a station, you should be able to contact anyone in the vicinity. There is no real technical hurdle there.

The idea of adding comm options for any NPC is cool. I just fear that it could end up being a lot of work.

As for a new face, I can whip one up with little effort. I can even just use portions of various pre-made faces to make a quick fix-new character.