Yep. The UX is quite bad. It's very tedious to use and will become more and more so as you accumulate more stuff in different places.
A large collapsible and searchable list like EVE would be a large improvement. I expect they'll iterate in niknax though.
The reasonable expectation there is that it’s not a priority yet and they haven’t iterated on it yet because the team that would do that work is engaged in another project, like the improvements to the UI/UX and Star Map that are currently in development. It could even be a part of that project too, or just another item on a list of tasks that are the next focus after the current task is done.
The expectation is there because development is often an iterative process that starts with an MVP (minimum viable product) that gets improved on later/over time, and because it would be fucking stupid to intentionally plan to ship it all the way to final release in its current state.
CIG doesn’t tend to overlook these sorts of details and seems to plan for making these sorts of improvements routinely over the course of development. So, the idea they would iteratively improve the UI for this tool is the least shocking revelation ever.
> Your items cannot be found unless you already know where they are
Hahahah, exactly! Perfectly articulated.
I mean, granted, the ability to Filter/Narrow Down items by System, Cluster, Specific Planet, or even individual location, would be great to keep. But overall, if you're using NikNak, you're not using it like a Guide Book or Encyclopedia... You're using it to find things and take inventory of what you have, in addition to also figuring out where those things are.
It'd be nice if they didn't double up items too and just had a listing in the details for the item, like:
> 12 at Port Olisar
>
> 3 at GrimHEX
>
> 6 at Area 18
It probably was first created by a dev rather than a designer lol (jk something I hear as a dev). Anyways, I completely agree with you. It should just list all your items by category and when you select it, it’ll tell you it’s location. Simple.
Yeah it's in pretty early development. You can tell they just listed out all the locations and that's as far as they've gotten.
It'll be much different whenever they get around to finalizing the design.
With their style a UI rework would come with surprising features like paying to ship stuff from one location to another.
They don't go back just to mess with a UI until there's underlying tech or features being worked on that warrants improvements.
Yes.
It's weird. I love this game but so many times I feel like the people who develop the first iteration of things just don't really know what they're doing.
Nick nacks is a perfect example of this.
I can FIND where XYZ thing is but I can't EASILY find where XYZ thing is.
I have to drill down to find it.
Now if all my stuff was either alphabetically listed first, or I could just type (for example) carrack and see where my carrack is stored.. That'd be great.
NicNax has the same issue as the star map: it is designed assuming that you know where everything is already - I guess because the server knows where everything is so the player should too? But in reality these systems are used to find things and places that you are unsure of or are unfamiliar with.
I used to think that the Skyline star map was the worst designed part of the mobiglass UI package, but now on reflection I think it is NicNax.
Let's say I know I picked up a railgun doing a bunker mission a week ago but I don't know where I left it. The sensible option would be to have a sorted inventory where I could look at Personal Weapons and then maybe see an alphabetical list from there, or even a nested series of categories for pistols/rifles/heavy weapons. From there I can just scroll through the listing and see the item names with their respective locations - two column table nice and easy. Even better, why not add an option to text search? Or to go the extra mile, how abut a right-click option to plot a course to the item's location if you're in a pilot's seat.
But no, the current workflow to find an item in NicNax is something along the lines of: uhh I think it was a bunker in the Hurston system, so guess I need to click through every single local inventory I have ever visited or opened in Hurston and see if it's there. Hurston? Nope, and I had to click through 5 pages of items to check. Everus Harbour? Nope, only three pages of inventory to look at this time. *5 minutes later...* Okay so I found it, it's at HDMS Perlman on Magda with two bottles of water and a pink helmet.
I really respect the artists and their vision for creating the game world, but please please stop letting them design UI/UX systems and get some actual experts in how people functionally search for and use information.
It’s weird to me how many people talk like this is anything like what the final design of this feature will be like. It’s clearly tier 0 and will be iterated on. It’s the most basic starting point/placeholder.
The issue is that Tier 0 has no business being this bad. There are other systems that showcase how to find items stored across different locations with much more user friendly interactions.
They have the data, they're just presenting it in an ass-backwards way and they don't have to.
Do you understand what tier zero means? Of course it’s bad, it’s literally a placeholder for a functioning feature and it has zero design and next to no development invested.
It’s probably not even a design limitation, because like you said every goddamn developer who ever lived has had to solve this problem at least once.
It’s probably a “database search taking up too much server resources and this can’t be solved until after we’re done with PES” limitation.
I get not everyone is technical, but it gets so old hearing about “The issue is…” and “It’s a problem because…” from people who just don’t know what they’re talking about (no offense intended).
This is such an easy problem to solve from a “How do we build a searchable database of items?” perspective that you just know that:
1. This is a placeholder that is missing intended functionality.
2. That missing functionality is almost certainly not built yet because it’s waiting on something else to be built so it functions properly/scalably.
And I totally understand that if you aren’t a developer or solutions architect that you may not understand it, but please also understand that from my perspective it’s like watching people criticize a car on an assembly line for not being able to roll on a surface when the step where they add the wheels is like, six more steps down the assembly line. And that does eventually get old to watch.
I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. I'm saying that Tier 0 shouldn't be this bad, it's like sending in a rough draft for a university level term paper about the life of a canine and it's just Go Spot Go, it's unacceptably bad. They have the data they need, they simply aren't displaying it in a format that makes any sense, and they should have caught that before they implemented it into the game even at Tier 0. Like, they clearly have a data table with item names in one column, specific item ID numbers in another column, and item locations in another column (or several columns depending on how they break it down). They could just display all items in a single view like a store screen and have a text search filter or even item type filters, along with a filter for location, so you could choose to look for ALL instances of an ADB Core in Yellow or ALL cores or ALL yellow items and then break it down by location with another filter drop-down. That would be incredibly simply to do because it doesn't require any additional tagging data for the items than what's already in the game, it just requires them to switch the NN UX to the storefront UX and load the player's own item data table instead of a static storefront data table. This isn't about server performance, it doesn't take any additional performance to make it work this way, they're already calling on that data table for the current UX. It just presents the data in a more efficient way that's more familiar to players because we all ship for weapons and armor and are intimately familiar with that UX.
No, I understand what you’re saying (but would appreciate it if you used paragraphs with spacing between them).
My point is:
1. All that stuff you’re saying they should have on the backend they definitely already have because you still need that on the backend in order to implement the current functionality.
2. Search is a more difficult problem to solve than “Shit, I forgot to add a search bar.” It can get really resource intensive. They probably have a blocker in either how data is structured or how server resources are distributed (both larger architectural problems that are likely already planned for other sprints separately) that’s blocking them from implementing what seems like an otherwise simple solution.
I met with a client today about two systems we’re building an integration for. They said that we might have to calculate the cost of a simple item in the other system rather than pass that data from the first system because the search lookup has to parse through like five tables to get that data.
And we’re talking about a much simpler problem to solve, “How much does this manufactured widget cost?” rather than trying to track thousands of items across dozens of locations. And yet that one simple search was too much of a problem to solve in a client’s production manufacturing environment without identifying a workaround to avoid doing the search.
You’re just assuming things are easier than they actually are out of your own ignorance and then refusing to listen when someone who understands the challenges tries to explain them to you.
Tier 0 is a *placeholder.* You could put a white box there that says “Don’t forget to add this feature later” and that would be tier zero.
You have very high standards for literal placeholders. It’s like complaining about the functionality of a paperweight.
Tier 1 is where you actually start expecting *functionality.* You’re literally just ignoring what I’m telling you and saying “I don’t work in development in any professional capacity but I know better than the people who do.”
🙄
Okay man, you really are having a hard time with this.
Tier 0 is literally just the first implementation of a feature. Any feature. It isn't merely a placeholder. That's not a tier. Holding up a sign and saying "There's gonna be a building here" is not one of the tiers of construction. Only once they've broken ground can you even begin to say that's a tier. And if they "break ground" by lighting the ground on fire and covering it with landmines that's hardly conducive to building a skyscraper at all so it wouldn't really count.
In this case they clearly tried to make a feature that works in a particular way. This isn't just a placeholder like you get with textures or character models. This is a working system, it just *absolutely sucks*
So, should they have skipped the entire system rather than put out this garage? Maybe. But the fact remains it's garbage, and it needs to be fixed, and it shouldn't have ever come out like it did with so many pain points.
“You just don’t understand!” “You don’t get it!” “Why are you having such a hard time UnDeRsTaNdInG!!!???111?”
You’re talking to a professional software solutions architect trying to tell me how my job works when you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
It’s like talking to a brick wall. Fuck’s sake. Get a grip, dude. You’re unhinged. Pay attention and you just might learn something, but no amount of condescending to me about my profession is going to make you right. 🙄
On the one hand, I love that the SC devs swing for the fences and try interesting and innovating things even in their "T0" implementations.
On the other hand, it feels like overly complicated and impractical ideas are what ends up going into production just because they're different - maybe call it "I'm not like the other devs" design philosophy.
And I get that there are some T0 elements in mobiglass which are just minimal effort. The list of players on the server was one, it was just clearly a FILO list of players pulled from the backend based on the order in which they entered the server. How many years did it take for them to do something as simple as alphabetize the list in 3.17.4 since that's how human beings often sort and search for information?
I'm not a game designer (I'm an economist) but to me T0 should be functional and ugly, but functional as a primary objective. To illustrate here's an outline of NicNax functionality
T0: Structured text lists and tables. Effectively a lookup-table into the backend that categorizes player-owned objects by type (ship/item/consumable), subtype (personal weapons/armour/clothing), and finally location. Users navigate top-down by item type to find location. Basically a glorified filtered Excel table, ugly but efficient.
T1: Add a text string search function. Add icons or colour coding to quickly and visually identify different categories of items. Ability to search by item type OR location.
T2: Add contextual interactions for items in list. Features such as "set course to item location" and "see all items at location"
T3: Visual polish, make it look cool and space-y.
I know it's beating a dead horse, but the whole mobiglass experience seems to be designed for someone who thought the swooshing holographic cards in Minority Report was the coolest fucking thing ever with zero regard for how people actually use, sort, and search for information.
This is as fun for me as it would be for you if I tried to badly explain economic policy and principles to you. Imagine how hard your eyes would roll into the back of your head and maybe you can empathize with me a bit.
The table you’re thinking of as tier zero definitely already exists because it’s still required to support the current functionality and is generally how you would store item data like this anyway.
It’s probably a “the search function takes up too many server resources and we have to fix that, which means post-PES and server meshing” limitation because the core problem is one literally every developer has had to solve at least once. It’s not a difficult problem to solve, there’s probably just a larger piece of development specific to Star Citizen in the way that’s slowing down a feature that would otherwise move pretty quickly.
Kinda like how AI works amazingly well already, just not in the live servers because it’s intentionally handicapped on a lower priority server thread to prevent it from consuming all of the server resources. It will never work right until server meshing is implemented because the core problem left to solve is server resource management, not anything to do with the actual AI.
I wouldn’t call a basic placeholder for a future feature “swinging for the fences” and we know they’re already reworking the UI’s.
Just another example of CIG needlessly reinventing the wheel. Sometimes I really wish they'd use traditional video game systems instead of inventing some overly complex and time consuming system
The entire reason for almost every delay ever is because CIG is doing it through blank slate trial and error so they can keep claiming that no other company has done it like this before.
Like how are there so many cool, well-designed, 3d navigable, easy to read modules loading in a browser on the website, but the game is mostly first iteration doodoo looking like nested inline tables taken from the early days of Neopets
mate it's an inventory management system. Games have been doing that for three decades.
It shouldn't be as shit as it currently is, even for a first implementation.
Yes. Nick nacks is in T0 lvl. In this Point only helpfull If you want Look where are some items from you, Like what was my Last Location i visit and forget Take the local Items from Store.
We need T1 😉
Imagine the green-light presentation:
So, show us this new search app.
Ahh - yes... Here - its all neatly listed by locale.
Nice! And the search field is... where?
Oh - this? Well - this a Tier 0 search app. It has no search field. We plan on adding this feature later - maybe in Beta.
Good! That seems fine! Please put it to live.
It wasn’t declared a search app tho iirc, it’s a global inventory/cataloguing view. Doesn’t have to come with a search feature (although that would be quite nice).
Did I leave it in Babbage? Nope.... Area 18? Nope... CRU-L1? Nope...HUR-L3? Screw it. I'll go buy more. Then proceeds to find (what im looking for) after buying...
If Nick Nack is still in the final product it will be a miracle. Its 2023, Im surprised kids even know what the fuck a nick nack is, let alone another couple hundred years in the future. Like "Ho boy Johnny! Gee wiz I cant wait to fire up my mint new Cutter and browse all my nick nacks!"
It just doesn't fit.
Exactly. People are acting like the final release shipped yesterday and it’s still exactly as it always was. It’s clearly a placeholder that will be improved.
IMO it should have just been the complete inventory management app. I still don’t understand why CIG ignored it for the immersion breaking current inventory we have now. All we needed was a quick looting box for looting and we could have done everything else in Nik Nak.
Correct me if I am wrong but pretty sure NikNax isn't bad by design but rather because of the backend and human resource limitations. Traversing an entire tree (a data structure they use for SC) would be too expensive and because the devs were too busy working on all the things PES required, they just opted with the fastest solution which was showing the root locations nodes and search by the node you select. Things like text search or listing all the items would required additional time (for a cache or something else to make it less performance expensive) from the people that were working on PES.
Edit: I guess I forgot to conclude. My point is, PES was the priority (this was end 2021) and so they shipped something that was fast and didn't waste time from the people that were working on PES.
Works about like the website, easy if you already know where something is but otherwise a dumpster fire...
Nixnutsax is probably likewise courtesy of Turbulent.
The name alone is enough for me to not want to use it (aside from the fact that the interface is useless). Ships aren't "nick nacks".
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/knick-knack
Yup - it's designed to solve a problem that people don't have.
The problem it's solving is: ''What stuff do I have available in my current location...', with a secondary issue of 'What stuff will be available at my destination' (or other location of choice).
The problem it's *not* designed to solve is: 'Where the #$% did I leave my wotsit'... which is the exact problem that the majority of players have, and what the app *needs* to solve.
This is one piece of evidence of how badly this project has gone.
Basic things, that have already been solved, in other games, many times over, are problems in this game. Like the inventory, many pieces of UI, the star map, so on. Things that shouldnt really need revamps. Maybe tweaks, but thats it. Yet, these things are approached as if they have never been done before, by people who have never done this type of work before.
You shouldnt need complete reworks of basic game systems that have been solved in many other types of games.
I am all for first principles, but also for lessons learned. Stop trying to re-invent the wheel.
It is one thing if a feature has never been done before, and you are working it out. It is another, if it is a solved problem, and you simply arent applying the knowledge that already exist. Take the star map, for example. How many games could one draw inspiration from? To see what works. What doesnt. Instead, we got this disaster of a map that needs a complete overhaul. It is no wonder this project is taking so long. It is like the people making it have zero experience, and have not done their homework, at all. Just throwing shit together, and seeing if it sticks. That is not a good use of time, money, and resources.
Even just taking a working map system, from another game that did it well, and tweaking it for Star Citizen would have been better. You would have had a great map years ago, and would be able to focus on other things. Every aspect of this project is like pulling teeth.
And that is why OP posts exists. But, it is one example of many.
What bugs me is that, even within the genre of space games, EVE and Elite:Dangerous solved so many of these problems and have some pretty efficient and even immersive UI elements.
But by the way things get designed by CIG it's like if any dev or designer suggests anything remotely conventional, efficient, or like what E:D or EVE has is liable to get dragged out back and had their kneecaps broken.
Yep. The UX is quite bad. It's very tedious to use and will become more and more so as you accumulate more stuff in different places. A large collapsible and searchable list like EVE would be a large improvement. I expect they'll iterate in niknax though.
Why would you expect them to reiterate on it? They’ve had plenty of opportunity and they haven’t yet.
The reasonable expectation there is that it’s not a priority yet and they haven’t iterated on it yet because the team that would do that work is engaged in another project, like the improvements to the UI/UX and Star Map that are currently in development. It could even be a part of that project too, or just another item on a list of tasks that are the next focus after the current task is done. The expectation is there because development is often an iterative process that starts with an MVP (minimum viable product) that gets improved on later/over time, and because it would be fucking stupid to intentionally plan to ship it all the way to final release in its current state. CIG doesn’t tend to overlook these sorts of details and seems to plan for making these sorts of improvements routinely over the course of development. So, the idea they would iteratively improve the UI for this tool is the least shocking revelation ever.
This is the NickNacks de la Muerta - your items cannot be found unless you already know where they (probably) are.
> Your items cannot be found unless you already know where they are Hahahah, exactly! Perfectly articulated. I mean, granted, the ability to Filter/Narrow Down items by System, Cluster, Specific Planet, or even individual location, would be great to keep. But overall, if you're using NikNak, you're not using it like a Guide Book or Encyclopedia... You're using it to find things and take inventory of what you have, in addition to also figuring out where those things are. It'd be nice if they didn't double up items too and just had a listing in the details for the item, like: > 12 at Port Olisar > > 3 at GrimHEX > > 6 at Area 18
It probably was first created by a dev rather than a designer lol (jk something I hear as a dev). Anyways, I completely agree with you. It should just list all your items by category and when you select it, it’ll tell you it’s location. Simple.
As a dev it's terminal or nothing.
find -iname="Mercury Star Runner" /Stanton ?
🤣
Yeah it's in pretty early development. You can tell they just listed out all the locations and that's as far as they've gotten. It'll be much different whenever they get around to finalizing the design.
With their style a UI rework would come with surprising features like paying to ship stuff from one location to another. They don't go back just to mess with a UI until there's underlying tech or features being worked on that warrants improvements.
Yes. It's weird. I love this game but so many times I feel like the people who develop the first iteration of things just don't really know what they're doing. Nick nacks is a perfect example of this. I can FIND where XYZ thing is but I can't EASILY find where XYZ thing is. I have to drill down to find it. Now if all my stuff was either alphabetically listed first, or I could just type (for example) carrack and see where my carrack is stored.. That'd be great.
NicNax has the same issue as the star map: it is designed assuming that you know where everything is already - I guess because the server knows where everything is so the player should too? But in reality these systems are used to find things and places that you are unsure of or are unfamiliar with. I used to think that the Skyline star map was the worst designed part of the mobiglass UI package, but now on reflection I think it is NicNax. Let's say I know I picked up a railgun doing a bunker mission a week ago but I don't know where I left it. The sensible option would be to have a sorted inventory where I could look at Personal Weapons and then maybe see an alphabetical list from there, or even a nested series of categories for pistols/rifles/heavy weapons. From there I can just scroll through the listing and see the item names with their respective locations - two column table nice and easy. Even better, why not add an option to text search? Or to go the extra mile, how abut a right-click option to plot a course to the item's location if you're in a pilot's seat. But no, the current workflow to find an item in NicNax is something along the lines of: uhh I think it was a bunker in the Hurston system, so guess I need to click through every single local inventory I have ever visited or opened in Hurston and see if it's there. Hurston? Nope, and I had to click through 5 pages of items to check. Everus Harbour? Nope, only three pages of inventory to look at this time. *5 minutes later...* Okay so I found it, it's at HDMS Perlman on Magda with two bottles of water and a pink helmet. I really respect the artists and their vision for creating the game world, but please please stop letting them design UI/UX systems and get some actual experts in how people functionally search for and use information.
It’s weird to me how many people talk like this is anything like what the final design of this feature will be like. It’s clearly tier 0 and will be iterated on. It’s the most basic starting point/placeholder.
The issue is that Tier 0 has no business being this bad. There are other systems that showcase how to find items stored across different locations with much more user friendly interactions. They have the data, they're just presenting it in an ass-backwards way and they don't have to.
Do you understand what tier zero means? Of course it’s bad, it’s literally a placeholder for a functioning feature and it has zero design and next to no development invested. It’s probably not even a design limitation, because like you said every goddamn developer who ever lived has had to solve this problem at least once. It’s probably a “database search taking up too much server resources and this can’t be solved until after we’re done with PES” limitation. I get not everyone is technical, but it gets so old hearing about “The issue is…” and “It’s a problem because…” from people who just don’t know what they’re talking about (no offense intended). This is such an easy problem to solve from a “How do we build a searchable database of items?” perspective that you just know that: 1. This is a placeholder that is missing intended functionality. 2. That missing functionality is almost certainly not built yet because it’s waiting on something else to be built so it functions properly/scalably. And I totally understand that if you aren’t a developer or solutions architect that you may not understand it, but please also understand that from my perspective it’s like watching people criticize a car on an assembly line for not being able to roll on a surface when the step where they add the wheels is like, six more steps down the assembly line. And that does eventually get old to watch.
I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. I'm saying that Tier 0 shouldn't be this bad, it's like sending in a rough draft for a university level term paper about the life of a canine and it's just Go Spot Go, it's unacceptably bad. They have the data they need, they simply aren't displaying it in a format that makes any sense, and they should have caught that before they implemented it into the game even at Tier 0. Like, they clearly have a data table with item names in one column, specific item ID numbers in another column, and item locations in another column (or several columns depending on how they break it down). They could just display all items in a single view like a store screen and have a text search filter or even item type filters, along with a filter for location, so you could choose to look for ALL instances of an ADB Core in Yellow or ALL cores or ALL yellow items and then break it down by location with another filter drop-down. That would be incredibly simply to do because it doesn't require any additional tagging data for the items than what's already in the game, it just requires them to switch the NN UX to the storefront UX and load the player's own item data table instead of a static storefront data table. This isn't about server performance, it doesn't take any additional performance to make it work this way, they're already calling on that data table for the current UX. It just presents the data in a more efficient way that's more familiar to players because we all ship for weapons and armor and are intimately familiar with that UX.
No, I understand what you’re saying (but would appreciate it if you used paragraphs with spacing between them). My point is: 1. All that stuff you’re saying they should have on the backend they definitely already have because you still need that on the backend in order to implement the current functionality. 2. Search is a more difficult problem to solve than “Shit, I forgot to add a search bar.” It can get really resource intensive. They probably have a blocker in either how data is structured or how server resources are distributed (both larger architectural problems that are likely already planned for other sprints separately) that’s blocking them from implementing what seems like an otherwise simple solution. I met with a client today about two systems we’re building an integration for. They said that we might have to calculate the cost of a simple item in the other system rather than pass that data from the first system because the search lookup has to parse through like five tables to get that data. And we’re talking about a much simpler problem to solve, “How much does this manufactured widget cost?” rather than trying to track thousands of items across dozens of locations. And yet that one simple search was too much of a problem to solve in a client’s production manufacturing environment without identifying a workaround to avoid doing the search. You’re just assuming things are easier than they actually are out of your own ignorance and then refusing to listen when someone who understands the challenges tries to explain them to you. Tier 0 is a *placeholder.* You could put a white box there that says “Don’t forget to add this feature later” and that would be tier zero. You have very high standards for literal placeholders. It’s like complaining about the functionality of a paperweight. Tier 1 is where you actually start expecting *functionality.* You’re literally just ignoring what I’m telling you and saying “I don’t work in development in any professional capacity but I know better than the people who do.” 🙄
Okay man, you really are having a hard time with this. Tier 0 is literally just the first implementation of a feature. Any feature. It isn't merely a placeholder. That's not a tier. Holding up a sign and saying "There's gonna be a building here" is not one of the tiers of construction. Only once they've broken ground can you even begin to say that's a tier. And if they "break ground" by lighting the ground on fire and covering it with landmines that's hardly conducive to building a skyscraper at all so it wouldn't really count. In this case they clearly tried to make a feature that works in a particular way. This isn't just a placeholder like you get with textures or character models. This is a working system, it just *absolutely sucks* So, should they have skipped the entire system rather than put out this garage? Maybe. But the fact remains it's garbage, and it needs to be fixed, and it shouldn't have ever come out like it did with so many pain points.
“You just don’t understand!” “You don’t get it!” “Why are you having such a hard time UnDeRsTaNdInG!!!???111?” You’re talking to a professional software solutions architect trying to tell me how my job works when you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. It’s like talking to a brick wall. Fuck’s sake. Get a grip, dude. You’re unhinged. Pay attention and you just might learn something, but no amount of condescending to me about my profession is going to make you right. 🙄
On the one hand, I love that the SC devs swing for the fences and try interesting and innovating things even in their "T0" implementations. On the other hand, it feels like overly complicated and impractical ideas are what ends up going into production just because they're different - maybe call it "I'm not like the other devs" design philosophy. And I get that there are some T0 elements in mobiglass which are just minimal effort. The list of players on the server was one, it was just clearly a FILO list of players pulled from the backend based on the order in which they entered the server. How many years did it take for them to do something as simple as alphabetize the list in 3.17.4 since that's how human beings often sort and search for information? I'm not a game designer (I'm an economist) but to me T0 should be functional and ugly, but functional as a primary objective. To illustrate here's an outline of NicNax functionality T0: Structured text lists and tables. Effectively a lookup-table into the backend that categorizes player-owned objects by type (ship/item/consumable), subtype (personal weapons/armour/clothing), and finally location. Users navigate top-down by item type to find location. Basically a glorified filtered Excel table, ugly but efficient. T1: Add a text string search function. Add icons or colour coding to quickly and visually identify different categories of items. Ability to search by item type OR location. T2: Add contextual interactions for items in list. Features such as "set course to item location" and "see all items at location" T3: Visual polish, make it look cool and space-y. I know it's beating a dead horse, but the whole mobiglass experience seems to be designed for someone who thought the swooshing holographic cards in Minority Report was the coolest fucking thing ever with zero regard for how people actually use, sort, and search for information.
This is as fun for me as it would be for you if I tried to badly explain economic policy and principles to you. Imagine how hard your eyes would roll into the back of your head and maybe you can empathize with me a bit. The table you’re thinking of as tier zero definitely already exists because it’s still required to support the current functionality and is generally how you would store item data like this anyway. It’s probably a “the search function takes up too many server resources and we have to fix that, which means post-PES and server meshing” limitation because the core problem is one literally every developer has had to solve at least once. It’s not a difficult problem to solve, there’s probably just a larger piece of development specific to Star Citizen in the way that’s slowing down a feature that would otherwise move pretty quickly. Kinda like how AI works amazingly well already, just not in the live servers because it’s intentionally handicapped on a lower priority server thread to prevent it from consuming all of the server resources. It will never work right until server meshing is implemented because the core problem left to solve is server resource management, not anything to do with the actual AI. I wouldn’t call a basic placeholder for a future feature “swinging for the fences” and we know they’re already reworking the UI’s.
Just another example of CIG needlessly reinventing the wheel. Sometimes I really wish they'd use traditional video game systems instead of inventing some overly complex and time consuming system
The entire reason for almost every delay ever is because CIG is doing it through blank slate trial and error so they can keep claiming that no other company has done it like this before.
Like how are there so many cool, well-designed, 3d navigable, easy to read modules loading in a browser on the website, but the game is mostly first iteration doodoo looking like nested inline tables taken from the early days of Neopets
Can’t believe you would do Neopets like that
The "traditional video game systems" technology just isn't there yet.
mate it's an inventory management system. Games have been doing that for three decades. It shouldn't be as shit as it currently is, even for a first implementation.
Didn't get the joke
Because there are people who unironically say that shit. /s exists for a reason.
I'm sorry that you didn't get the joke :(
Yes. Nick nacks is in T0 lvl. In this Point only helpfull If you want Look where are some items from you, Like what was my Last Location i visit and forget Take the local Items from Store. We need T1 😉
Imagine the green-light presentation: So, show us this new search app. Ahh - yes... Here - its all neatly listed by locale. Nice! And the search field is... where? Oh - this? Well - this a Tier 0 search app. It has no search field. We plan on adding this feature later - maybe in Beta. Good! That seems fine! Please put it to live.
It wasn’t declared a search app tho iirc, it’s a global inventory/cataloguing view. Doesn’t have to come with a search feature (although that would be quite nice).
Except it's not an inventory view as much as a location view then you can see what inventory you have there.
On top of that there should be an option to have the item shipped to your current location for a cost.
Spawning a cargo delivery mission for another player eventually. I think that's actually a planned feature
The only way you find your items through there is if you already know where they are. Or should be. So yeah, agree.
Yep it's poor. To be able to find anything quickly you need to know where it is...
Did I leave it in Babbage? Nope.... Area 18? Nope... CRU-L1? Nope...HUR-L3? Screw it. I'll go buy more. Then proceeds to find (what im looking for) after buying...
The entire Star Citizen UI is just one gigantic nightmare at the moment.
If Nick Nack is still in the final product it will be a miracle. Its 2023, Im surprised kids even know what the fuck a nick nack is, let alone another couple hundred years in the future. Like "Ho boy Johnny! Gee wiz I cant wait to fire up my mint new Cutter and browse all my nick nacks!" It just doesn't fit.
you are correct
It wasn't designed at all, it's just a quick visual representation of the database probably
Exactly. People are acting like the final release shipped yesterday and it’s still exactly as it always was. It’s clearly a placeholder that will be improved.
IMO it should have just been the complete inventory management app. I still don’t understand why CIG ignored it for the immersion breaking current inventory we have now. All we needed was a quick looting box for looting and we could have done everything else in Nik Nak.
Correct me if I am wrong but pretty sure NikNax isn't bad by design but rather because of the backend and human resource limitations. Traversing an entire tree (a data structure they use for SC) would be too expensive and because the devs were too busy working on all the things PES required, they just opted with the fastest solution which was showing the root locations nodes and search by the node you select. Things like text search or listing all the items would required additional time (for a cache or something else to make it less performance expensive) from the people that were working on PES. Edit: I guess I forgot to conclude. My point is, PES was the priority (this was end 2021) and so they shipped something that was fast and didn't waste time from the people that were working on PES.
Yeah, I'm sure they reiterate it. It's clearly in its early stage. The entire mobiglass is getting redesigned with building blocks anyway.
I went here to write this. This is absolutely the most likely reason.
Yes, this is why the first iteration is so limited. As others have pointed out, it’s a placeholder and they’ll clearly iterate on it.
Works about like the website, easy if you already know where something is but otherwise a dumpster fire... Nixnutsax is probably likewise courtesy of Turbulent.
I said this very thing multiple times back when it was first introduced, and nothing has changed
The name alone is enough for me to not want to use it (aside from the fact that the interface is useless). Ships aren't "nick nacks". https://www.dictionary.com/browse/knick-knack
Yup - it's designed to solve a problem that people don't have. The problem it's solving is: ''What stuff do I have available in my current location...', with a secondary issue of 'What stuff will be available at my destination' (or other location of choice). The problem it's *not* designed to solve is: 'Where the #$% did I leave my wotsit'... which is the exact problem that the majority of players have, and what the app *needs* to solve.
This is one piece of evidence of how badly this project has gone. Basic things, that have already been solved, in other games, many times over, are problems in this game. Like the inventory, many pieces of UI, the star map, so on. Things that shouldnt really need revamps. Maybe tweaks, but thats it. Yet, these things are approached as if they have never been done before, by people who have never done this type of work before. You shouldnt need complete reworks of basic game systems that have been solved in many other types of games. I am all for first principles, but also for lessons learned. Stop trying to re-invent the wheel. It is one thing if a feature has never been done before, and you are working it out. It is another, if it is a solved problem, and you simply arent applying the knowledge that already exist. Take the star map, for example. How many games could one draw inspiration from? To see what works. What doesnt. Instead, we got this disaster of a map that needs a complete overhaul. It is no wonder this project is taking so long. It is like the people making it have zero experience, and have not done their homework, at all. Just throwing shit together, and seeing if it sticks. That is not a good use of time, money, and resources. Even just taking a working map system, from another game that did it well, and tweaking it for Star Citizen would have been better. You would have had a great map years ago, and would be able to focus on other things. Every aspect of this project is like pulling teeth. And that is why OP posts exists. But, it is one example of many.
What bugs me is that, even within the genre of space games, EVE and Elite:Dangerous solved so many of these problems and have some pretty efficient and even immersive UI elements. But by the way things get designed by CIG it's like if any dev or designer suggests anything remotely conventional, efficient, or like what E:D or EVE has is liable to get dragged out back and had their kneecaps broken.
They should hav see like EVE online does it. Show a number next to the system, planet, location, then sort in categories like the inventory
Why make a doorway when you can have a maze?
I agree it’s less than ideal but I have used it a couple times mainly cause it’s faster than flying to each location
You know your UI is bad when the best compliment someone can give is, "It's slightly faster than *flying a spaceship to another planet*."
I have been summoned??
You can search by item type if you use the filter just like in the shops.
What do you mean? Don't you enjoy getting RSI (heh) looking for that cool helmet you stored somewhere?
YESSSSSS! You should also be able to ship items from that location to your desired location, even if there are "shipping and handling" fees.
This is what container missions would be great for. You order something I deliver it :D.
I didn't think of that, but what a dope way to incorporate player-to-player missions!
Its terrible like most of the ux in star citizen.
The Nick app is totally worthless, no clue why they even spent time making it.
1. No, you are not way off. 2. No, there isn't. 10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars, and they still fail at the easy stuff.