Various suggestions I put together over the last few weeks

[Unarmed Civilian]

Hi. Haven't posted on a forum in a while, let alone this one.

I made a list of suggestions based on things I've noticed and some common problems.

UI:
Increase visibility of damaged component indicators, or give them priority over other UI elements
- I use those icons to monitor damage taken by components to determine if I need to run over and repair them or if they can wait. UI elements like the ship health indicator and reload timer on guns often will often obscure them.

Show timers for chemspray/extinguisher fire invuln effect
- Will help get a feeling for when chemspray needs to be reapplied, and how much time you have to do something else. Practice and experience can mitigate the need for this, but it's stil usefull information.

Show repair cooldown without needing to hug component
- Or at least show that something is under a repair cooldown. It's nice to know if the balloon engineer on a goldfish has just repaired the turning engines so you know you'll have to wait for cooldowns if you go there.

Add indicators for the heading of the ship to the compass at the top
- This will let a gunner know if the ship is turning greatly relative to where they are aiming, and will let some experienced gunners pull off shots in the turn more consistently.


Gameplay (I think):
Allow swapping of tool/ammunition order without leaving a match
- It's a pretty common problem, especially if you use spanner first, and it's annoying to have to rejoin a match because you forgot to check. While the recommended loadout system tries to change loadouts to your preference of order it very often fails, especially when switching from buff tools to repair and vice versa.


Communication:
Different voice icons for different voice chats in lobby
- It's impossible to tell if someone's talking in global or team chat, which can lead to awkwardly listening to half of a conversation.

Make clicking not interrupt voice commands and vice versa
- I want to be able to command "NEED HELP REPAIRING THE HULL" while not having to stop repairing the hull.

Tutorials:
More emphasis in tutorial on repairing other things during cooldown
- It makes me sad to see engineers waiting on hull near full health for a mallet cooldown when the engines are all red and the ship is turning like an overweight Galleon.

More emphasis on smart movement and odd repair angles in tutorial
- More people must know that you can repair main engine on pyra from below, and that you can leap over railing. The AI can do it sometimes, but many new engineers don't know about it.


Sound:
Fix stereo sound design (I don't know the term, but it's when the game makes a sound seem to originate from a specific direction)
- As it currently is, if I'm sideways to an engine, one ear sounds like I have it pressed against it and the other sounds like I'm 20 meters away. When messing around on a Spire, when I had engines on full throttle and faced forward, it sounded fine. When I turned 90 degrees starboard, the sound was a bit louder in my right speaker, but nearly silent in my left, despite how loud the engines were.

Be able to turn off lobby music without disabling battle music
- I feel like these should be separate. A lot of people listen for the battle music as a cue for danger, but some of those may listen to something else when waiting in lobbies.



In my opinion, the damaged component indicators and tool order swapping are probably the most important things on this list.

Let me know if I should format this list differently. I've been taking notes in a plaintext file.

[Huskarr]

Warning: The following is an opinion and I do not see myself as this games god of engineering.

The cooldown icons and chem spray timers are immo unnessecery. At least I think so. It would making engineering way easier, probably too easy.


All I can say to that is learn how to count :-P. Pick the most important component and base your cycle around that. Same goes for chem spray. I hardly ever spray more than 2  or 3 components. Unless we are facing a lot of flamethrowers.

Regarding the issue of being out of sync with the coengi: You are out of sync. 1st off all you are way to close to them if you are going to the turners you can see the health indicator. They are probably not in need of repairs at that time. Also communicate with your coengi.

I think that the UI changes you propose (exept the visibility one) will reduce my personal fun. I like it difficult and the feeling when you don't have to count your mallets anymore is awesome. Also the feeling of being in complete sync with your coengineer is a very special one. Something I haven't achieved very often, but when you do it is pretty special.
The cooldown icons will make these things easier which would imo reduce the reward of those feelings.


Your other suggestions are pretty good.
Exept the tutorial ones. The new ones are already realy baisic but still feel overloaded to some people (my parents for example x.X). Maybe if muse added a second tutorial.

Also sorry for the unformated rambliness. I'm on the train and this is typed on my phone.

[Unarmed Civilian]

I figured the lack of cooldown icons on distant components and chem spray timers are a design choice, and I understand that communication helps resolve some of those issues. I just feel that more information is always better when striving for efficiency. I might be wrong though.

As for tutorials, I don't really think what I'm asking for should be in the current tutorial, there's enough information to take in as it is. It should be set aside in an advanced tutorial for people who want to improve further, or at least written in text somewhere in the tutorial section as a list of tips.

[Arturo Sanchez]

I figured the lack of cooldown icons on distant components and chem spray timers are a design choice, and I understand that communication helps resolve some of those issues. I just feel that more information is always better when striving for efficiency. I might be wrong though.

As for tutorials, I don't really think what I'm asking for should be in the current tutorial, there's enough information to take in as it is. It should be set aside in an advanced tutorial for people who want to improve further, or at least written in text somewhere in the tutorial section as a list of tips.

we have a wiki.

[Helios.]

i think the devs have said that the point of the information not begin readily apparent all the time is so that communication and teamwork are more required. if you could just see everything all the time, you wouldn't have to talk to your crew as much, reducing the intended point of the game.