Fleet List Priority

[VonZorch]

It would be helpful if the HUD fleet list (bottom left) listed NPC ships traveling with you first (at the bottom). Escort jobs can put six different ship types in your fleet, the Free Worlds and Deep escort missions can add up to 3. Making the list scrollable would work too, whatever's easier.

[tehhowch]

The escort icons are currently stacked and ordered by strength (cost). Some means of identifying your escorts from allied escorts could be useful.

[VonZorch]

I just want to know if the escorted ships, which are always slower than my ships, are all in system after jumping in, or ready to jump out with the fleet. Maybe an indicator light at the bottom of the list. Red when unparked ships are in different systems, green when they're all ready to jump and yellow otherwise.

[VonZorch]

Accidentally closed this somehow.

[tehhowch]

I guess I'm not understanding the request. There is already color-coded jump readiness (hold your jump key to jump as a group and watch the escort outlines). Any out-of-system escorts have their current system name displayed, and only stack with ships that are in their current system.

Would you please create a UI mockup to help me understand the request?

[VonZorch]

"There is already color-coded jump readiness (hold your jump key to jump as a group and watch the escort outlines)." That works fine, as long as all the ships in the fleet display in the list. I'm asking for an indicator that shows when the ships not displayed are ready to jump or still out system.

[tehhowch]

NPC ships that you are supposed to escort should have personality escort and thus appear in that list of escorts and have jump readiness reported. If they do not, then it is either a mission definition error by the content creator, or an explicit design decision, also by the content creator.

Can you provide a specific instance in which this escort status drawing is not properly working within the base game?

[MCOfficer]

I believe this is concerning massive fleets. If you have a dozen different ship types in your fleet, not even grouping will allow them all to be shown, so some will be omitted. I think this is about getting an indicator for those omitted escorts.

consider this test pilot i've thrown together: for some reason he has at least 20 different types of ships in his fleet. How is he supposed to know when his freighters are ready for a jump when they're omitted from the list? fleet test.txt

[tehhowch]

There was an issue / PR that allowed the escort list to overflow horizontally as you approached allowed but unsupported fleet sizes: https://github.com/endless-sky/endless-sky/pull/2988

I think a sensible alternative to that crowding the whole interface is indeed an illuminated icon that brightens when you and when your escort chain is ready to jump. So propose some icon designs and we'll see what we can do

[VonZorch]

@MCOfficer: Exactly, but it doesn't take a massive fleet. I had a Mule, two Mantas, a Fire Bird, a Hawk and a Fury. I took 3 Escort Science Vessels that added a Scout and 2 Bounders. Then a Pleasure Cruies Security with a Star Queen. Top it off With 3 escort missions one each Freighter, Behemoth and Bulk Freighter. The Fury was pushed off the list The red dot indicates that there are still ships to enter the system. Yellow or amber would indicate all ships are in system. Green when all ships are ready to jump.

[MCOfficer]

I can see the need for it, or some other kind of indicator. However, I suggest using the same color scheme as escorts, e.g. blue-grey - not (all) in the system red - not enough fuel yellow - preparing to jump white (or green, when it's just a dot) - ready

[ChamEV]

I think the fleet list could be improved in the following ways.

• Ordered by your ship list order not combat strength, the player can reorder how they like already, let's respect that.

• At the bottom is the status screen, 3 icons that show up when necessary, always in the same spot. Jump or in system status (left most), # of disabled (middle), # of destroyed (right). Clicking on the disabled icon will select a disabled ship and cycle through them if you keep clicking on them.

• Disabled icon would be a grey wrench or something.

• Destroyed icon would be a scull and crossbones type thing, bright red.

• The energy and heat indicators on all ships should be reversed to match the order of the player's bars on the right side of the screen, that is shields, hull, fuel, energy, heat.

• If there are too many ship types in the fleet, a catchall grouping will appear at the top.

I'm not sure the jump status is quite necessary at this time as the other icons generally indicate such information already and may be improved as well.