50 day mark suggestions

[Elestan]

So I've gotten to 50 days for the first time, and thought I'd post some feedback.  Apologies if these duplicate others' suggestions..

First off, I'm generally enjoying myself, but there are a few points of serious UI frustration that have been salved with mods.  I would ask that you give serious thought to bringing these into the main game:

1. Relaxed Crafting.  Time is such a precious commodity in this game that I feel cheated every time I have to fumble with the interface.  Time should not pass while I'm using the menus, and I should be able to pan/zoom/rotate and rearrange inventory while the game is paused. 
2. Minimap HUD.  DS is supposed to be uncompromising, but that doesn't mean that the interface can't be easy to use.  A minimap HUD just makes sense for a game like this.
3. Auto ReTrap.  I almost always want to reset a trap after emptying it, so why isn't this the default?
4. Auto Equip.  I spend so much time fumbling around swapping tools.  Please, do this for me!  Alternatively, allow crafting a "Toolbelt" item that holds six tools/weapons, and automatically switches as appropriate.
5. Geometric Placement.  Displaying a placement grid makes it so much less frustrating to construct a proper base.
6. Wide FOV.  Let the player adjust the FOV width.

Additionally, a couple suggestions of my own:

1. There should be a way to click on a component and have the game tell me what already-prototyped items I can craft with it (and let me craft it from there, without needing to search through the crafting menus).
2. The game should automatically pause when it loses focus.
3. The Pick/Axe isn't worth its Thulecite cost.  Maybe if it only required 1-2 Thulecite Fragments, instead of a whole chunk.

 

[Mobbstar]

On 23.4.2016 at 8:04 AM, Elestan said:

The game should automatically pause when it loses focus.

I like this idea, but sadly the game "remembers" your cursor position, so I can't make a mod for that using the API.

I could, however, make a mod to automatically pause if no input is given for a set amount of time, and add a little widget icon to the UI to toggle this on or off for when the player has to wait through night or uses a bushhat. This would be similiar to:

[Elestan]

7 hours ago, Mobbstar said:

I could, however, make a mod to automatically pause if no input is given for a set amount of time, and add a little widget icon to the UI to toggle this on or off for when the player has to wait through night or uses a bushhat.

I think this would be great.  A few follow-up thoughts on mod options, etc:

1. Could it use a "soft pause" in the manner of Time To Craft?
2. Could you allow the time before pause to be configurable from, say, one second up to one minute?
3. What counts as "input"?  With a little clever filtering, this could also go a long way toward satisfying my interface issues (#1 in my list).  Player movement counts, obviously.  Crafting/Harvesting/Attacking/Taking/Dropping/Activating count.  I would suggest that simple cursor movement not count, nor should purely interface-related commands like pan/zoom/rotate.  Ideally, input that causes the player to interact with the world should keep time moving, while "input" that is just the player interacting with the game's interface should not cause an unpause.

Happy to review and beta-test this for you if you do it.  I don't know Lua, but I am a programmer.

[Mobbstar]

@Elestan Thanks for the reply! A mod of this size will probably not need extensive testing, but I will notify you when it gets released.

1. I was actually planning to use this method of stopping time (either directly or indirectly via the pause screen, ideally with an option to choose between the two).
2. Configuration is easy thanks to the API, of course I will do that.
3. That's a good catch! I will make sure to use actual character actions as the criteria.

[Elestan]

Actually, thinking about it, it would be cool to allow the pause delay to go all the way to zero, meaning that game time would only pass when the character was actually doing something.  It would be almost like a turn-based mode.

[Mobbstar]

@Elestan