UI enhancements suggestions for train related views

[leeux]

Hello,

I'd like to suggest a few enhancements to already existing views in-game that I feel shouldn't be much difficult to implement, features I feel would help in finding/reading the information already present there.

1. In the Station List view, when you select a station entry that represents multiple station group (i.e. same name for many stations) it'd be nice to have a check box or some kind of gadget that filters the list to only showing the open ones, i.e. the ones that have a limit set and that are actively calling trains at that moment. The list already shows that with the N/X label to the side of the station name, but when you have dozens upon dozens of stations and only a few of them are open at a given moment, it becomes difficult to find them just by scrolling the list. (From past experience, pretty sure the list is not sorted by open first, etc. but I cannot confirm that atm. since in my current game I don't have enough traffic/stations yet.)

2. In the map view, for stations that have a limit set, you are already showing different color icons for stations that aren't open to those are are... but that color is shared by closed stations and by open stations that have already a train assigned: it'd be awesome if those colors were distinct, so you could see at a glance on the map which stations are being served by trains vs. those that are not requesting anything.

3. The third one is about train status: i.e. the text that displays at the bottom of each train view when you check on a station, for example. From what I can tell, there's only two states listed there (ignoring the "error" ones, i.e. not path, etc.) Waiting and Standing. (It's hard to verify this since there seems to be no mention of "possible train states" in the wiki or even doing a google search.)

The suggestion here in this case would be, to add information about transient states like loading/unloading, i.e. when the trains are in the "Full cargo" vs. "Empty cargo" steps of their schedule, show a corresponding state there... (maybe those states would be limited to those particular schedule steps.) So it's easy to distinguis trains at rest in wait mode vs. those that are being loaded/unloaded at a glance from the station view.

Those are the things that are in my mind atm., I think I had a couple more to add, but I can't remember them now... I'll edit this and add them if/when I remember!

Sorry is something in here was already asked, I did a forum search and also took a superficial look inside the frequently suggested threads section and didn't see anything that looked similar, but I'm often blind to the obvious :/

Best regards.

[Klonan]

1. In the Station List view, when you select a station entry that represents multiple station group (i.e. same name for many stations) it'd be nice to have a check box or some kind of gadget that filters the list to only showing the open ones, i.e. the ones that have a limit set and that are actively calling trains at that moment. The list already shows that with the N/X label to the side of the station name, but when you have dozens upon dozens of stations and only a few of them are open at a given moment, it becomes difficult to find them just by scrolling the list. (From past experience, pretty sure the list is not sorted by open first, etc. but I cannot confirm that atm. since in my current game I don't have enough traffic/stations yet.)

Hmm, I am not sure about a checkbox specifically for this case, but I imagine we can sort them based on how many trains are at the station, that way you can scroll to the bottom to see those with no trains assigned, and scroll to the top to see the busiest stops

[leeux]

Thank you! Yeah, that'd certainly also help!

[mmmPI]

3. The third one is about train status: i.e. the text that displays at the bottom of each train view when you check on a station, for example. From what I can tell, there's only two states listed there (ignoring the "error" ones, i.e. not path, etc.) Waiting and Standing. (It's hard to verify this since there seems to be no mention of "possible train states" in the wiki or even doing a google search.)

The suggestion here in this case would be, to add information about transient states like loading/unloading, i.e. when the trains are in the "Full cargo" vs. "Empty cargo" steps of their schedule, show a corresponding state there... (maybe those states would be limited to those particular schedule steps.) So it's easy to distinguis trains at rest in wait mode vs. those that are being loaded/unloaded at a glance from the station view.

There could be " heading toward 'station' ", "heading toward [coordinate]" "waiting at station" and "manually stopped" from what i notice in game, coordinate show when heading toward temporary stop on rail made with shift click.

I think the progress bar in background is a nice idea for when the schedule is simple, but when you use inactivity condition or circuit condition, or load uranium ore and unload sulfuric acid from another wagon, or even unload 5 different material, it would be difficult to find a meaningful information to display on just the space you are refering to.

[leeux]

<snip>

There could be " heading toward 'station' ", "heading toward [coordinate]" "waiting at station" and "manually stopped" from what i notice in game, coordinate show when heading toward temporary stop on rail made with shift click.

I think the progress bar in background is a nice idea for when the schedule is simple, but when you use inactivity condition or circuit condition, or load uranium ore and unload sulfuric acid from another wagon, or even unload 5 different material, it would be difficult to find a meaningful information to display on just the space you are refering to.

Yeah true! You are right on that, that's why I'd say that those transient states could be made to appear only for those specific schedule operations (Full cargo and Empty cargo, and maybe for the Item/Fluid count ones, in specific cases.)

But maybe there are better ways to implement that that doesn't need specific schedule cargo steps, perhaps by detecting the transfers happening on the background? I.e. cargo moved in one direction = loading, in the other = unloading, anything else = waiting like it's now?

Ofc. it may be unfeasible to do it this way due to complexity and/or UPS reasons, and in that case: fair enough! Perhaps point 3. is asking too much, but it'd great to be able to see that info at a glance from the station view and see what's happening at that moment.

EDIT: missing word