Uboat's current beta, initial thoughts

[XLjedi]

Originally Posted by hombre al agua

If you press ALT while at side view some hidden selectors appear

If you press W, A, S, or D while plotting a line you make a straight (0, 90, 180, 270 ) line

If you press M to go to the map and then press M again you return where you were

PageUp and PageDown keys change the UI size

Side view (and most of the views and walking) moves faster whith shift key pressed

If you right click and drag the mouse in orbital view to the right or to the left of the bow you can change bearing

Those are some of the most hidden things i could think. The best thing to do in that sense is to read full the game manual and visit the keyboard hotkey section. There are a lot of mechanics that if you dont read the manual you will only find them by luck. For example, if you click first time in the red box with the wounded sailors numbers, the camera will center in the first wounded, if you click again the camera will go to the second one etc, same with the red box with broken things to repair.

I've been to hotkeys searching for various items and changing the key bindings. If I'm not specifically looking for something, it's pretty easy to graze over a mention of what the Alt key might be assigned to.

The manual... In fairness, it's what? a 200+ page manual that is currently only readable via the in-game interface? I'd happily read it cover-to-cover if I had the PDF. As it stands now, its only value is using it when on specific duties in the game and you get the "question mark" icon to click to read specific items. By the way, the manual pages for the TDC make no mention of the switch you need to know exists that actually turns on the AoB tracking motor for the C-series TDC. Worse, the default view of the TDC completely hides the knob so you don't know it's there, and the manual makes no mention of it.

W,A,S,D while plotting is good to know, thanks!
Edit: LOL, this is not a snap-to line, you're just telling me that WASD will scroll the screen as I draw. Really?

M-toggle, we are generally trained by most applications that a second press of an item and it toggles, so that one was intuitively known.

UI size, I believe I saw that one in the key bindings at some point. So I knew I could change it if I wanted to.

Shift key is another one that is common. We are trained by other games/apps that holding shift while moving is a way to speed things up. So another intuitive one.

The right-click in orbital view is a bit annoying, and probably contributes to the "Clunky-ness". Changing course by this manner is probably done accidentally a lot while people are just trying to rotate the camera. They inadvertently change their course. However, with time, you are forced to get used to it. So OK.

Keep in mind, this is all in direct response to a Dev asking "Do you have any specific examples of what needs to be worked on in the UI so it does not seem clunky."

If the general response to a new player is RTFM, then the UI is not intuitive. You get the "Clunky UI" label, and you'll probably lose a fair amount of active players just because they don't know how to efficiently manage their ship.

Again, I'm at 300+ hours, I have read a lot, watched a lot, played a lot of naval sims. The UI is not intuitive. There have been times (particulary when it comes to that undocumented AoB motor) where I almost shelved the game.