Dev Diary #5: UI Design 💻

Crafting an Intuitive & Immersive UI for Our Space Sim

Welcome to another edition of our dev diary! Today, we’ll explore the intricate details of the user interface (UI) design for Starminer. Our goal is to provide an intuitive and immersive experience that keeps you engaged in the vast expanse of space. Let’s break down the different components of our UI and how each part contributes to your gameplay.

The Left Side Panel

The left side panel serves as your primary hub for vital player information. Designed for easy access, it provides quick insights without obstructing your view of the cosmos. You can hide each of these panels and recall them at will.

• Player Data: This section displays your profile's essential stats, including name, date, rank, and global resources like credits and research points.

• Fleet List: Here, you get a comprehensive overview of your fleet. Whether you’re managing a few ships or an armada, you can quickly see their status, health, and capabilities at a glance.

• **Contacts List: **Interacting with other players and NPCs is crucial. This list helps you keep track of allies, trading partners, and potential threats.

• Objectives: Active objectives are listed here. Clicking on the objective entry highlights it and shows a helper line towards the objective location.

• ** Log: **This section records recent missions, discoveries, and communications. It’s handy for revisiting important information and planning your next move.

The Right Side Panel

The right side panel provides in-depth information about the selected station, ensuring you have all the necessary details to make informed decisions.

• **Station Information: **When you select a station, this section displays its name, type, and other pertinent details like the number of resources it stores.

• **Storage Sizes: **Keep track of how much storage space is available at your station for various resources and items.

• Health Meter: Monitor the structural integrity of your station. This meter helps you prioritize repairs and defenses.

• Colonists Info: See the population info at a glance - This will tell you how many colonists are available, idle, or working.

The Systems Panel

Piloting a station is a complex task, and the bottom panel is designed to make this as seamless as possible. The systems panel is your command center for station operations, featuring several buttons, for critical systems like shields, weapons, mining lasers, scanners, and constructors. This panel sets the behavior of your ship and provides you with basic velocity data.

Floating Build Menu

The floating build menu is essential for expanding and customizing your stations. It allows you to access building options without cluttering the main UI panels. When clicking on an empty socket of a selected module, the build menu will appear. To streamline the building and blueprinting process, a special, “mini” build menu opens when hovering over an empty socket, providing you with a handy list of recently built modules.

Floating Details Window

Certain modules offer special capabilities accessible by clicking on their corresponding icons. This floating window allows users to assign specific operations to each module, such as manufacturing products, refining metals, hiring colonists, and other functions.

3D HUD Elements

Beyond the 2D UI elements, our game also features immersive 3D components that enhance your spatial awareness and strategic planning.

• **Radius Widgets: **These floating indicators help you gauge distances in space, such as the proximity of asteroids, enemy ships, or other objects of interest. They are crucial for navigation, combat, and resource collection.

• **Navigation and orientation tools: **These tools help you make sense of your position in 3D space and to set custom forward vectors of your space-faring vessels.

Starmap 🌌

The starmap is a crucial tool for navigating the vast expanse of space. It provides a detailed, interactive representation of the galaxy, allowing you to plot your space jumps with precision. Using the starmap, you can chart your course to distant star systems, identify potential hazards, and plan optimal routes for exploration or trade. The starmap interface highlights key points of interest, such as resource-rich asteroids, alien outposts, and strategic locations.

Operations Interface

The operations Interface is a central hub of all the info about your mining enterprise. From here, you can oversee your storage and resources, player trade, mission data, access research, and codex tabs.

Conclusion

Our goal with the UI in Starminer is to create an interface that is both functional and immersive, allowing you to focus on the excitement of exploring and conquering space. We hope this breakdown gives you a better picture of what to expect and how each component is designed to enhance your gameplay experience. Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, we welcome your feedback to make this space sim the best it can be!

As summer heats up, stay cool and enjoy your adventures (even if they're not in space). We'll be back with a new dev diary for you all next month!

Safe travels, Commander!💫

The Dev Team