Why does Ackdarian escort have 5 engine slots?

[boolybooly]

Why does the Ackdarian starter escort have 5 engine slots when it can only equip 4 ?

Can anybody explain that ?

[fruitgnome]

There are often more engine slots than can equip. It's a visual design concept. See design screen right top recommandations: you have reached the maximum number of engines.

[boolybooly]

There are often more engine slots than can equip. It's a visual design concept. See design screen right top recommandations: you have reached the maximum number of engines.

Yes, obviously, that's how I know it only fits 4 when there are 5 yellow slots.

I dont think its a visual design concept. I think its what we in the UK term a "cockup".

What it looks like is they made the component list for the more advanced escorts with most engines and didn't remember to edit it down to suit the starter escort, which they presumably added later.

Would be nice if they could make the number of visible slots correspond with the usable slots.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I thought this was quite apparent and understandable reasons no one would need to tell anyone. It is for the sole reason of the engines being symmetrically arranged on the ship. If you have three engines or four they are not all placed in the same spot.

Every slot correspond to a specific spot on the ship model.

[boolybooly]

I can see that but from the perspective of interface polish, it is the wrong call to show slots you cannot use.

The player needs to see what is relevant to them, not the working of the design process the devs went through in deciding how to place the different possible engine/thruster combinations.

Players cannot choose which slots the model fills when populating them, so there is no value in showing the 5 slots which the design algorithm has available. It devalues the design interface because it is misleading by showing 5 slots when only 4 are usable.

The player needs to know how many engines they can add to the design. The placement symmetry is automatic and a clever little algorithm but it should stay under the hood.

I am surprised this hasn't been picked up already as it seems obvious this was a development process driven oversight, not completed to release standard and not playing as it ought.

[MatBailie]

What makes you think it hasn't been picked up?

It has been. It's deliberate, acknowledged, and been retained.

What you mean is "why hasn't this been changed to meet my (unspecified) expectations?"

And the simple answer is that no better AND practical solution has been proposed. In every case the effort spent to change this cosmetic feature would remove resources from other development work, and it's never been seen as worth it.

You don't agree, fine, but the expectation that the dev Must agree is naive or disingenuous at best.

[fruitgnome]

I proposed that the information of reaching max engines get an extra row always visible above the recommendations information.

[boolybooly]

Contrarian ad hominem post hoc justification is not the same as reason.

It stands to reason there should be as many visible slots as engine components, because that is the convention used for all other components.

I proposed that the information of reaching max engines get an extra row always visible above the recommendations information.

Which is a reasonable suggestion. You could also grey out one of the slots not being used if you wanted to highlight the engine layout variability for some reason but it would be clumsy and a pointlessly unproductive interface complexity when really it makes no sense not to do it properly so the components list interface reads as it functions and the model itself shows the effect.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I agree that it is not the best way to do it. They could easily have just had four slots and the engine component on the ship just placed itself correctly so it was symmetrical. That is, each slot is not directly connected with a visible slot on the ship.

But I don't think this is a big deal... in fact I think this is a very trivial thing that arguing about it is almost pointless.

[LoBlo]

I agree that it is not the best way to do it. They could easily have just had four slots and the engine component on the ship just placed itself correctly so it was symmetrical. That is, each slot is not directly connected with a visible slot on the ship.

But I don't think this is a big deal... in fact I think this is a very trivial thing that arguing about it is almost pointless.

I agree with this statement. Yes, its like having something in front of you that your not allowed to touch, but drives you crazy, but its not a big deal. It probably was the easiest way to program it initially. I have no complaints.