Spacestations: Menu or Map?

[magellan]

Right now you walk about the map of the small spacestations, and on the main ones you get a menu. Obviously this is inconsistent and the main reason for it is feature creep over the years.

Some people seem to think the main stations should be maps too. I think the menus are much more practical.

Of course a third way to handle this would be this:
On the first visit you get the map. Second visit you get the menu (If you haven't found a particular shop on the map it would obviously be missing from the menu), and there would be an additional point in the menu "Explore site" that takes you to the map. The pirate planet and other locations could behave like this too (The black market and the independent colony for instance)

What say you, fellow prospectors?

[Happy Corner]

IMO, there's no good reason for smaller stations to be maps at all. There's no danger or secrets, so all they accomplish is making you waste time looking for stores that you can just get instantly on the large stations. This is especially bad considering you start at one every new game... you want to get to exploring the galaxy and looting planets as soon as possible, but first you have to jog around the station! (And I DO feel I have to. I'm not leaving with a skill 1 pilot who might wreck up the ship before I'm even done with the first couple of systems...)

Maybe you could argue that's "realistic" - if you went to some strange space station in real life, you WOULD have to wander around finding everything the first time - but it's not fun or interesting, which should be rule #1 for any game feature.

There would have to be more features or variables or risks or something on the small station maps before I'd think they'd be worthwhile than a menu system.

[d12]

[magellan]

[HunterZ]

My feeling is that maps are more immersive, even though I strongly dislike how you currently end up constantly colliding with the NPCs that are milling about while trying to get from point A to point B on a station map.

One thing to consider on the extreme end of this line of thinking is to also have the insides of shops and things be explorable parts of the station maps, with shopkeepers and other NPCs being visible people.

Allowing the player to scavenge stations for discarded gear, or get accosted by seedy characters, etc. may also add some fun that makes map-based stations worthwhile.

Otherwise it's probably better to just do away with station maps. A hybrid approach may please everyone, but I think that it would ultimately be better to just pick one approach and stick with it.

[HunterZ]