While it's still in need of some polish and tweaking, for me at least the edit-a-mech experience in the full-mech view is an improvement, so bravo!
Less pleasing (for me at least) is the mech selection process.
Below I'm going to repost some comments/complaints about the mech select process and how it affects the way I interact with mechs, but per the title of this thread, here are a couple of (hopefully) quickish fixes which for me at least, would alleviate a lot of the mech-selection pain while you work on the next iteration of the mech select screen:
Make ALL filters and expandable/collapsable elements remember your previous settings persistently (i.e. even between client restarts).
So: if I choose to list mechs sorted by class (asc) and expand each of the four class headings to show all mechs, unless and until I change those settings manually, every time I come to the mech select screen I would like to see my mech list sorted by class (asc) and with all four class headings expanded. I suspect that alone would mitigate most of the trouble I have with the mech selection screen/process.
Make the INNER SPHERE, CLAN, OWNED MECHS and TRIAL MECHS toggle buttons at the top of the mech select window into on-off toggles, rather than either/or toggles
i.e. I start with INNER SPHERE and OWNED MECHS enabled. If I click the CLAN button, the clan mechs I own are added to the list of mechs shown, sorted by whichever sort option I currently have enabled.
This may be waaay more complicated than I assume, and/or you may be much closer to having a revised mech select screen ready for release, but here's hoping.
For reference -- the content below is an explanation of how I used the mechlab in the previous UI...
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Some details, hidden behind a spoiler tag to keep this sensibly-sized:
Spoiler
In the previous UI, I did all of my mech selection via the Mechlab list screen. I typically keep all of my mechs stripped EXCEPT for the handful I'm currently playing -- typically somewhere between 3 and 6 mechs out of ... er ... well now there doesn't appear to be a way to see how many mechs you own in the new ui -- about 130 chassis total.
While it did involve a certain amount of scrolling, I could fairly quickly skim through the mech "tiles" and find the ones which didn't have an "invalid layout" banner over them, to retrieve engines or modules from currently-built mechs to use in a new mech I wanted to build out and pilot. This also had the advantage of sidestepping the "where are my modules?" problem, and so my main bone of contention was cockpit items, which I generally forgot to remove when stripping a mech, and which meant every so often doing a trawl through all of my owned chassis to retrieve warhorns and the like
In theory, it should be possible for me to recreate a cramped version of my old habit by sorting the mech list by chassis, then expanding each of the weightclass "buckets", but:
that still means flipping between clan and IS chassis to find mech modules
it's a MUCH smaller window, so waaaaay more scrolling
the collapsible elements for the different weight classes don't remember whether you left them expanded or collapsed, so every time you navigate away from a given view of the mech select (whether opening a mech in the mechlab editor, or just flipping between IS mech and Clan mech filters) they collapse and need to be re-opened... although not entirely consistently, as one section will remember it was expanded, but only one section, not all
There are more niggles/missed opportunities I see, some of which may be useful to many players and some of which might only be useful to me:
If I can change consumables on the mech select screen, why can't I change other modules too?
Why can't I see which cockpit items are equipped on a given mech from the mech select screen? I can see weapons and modules, and from the new mech editor screen I can see cockpit items (and strip them as part of the the "strip mech" menu, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU)?
Why can't I right-click on a mech in the mech select window and choose some of the global actions, like the various "strip mech" options? In fact why not make use of context menus in the mech editor view?
Why can't I see an unfiltered view of ALL of my mechs?
Why can't I see mech quirks in the mech select screen?
...and the obvious "why aren't you reading the screen res and adjusting the view accordingly: at the very least enlarging the central mech select area, but perhaps also adding in extra content areas when space is available?
Like lots of people, I like the new Expanded view for the Mech Lab.
- One idea though: Make the Warhouse box semi-transparent, so we can see the 'Mech behind it. Another possibility is to make the box dragable.
I agree with the OP on all points. In particular:
- Make it use the grid system again.
- Display the 'Mech on the right side of the screen again
- Display the Mech Stats tooltip when I hover the cursor over a 'Mech, with the quirks, etc. (like it used to)
- Use available screen real estate. At least as much as the Mech Lab.
- Allow modifying all modules, not just consumables.
- It makes sense to make the IS and Clan buttons toggles instead of one or the other.
Inventory screen:
- For the Modules tab, please list total owned modules, then list the number available in the warehouse, and then 'Mechs that have that module equipped.
- Same as above for cockpit items.
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