Would be nice to have a minimap or ability to place waypoints on compass

Question

Would be nice to be able to have some feature to add items to your compass (similar to the home icon) that allow you to find your way to previously found places.  So you don't lose that portable miner you placed somewhere, that one time.... and can't find now.

Comments

Agreed! A minimap that fills in fog-of-war style would be greatly appreciated.

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You get an item called a "Beacon" that puts compass waypoints to locations. i think a rudimentary map or some craftable map in addition to these beacons would be nice. There are 3 tech teirs we havent seen though so this may already exist.

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What if they could build a sort of heat-map-fog-of-war into the dial compass already at the top?

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The beacon unlocked later in the game doesn't help the new player at the beginning of the game.  That's the time when it's most important to be able to make waypoints

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not really though, stuff is pretty close by and easy to remember.

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I agree with others that if there is a mini-map, it should have fog-of-war for anything you've never been within ~50m of. Map would be great but I also don't want it to ruin exploration.

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It is probably planned, as there is a keybinding for a "Map"

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Counterpoint: games with no minimap are more immersive. I totally dig the way it is now

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I agree that there should be more ways of adding and filtering stuff from the compass. I think this will come. I don't think they should add in a minimap because of the minimalistic UI is really good. At least have an option to hide it if one comes. I think fog of war will also be a good thing for the map.

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I can't say I agree here. I think a minimap would ruin the exploration and discovery. There are tech tiers that facilitate navigation like the beacon, but a map would hinder the immersion as another commentator pointed out.

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I'd accept a physical map rather than a full mini-map that is active and can show active points on it. It would make sence as well with deploying from space that at least a topographical image is something that can be used. Or even have it as an unlock with the space elevator as that would in theory be at a height of orbit, then I think it'd be reasonable to have only beacons show up on it

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Maybe we could have a GPS we can create and you can hold it in your hands and look at it, imagine the item finder, but with a gps screen that works, and moving the map around makes the character use knobs or something. I think that would be neat.

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There needs to be more functionnalities to the beacons and compass. For one, the distances. I see beacons icons but no distances. I can see the distances or ore pings but not my compass, home...

also the beacons need to be highlited or glow or have some high visibility icon appear when we drive by them and not just realize we drove past them and it's just plain confusing at times... "Taking all of the fun, out of the job" and don't get me wrong, I'm all about tiptoeing thru the tulips :)

Cheers

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something like the maps out of minecraft or ark could be fine, they show what areas youve explored and hide what you havent, at present I have a tough time finding new areas to explore.

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in the control settings is an option to open a minimap, so I think that a minimap is coming in the future

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I think a map would defeat half the purpose of the game. That's just my opinion

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I think this is done in the experimental branch, this topic should  be closed

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I'd really love to see the map as a handheld gadget, it would be so natural to integrate it with the locator device which has an aesthetic screen display. Just click to bring the map up for a close up view, click again to drop it back down to the neutral position for scanning for items.

Answer 1

We have beacons in the game

Comments

That just gives you a direction (and not even distance). It is better than nothing, but only slightly. Beacons don't give you the same overview a map would.

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@ elveejay

We DO have a map, but it's disabled because it's being reworked. really old saves still have a working map.

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I only found out there would be a map looking through the keybinds for the game. I however loved that there wasn't a map to look at for me, made exploring the map SO much more fun for me, I didn't know how far I could venture towards each direction, and once me and a few friends went on an adventure, we kept getting blown away by the size of it. Then we found out the actual size and I honestly thought it was bigger than it was.

But that's not to say I wouldn't mind it if it grew a little more!
Hopefully there will be modding that can allow us custom made maps in the future

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what? the map is working fine! have you researched the quartz technology?

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FluffyBunny: look at the time of posting. The quartz update was released a while after posting. Even the experimental version was delayed.

Answer 2

There's a beacon available to unlock once you have your Hub fully developped. Before that... don't wander off too far and navigate by landmarks.

Comments

who goes to an alien planet without a map?

In my first game, I died 20 times. My radar vas full of death icons, but I couldn't tell which one I needed to go to that had all my stuff.

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I'm pretty sure there is or will be a map in game as there is a key bind to "map". If I remember right it is "Z" which does not do anything when you hit it. But you may have to research something.

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@Calinionesco 20 times? Really? I'm 15 hours in, all stuff unlocked and everything (mostly just exploring at this point to see if I can find any more researchables), and I've yet to die even once. And I didn't unlock the... other weapon (not spoiling what it is).... until the very end. How'd you die?

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Beacons are nice, but I wish there was a tab where you can disable certain ones from showing up on your hud, after marking a lot of stuff that isn't even available in the current early access version of the game (namely ores and drop pods requiring unobtainable resources), the names of the beacons and their icons merge together, creating this very hard to read blob of text.

But having a map like Ark does, were as you wonder about it fills itself in and it is displayed as an item you hold in your hand would be a good middle ground between a minimap and keeping the immersion of the game.

Answer 3

The beacon works fine, but kind of a minimap hub upgrade would be nice :)

Comments

Beacons would be more useful if the text you set actually showed up on the Hud compass. Once you've dropped a few down can be difficult to work out which one you want to go to.
Colours would also help, but that's in the description, so hopefully is coming at some point.
Edit (typo)

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I like this!!

Fine, Those that want it get a map, but it is a map table/wall inside the hub... Gives you more reason to visit the hub, maybe limited waypoints offered (1-2 that show on compass / HUD)

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I really like the idea of an hub upgrade.
its kind of sad, that its getting useless after a while.

Maybe in the way that you have to send a satellite into the orbit which give you the opportunity do work on the computer next to the Scanner Unit.
there you could hide/unhide beacons on your GUI, see distances,  have a map and you could better organize you fleet of tractor/trucks etc.

Answer 4

I heard somewhere (didn't see it confirmed!) that the map is an unlocable tech

Comments

How do you draw a map to an alien planet in the first place, anyway?

ofc it should be a researchable - I absolutely full heartedly agree!

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Satellites! :D

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Like in Empyrion, the map would only show discovered items. It would be helpful for Beacon descriptions & deposits found.

Answer 5

There is a map option in the controls screen, but the button does not work and rebinding it does not make it work.

Answer 6

the game really needs a minimap with cordinates so we can share nice spots to start to build and plan and helps a lot to keep track where to get X or Y resource, beacons are ok but power poles are better as waypoints

Comments

Or pinging like Apex Legends ? :D

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Pinging is in the game already... I found it by accident... Ctrl + Left click will ping what you are looking at anywhere you can see (with a huge distance limit... if there is one at all)

Answer 7

It's supposed to be unlocked later in the game, I saw that in screenshots of alpha testers. (Not in the test weekend)

Comments

I would like to see a "fog of war" type map.

The thing is, these are not procedural maps ... there's going to be maps all over the internet anyway.  

It would be nice to see where the hell you are in game so you don't wast your time running around THIS way when you have just gone THAT way.

Answer 8

It would be nice to have a map as in factorio at least to find the world

Comments

It does, we just don't have it yet (default key is Z, which doesn't do anything currently).

Answer 9

beacons obviously help here. also there is a map upgrade in experimental right now

Answer 10

There is a map if you investigate the quartz technology (default key is Z). not a mini map but a full map that shows where you've visited.

Beacons act as way points on the map and compass