I’ve been playing the game for the past few days and it’s really been a unique experience for me. I’m not very familiar with these kinds of games and found everything a bit overwhelming at first. The in-game help files (0 and ?) were really useful, but naturally there’s an issue with actually taking in all that information, or finding what’s needed, or occasionally undocumented or unclear things. This post is to document the difficulties and frustrations I’ve encountered as someone with a “fresh take” on the game, alongside suggested improvements.
I apologise in advance if the game already does some of these things- it’s not always obvious (and of course, I miss things).
Edit: To clarify I played using the experimental build, not stable.
Combining containers:
I found myself wishing for some way in which to combine the storage units in my vehicle and base so they either all act as one container for crafting/swapping items, or have a fixed access point to interact with. This would really streamline inventory management and make it less tedious to handle larger volumes of liquid (e.g moving moving liquids between a group of tanks rather than each individual tank). I did discover that crafting benches can be used/pull from a 5~ tile radius, but this doesn’t seem changeable or documented anywhere.
Advanced Inventory:
A little embarrassing to admit, but it took quite a while and some internet searches before I realised the advanced inventory to directly move items from one container to another. Might be a useful thing to mention in the inventory section of the help menu
Searchable help:
Idk how easy or feasible it would be, but some way to search for key words or functions might make the help system a little less daunting.
Hoods V Helmets:
I felt a little cheated after blowing my first kevlar on a survivor hood and learning that despite being an (outer) layer garment, it couldn’t be worn with the (normal) layer hard hat, chitin helmet, etc. Adding something in the item descriptions or making them all the same layer would be more intuitive, as it seems a result of some hidden tag rather than the item class itself.
Repairing Vehicles:
Vehicle repairs seem needlessly tedious atm, with having to hold down R and watching the interface flash up and down. A mass repair/repair all function would be very handy. Something like: press R -> filterable list of damaged components comes up -> select individually or by category (e.g levels of damage/resource requirement on repair, or part type, or all, similar to current inventory) - > watch character repair everything in that order and interrupt like normal, if need be.
Warning Prompts:
Super annoying when my character is sneakily performing an action (eating, picking up, butchering, etc.) and some random zombies are milling about in the periphery. Even if the [I]gnore prompt is selected, each new item pickup seems to trigger it again (or new enemy, or both. I forget). The best solution I’ve come up with is holding down N or I, but then I can’t tell if a zombie actually spots me and starts beating my face in (enemy positions don’t always seem to update onscreen between these prompts).
Suggestion: Make [I]gnore stop the warning prompts until an enemy spots the player, or add an option so that only the “coming towards you” type warnings are displayed.
Durability:
It’s somewhat confusing that durability isn’t part of item description and is only shown in the installation menu. Possibly not such a big deal, except Hard and Steel plating both show the same durability value and I have no idea it’s a mistake, or there are hidden soak/coverage stat differences, or if the displayed stat is incorrect.
Examine Vehicle:
A very daunting screen at first glance. I’ve grown used to it, but still have difficulty telling what the symbols mean and where the cursor is. The ability to click select and a searchable list of components would be a lot more user friendly, without having to change the UI.
Vehicle Construction:
It’d make sense if players could “blueprint” modifications to a vehicle before making them, basically a to-do list for the character. This would in turn allow for more convenient construction tools, such as:
copy/pasting tiles,
undo button,
“component brush” - select component once, then select the squares in which you want that component, rather than selecting the component anew each square,
removing an object= automatically schedules removal of all its dependents, rather than requiring each one be done in order (e.g remove frame = all parts and connected frames are removed),
search for and remove/replace specific parts (e.g: search for steel plating, remove all steel plating/replace with hard plating)
Sticky Items:
There is no obvious way of tagging items to be exempt from category selection, transfer all, etc. and with all the inventory juggling going on, I’ve spent a significant portion of my game time sifting loot from my survival gear.
Edit- some things I forgot to mention:
Can’t mass eat food/Can’t mass drink water:
More a minor inconvenience in normal play, but when doing any turn intensive task like welding or crafting, can quickly run into 100+ key strokes over the course of a couple minutes. A less RSI way of eating would be nice?
Crafting screen closes and resets every time:
Do what other screens do and open again at same place/search settings. Would help with making similar things like weapon mods or food, with no real downside?
Hopefully these first impressions will be of some use to the community- I’m aware that actually implementing these suggestions would take a lot of work. Think of them as feedback as much as anything else.
Thanks for reading.
tl;dr
I’m a new player, change the game to suit my tastes 
ended up happening, allowing me to access as many high capacity tiles as possible while making it relatively easy to deposit loot from a raiding vehicle. This just so happened to make all the default vehicle trunks out of reach, so it took a while to discover that items didn’t have to be in adjacent squares for vehicular crafting.