Interface enhancements requests thread

[eidolad]

How about a thread to collect interface enhancement requests?:


1. Idle ship counter/selector on the galaxy map: A nice colored square that shows the idle fleets. When I click that button, the focus cycles to each idle fleet. Currently swapping back and forth to the turn summary, and back for each ship, is driving me insane:)

a. alternative #1: continue to list idle ships in the succeeding turn summaries (other known as "last turn events"). otherwise those idle ships are "lost" and just sit around until I go hunt for them.

b. alternative #2: a hotkey to cycle through idle fleets

c. alternative #3: have a checkmark that in the "turn summary" that shows that the ship is no longer idle.


2. Guard planet order: "patrol" sends the doofus fleet to wander around the star system...which means they might be woefully out of position if death comes calling. I would rather base a fleet at a planet in most need of defending. Currently, "orbit planet" is really an idle fleet. "Guard planet" would interact properly with suggestion #1 to *not* move the focus to a "guarding" fleet.


3. Ships in the "last turn events" need system location indicated. It would be a minor, but helpful thing to know where a particular ship is located. This would help big time when working through the list of idle ships.


4. Making the "last turn events" screen easier to work with in concert with the galaxy map:

I find that most turns are spent going back and forth between the galaxy map and the last turn events...

a. I would like to look at *both* the turn summary and the galaxy map at the same time: perhaps a shift to the "shift-able moving banner list of events" at the bottom of the screen a la Sword of the Stars prime? By shift-able I mean the player could use the mouse to fast forward through the banner backwards and forwards.

a1. alternative: have the "last turn events" window take up much less space by a) moving to one side (or the other at the player choice) and making about 1/2 wide and getting rid of the empty space.

b. Move "last turn events" button to the bottom list where the other main items are (races, tech, design)...otherwise I have to look at very top of the screen to hunt for a blue icon that looks like the rest.

c. Have spacebar toggle the "last turn events" window open/closed.

d. low priority messages should be display-able if I toggle the "low priority messages" filter button.


5. Reduce "last turn events" window clutter:

a. Any ship that already has orders does not need to tell the player that it has received upgrades. That should be filter-able as a "low priority message". I would indeed care about idle ships that just got their upgrades though.


6. Nice fleet order to have: "Idle for N turns". Could be present values like 5, 15, 25. Would be a good way to cycle frontier fleets back and forth for refit.

[Slipsilk]

You should check out the ship list icon (found at the top next to the year/credits counter, turn events and such) This is part of the planet and colony list. It will actually show you ever ship you have, what their tasks are (digging, orbit, surveying or just being idle playing cards)

From here you can see what system and planet they are in, you can click on them to select them. This window will give you full control off all that information and won't disappear on you after a turn like the last events popup does.

When I play, I pretty much just go through that list...rarely touching the last turn events. It's pretty useful and should cover many of your UI needs for ship management

[eidolad]

will give the fleet list a spin and comment thx

edit:

Fleet list is nice but:

1. obstructs the galactic map view

2. Has to be resorted every time when we want to look for idle ships

3. Is a static list...that is, "idle ships I already know about" are mixed in with newly idle ships. Which makes the "last turns events" better for me to find newly idle ships.

Suggestions for improving fleet list:

1. Anchor the fleet list on one side of the galactic window, persistently. Allow player to sort/display, for example, idle ships at the top, and resize the window as needed. Each turn, the idle list would be updated. In combination with the "last turn events" window...the player could quickly view/select idle ships.

My objective is to sort through all idle ships and press the "next turn" asap unless I have to make any design/colony decisions...

[Bansheedragon]

Some things I would like to see if possible.

1. Be able to send a colony ship to an uncolonized planet from the planetary/star System view and have it automatically move and colonize selected planet.
Having to send a colony ship to a system and then tell it to colonize a specific planet is something I find tedious and cumbersome in the long run.

2. From the colony view, be able to scroll through all colonized planets rather than have to go to the galactic map and select a new system every time you are done with one system
Kinda like flipping through the pages of a book.

I dont know about others, but I feel they would streamline my colonization efforts and the handling of my colonies

3. Be able to refit ships/Starbases rather than have to scrap them and build new every time I change/upgrade the design of a ship.
I usually forget to use all the space available on my starbases before I build the first few, which cost me allot in time and resources to upgrade when I have to scrap and then rebuild them.

[eidolad]

Seconded for all of bansheedragon items

[Grogger]

This topic has been recently brought to my attention, I wanted to post to let you know that your suggestions have not gone unnoticed. I have bookmarked and subscribed to this topic, thanks for posting these suggestions!

[eidolad]

1. Really need to sync hot keys to the keyboard, not the hard-to-reach function key row.

Most players play with mouse and keyboard right? So, for example, there's no really easy way to get at "F2" while one hand is on the mouse, and the other is on the normal keypad.

Suggest to map the main map functions (and combat ones also in the future) as follows:

a. For right-hand player: map all function keys to the "ASDFG/QWERTY/ZXCVB" keys...doesn't matter which ones just keys in easy reach of the right hand.

b. *and at the same time, map a secondary key for the same functions for left handers: to "HJKL/YUIOP/NM<>?" keys.

c. And suggest to replace the spacebar "zoom map out" with spacebar = F2 "turn events summary" function. The zoom level is too small to use anyway IMHO.


2. Idle fleets should be highlighted vs. busy fleets on the main map. I.e. dim the graphic icon of a busy fleet. That way we don't necessarily have to hunt the "last turn events summary" or the "fleet spreadsheet" to find idle fleets. And a key to walk through idle ships/fleets (the I key ?) would be handy.

3. We need a warning tone, or message in the "last turn events summary" to warn us of incoming fleets. The local governor should be screaming something obscene at the central government when that Doom Fleet is heading his way:)

[Wenla]

After visiting in a star system there could be two small icons seen in galacty map (= main map) (if true):

-there is a starbase in system
-there is a shipyard in system

It doesn't matter if system is yours or other race, but you know what the status was when you last time visited in that system.

[eidolad]

Wenla let me piggyback on your suggestion:

enhancement: have additional details (such as your suggestion about space objects) available at particular zoom levels. Although a cloak-equipped starbase should be able to throw a wrench into an enemy's calculations. And planetary weaponry should be completely unknown without some sort of intel or (maybe) orbital survey.

___


For tech screen:

a. I would like to be able to press the "tech title" in the left side of the tech window to "focus" on that tech (to shift 50% of tech points).

b. Once I "focus" on a tech area, like Electronics, the banner for that tech should be bold, or a different color.

[Bansheedragon]

Someone posted the lack of wormholes as a bug in the support section of the forums here.

As far as I know there are no wormholes in the game, but I would like to have something like that added to he game.

I also noticed that the suggestion for refitting ships, instead of scrapping and building new, has been added with the last big update.
Its great they added it and I already found it quite useful for upgrading my ships ans space stations.

[keller]

Someone posted the lack of wormholes as a bug in the support section of the forums here.

Ah, that would be me. Go to the main site and scroll down the page you will find some icons. Clicking on the galaxy icon and then clicking on the icon of the black hole in the picture will bring up a description of the black hole and worm holes.

[Xyquas]

To the devs:

I posted my UI request as seperate posts for easier scheduling because I know how a ticketing system works. If you prefer having all UI requests collected in this thread, please let me know and I'll post in this thread in future. Below are the links for my posted requests that I think adress the UI:

Combat
Make combat less time consuming

Reactivate forgotten ship in combat

Hilight attacked area on a ship in armory / shield sector

Galaxy map
Enhance list of planets for easier colonizing

Automatically enumerate ships with design revision

Rename ships and fleets with retrofitting

Invasion should be disabled if no soldier in fleet

Unite gamplay buttons at the top of the screen

Diplomacy
Tooltip on demanded technology

Please add Diplomacy option to trade technology

Star system view
Switch star system view with mouse control

Display space buildings in star system view

Turn summary
Add note about idle planets with empty build slots

[Bansheedragon]

Someone posted the lack of wormholes as a bug in the support section of the forums here.

Ah, that would be me. Go to the main site and scroll down the page you will find some icons. Clicking on the galaxy icon and then clicking on the icon of the black hole in the picture will bring up a description of the black hole and worm holes.

Thanks for the link, I havent seen that one.
It seems like wormholes are something that was planned to be in the game, but has yet to be implemented.
As such I would not classify it as a bug, but as a missing feature.
But regardless of that its a nice find and I hope we can get it added soon.