After 20 hours, I give up...the UI wins.

>* At one point, the UI style changed for no apparent
>reason, and there wasn't any way to change it back.

The only one that lept out that I can answer

That means your race changed to GOOD or BAD (Red = bad, White = good)

The UI style thing is a feature based on your alignment.

The rest are mostly accurate.

"* Launching ships is a multi-step process. If I see that a new ship has been built (from the start-of-turn summary), and auto-launch isn't enabled for the corresponding planet, I have to hunt down the non-launched ship in the ship list and then click on it, then click...."
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What I do here is if I intend to launch a ship, constructor or even a colony or troop ship I click the little ship icon in the sidebar. You can adjust people quanties here and pop any ship out of orbit by clicking the mini-ship icon. Then when the start of turn business is over you can tab around to those ships and move as you like.

As for the ship list a shield means it's in orbit, no shield it's out and about, a little blue arrow means it has a auto-route. I don't have the game here but the numbers are in ATT/DEF/HP and the sector you are in I believe that's the order.

UI style changes are due to alignment Good-Neutral-Evil.

You can find what the options do by getting the updated .pdf some good fellow made up. Look for a thread here for a link. If I was home I would have it for you.

One good tip is that you don't lose ship production by changing ships and project production is remember so if you build 1/3 of a project and switch to a *trade item for a quicl build you will still have credit for that 1/3 when you go back to the old project, so feel free to click around them, you won't lose anything.

There is a ship/project complete list in the bottom of the sidebar, clicking any of these will take you to the planet screen of the planet that finished that project.

Each tech in the tech screen has a list of what will happen when you finish that tech, it is in that stylized section to the right of that list and shows social projects, ships, new techs, added abilities and Starbase upgrades that tech will provide.

"* Cannot get details on technologies while in diplomacy screen."
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This one needs work, agreed.

A few others, you can send a ship to a location from the mini-map. Not exact but close enough.

You can force move an auto-route ship by clicking it in the ship list.

You can zoom the mini-map with the mouse wheel.

Here is a link to an updated manual.

http://www.brimstonedragons.net/azakain/downloads.php

In one sense, there is nothing you can do except play the UI - there is nothing underneath it, the game is it. Thank you, goodbye and goodnight.

While I would agree with you critisims (and look on it as an improvements list), on a personal level I find them only occasionally and slightly annoying, and the enjoyment gained from playing the game outweighs these issues greatly...

I would love to see them all resolved (thus making the game even better)...

I don't think the game is perfect but it is fun in my opinion... Are this issues really game killers for you??


(In an ideal world the makers of GalCiv and MOO3 would have been locked in a room together with a world class QA team guarding the door until the the 'Greatest Game in the World' was produced... )

sounds like u a big civilization player.although i do admit there are some planet screen things i would like to see like pop growth per turn i really dont have many complaints.only other thing i can think of that i would like to see is modules already on starbases without having to move a ship over it.

I agree with alnost all the remarks, and think they are well written.
I thought that "Quantity selection sliders in the game are very unpleasant to use. At a minimum, it should be possible to type in a quantity directly instead of having to click hundreds of times." was already OK however: I can click in the diplo screen, and then set the quantity.
The diplomacy quantity sliders are very hard to use for me (too small an area to click upon), however.

>>Cannot get details on technologies while in diplomacy screen.

It would be nice to get details on technologies while in diplomacy. Note, however that at the end of the day you may not need to know the details on techs in the diplomacy screen. The reason is because any tech you research usually comes up at the start of the turn, so you have a fair idea of what it does. Furthermore, the more you play the more you will understand what each tech does.

It would be nice to have details on the techs though.

My advice to you is to play an "easy" game (simple difficulty) on a large/huge map and go for a tech victory. Purpose? A tech victory requires you to research all the tech, this in turn will allow you to understand the basics of each tech and what they provide.

>>Cannot tell what projects, ships, etc., that result from techs do from tech screen, or the planet details screen.

Agreed. For your information though, Brad showed a screenshot of the up and coming expansion pack which revealed a "flowchart" of some sort that showed you the pre-requisite of each tech and what they produce.

>>Cannot get details on what already-built trade goods do, either yours or those built by others

Agreed. Can be frustrating at times.

>>Cannot see trade routes on mini-map, or main map.

Agreed. A minimap trade route will also allow you to build starbase-enhancing trade routes more easily.

>>It is possible to launch colony ships w/out ever getting the dialog to load them, resulting in an empty ship with no way to load it, and no indication that you've done something wrong.

Allowing players to load an empty launced transport/colony ship would be good.

>>* Mini-map views are always at least several keystrokes/mouse clicks away when they need to be visible at all times. For example, when adding to a starbase or building on a planet, its location with respect to everything else is important, yet is not easy to see w/out several clicks.

I personally have not had this happen to me. Each time I upgrade or build a starbase I can always see it on the mini-map.

>>Very few screens have any sort of useful tool-tip or other methods to get more information about what's going on. IMO, every single field, icon, UI component, and displayed bit of information should have tool-tip help

That would be bery helpful.

>>The 3-way money allocation sliders are highly cumbersome for what they do, and don't present what they're doing very well. A triangular selector would be a lot more obvious, I think--it would immediately show that you're dividing up allocation between three fields.

Initially, I found this to be quite annoying. I wasn't sure what I was doing. However, I did get used to it. This slider simply deal with percentages so it does not give you an in-depth look at how you handle the economy. For instance, a 30% military means that 30% of the total production for each planet will be spent on military.

>>Quantity selection sliders in the game are very unpleasant to use. At a minimum, it should be possible to type in a quantity directly instead of having to click hundreds of times.

Which sliders are you talking about? In the diplomacy screen, you can actually type in the quantity.

>>There is no way to see what's contributing toward the total income and expenses of your empire, or of a given planet. For example, it would be nice to know how many of a given type of building you have, empire-wide, and to get a quick breakdown of all costs associated with a specific planet.

Agreed. This would make it much easier to understand the mechanics of the game.

>>There is no way to jump directly to a planet that has completed one project if its governor has automatically started another one.

I don't use the governer

>>The planet list window (F2) only shows 7 planets at a time, and is cumbersome to use to sort displays (many clicks to change what the sort field is).

The actual plant display isn't a game-stopper for me. Although, if they have a pull down list (to change things like income, name, production etc) instead of clicking arrows that would be nice.

>> It is very hard to tell who owns starbases on the main map window. The colored shading on the starbases is very subtle, especially between dark green and dark blue, at least on every monitor and set of lighting conditions, contrast, etc., that I've tried. An option to make the ownership more obvious would be helpful.

This is especially annoying on large maps. I personally can always tell who owns a certain starbase but that could be because I have been playing this game for a while.

>>There is no legend for the tactical screen, nor can anything on it be selected or interrogated. Even basic tool-tip info about what the cursor is hovering over would be a big improvement.

Agreed. A tooltip would help. However, after playing the game for a while I now know exactly what each icon does.

>>There is no way to get a list of all know planets in the galaxy, or all uncolonized ones, or all owned by a certain race, etc.

This would be good BUT might not flow with the story. Humans do not know where all the earth-like are. In my opinion there should be a list showing us all the planets owned by each race or those that are uncolonized BUT they only show planets that YOU have seen and explored. IE. If you have only come across 4 planets owned by the torians, you should only see those 4 planets on the list...not all the planets owned by the torians.

>>There is no legend for the meaning of the miniature icons next to ships in the ship list (F3), or for the icons next to planets in the main window.

Agreed. There should be a list shown on the website defining what each symbol mean. However, the more I play the more I learnt what each symbol means.

>>Some things that can be clicked on give no visible indication that they can (e.g., clicking "Military Projects" or "Social Projects" in the planet view window to see details of the current project in that category), and others that look like they can be clicked on cannot be (e.g., some of the widgets in the Economics window, the button-shaped empty outlines in the Diplomacy window)

Is it really that bad?????

>>There are numerous issues with focus that cause confusion. For example, I have had one ship selected (I think!) and right-clicking caused a different one to move. I have had the "Do you want to upgrade this starbase?" dialog pop up while looking at the research screen, and I have no idea why it did, or where the starbase was.

This could be a bug. Has this happen alot?

>>Launching ships is a multi-step process. If I see that a new ship has been built (from the start-of-turn summary), and auto-launch isn't enabled for the corresponding planet, I have to hunt down the non-launched ship in the ship list and then click on it, then click the "launch" button, or double-click on it (which can be bad if I'm just trying to select it to get more info, not send it into space). If I have auto-launch enabled, and the ship is a transport/colony ship, I have to hunt down the planet to see its details before I can make an informed decision as to how to load it.

I haven't experienced this before. I seem to always get the option to launch or not to launch. Furthermore, at the start of each turn. The window of each planet that produced something always comes up, allowing me to lauch ships etc. Could it be a bug?

>>There are no per-planet planetary build queues. Having the governor build queues directly accessable from the per-planet planet view/build menu can create the impression that the per-governor queue is per-planet, when it isn't.

I don't use governore

>>At one point, the UI style changed for no apparent reason, and there wasn't any way to change it back. The UI style should be an option from main menu.

People have mentioned this before. The change is due to the change in your alignment. I actually think its cool.

>>There is no information about the options in the main menu. Tool-tip or other forms of help information would be useful.

Agreed.

In summary, I agree with some of your complaints. However, I do not believe that any of them are game-stoppers. When I initally played galciv, I had to restart 3 times. Each time I restarted I knew more and more about the game.

If you think galciv UI is bad...play MOO3

Although most of your points are certainly valid, the rest of the game is so damn good that I find myself very well dispositioned towards simply getting used to them

It seems to me that several of them are things that new players might have difficulty with, but experienced players (i.e. the entire batch of beta-testers ) barely even notice, and a good number of them are probably (it seems to me) things that the dev team could do in a couple of hours of their Copious Spare Time .

... and aside from everything else, we know for a fact that your post was read by TPTB and will be given due consideration, and may even wind up on some poor code-grinder's todo list

~SDC~

Mostly good points that I hope Brad and Co. will consider over the next few months. I would definitely like to see the UI polishing as a higher target on their patching goals.

It looks like they are planning for UI changes though, if the new screenshot of the new Tech screen is any indication. To me these are really mostly minor problems, but collectively I suppose they do bog things down a little.

MoO3's not bad, at least not post-modding with something like Colin the Grey's AI mod. Probably much better post code-patch.

~SDC~

I agree with just about everything in the original post. While the context-sensitive information gets less critical as you've memorized more of the game, the sliders are just wacky.

They reflect relative percentages when you really want to control absolute BCs.

It would be nice if you could lock a slider, not at a percent but at a BC total, and then twiddle with the others. If I need 15 BC to complete research, I want to set the tech slider at 15 BC and not have that move around while I find the proper ratio between the social and military sliders.

And it is also quite frustrating that the spending allocatoins and the planet list does not update real-time as you move the sliders, or that you have to constantly go back to the tech screen to if you have pushed your research to "Next Month"

>I've spent about 20 hours playing the UI of Galactic Civilizations, and have come to the conclusion that the UI has beat me--it has successfully kept me from playing the game underneath it.<

You make the game sound like it's MoO 3.

It's not that bad, but it's not as good as it could be.

I agree with 99% of what you've said.

*** Cannot see trade routes on mini-map, or main map.
--- You can't even see the values of the trade routes that other empires establish with you!

*** Mini-map views are always at least several keystrokes/mouse clicks away when they need to be visible at all times. For example, when adding to a starbase or building on a planet, its location with respect to everything else is important, yet is not easy to see w/out several clicks.
*** The mini-map zoom factor box in the upper-right corner is always active, even when the mini-map is not visible.
--- Click the zoom boxes to bring up the mini-map...

*** Quantity selection sliders in the game are very unpleasant to use. At a minimum, it should be possible to type in a quantity directly instead of having to click hundreds of times.
--- I mentioned this before...

*** There is no way to see what's contributing toward the total income and expenses of your empire, or of a given planet. For example, it would be nice to know how many of a given type of building you have, empire-wide, and to get a quick breakdown of all costs associated with a specific planet.
--- The details tab shows the maintenance costs for a specific planet.

*** The planet list window (F2) only shows 7 planets at a time, and is cumbersome to use to sort displays (many clicks to change what the sort field is).
--- I had previously suggested a drop-down menu to sort planets...

*** There are no per-planet planetary build queues.
--- That's something I don't mind. Global build queues reduce micromanagement. I typically only use one build queue anyway...If I need to queue an individual planet up, I'll use an empty queue.

- Nobody

Sure, the UI can be made better. On a lesser game, it would have been a back-breaker. On GalCiv --and with all this support from Brad and Co.-- I merely work with what the UI gives me and hopes that posts like this one will result in at least a few nice UI updates. The on-the-fly trade thing was a huge one for me, so I already feel ahead of the game.

Too lazy to write a point by a point post, so I’ll just go with a summary instead...

* Tech & Building Details, Etc.

While it is a huge annoyance that tech details cannot be examined quickly in game, you can compromise by loading up a 3rd party tech tree and using Alt-Tab to view it at your leisure. Even if that tech flow chart we saw in a preview was implemented in game, I would still recommend one of these full tech trees instead.

Javascout’s GalCiv Database:
http://webpages.charter.net/trevorpowdrell/

My Tech Tree:
http://galciv.bsd.st/zai_h/

To be fair, the limitations of a computer screen make it difficult to view any remotely complicated tech tree from within a UI, and every single strategy game I know of had trouble doing this. I have been trying to get my tech tree stickied or included in the encyclopedia for the last month to no avail however, so help me convince Brad do so if you like it

* Slider Issues

I would say the single most annoying UI issue with GalCiv is the non-lockable sliders for income distribution in the domestic policy screen, which is further exacerbated by the design of not allowing any overflow of production or research from one project to another. There is no way to compete with the top notch AI and their bonuses on higher difficulty levels without running your empire at peak efficiency, and that requires me spending half of my play time twiddling with those dreaded sliders that just refuse to stay in place. Curse you, Brad! Curse you!

On the other hand, it was a good idea to let the mouse wheel affect sliders. It’s just a shame the latest patch broke that function for the domestic policy screen, and this function doesn’t help much when it is forced to work in large intervals.

* Mini-map Issues

I suggest you try using the F9 tactical view more often to alleviate some of the problems you have with the basic mini map. Displaying actual trade routes is not as important as showing you the trade ships in transit, and that is done, although you might have to squint a bit (look for the tiny dots). The tactical map can be zoomed just like the mini map too. Allowing left click selection of objects to display more info would be a great improvement however, and perhaps even some tactical overlays to high light starbases and trade ships.

* Planet Lists

The F2 planet list is a pain in the behind to sort indeed. A drop down selection box or some buttons would be much better here. The ability to change production through the planet list is a huge improvement over previous games though.

In regards to a list of known and colonizable planets, I’m not as bothered by the lack of this to be honest. There aren’t many planets to begin with, even on a gigantic map, so it’s not too hard to keep track of them. The ability to see colonizable planets is somewhat integrated with Stellar Cartography as well, giving you some more incentive to research it.

* Ship Launching

My recommendation to you is to leave auto-launch active at all times except when you build a colony ship. Launching a ship consumes no movement points, so you have nothing to lose here. Even transports can be returned to orbit and pickup a different number of people. While there seems to be room for improvement, I have a hard time imagining how else it could be done, except maybe some extra options for automatically disabling auto-launch when a colony ship is built, or give colony ships the option of reloading population after they are launched. If you have any ideas, do say something.

* Is it just me or.... No, it’s just you LOL

- I have never seen a non-selected ship move when I order a selected one to do so. Funny things can happen if you order ships through the F3 ship list however.

- While individual planet queues seem like a nice idea in or compared to other games, I don’t miss it for one bit after getting used to the current system in GalCiv. It would be nice if more governors were available and we could rename them however.

- The meaning of ship list icons can be discerned if you take a look at the ship details screen. There are four types of planetary icons in addition to the basic capital icon. A shield represents a garrisoned units, hammer for manufacturing capital, tech icon for tech capital, and that other one I don’t know how to describe for economics capital. A shield icon denotes a garrison for both ships and planets. Some more explanation in the manual wouldn’t be a bad idea though. Drop Azakain a line and maybe he’ll add it to the PDF manuals.

Overall, the pleasant gameplay of GalCiv has overshadowed many of its UI issues, so you don’t see many complaints of that in this forum. Not that there aren’t any problems; we’re just too busy playing to write about them. There’s also the fact that many of us have been pre-conditioned by... ahem... a certain other game so we feel GalCiv’s UI is a miracle in comparison.

"spending half of my play time twiddling with those dreaded sliders that just refuse to stay in place"

The sliders DO stay in place (only the numbers change). When i finally realised that, operating them became a lot easier.

And i do believe that adding a solid ingame reference should be top priority.

Some added annoyances:
- I haven't figured out a way to start the ships running if all of them are on autopilot without using end turn.
- Ships autopiloting on when an enemyship appears in their sensorrange.

On with my next game.

Snuis:

Try optimizing your spending so you complete a research project and a wonder in the same turn without waste. It's a nightmare.

You can prompt a ship to engage auto-pilot movement if you select it from the F3 ship view or step through all your ships with the next/back buttons in the ship detail screen.

too bad for you. though I agree with some of your remarks, NOT a NONE of them or ALL of them combined have kept me from winning.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..........................

"The sliders DO stay in place (only the numbers change). When i finally realised that, operating them became a lot easier."

But the problem is that it is the numbers that you are trying to control, not the sliders, and that BC amounts and "turns to build" do not update properly when you move the sliders.

I think Torinak makes some points worth considering but in general I feel this UI is very user friendly once you get an idea about the multitude of options.

I would like to see however a lot more hyperlinking especialy in the research screen like it's done in e.g. Smac,(click on a new improvement to see its effect)and it would be nice to select a targeted research or improvement and you would been shown the research path.

One thing I absolutely love is the possibility to change civilizationwide the production from one military project to another (fo example Battleship to Dreadnought)

I agree the UI is something of a bear. When I was a huge enthusiast for the game, I didn't really notice them, but now I am beginning to wonder about some, especially:

Diplomacy screen mess (no tech descrips, evil sliders that I can't use, lack of ability to just type in a number and see if it's green or not)

Starbase confusion (and Starbases are 90% of the game!)

Lack of ability to "lock down" a slider in the resource allocation screen.

M

* Cannot get details on technologies while in diplomacy screen.

I use Za-h's excellent tech tree. Printed on a plotter, sits on my wall. Very handy, and with it, I don't need an in game tech tree, although this wouldn't hurt.

* Cannot tell what projects, ships, etc., that result from techs do from tech screen, or the planet details screen.

Again, I use a printed tech tree.. like it better anyways.

* Cannot get details on projects, ships, etc., from planet view (F7) without selecting the alternatives, which changes what's being built.

Hovering text tooltip would be nice, so you don't deselect what is being built.

* Cannot get details on what already-built trade goods do, either yours or those built by others.

Again, I would highly recommend a printed tech tree, or use the file and alt-tab out to it (or play in a window). Although in game tech info would be nice, I don't think it is critical.

* Cannot see trade routes on mini-map, or main map.

A button would be nice, but it is hardly necessary, since you can see trade routes from trade.. 2 clicks is hardly a big deal to me.

* It is possible to launch colony ships w/out ever getting the dialog to load them, resulting in an empty ship with no way to load it, and no indication that you've done something wrong.

Is a bummer, but I've only done this once in a bajillion games. The one time I did do it, I found a nice use for the colony ship. With no maintenance, they made good lookouts near say, a resource or system, so you know if another race made it there first. Make 'em useful if you screw up!

* Mini-map views are always at least several keystrokes/mouse clicks away when they need to be visible at all times. For example, when adding to a starbase or building on a planet, its location with respect to everything else is important, yet is not easy to see w/out several clicks.

They actually fixed this.. but the fix is screwed up. When at a planet, click on the tiny + and - signs of the mini map, and the map opens. There is your fix.. but unforunately since the last patch, it doesn't seem to center on the planet you are on. I am going to report it in the bug section, but they did consider this.

* Very few screens have any sort of useful tool-tip or other methods to get more information about what's going on. IMO, every single field, icon, UI component, and displayed bit of information should have tool-tip help.

No biggie for me.. once you learn them, you know 'em. Would be nice, but is hardly a gamestopper for me.

* The 3-way money allocation sliders are highly cumbersome for what they do, and don't present what they're doing very well. A triangular selector would be a lot more obvious, I think--it would immediately show that you're dividing up allocation between three fields.

I don't think they are cumbersome at all. They are clear and useful, and easy to use. What would be nice is if they fix the wasted resource issue, which IMO, is much more important than making it a really nice slidey-system. It works well for me *shrug*

* Quantity selection sliders in the game are very unpleasant to use. At a minimum, it should be possible to type in a quantity directly instead of having to click hundreds of times.

You can type in amounts. But more useful is the autotoggle slider, so you know what a good deal is. What dialog box are you talking about??

* There is no way to see what's contributing toward the total income and expenses of your empire, or of a given planet. For example, it would be nice to know how many of a given type of building you have, empire-wide, and to get a quick breakdown of all costs associated with a specific planet.

I wouldn't mind seeing this at all. The more info the better, imo. Even better, it would be great to have a list of buildings, for instance, and be able to pick one. And in the mini map, all planets that have this building highlight so you know where they are (as well as on the building screen, list total maintanence). This way, you can keep track of which planets have starbases, and which improve your culture, which is important based on where they are.

* There is no way to jump directly to a planet that has completed one project if its governor has automatically started another one.

And? When something is built, it tells you the system. Go to the planet from the planet view, change governor or project, no biggie.

* The planet list window (F2) only shows 7 planets at a time, and is cumbersome to use to sort displays (many clicks to change what the sort field is).

I would not mind a dropdown list at all, to instantly pick the sorting, instead of scrolling through each one.

* It is very hard to tell who owns starbases on the main map window. The colored shading on the starbases is very subtle, especially between dark green and dark blue, at least on every monitor and set of lighting conditions, contrast, etc., that I've tried. An option to make the ownership more obvious would be helpful.

Get a better monitor? I've actually had no problem differentiating between them, but of course, I also have a 21" monitor! muahaha..

* There is no legend for the tactical screen, nor can anything on it be selected or interrogated. Even basic tool-tip info about what the cursor is hovering over would be a big improvement.

Again, after I dunno.. a half dozen games, I knew what everything was. Hardly a critical needed improvement, but I guess it wouldn't hurt. I sort of LIKE knowing without having annoying popups everywhere.

* There is no way to get a list of all know planets in the galaxy, or all uncolonized ones, or all owned by a certain race, etc.

Good.. I'm glad it is this way. Why should you? You get stellar cartography to learn where the yellow systems are.. this is more realistic than simply knowing. I don't think anyone SHOULD simply know where all uncolonized planets are, for instance. Sort of takes the eXplore aspect away otherwise, ya know.

* There is no legend for the meaning of the miniature icons next to ships in the ship list (F3), or for the icons next to planets in the main window.

There is only a few icons, pretty simple. I think the manual does cover what you see when it is an economic captial, etc. There is also a shield, and asterik.. not much else, I think. Would be nice to have a tooltip, but no biggie, imo.

* Some things that can be clicked on give no visible indication that they can (e.g., clicking "Military Projects" or "Social Projects" in the planet view window to see details of the current project in that category), and others that look like they can be clicked on cannot be (e.g., some of the widgets in the Economics window, the button-shaped empty outlines in the Diplomacy window)

This is an issue of what is in my opinion, a poor manual. You would never know this, unless you had a manual, and it told you something could or could not be clicked on. And I am hardly just going to slam this game.. almost ALL games anymore have IMO, very shoddy manuals. I would hope that one thing they might do is put out a more comprehensive manual in the future. IMO, ALL aspects of a game that are in the game should be covered. The MOO3 manual was an absolute disgrace, as was their strat guide. A strat guide or comprehensive manual for GalCiv would be VERY nice.

* There are numerous issues with focus that cause confusion. For example, I have had one ship selected (I think!) and right-clicking caused a different one to move. I have had the "Do you want to upgrade this starbase?" dialog pop up while looking at the research screen, and I have no idea why it did, or where the starbase was.

An issue with autopilot, I think. I am VERY much holding out for 2 things.. an 'autopilot OFF' toggle in the main menu, and a button in game that makes all autopilot go at that point. NEVER have autopilot go during your turn, unless you tell it to, or it is end of turn, imo. Drives me nuts.

* Launching ships is a multi-step process. If I see that a new ship has been built (from the start-of-turn summary), and auto-launch isn't enabled for the corresponding planet, I have to hunt down the non-launched ship in the ship list and then click on it, then click the "launch" button, or double-click on it (which can be bad if I'm just trying to select it to get more info, not send it into space). If I have auto-launch enabled, and the ship is a transport/colony ship, I have to hunt down the planet to see its details before I can make an informed decision as to how to load it.

I don't see what you are saying. When a new ship is built, the systems that completed ships come up in sequence. You will see a small icon of the ship to the right.. you either double click the ship, or highlight the ship and click the green arrowed launch button to the right.

* There are no per-planet planetary build queues. Having the governor build queues directly accessable from the per-planet planet view/build menu can create the impression that the per-governor queue is per-planet, when it isn't.

Govenors are per planet. Go to the 'details' section of any planet, and pick the govenor you want for that planet. The only additional option I would like is a 'make a govenor' option, so you can tailor and make as many queues as you like.

* At one point, the UI style changed for no apparent reason, and there wasn't any way to change it back. The UI style should be an option from main menu.

It changes based on alignment. Red = eyyyvl, and white = good. It doesn't change unless your alignement changes to a certain point.

* There is no information about the options in the main menu. Tool-tip or other forms of help information would be useful.

Again, a function that a well wrote manual should cover. I hope they put out an in depth manual someday.

* The mini-map zoom factor box in the upper-right corner is always active, even when the mini-map is not visible. LOL

um.. ok.

Anyways, some of those things bother me, some don't. A good manual and a few other features would help make a great game even better. I do NOT feel whatsoever, that the issues it has make the game unplayable, just a tad unwieldy at times.

fleabitfox

geeze.. the smilies went insane on me in my last post.

fleabitfox