Were the OS/2 version of the planet list and ship list more usable?

I agree completely. But, I think that the pretty graphics needed to be built from the ground up, and that the list display can be tweaked between now and general release (or at least I hope so).

Cheers,
Frank

Yeah, the planet and ship lists aren't final, but we've had our artists working on other goodies first.

--Cari

Yes, I know the pretty graphics have to be built from the ground up and that it will take time. What
we have now has been very nice work that is very pleasing to the eye. If what we see now is just a
temporary place holder or space filler until the real effort is done then perhaps it would be useful
to express our responses now as a guide for the final effort.

It is just that when I start thinking about the old lists we had and how easy it was to use them in
making game play decisions that I begin wondering which is better. Do we want pretty fluff (which
may be very important to the saleability of GalCiv) or do we want high usability (which may also be
very important to GalCiv's saleablility)? Obviously, when we can get both, we should try for it, but
when we can only have one or the other which do we want, and which do we think will make GalCiv more
successful.

Personally, my tendency to choose usability over nice and pretty graphics (when it is an "either or"
choice) increases more with each time I play on one of the three largest galaxies. I really
hope some way can be found to give us both without too much sacrifice.

The problem I see with the current graphics for these lists it that the number of ships or planets
from the list presented in the display is too few at a time with too little information about each.
I would much rather see 10 or 15 planets or ships in the visible part of the list, along with a whole
lot more inforation about each. I would also like more list functions available, such as sorting on
fields. All of this is needed to enable us make better game play decisions.

Cheers,
Jack

Hmm, yeah - On the planetscreen I'd expect to see which social or military projects that currently is under progress (or for the social proj which govenor that are in charge). The graphics could be a little smaller to fit in more planets but if ther is a way to sort on planet's that are idleing and to sort by pop and class it'd be sufficient for me

Perhaps adding a spreadsheet button to the planet list which calls up a large screen (totally covering the game play area (but leaving the mini map). This large screen has perhaps 15 - 20 rows of planets displayed at a time and 10-15 columns of data (size, class, moral, production, engineering, research, build items, governor, in orbit, etc...).

Each column could be used to sort by clicking the top of the column. build queues could be changed either by sending you to the correct planet screen, or better yet allowing a drop down menu for the build queues (much quicker). Governors could also be changed this way. Something akin to MOO2 colony screen would be very useful.

Paul.

Sounds good. For me such a list a very important. I play a lot of MOO2 and use the list for most of my build decisions. To be able to sort on any column in such a list is a must. Also a simple filter to apply would be very handy. Like:
- display only colonies with bad moral
- display only colonies with good production

Another data item to sort on could be: distance to a star system of choice. In this way you can quickly select colonies with good production nearby the frontline, to produce warships. Or low population colonies nearby an overcrowded one, to send transports to.