Useability comments

from Stardock Forums
Here are my observations for my late, late night playing... after a 6 years absence. I forgot how addictive the game is.
My spouse is not looking forward to the gold version, but I am.

The comments are mainly from a useability prespective, to facilitate the play and to accelerate the tasks to setup the turn.

1. In the social project window, only the pjoject that have a priority should be listed,
2. In the governor screen, the sliders fot the prioritized social projects does not work
3. By the way for consistency sake, ALL sliders should be the same as for he ships list.
the priority of social projects is not updated after modification in the governor screen.
4. Should be able to have a zero transport or colony ship
5. Significant populations increase after an invasions attempts on an ennemy planet, should be consistent.
6. In the mini universe map, need to tweak the population circles size to minimize overlaping, maybe a sliding scale.
7. Difficulty in selecting a system when an ennemy is on top of it. Actually it is when 2 ennemies are trying to conquer the same planet, one is on top and the other is next to it.
8. The DONE button for all screens and popups should be at the same place to minimize cursor movements.
9. The ship list has good sliders, but should had a search option, by ship type, location, etc. The ship list should have a sort option, type, name, strenght, defense, speed, etc
10. The planet list needs to have the ship list sliders, should have a search and sort options on the characteristics.
11. The idea on having markers to remember when you have a pending action would be appreciated.
:)
192 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Louis-guy,
In 1). I assume you are saying that only the projects listed for the governer in charge of that planet should be listed. I have to dissagree. One of the major improvements in the governers from the OS/2 version is that you can override a governer. Hence, I have been setting up a list of production and economy improvements under a governer and setting the governer of my planets to that governer. Then as the completions happen I check other factors (especially morale) and select another project as it becomes needed (such as "Entertainment Network"). If the other improvements were not listed I would not be able to do so.
2). These sliders work for me.
4). Are you saying you would like to send a transport or colony ship out of orbit without any occupants? Why?

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
4). Are you saying you would like to send a transport or colony ship out of orbit without any occupants? Why?

I'd like to be able to build a ship on one planet, send it to a second to fill up with people, and then send it to a third for an invasion. Frequently the second planet needs to be building defenders while the first planet has spare military production capacity.

Frank
Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Makes sense, but why can't the planet that built it put the minimum number of troops on it. The reason is that when you slide the "load troops" slider to 0 it leaves the transport in orbit. This is ithe only way of canceling a de-orbit of transports or colony ships. (Would Stardock entertain a function where troops can be loaded onto a transport but the transport does not de-orbiit? The aliens seem to be able to do this.)

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
That's what I'm doing now. But it would be more elegant to be able to launch an empty transport. When your moral drops too low you can load troops onto a transport, and then the morale goes up -- bet that's what the aliens are doing -- I've only used the tactic a few time in GCOS/2 -- when I was forced to do that it meant I was going to lose very soon.

Frank
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
A word on the mini-map. I'd like a maximize button on it. So I could click on it and the mini-map would be full screen.

And fix the population setting -- one crowded planet shouldn't take up the space of nine quadrants.

Frank
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Frank,

Back in the days of the OS/2 version each square on the minimap was called a quadrant (which literally means one of four). This gendered much debate and acrimony. I would hate to see a repeat of that debate here. So far everything I have seen with this version correctly calls them "sectors".

Cheers,
Jack
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Jack,

Thanks for the correction. I was indeed a GC-OS/2 player, and must have picked up that piece of incorrect terminology there. Still, one crowded planet shouldn't take up the space of nine sectors. (:

Frank
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
I don't mind the way the list works in the social projects screen, but my governor's screen has the same scrolling problem with the priorities list. I'm running Win2K Pro, K6-III+ 450 with 256Mb ram and ample disk space.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
I'd also add that deep blue on black is very hard for this old guy to read. It was easier on my 21" monitor but that is offline for repairs... :(
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
I believe that there are plans to make the minimap a tactical map, although I don't know if it will happen in version 1.0. We will also be implementing a zoom feature on the minimap so that you can zoom in on larger galaxies to get a better picture of what's going on. (1 pixel stars and ships crammed into an itty bitty square don't help much on the gigantic galaxy).

The ship list is still in design, so the sliders will eventually be consistent, but since it works we're leaving it be for now. You will eventually be able to sort both the planet list and the ship list.

I think that I've managed to eradicate the bug where ships get stuck under stars.

As for the sliders on the Governor screen, I believe he means the ones to the left of the list to show more than 19, which I don't think works.