Re: the transfer of "empty" social production to military production, it is absolutely critical that the player be able to know how many build points will be put towards his ship when he hits the "turn" button. Knowing where it all comes from, while nice, isn't as important as knowing that you have 52 points per week going towards a ship that takes 101 points to build.
Ideally, your points per week, the total points put into a ship / improvement thus far, and the remaining points needed for completetion should all be visible together in the same place, next to the item being built. Hell, this is data that would be emminently useful even in the zoomed-out galactic view when a planet is selected.
It should be very easy to understand why this data is crucial: it's precisely what we need to know to avoid wasteful spending, the very issue that you're ever-so-kindly working hard to address.
As it stands now, this is very difficult to gauge. In the planetary screen, the build points listed under "military" simply do not update accurately as the variables are modified. Adding or removing items in the social que does nothing to this number, for example. The ship in the top right corner might have an eta of "2 weeks" listed, but will that number will often be innacurate, and you can't easily figure out how many points were put into it, or how many are yet needed for completion.
The underlying issue behind the forum outrcy on spending-waste was the desire for a system that allows for us to avoid wasteful behavior. Unless (and until) the UI allows us as players to easily and accurately set to spending a factor of the ship's total cost (1/2, 1/3, 1/4, etc), the issue underlying the forum outcry will not have been addressed.
Conservation of build points between turns (in the manner of research point conservation already employed) would be a great boon toward to players (and will hopefully be added at some point), but even that cannot substitute for a clean UI that addresses the issues laid out above.
I hope this post is taken as "productive" criticism, for I don't intend anything within it to be taken harshly.
Keep up the good work.
