Dark Avatar beta 2 UI issues/improvement ideas

sam0t

Join Date 01/2006

Dark Avatar beta 2 UI issues/improvement ideas

Furher editing done since DA final + patches. Thanks for applying some of my suggestions SD!

UI Issues

-- When naming a ship, naming should start from the end of the name. IE. Colony 1, typing should beging after the 1 number , not from the beginning before C character.

-- Technology screen. Thank you for making a zooming possibility, but the zoom should zoom where the mouse cursor is. At the moment it always zooms on a selected tech.

-- Star bases should be deselected when clicked elsewhere. Actually everything should be deselected when clicked on empy space. Constructors, star bases, planets etc. Only work around I have now to deselect constructor area is to select solar system.

-- Same class buildings should always be at the same spot in planetary building list. Current system with changing building names create confusion since the building list changes all the time.

Each class building should be color coded, example. Factories could always be surrounded with blue color and so on?

-- In rallypoint minimap make the rallypoint different colour or something. It is very hard to spot since its almost the same as planet dot. Bottom line, the rallypoint minimap as it is, is completely useless.

-- Selecting a trade route in financial manager/trade screen should make the trade route glow/different colour in the minimap.

-- Cannot give fleets to AI in diplomacy

UI feature adds

-- In Financial manager screen the Approval rating should be coloured.

-- Colony manager screen needs a minimap.

-- You should be able to select with multiple ships with ctrl/shift buttons from space port and launch many ships at the time.

-- A small check box for every ship/fleet which would make them "gifts" would be nice. These gift ships/fleets would show on different colour in diplomacy screen.

-- Ship building window should have similiar buttons for components (newest,old,all) as does the planetary screen for buildings.

-- I would like to see planet surface on Invasion screen. This would make it easier to choose invasion method.

-- Having a "what do you want from this" choice in diplomacy would make diplomacy much easier.

-- Population growth rate should be shown in pop up or with own box in colony management screen/planetary screen.

-- A keyboard button for moving all autopilot moves would be more than welcome. Did not GC1 have this assigned to Space bar? Bring it back!

-- There should be a two more buttons in "choose your civilization" screen. One called "reset all races to default" and "delete all player made ship designs/templates"

-- Star base bonuses should be show on main UI when selected. Remove class, moves and range from the little box and replace them bonuses that the SB gives. You could even add (number) kinda thing after the bonuses to indicate how many additional components could be installed.

-- Holding down ctrl-button could act like pressing middle mouse button? Atleast in main map and in ship building screen. Pressing middle button is clunky with some mouses.

-- Ship upgrade button for ship yard screen would be nice.

Also in ship upgrade window should have the same choises as the ship yard screen has: all, core, user.

-- I would like to see which planets are so called "extreme enviroment" ones in civ manager screen. Maybe put a little icon next to the mini planet gfx.

-- There should be graphical icon for ships that are in guard, survey or eplore mode. This when you have zoomed out the map to tactical view.

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My ships speed eventually slows down from like 9 to 3.. Also sometimes mostly later in the game my one ship can fire 10x in a row.

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My ships speed eventually slows down from like 9 to 3.. Also sometimes mostly later in the game my one ship can fire 10x in a row.

The Ship speed thing is likely because you entered Yor influenced space. Its there special to slow speed in their zone of control to a maximum of 3.

The combat is changed so that weapons fire in turn, not the ship itself. Thus, if a ship has weapons that haven't fired left after their current target is destroyed they will move onto the next.

One thing from my computer:

1. Whenever I Perfect the first Radioactive Planet tech (the one that enables you to colonize radioactive planets) the text describing it seems to have been cut out half way through. The Advanced version of Radioactive Planet tech has no text at all. I have just downloaded the update of the beta, so it may already be fixed.

A wonderful game, all in all!

Sam

Some of the new techs have no description, but the tech tree isn't completely done yet. I imagine they couldn't think of anything in time for the beta or just threw the techs in for the beta. In any case, it's just flavor text, so it's not vital important this early in the beta.

And I (currently) have a three small UI improvement suggestions:
1. Currently, all the special worlds have a small icon to the left of them that indicates their type. This also serves to identify them as a (maybe/eventually) inhabitable planet. Why not have the planets that habitable to all have their own icon as well? It would make these planets stand out more with that green icon next to them...

And it would certainly make it much easier (and, in fact, possible without getting the tooltip for them/clicking on them) to spot the very low class planets in the tactical (or whatever the one with the icons instead of the 3d models of planets/ships/etc is called) view without having to make a new graphic for them.

2. Currently, you cannot set a Player Custom Race's starting alignment. Enable that slider for custom races players make since everything else (besides the settings that directly deal with the AI's capabilities) is customizable.

3. Now, I haven't gotten a mega event just yet, so this might be not be important but when the message pop-up for it comes up, make it completely clear that this event is a Mega Event, not a normal event. Heck, you might as well make it clear that a normal event that pops up isn't a Mega Event too.

I'm sure that would clear up some confusion if there are normal events that are similar to Mega Events, not to mention in case someone complains that that an event that was a Mega Event completely "messes up" (which you know at least one person will after launch (and without describing the event in any way...

)) their game so you can tell them to just disable the optional Mega Events if they don't want it to happen again. Of course, maybe I'm just cynical

Of course, my quasi-UI requests:
1. Sliders at galaxy setup in sandbox mode to set the number of Galactic Resources, how many planets that are habitable will be special worlds, and the frequency of random events in the game. The more options to customize Sandbox games (and therefore increase replay value), the better

2. Allow anything that allows a Tech Requirement field in the xml files (ie: ship components, starbase modules, hulls, planetary improvements, etc) to have multiple tech requirements (and display them properly in the UI, at least in the case of the Tech Tree). You know you want to...

3. Make disabling a Tech's tradability (using the new property, yay!) also prevent the stealing of the tech, or at least have a different property for it (probably the better option, since I'm sure someone can think of a reason to have a tech not tradeable but stealable...)

4. Please, for the love of whatever (or lack there of) diety(ies) you worship, organize, label and clean up the XML files.

They are currently very disorganized and its very hard to find anything unless you take the time to organize/label them in a coherent matter (well... at least without constantly using a search feature

)

5. Other modding additions, including the removing of certain hardcoded abilities and settings (particularly in planetary improvements, but it would be nice to create new governments and government techs and have them work properly). And maybe some extra super abilities that aren't used by races built in the game...

I guess you can say I'm really into expansions to a games ability to modded/customized...

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I would like to thank everybody for their efforts to add up issues.

Edited the main list for changes/fixes introduced in 1A beta. Dropped the color thing and instead mark new issues with ** **. Work still in progress

ps. Gotta thank SD for making choosing abilities screen more clearer. Much better now that selected bonuses add to race own ability score. Tech selection seems to be greyed out, no doubt a balancing thingy?

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Added some stuff I found in my latest A1 beta game.

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Once again, a wonderful game! I do have some reports from deep in the heart of Texas, however. These are all from the most recent upgrade (0.10a.017). I would also like to point out that I am not a programmer and have zero programming experience! I cannot possibly appreciate just how much work goes into changes, so please keep this in mind! Thanks!

1. The New Game layout has been changed; no arguments here. However, the Custom Map button does not seem to work, even when Custom Map is selected on the Map Size button(s).

2. I personally am a fan of custom created races. There are two problems (and a possible unintentional error?):
2a. The number of points to choose one's abilities has been dropped from 10 to 5; this wouldn't be a big problem if it weren't for the fact that some of the abilities still have a cost of 5+.
2b. When I select the Abilities tab, some of the abilities show up as being chosen before any points are assigned. Clicking "Reset" does not change them (For example: It had Soldiering +10 before I applied any points).
2c. The screen that has the sliders to dictate NPC behaviour cannot be changed in the Create New Race screen (they can, however, be changed in the Create New Opponent screen). Is this intentional or not?

3. [This may or may not be intentional; I first discovered it with the first beta of the Expansion.] Building your planets (in regards to income) seems to be polarized now with dramatic results. In GC2:DL, I could pepper a few slots on my production/research planets with Income+ buildings and get a decent income to (partially) offset the costs of Research, Military production, etc. This seems to have been eliminated in the beta; it doesn't appear to affect income on my production/research planets by any appreciable amount, unless I have no research/military production facilities. The end result is that my production/research planets are swimming in red ink while my "residential" planets just wallow in money. (Once again, this may be an intentional situation and I am unaware of it; the aforementioned red ink/black ink situation may be a balancing factor for the game.)

4. [Not really a bug, just a request.] Is there a way I can type in a personalized description of a New Race? The computer has a bio for all races, but it would appear we cannot type one. Is there something I'm missing?

5. [May or may not be intentional.] Every game I have played on the expansion begins with my starting system having two habitable planets: The first is Rating 10-12 (My starting planet) and other is always (always!) a 4. I can't really use planets of 4 or less, but I will if I have to. Also, what's the purpose of having a planet with only one slot (or even two)? There is little one can do with it; the expense of creating a Colony Ship outweighs any benefit one could receive from it.

6. [In regards to the calls for upping the cost on Extreme Colonization techs.] I personally think the cost is fine, considering you have to investigate each and every one (instead of, say, Propulsion techs or Weaponry techs) if you want the ability to colonize the higher end planets (which invariably seem to be Radioactive or Barren or whatnot). The time invested is a cost, if you think about it that way.

7. [Not really a bug, just another request.] It is really frustrating to receive a message that a mining colony has just defected to your side and having no real way to find it (except via scrolling a lot). Is it possible to add Mining Colonies to the Planet list? That would simplify things a great deal. Considering the Mining facilities beam the Military production points to the nearest populated planet under your control, this would speed up reassignment of said flow (Coupled with Possible Bug #3, this becomes even more bothersome).

This is a GREAT game and WONDERFUL expansion. I am so happy to be a part of this beta testing thing, and I am really grateful that I chose to buy GC2:DL! I have recommended it to many of my friends and will continue to patronize Stardock in the future!

Keep up the good work!

Sam

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5. [May or may not be intentional.] Every game I have played on the expansion begins with my starting system having two habitable planets: The first is Rating 10-12 (My starting planet) and other is always (always!) a 4. I can't really use planets of 4 or less, but I will if I have to. Also, what's the purpose of having a planet with only one slot (or even two)? There is little one can do with it; the expense of creating a Colony Ship outweighs any benefit one could receive from it.

I'm not sure if they changed it or not in the latest beta version, but Low class planets have a LOT of tiles that can be terraformed with the appropriate techs. One planet I had had somewhere along the lines of 3-4 tiles per Terraforming tech. That makes it about a class 10 after terraforming. Not impressive, but useful.

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<>

I was not aware of this! *Slaps forehead* I shall investigate it immediately. Thank you!

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For some reason I cannot no longer edit this post (I can others!)

Shame since I spent quite a bit of time collecting all kinds of stuff into this thread. SD you reading this?

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UI Issues
1. When naming a ship, naming should start from the end of the name. IE. Colony 1, typing should beging after the 1 number , not from the beginning before C character.

This is the No.1 annoyance in my book too. The same principle should be applied to game saving part as well. Also, the use of "enter" key should be added too so we don't have to type in a name, then use a MOUSE CLICK to complete the process. The current way doesn't make any sense.

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

Shame since I spent quite a bit of time collecting all kinds of stuff into this thread. SD you reading this?

As has been the case for a while, the entire web team is busy with WinCustomize 2k7. It's getting closer to release though, at which point they'll be able to address all the forum issues that have been logged since they've been working on WC. Sorry for the trouble.

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5. Asteroid field mines should be destroyable with ships?

You can destroy asteroid field mines with ships. Just make sure the ship has weapons and then move it onto the mine's tile. Keep in mind, this will be an act of war though

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Thanks for the feedback

Must have been a late night game that made me think mining bases are not destroyable

Looks like the forum edit is working again, can tidy up the list!

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Reconstructed the list and made it basicly to UI only thread. Also added some terrible photoshopped images for your viewing pleasure

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Few edits here and there, some updates on list based on DA Beta 2A.

Ps. I see no major UI updates/changes since the beta has started. Maybe in January you could give some love to UI once the major bugs are squashed?

I find it hard to believe, other people have no issues with the UI, give some feedback

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Merry Xmas!! Removed couple suggestions as they are were not good.

If atleast one of the suggestions would get into DA it would be a nice xmas gift!

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-- Same class buildings should always be at the same spot in planetary building list. Current system with changing building names create confusion since the building list changes all the time.

I like the majority of the list. But this one I could not possibly agree with more! If that can't be done, then even placing different colored boxes around them like the techs would be very useful!

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Added couple new items and did couple more photoshop images of improvement ideas.

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Been away from the forums for a while but with DA coming soon, I must ask:

Any plans to change Mass Driver behavior from floaty-slow to bullet-fast (as they should be)?

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Other modding additions, including the removing of certain hardcoded abilities and settings (particularly in planetary improvements, but it would be nice to create new governments and government techs and have them work properly).

yea i wanted to add another (fourth branch) and add it to the UI but guess that is not going to happen

i`m not complaining about the game i`m happy with it just some of these tweaks sound good and would make a great game even greater !!
but i guess where do you draw the line ??? and say that enough the game is set.!!

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