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STICKY: EASY TWEAKS to make the game better for you

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STICKY: EASY TWEAKS to make the game better for you

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from GalCiv2 Forums

This is a sticky thread for people to request very simple tweaks -- things that could be put in and tested in less than an hour that you think would make the game more fun.

So suggestions like "We want a full blown encyclopedia" or "Can we have tactical combat?" should NOT go here.  These are things that should be very easy to do.

The goal is to come up with a list of little things we can do to put into a Thursday update so that people who had to wait to get the game at retail will be able to have something to look forward to to make it worth the wait.

 

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Reply #826 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I just want to say that I really like this game but there are two things I would love to see. One is to be able to move around the galaxy with my arrow keys instead of my mouse, Two, more importantly, I would like to see the soldier system revamped. I've read and posted a little on this on the "everyone fights" post. I'm not talking about making the ground combat system more complex (although that would be sweet) I just want the numbers of soldiers attacking and defending a bit more realistic. For example I have an advanced troop tranport that I use and it says that it's carrying 2,000 soldiers but my planet population loses 2 billion people. Wow that's alot of soldiers, especially on one transport and then there is the everyone fights issue about planetary soldiers which has already been posted. These aren't complaints so much as wishes. Thanks
Reply #827 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The version MMO from 1992 had the option of bombing a planet. Population and taxes would be effected.
In turn, planets had planetdefense, ttey could shoot invading ships and battleships out of their sky, depending on the number and quality (technumber) of available defenses(rockets/missiles).
That would make an interesting feature if added. Would add a strategical force.
For the game that would make 1 added weapon (bomb) and 1 added planetdefense (planetmissile).
To me that sounds like less then 1 hour implementation, but it probably is not.
I certainly would welcome it.
Thx.
WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #828 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
funny to see what people regard as "EASY TWEAKS".. i mean i can't code, but i do know that most of your recent proposals aren't realizable in an hour's work
Reply #829 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
okay, 2 things (although i doubt there's any dev left reading through all this)

1) separate AI intelligence and AI economy penalty to create two independent difficulty scales. above all, it should be transparent which level leads to 100% AI intelligence. (i dont like to play against dumb enemies.. my current setting is tough, hope AI behavior isnt limited at this level. but at the same time, i dont like playing against enemies that get free bonuses, like on the higher levels)

2) make ships upgradeable on your planets and military starbases, nowhere else. ive read about players upgrading their "harmless" colony ships to deadly transports while they were parking next to enemy planets
Reply #830 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
for the love of god, remove the thing that makes the galactic map auto- jump to idle ships.



I'd rather say, to have the option of having it or not (it can be practical sometimes when you have dozens of ships romping about).
Reply #831 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I apologize if what I suggest has already been asked, but I don't have the guts to read the entirety of the pages ^^

So, my suggestions :

1) Make the main interface a bit easier to navigate :
- A "details" button when you select a single ship, just like when you select a fleet (so that I can still issue orders when I forget the hotkeys).
- The ability to upgrade ships in fleets.
- The ability to filter the ships/planets list (it's a nightmare to see where are your unused trade ships when you have several battle fleets and several active trade routes).
- The ability to issue orders to ships directly through the ships/planets list.

2) The possibility to upgrade core designs. Not necessarily changing the core designs themselves, but allowing us to work the new design directly from them (so we can keep the general design and just add the bits we like, and upgrade the actual fleet to our own plans more easily).

There is several more, but these are the ones I spontaneously thought about ^^
Reply #832 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I decided to make a summary of everything on the GalCiv Wiki site:

https://www.galciv.wikia.com/wiki/Bugs_and_Requested_Features

Of course, it isn't 100% complete with everything suggested here, but I tried to get most of the frequently-mentioned stuff or the stuff I'm most interested in seeing.
Reply #833 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Lack of keyboard shortcuts is becoming a real pain. Some items like the ship construction screen would benefit greatly with the use of keyboard shorts. Example: Rotating the ship up, down, left, right would be much faster and easier by using the arrow keys. This could be done while manipulating the part with the mouse in order to place a new part. Also rotating the part (the three dials in the lower right) could be done much faster with keystrokes.

In context, moving around the main map could be a bit easier by doing the same thing. Point and click is slow and tedious and for me will kill the playability of the game from the endless requirement for mouse work.

Reply #834 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
An option to sort through custom saved ship designs would be nice. Oftentimes I will be playing and unlock a random ship I made three games earlier that isn't really even relevent anymore. The ability to sort and alter my custom ships without having to unlock the prerequisite techs would really aid my galaxy conquering ambitions!
Reply #835 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Another thought I just had. I tend to like to keep the same general hull shapes for my tiny, small, etc ships throughout multiple games. I will save an empty ship with a name like Z_Tiny Ship Hull A or something so that it appears at the bottom of the list. When I start a new game and want to use this previously made hull, I'll make a real design with it and then obsolete the Z_Tiny Ship Hull A. An option to flag an empty design as a core hull design would really help reduce the clutter in my custom ships list, and would keep me from accidently setting planets to produce random empty ships.
Reply #836 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This option would definitely help out the lower-end guys like me: scene-free planetary invasions.

While I think they're awesome to look at, it takes several minutes on my computer to load up the planetary invasions, especially when I'm a few hours deep. I noticed that there's options for less graphic-intensive ship combat (going so far as to make it instantaneous) so I'm just wondering if it'd at all be possible to similarly simplify planetary invasions.

Thanks for your time.
Reply #837 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi,

One thing I find particularly confusing is to ensure I'm optimising my research time, and only research a specific tree of techs that I need in order to achieve a specific task. eg. Let's say I have a particular ship I'd like to start producing. Currently, I have to go away and find each individual tech necessary to support the ship before I can produce it.

I'd actually like to see an addition to the tech tree where various objects that the techs can unlock are able to be listed in a reverse-index, so that you can select the object, and then have the system develop, in sequence, the appropriate techs necessary to support the object.

Hopefully this is something that wouldn't be too hard to do?

Cheers,

Marc
Reply #838 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi,

One thing I find particularly confusing is to ensure I'm optimising my research time, and only research a specific tree of techs that I need in order to achieve a specific task. eg. Let's say I have a particular ship I'd like to start producing. Currently, I have to go away and find each individual tech necessary to support the ship before I can produce it.

I'd actually like to see an addition to the tech tree where various objects that the techs can unlock are able to be listed in a reverse-index, so that you can select the object, and then have the system develop, in sequence, the appropriate techs necessary to support the object.

Hopefully this is something that wouldn't be too hard to do?

Cheers,

Marc
Reply #839 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
like THEFESTY (the guy/gal with that impressive long list...). id even put some more *** on some of them...
here are some more: ********* (oh, my mistake, actually i wanted...here are some more suggestions:)

- when loading a campaign game, all ships will have their autopilot set for the buttom right of the galaxy (i consider this a bug)

- some ship components are not shown with their correct value, e.g. basic support component: for cargo hull size shown is 5, but when you install it, the size taken is less. (check these sizes, perhaps it also has to do with miniaturization)

- i want green lights when designing a ship, apart from the white, yellow, blue and red lights that exist so far

- when upgrading a cargo hull design, all components only take the space of the same components would use in a small ship design, thus making uber cargo ships possible, fixxx!

- ***** Auto centering of minimap when i click somewhere or find a ship or planet. right now, on gigantic galaxy size i click find. the main view then shows that ship, but i have no idea where it is. to know, i have to zoom out the mini map click find again then zoom in the mini map. only then i can see where this ship actually is! cumbersome!!

- *as many stars as you can imagine* right know as the terran alliance (or any other race) the best way to win is by diplomacy. why? ill tell you:
you can exploit tech trading. the AI will pay you the full price of a tech you offer, i.e. soil enrichment is worth 1600. the ai spends 100 research for 15 turns. then you come, knowing that they will finish next turn, offering them your soil enrichment technology, they will pay you the full value for it (1600).
using this technique, youll be the first in tech, even without doing any research at all!!
so, the invested beakers in a tech should subtract from its trading value. please do that!!
until then i cant play a drengin kind of race, because it is just too weak compared to a diplo race (of course you could also use this exploit with the drengin, maybe even to a higher degree, because you could build up you armada meanwhile).
Reply #840 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
ok one thing that would be fabulous would be to add a "Hide unnecessary techs" button to the bottom of the tech tree right next to the "hide researched techs" and "hide future techs." Its kinda annoying when ive bought an antimatter missile from another race and earlier missile techs still appear on my research screen
Reply #841 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Here are some tweaks stacks and fleets need:

(1) I wish the status box looked more the same for fleets vs. ships when you click on one. For example, how many moves remaining is shown in a different location, making things confusing.

(2) You can't tell how many moves are left for a ship in a stack. It's not displayed at all.

(3) I wish you could move a stack so that it stayed together even if the ships have different speeds (without making a fleet). The stack should go at the speed of the slowest ship, like a fleet. Right now if you want to move more ships together than can fit in a fleet, you must do it manually if the different ships have different speeds. A stack move command would be especially useful for transport escort. (I don't like to make a fleet combining combat ships and transports. Instead, I prefer a combat fleet stacked with a transport fleet.)
Reply #842 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Oh, one more thing I forgot: I wish ESC always closed whatever you are looking at except the main map. It won't close things like planet view. It should only bring up options if you are looking at the main map.
Reply #843 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
With people coming up with ship designs npw and submiting them to the public it would be very nice if the mods folder would work so we could just click and drag all the files to the Gfx/modles folder instead of haveing to rename things and back up stuff this would make adding new ship templates like the Babalyon 5 ones easy for us moding ileterat people.
Reply #844 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Have the setup remember my victory condition choices. In the last 3 days I've tossed out 2 games, one that I was 2 1/2 years into, the second I caught after about 2 months. I thought I had a conquest victory game but in one all three were on, and in the 2nd two were on.

In the second game I was being careful to uncheck, but when I went out to main menu, then new game, the UI showed the buttons unchecked BUT the box that shows the victory conditions did show the 2. So I re-checked the boxes, then unchecked them, and that cleared it and gave me a conquest game.

I would also second Launch All ! :}
Reply #845 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't know if this one has been mentioned or has been implemented in beta.

An option to turn off pop-up window for ships when trying to send a ship outside of it range. Maybe a buzz sound option instead of a pop-up window.
Reply #846 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Related: no find/search/go-to type utilty for finding a planet.

Related: no find/search/etc for finding a ship in space.


This is in the game.

Also, PLEASE can we have the launch all? I hate doing it one by one to clear about 8 ships at once from 60 planets, If I just clicked the planet then "launch all" it would be so much easier. Pretty please?
Reply #847 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Here are my suggestions:

#1 Split this thread into a forum as there are way to many comments already.
#2 Lots of people have asked for an zone of influence display around constructors, I would prefer if that showed up
around the autopilot target of the constructor - for a handmoved one it would mean the same but I tend to give the
constructor an order and then be done with that, so for me the autopilot target is better.
#3 I would like to separate the intelligence of the AI from the resource starvation level so that I can get an incredibly clever
AI running with a 5% resource limit - or a stupid one with lots and lots of resources.
Reply #848 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Need to go thru and whack off any duplicate requests

Some thoughts. Not sure if thsee are easy enough for an update or needs an expansion.. but here goes anyway for progress.

Foreign Advisor screen overhaul. Yeah that sounds like a lot but call it tweaks. We see the factors that can effect relations, but what do they mean ? How important is one factor compared to another?
Also comparison of dilplo values.

which leads to
Diplo Screen overhaul/ tweak. Player needs some on screen indicators to help make decision.
Foreign Advisor isn't there to help. So maybe on the diplo screen can see relative diplo ratings, alignments, visualize some of the factors so player can get a grasp on making decisions for your best interest. Sure once its green or orange the other guy will agree, but should you really part with that much stuff ? At least if you know you are overmatched in diplo you can assume you're going to have to throw in booty to get a trade. Without any help a player can assume wrongly that they may be on equal footing and resent trade deals entirely and feel cheated anytime you see a trade screen.





Reply #849 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In the ship builder, would it be possible to save a collection of 'bits' ... pieces you've put together as part of a theme or that just look cool, and have them show up in a separate list of parts available.

another one.

would it be possible to ctrl-click to select a bunch of parts (in the parts list on top) for deletion, or the ability to delete a whole mess of parts connected to a single item (with warning of course)
Reply #850 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
My biggest problems are with the UI. Even as I'm typing them out they seem kind of trivial, but these are the kind of games I tend to play for a while so little UI problems really add up over time.

In particular, navigating just about any list is a total pain and takes way, way too long. This is especially annoying with things like starbases or research, where you're forced to constantly go back and scroll through the lists over and over again.

Starbase upgrades: There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the way these are sorted. If there can't be some sort of separate list box for the generic weapon/defense upgrades that are present for every starbase, the upgrade modules specific to each type (economy, military, influence) should at least be at the top of the list. Honestly, the previous suggestion of having a split list box seems best, but since I have absolutely no idea how the UI code works I won't presume to think that this is an easy or even doable fix, but something, even if it's just a changing in sorting, really needs to be done.

Research: This is the big one for me. It was bad enough that I almost quit playing an hour or two after I got the game. The list of available tech upgrades, especially for someone who's new, is overwhelming once you've started down more than one path. More often than not I'm trying to research down a specific path, but I'm constantly distracted by having to scroll past a load of technologies I'm not interested in.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to pick a goal technology much further down the list and let the game silently research everything for me, but anything to reduce the amount of information overload on this screen would be really welcome. It'd be nice to be able to hide technologies from a certain path, since having ten to twenty potential technologies to research in the listbox at once is overwhelming.

Planetary Improvements: By mid-game the planetary improvements list is a mess, so much so that I usually ignore upgrading my planets as much as possible. I hate having to scroll through a huge list of improvements just to find a simple lab; it'd be really nice to have some kind of tabbed list with categories like 'basic improvements' and 'trade goods.' Failing that, just having the list permanently sorted so lab/farm/factory/market upgrades are always at the top would be a god-send.

I also like the idea of being able to build out-dated improvements, but I don't even want to imagine what a headache that would be with the current sorting.

Ship Design: The components boxes are a total nightmare by about mid-game. I'd love to be able to choose how to sort these, preferably by cost, size, or 'attribute' (damage, speed, whatever). Sorting them by name makes absolutely no sense and is very counter-intuitive. If nothing else they should be sorted by either size or cost.



Besides the UI, my other big pet peeve is the ridiculous number of custom ships I end up with. The problem is that it's tough to reproduce your exact point along the tech tree in any given game, so custom ships designed at one point in one game will probably show up far too late to be useful in another game. To use an example, right now I have about five generic railgun-with-engine designs that each show up at different times because I was at a different point along the propulsion, miniaturization, or mass drivers tech trees. All of the ships are identical except for cost.

I don't really have any suggestions for how to solve this, but having so many user-made designs is incredibly annoying and you're essentially forced into it since there are plenty of points where you have the technology to build a decent ship, but an appropriate core design isn't available yet. At the very least I'd like to be able to flag designs as one-time-use-only so tons of redundant custom ships don't appear at random times in every game that I play.



Finally, and this is more of a game balance complaint that a little tweak, it's weird having the attacker always fire first. It really reduces the strategy required when designing ships since the importance of good defense is reduced a little bit. I'd really love to see speed or sensors play into initiative, even if it's optional, because as of right now having warships with good engines or sensors doesn't seem terribly important.