I love the new icons in the tech tree, however i do think a small box at the bottom of the tree explaining what each icon represents would make understanding them easier. I am not sure on a few of them and i have played the game from the beginning. For a new player they would just confuse the tree not as i know they are intended to do which is enhance the tree.

Ditto the Arcean color. Also, the default dark blue color for text on the galaxy map for Terrans is kinda dark and hard to read against the black space background. I'm not sure if this changed from DA or not... maybe not, it's been a long time since I've played Terrans. For reference, I'm making these comments based on a color-calibrated NEC LCD2190UXi, so I don't think it's just my eyes and monitor. I usually don't have problems reading other game UI's.

Like Drengin, I couldn't figure out the new icons right away under the tech tree blocks. I was expecting to see mouseover info for that.

- The textuers of some window elements (ethical choices, research finished, etc) seem a bit too transparent.



The textures behind the choices in the screen shot make the transparency look like a mistake.

-I'm not sure if maybe it's already planned for, but I'd love to see more fleet technology. I recall only a few techs in the arcean tree, and it seems like the angle of fleet-specific modules could really go far for making fleets useful again. +attack, +def, +hp, +speed, +range, +repair, and so on.

-This isn't specific to TA, but an option to change interface color mid-game would be great. Sometimes I'll choose a color and not really get bothered by it until I'm two hours into a game. At that point I rarely want to start over just because of a bad color choice. This would also likely help out the people who are getting headaches with the default arcean/terran colors.

This is probably going to get me banned from the forum... but I'm glad to see someone else saying this. I think Stardock is a great company, full of talented game programmers, and I'm happy to give them my money.

But they need to hire a good graphic design guru. The UI has had weird colors from the start, and it's only getting worse. Good graphic design and legible fonts/colors isn't rocket science, people. This is a solved problem, and you don't have to re-invent the wheel. Just hire someone who knows about this stuff.

Someone posted this on another thread, but it's been a long standing one with me as well...


- Have an option for ships on auto survey to not explore black holes.


I'm often running several ships on auto survey and I would like for them to do double duty as scouts/explorers for my colonization rush. Every time one of them hits a black hole they become of limited use, especially on the big maps. I usually just build extra survey ships to cover my losses...

BTW At some point I'll probably try to suck all these up into the OP.

Nothing TA-specific, but a little green "Earth-like" icon for those planets that are habitable by all without any colonization tech... just to make things consistent

I traded for "Space Militarization" as Drengin (under their tech tree, it's called "Stellar Conquest Strategies") from a minor and the tech no longer displayed the different flavor text/name that the Drengin tech tree gives it. Nothing major, but it feel it should be noted that it happens. Can't remember if I already had the tech or not, I probably didn't, but I'll try it again sometime...

What do I want? Not much really:

-Multiplayer
-Carriers
-Epic Generator

A few suggestions I already made in an other thread:

two minor things right away:

- zoomable minimap in the "governors" screen;
- the "esc" on the keyboard always brings you back to the main screen and only if you hit it while you're on the main screen it would bring you to the menu screen;

One major change: UP rules

when sanctions are to be decided, i.e. "max trade routes for evil civs", all votes for sanctions (max 1 route, max 2 routes, max 3 routes) should be counted together and weighted against votes for no sanctions (no change). If the votes for sanctions outweigh the votes against sanctions, then the least punishing option that has been voted for should be chosen (in this case the "max 3 routes").
This same principle should apply also for all other voting procedures when a "no change" option is available.
When a civ leaves the UP it should get a huge damage in reputation but trading with individual other civs should be allowed, based on how good relations with that civ are: the threshold might be the a "friendly" or a "close" relationship. If the relation is equal or above trade should be allowed, if it's lower than trade shouldn't be allowed.

Other major change: trade revenue

I read many posts where people say that trade is unimportant and underpowered compared to tax income. The truth is that tax income is related to your total population while the basic trade revenue is related only (at least to my understanding) to the populations and to the distance between the two trading planets. So on a gigantic (or now: immense) map with everything abundant and the astronomical total population figures that players can reach trade revenue gets quickly unimportant compared to tax revenue.
One easy possible solution: make trade revenue function of both the trading planet AND of total population. The drawback of course is that the trading planet's role would decrease over time as your total population grows and in the end it would come equal to sort of an "automatic" trade that you can't really influence.
The other solution (that I would like to see implemented) is to calculate trade revenue in function of the distance, the population of the trading planet plus (and this is the change I'm suggesting) the population of all YOUR planets that are connected to the your trading planet though a specific internal trade network.

So how do you build an internal trade network?

Well, you guessed it, with freighters, just as you do with trade routes (one freighter per connection between any two planets).

So what's the big deal about this idea?

Well, in case of a war the internal trade network could also be targeted (just as you would pillage the improvements of an enemy civ in Sid Meyer's Civilization series).

So in the end there's no need for big changes, just connect your own planets with freighters (daisy chain connections are sufficient) to add to the "trading" population of your trading planet. I presume it wouldn't be hard to teach this new rule to the AI.

BTW, the Galactic Privateer would only protect your external trade routes, not your internal trade network.

Anyone endorsing my idea?

There are a lot of good comments on color here. Please remember that there are many of us who are color-blind and/or have vision problems. Please add non color clues in addition to color.

J

Not to mention the Auto Mining Conga Line... (Miners should really head towards the nearest asteroid they can upgrade when you click Automate, instead of always going for really-far-away unbuilt asteroids first...)

Well as the U.P. goes, I think everyone shouldn't vote at one time. I mean congress doesn't have a bill and they say cast now! They debate and think about it, atleast thats what they should do. I still am scratching my head why the evil civs are picked on. I mean couldn't the evil civs go to the one good guy and say "Hey! We don't like you having trade routes, you use them to promote anti-slavery movements. So let's vote." -they vote- Evil guy:"Ha! sucks for you loser."

The usuall U.P. is biased, so I think the evil guys should be able to secede, band together, and form their own U.P. Ofcourse, they couldn't trade with their old U.P., but they would be limited to trade with each other. I guess it would be a big galactic clubhouse.

Does anyone else support or like this idea? Feel free to criticize or compliment.

I kinda have the feeling most of this is bigger than a tweak, but what the hey, here it is!(Is there a major idea thread around here?)

Two suggested tweaks,

1) Can the planetary improvements be colour coded or have some way to sort them?
2) When you click on the rally set point in the Shipyard, can it pop up there, rather than having to close the planet screen?