I'm not necessarily all that fussed with this new feature or that new feature -- I'd like to see some user interface improvements, dammit!
Things like:
o being able to sort by multiple columns in table views, for example, by ctrl or alt-clicking on a second/third/fourth column header. (I think there are even some tables in the game that aren't sortable, but I can't remember them off the top of my head). Actually, I just checked - I think it was that you can't sort by planet type in the planets screen.
o mini-maps for some of the ship navigation (or waypoint setting?) screens - I can't remember which ones off the top of my head...
o Perhaps some sort of search facility at the top of tables (eg. Show me only the combat ships in these three sectors, only the planets with Replicant Centres, etc.)
o Having more detailed load/unload orders would be a *BIG* plus, particularly when queueing orders/shuffling pop around. ie. Load 30 pop from this planet, 60 from this one, drop all 90 to a separate planet. Or, load 1200 pop into a pop transport, and drop 100 pop here .. here .. here .. etc. Repeating that order could save about 90% of the work moving pop/troops/mines from place to place.
o A more detailed multi-add screen would also be good. Currently you can't do a one turn's worth of units, lather, rinse, repeat. Alternatively, you could have a build order for a fleet that would do much the same thing.
o Also, it would help if you could queue up ships before a ship-yard was built (ie go shipyard - ship - ship - ship in one fell swoop). Currently you have to wait until the yard's built before you can queue up ships.
o One more for build queues - the way that queues are reordered seems very strange to me - it would be a lot more intuitive to be able to (eg.) drag items into the right place, instead of having a separate menu.
o For research - I seem to recall that if you split points evenly, you can invest more in a tech than you need to. So if you have a cheap tech (5k) and an expensive one (50k), and 20k points to spend, you get 10k in each. I'd have to check that one to be sure, though. Probably the same thing happens for intel, too.
o Fleet management, particularly with fighters and other units - I can't merge multiple Groups of fighters in space without slurping them all up into a carrier or planet, and spitting them out again.
o Also, what about the ability to remotely launch fighters from a planet/ship? ie. launch them and select where to send them. Or a 'dock' command for fighters to rendezvous with carriers in motion?
o Another thought about tables - perhaps the ability to sort ships and ship yards by location (both system name and (x,y) coordinates)? It'd help coordinate space yards as well - ie. stop you from having to do the rename them by planet and sort by name trick.
o How about renaming systems? I guess that would be open to abuse in Online games, but the GM could always switch it off.
o Ooo.. and another minor niggle - you can't jump back to a sector screen (ie with planets and ships) from any sub-screen except 'details', which means you either have to click back on the main system window, or click back to details, and then go out.
o In some screens (ie from the detail view of a planet or ship) you can right-click on the flag to get a race report. This would also be very useful from a lot of the Empires screens, but doesn't seem to work in any of them.
o Empire comparisons don't seem to be very robust - they break in a lot of the Online games that I play. Not sure what's going on there - could be a game setting perhaps?
These sorts of things would definitely help - particularly in the really massive, 100-planet simultaneous games. Anything that helps make micro-management more bearable is a big plus in my book. I can probably come up with some others - I'll have a think about it over the next few days.
Anthony