[-Thog-]

Sorry for delay, machine bought it.

Well, as it turns out I am enjoying turn based enough to keep playing (remember I said I hadn't gotten to it yet and didn't know). It's a good game with some very solid design elements, some really annoying bugs, and an interface that is about 75% 'there'. But as I said, simultaneous mode has major problems.

Dweebs comment is spot on, in that I'm looking at SE4 as a replacement for VGAP, Stars and VGAP4 (which I think became vaporware). That's not practical in turn-based, and simultaneous has just enough shortcomings to make it not worth the effort. Don't read this as "SE4 isn't worth the effort and sucks". That isn't what I'm saying. It's just got a few shortcomings with major impact that need to be corrected. True of many games on first release.

Interface short list:
* Ability to sort planets by "Only My Empire".
* Ability to select a system in Planets Display and have it show only planets/contruction sites in that system.
* Ability to say "Send colony ship" without opening a new window and having to scroll around looking for the planet you've just identified in the Planet Display.
* Ability to choose which colony ship from a list.
Use the right-click for some of these perhaps?

Simultaneous short list:
* Ability to set formations, battle plans etc. (This may exist, but doesn't show up, because...)
* Ability to replay a recording of a battle. I want to see what happened in that fight where my 2nd Fleet got wiped out.

Aaron, thanks for the support. You folks seem to have a good rep with your players, and you have a good (and reasonably stable) design. My concerns with the interface are a result of playing it allot for a couple evenings (where seemingly minor things start to chafe). My concerns with simultaneous play are simply that without a replay feature the game loses a very large chunk of functionality, in that the whole point to these games for many folks is to see the USS Spoon smash the other guy in the head.

Thog