[AMF]

I have no doubt that there is a great game underneath the SEV UI. But I can't get there, at least, not without so much trouble that, knowing myself, I won’t play SEV with the UI as is.

HOWEVER, I think it can be fixed. It sounds like a problem of political will on the part of MM.

Here's a lot of things that are probably easy to do and would go a long way to fixing things:

* make the ship, component, and other images much smaller (like in SE4) in order to reduce overall window sizes.
* Make the empire-wide orders window, quadrant window, item list window, and orders window moveable.
* shrink the windows borders and other useless flashy parts to one pixel wide (like SE4) - the only thing each window needs wider is a title bar, for moving it.
* lock the view so that it doesn't move whenever I move the mouse to the edge of the screen
* redo the orders window so all typical orders ('Cancel orders' etc) are available with one mouse click
* Offset the flag and other planet icons from the hex borders, so you can see which planet you've selected. Make them smaller and transparent as well. Give the user textual options for these as well ('R' for resupply, 'Y' for shipyard, etc)


* For the ship design UI: get rid of the whole blueprint graphic and decks, and allow players to add more than components just by clicking rather than drag and drop. Maybe use a slider (like under the cargo transfer window) to set a number, or whatever, and then add that number of components (to add 10 engines at once, etc...) with a single click. And make them go automatically into appropriate hulls, working from inner to outer until all space is used up. Having to place each component is extremely tedious even for a frigate.

* for every window with filters and layout buttons: simply put the most common filters and layouts used in the main button list. I shouldn't have to click layout and then click units to show just units. For example, the ship list window buttons should read: layout, filter, units only, fleets only, etc...Ditto for ALL windows with layout and filter options.

I think, if the above simple 8 modifications were implemented, then the UI would go a long way to being fixed. And then I could see the great game underneath the UI.

Thanks,

AMF