19 User Interface Problems

[Scott Barrie]

Here are 19 user interface nitpicks I've catalogued. I would be extremely happy to see even half of them addressed in upcoming patches.


1. When renaming a ship, the Enter key can't be used to indicate completion. "OK" must be clicked with the mouse. The Escape key can't be used to cancel the window, "Cancel" must be clicked with the mouse.

2. If you don't change the ship's name, and then click "OK", you get an error that "That name is already in use".

3. The Enter key also can't be used when entering your password to indicate completion. "OK" must be clicked with the mouse.

4. Your password isn't masked while it's being typed - this is a problem for hotseat games.

5. You need to select a ship before selecting Scrap/Analyze/Mothball, but that ship is not automatically selected in the next screen. Either don't require a ship/unit/base to be selected, or use the item selected as the default item to be modified.

6. A ship cannot launch less than all possible units remotely in simultaneous turns.

7. There's an option to show Resupply Depots, Space Ports and Shipyards (R,S,Y) on the sector map, but no way to show other important facilities like Ship/Fleet Training Facilities, System Computers, Urban Pacification Centers or racial trait facilities.

8. In the Designs screen, the list scrolls back to the top when "Hide Obsolete" or "Make Obsolete" is toggled.

9. In the Enemy Ship/Units Designs window of the Design screen, a seperate window for each race would be useful.

10. In addition to being able to view all the new constructions in the Log, it would be useful to be able to view constructions of Units, Ships, Facilities, Upgrades and Warnings separately.

11. "AI should not make changes to the empire during a simultaneous games" - change this wording to reflect what the option actually does (whatever that is). [Even better, include an option to do what that says - but that isn't an interface change.]

12. In the Planets screen, the ability to sort planets by colonization type would be very useful.

13. In the Planets screen, the ability to view only the planets within your borders would be useful. It would be more useful than the current ability to exclude restricted systems from the list.

14. When changing the top item in the construction queue, display a warning only when the top item is partially constructed.

15. When deleting the top item from the construction queue, display a warning only when the item is partially constructed.

16. When deleting a project from the research queue, display a warning only when that project is partially researched.

17. When you "Recover Units Remotely" from the sector you're in, it doesn't include the "Move to" command. This is problematic if you want a ship to move somewhere, and then return to its original sector and recover units remotely there.

18. Sometimes when entering the "Set Construction Queue" screen from the "Construction Queues" screen, the "Set Constuction Queue" screen starts at the top of the list. Other times it starts at the Last item selected when the screen was Last accessed. [This probably happens with other lists as well] [There is probably a trigger which causes the different starting points, but I can't determine it]

19. You can only trigger pods on independent ships, not ships in fleets.


That's all I found. Obviously some are very minor.



[This message has been edited by Scott Barrie (edited 26 June 2001).]

[disabled]

Solutions for your problems...

send it to MM and propose soltuions. This will speed it up for them so they can crank a patch out.



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HADRIAN AVENTINE
snpacifica@yahoo.com
http://www.hyperionbase.com

[Scott Barrie]

quote:

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Originally posted by Hadrian Aventine:
Solutions for your problems...

send it to MM and propose soltuions. This will speed it up for them so they can crank a patch out.

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Okay, I wasn't clear. I do intend to send it on to Aaron. But first:

1) Are the problems clearly explained?
2) Did I include any poor solutions or non-problems?
3) (Big one) Did I miss anything? Maybe something small you've noticed?

I think that compiling all the problems everyone's found and sending it on in one big list would be more useful to MM than sending individual Messages everytime something pops up.

And it would be even more useful if I expressed myself as clearly as possible when doing so. <g>


[This message has been edited by Scott Barrie (edited 26 June 2001).]

[Taqwus]

Interface thread. Must... post...

Some things that I wish could be changed, and are interface foo (in that changing these wouldn't change the actual mechanics of the game, just how they're accessed):


* I would like the 'Repeat Build' option to repeat the LAST item rather than the first. You don't lose any flexibility since with the current option, there's no point in having multiple objects in a RB queue.

* Bookmarks. Maybe just as simple as, for each 'event log' window (counting the different filters), the Last event clicked on is noted -- and an button/hotkey exists to go back to that event. Ditto for ship/colony lists.

* Stronger linkage between display and command. For instance, I can *view* a colony's facilities from the colony list by right-clicking -- but to *scrap* said facility, I have to leave the colony list, select the planet in the system view, and hit the scrap facility button.

* As a convenience, click-drag to reorder ship components in the design window, or some .txt file that specifies order. For instance, when upgrading a normal design to an MC design, there's no way to put the master computer at the beginning (where I like to see control stuff) without removing/re-adding all components. More importantly, this allows adding in shield depleters BEFORE normal weapons once you get them, without popping the whole stack, et al.

* A 'find system by name' option would be nice if there isn't one (I don't recall there being one).

* Better information highlighting. This is vague, but a few examples --

- When the mouse is over the ship or colony lists, highlighting the system in the quadrant window may be appropriate.
- An option to put color-coded circles around ships/fleets may be useful in a game with rampant Crew Insurrection.

* An per-class option for automatically toggling on the minister. This would be useful for, say, solar-powered colony ships and minelayers.

* An option to have the 'Next Ship' option skip minister-controlled ships.

* More information for which I shouldn't have to do a lot of clicking:

- When an alien race surrenders to me, how about highlighting the systems that they were in, or providing a colony list filter that works?

- When a minefield is detonated, tell me how many mines are used up and how many are left. Right now, I only get told how many are swept.

- When a build queue is exhausted, indicate this in the build completion so I don't have to check manually every turn for idle queues. Likewise for research and intelligence queues, although the latter *shouldn't* (IOW, I should always be running counterintel on repeat if I've got any at all).

* The 'only one needed per system' message does not take into account facilities in build queues. Arguably, it should (or a separate message should ("You have already arranged to build one in this system").

Even better, being able to select a system and find out which system-wide facilities are present would be nice.

* Being able to filter for colonies that are domed and have no atmosphere converters and aren't building them (and don't have them queued) might be useful.

* Being able to add a 'Replace Facility' command to the build queue would be useful, because right now the only way to maximize production while switching from regular to monolith is to do your scrapping and building *one at a time*. Search-and-replace for facilities would be nifty (e.g. if you've got all tech (!), replacing all Research with Intel, say, with varying scope of colony versus empire).

* The 'build one turn's worth of units' should result in a 'One Turn's Worth' item in the queue, not just one turn's build capacity at the time the order was queued since production rate fluctuates with population.


The ultimate interface foo, of course, would be being able to export empire status information to text files and then import text commands ('scrap facility FOO on colony BAR', 'queue facility NNN on colony BAZ'), say, which would be Nirvana for scripters. That would eliminate much of the nastiest micro, like staggering atmosphere converter production so your empire doesn't completely starve in terms of organics or radioactives.


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Spoo]

1) I'd like to be able to drag open windows around the screen. It's annoying to have to close then reopen them if you want to see something blocked by the open window.

2) Support for higher screen resolutions.

3) I think it's be really neat to make all of the game windows dockable, with no limit to how many can be open at once (except screen space). Then I would be able to keep an eye on my research queue while negotiating a tech trade w/ an ally, etc.

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Assume you have a 1kg squirrel
E=mc^2
E=1kg(3x10^8m/s)^2=9x10^16J
which, if I'm not mistaken, is equivilent to roughly a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.
Fear the squirrel.

[Dragonlord]

This is an excellent thread and I fully agree with the original 19 points mentioned.
I agree with some of the points raised by Taqwus, though they are less essential to me.
FRom taqwus list, the one that has bugged me a lot too is not ebing able to filter the colonies list for rock/gas/ice planets. e.g. when I have conquered a race and want to find out if I have any domed colonies nearby that could benefit from a population move due to different atmospheres.

quote:

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Originally posted by Taqwus:
Interface thread. Must... post...

- When a build queue is exhausted, indicate this in the build completion so I don't have to check manually every turn for idle queues.

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My solution to this: I have the build window (f7 key) sorted first on number of facilities built, then on whether or not its constructing something something. That way, I spend 5 minutes max (in large map) hitting F7 and seeing where I should issue build orders. All the colonies that are already building are at the bottom of the list and the ones that are not building and have facility slots left are at the top. However, as my empire grows, even this method becomes cumbersome, and I'd like to be able to filter out colonies that are not building (cause they are full) that currently still show up in the list cause they have a shipyard.