SE5 Demo Bug Reports & Annoyances/Requests

[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

[MasterChiToes]

AMF said:
* make the planet, ship, and other images much smaller (like in SE4)

Those images in the Turn Reports could be way smaller too... one line of text/info next to a ~200px tall image is just a waste... and makes for way too much scrolling. And the text generally everywhere could be smaller too... small text means less scrolling which actually makes it easier to read.

[Spoo]

Bug?:

In a ground assault, my troops stopped firing and ran away after being shot at by the militia. Right-clicking on my troops showed that they had no damage (thanks to sheilding), but their weapom fire rate was "damaged". Do the militia have some crazy relode damaging weapons?

Also, the militia fully regenerated each turn (even when I had surviving troops).

[Captain Kwok]

Note:

Clicking on the column header with the icon/image in lists or the log cycles through different pic sizes. For example, the log can have big, small, and none. For list screens like colonies, ships, planets etc., you can have normal, small, and none. This greatly increases the amount of rows for the list screens.

[AMF]

Ok, I'll power it up again and try that. That might help a lot.

For those people with gigantic hi res monitors, they could probably get away with the larger versions, maybe the resolution options in the setup screen could be made to automatically choose pic size to optimize visible system space?

edit: but smaller pics only really help IF they result in more visibile system space, so I can actually see planet names etc.

Captain Kwok said:
Note:

Clicking on the column header with the icon/image in lists or the log cycles through different pic sizes. For example, the log can have big, small, and none. For list screens like colonies, ships, planets etc., you can have normal, small, and none. This greatly increases the amount of rows for the list screens.

[Artaud]

AMF said:
* make the ship, component, and other images much smaller (like in SE4) in order to reduce overall window sizes.

I disagree. I like to see my ships. As it is you can either see your ships by zooming all the way in, or see your entire system by zooming out.

What's the point of playing, say, the Klingons if you can't see those beautiful ships?

[Suicide Junkie]

Artaud said:

I disagree. I like to see my ships. As it is you can either see your ships by zooming all the way in, or see your entire system by zooming out.

What's the point of playing, say, the Klingons if you can't see those beautiful ships?

AMF means the portraits, not the models, I think.

The idea being that shrinking the pictures and maybe the fonts would allow room for more rows in the list screens like in SE4.

[Phoenix-D]

Well, part of the issue is SE5 sort everything into its own tabbed catagory. In SE4's construction que screen, for example, the planet icon, name, and status icons were all shoved together and took up a LOT less horizontal space. But you couldn't sort by planet type, or by "has troops", etc.

Usage per turn was the same way- you could see all three, and sort by minerals, but not by organics or radioactives.

SE5 could still combine things without losing funtionality. There's no reason "on hold", "repeat", and "emergency build" all need their own tabs, for example. All three could easily be combined into what's being built..