UI Glitches

raynor · #1 February 22nd, 2003, 08:42 PM

I downloaded Patch #3 because I'd seen some notes on 1.74 and 1.74 about improvements to the use of ENTER and ESC.

There are the UI problems I'm still unhappy with.

When you start a game, you may add five, ten or even twenty custom empires. Then, you have to go in one by one by one and turn on computer control. It would be nice if you could turn them all on at once. But you can't.

So, you click on the first one, you click on 'Edit', you turn on the AI, you click Create. You go back to the list. You click on the second one, you click on 'Edit', you turn on the AI, you click 'Create', you go back to the list. You do this for as many as sixteen more. You start the game. Ooops! You forgot to adjust one of the other setting. So, that 20 minutes was just wasted.

This time, you adjust all your other settting first before adding the empires and turning on computer control. But you just created one empire. But was the Last one the Drushocka or the EEE. I just can't remember. It would be nice if the Last empire you edited was still selected after you create it.

You get into the game and find that you still forgot to turn one on. Sure, you can look at the empire listing and turn them on to computer AI before you press 'End Turn'. I guess that would be better than all the tedium above.

Finally, you get into the game. You go to rename a ship. You type in the name and press 'Enter'. The game just beeps at you. You have to click the mouse somewhere to rename the ship.

You start playing the game. You are building defensive WEP's on a planet using 'Repeat Build'. Then, you clear the queue and start building a Space Port. Nine turns later, you realize that you have three Space Ports.

So, you uninstall the game and wait for Gold Patch 4. Thankfully, MOO III is coming out on Tuesday and Gal Civ a month later.

[ February 22, 2003, 18:58: Message edited by: raynor ]

Ragnarok · #2 February 22nd, 2003, 09:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by raynor:

So, you uninstall the game and wait for Gold Patch 4. Thankfully, MOO III is coming out on Tuesday and Gal Civ a month later.

You really need to give SE4 some more time. Get used to the controls. Not every game will have perfect UI features. In fact I'm pretty sure MOOIII will have problems with it's UI for awhile as well.
Those problems you mentioned you don't even notice after awhile. I know I don't.
When MOO III comes out it will have it's share of problems and bugs that will take awhile to fix. (they can hold off releasing it for as long as the y like but it will still have its issues)

Suicide Junkie · #3 February 22nd, 2003, 09:11 PM

That's seems to be overreacting just a bit.
Why not just let the computer select random AI players for you?

Why not just go to "players" under the file/game menu, and check the buttons to set the ones you missed to AI control?

Why is it so hard to unselect the repeat build button?
If you'd had a mineral miner facility in the queue rather than a spaceport, you'd be pretty happy, wouldn't you?
The game dosen't care if you make bad strategic choices. Maybe you really wanted to build backup spaceports!

[ February 22, 2003, 19:13: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Andr�s · #4 February 22nd, 2003, 09:24 PM

I normally just allow the game to pick random races. But I guess you could create a set of .emp files with AI control on.

raynor · #5 February 22nd, 2003, 09:28 PM

Quote:

Why not just let the computer select random AI players for you?

In order to get a good game going, you need to select the AI opponents from the TDM, etc that you know will offer the best challenge.

Quote:

If you'd had a mineral miner facility in the queue rather than a spaceport, you'd be pretty happy, wouldn't you?

I dunno. I'm not so sure I'd want to come back to the planet and find that I'd been wasting the resources building a nonexistent Mineral Miner for the past several turns. (Unless that's a bug they've fixed. It used to be that the game would continue building facilities even after there was no more space available.)

Quote:

The game dosen't care if you make bad strategic choices.

Ahhh... the time honored defense of the lazy programmer. It's not a bug. It's a feature!

capnq · #6 February 22nd, 2003, 10:26 PM

Quote:

the time honored defense of the lazy programmer. It's not a bug. It's a feature!

The time-honored defense of the careless user. "Why can't the program read my mind and do what I want, rather than what I tell it to?"

Gryphin · #7 February 22nd, 2003, 11:01 PM

raynor,
on one hand I can empathise with you. I have run into and done all of the things you mention and it is frustrating. I have also cursed at the program when it let me send out colony ships without people on board or build ships witout engines. It did not even warn me.

On the other I have never played a more sophisticated game with the deapth or support SEIV has.

Re: Getting good random AI for oponents
It must be possible to mod the stock AI. I wonder if anyone has done it.

Folks? have they?

[ February 22, 2003, 21:03: Message edited by: Gryphin ]

Fyron · #8 February 22nd, 2003, 11:02 PM

Quote:

In order to get a good game going, you need to select the AI opponents from the TDM, etc that you know will offer the best challenge.

Then go move all of the AI races you do not want to have in games from the Pictures\Races folder (under TDM if using that mod). This will fix that "problem" very nicely.

Quote:

I dunno. I'm not so sure I'd want to come back to the planet and find that I'd been wasting the resources building a nonexistent Mineral Miner for the past several turns. (Unless that's a bug they've fixed. It used to be that the game would continue building facilities even after there was no more space available.)

Then you just need to pay attention when using Repeat Build orders. Clearing the Queue should not ever clear Repeat Build, as the 2 have nothing to do with each other.

Quote:

Ahhh... the time honored defense of the lazy programmer. It's not a bug. It's a feature!

Of course this is not a bug. Again, the two have 0 correlation, and should not ever be linked up to each other. Clearing one should not affect the other.

Gryphin:

Quote:

Re: Getting good random AI for oponents
It must be possible to mod the stock AI. I wonder if anyone has done it.

Folks? have they?

Yes, TDM has modded several of the stock AIs. Check the readme or credits to see which ones.

[ February 22, 2003, 21:03: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Graeme Dice · #9 February 23rd, 2003, 02:19 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by raynor:
Ahhh... the time honored defense of the lazy programmer. It's not a bug. It's a feature!

There is no inherent reason to restrict spaceports to one per planet, and to do so would cause vast problems for those modders who might want to create a facility that has multiple abilities including spaceports. You left the queue on repeat build, and it functioned exactly as it was supposed to. It built another of the top items.

raynor · #10 February 23rd, 2003, 02:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by capnq:

quote:
the time honored defense of the lazy programmer. It's not a bug. It's a feature!

The time-honored defense of the careless user. "Why can't the program read my mind and do what I want, rather than what I tell it to?"

It is possible to create, for example, a word processing program that doesn't prompt you to save when you exit the program. Then, when a person loses a ten page document, you can easily say that they were careless not to save their document before exiting.

But... if that is a fair comparision, then I place the burder of proof on you to point out just one word processing program that wouldn't prompt you to save your document before exiting.

If you can name just one, then you were right, "careless user" is appropriate. If not, then "careless programmer" is appropriate.