SEV DEMO IS OUT!

[AMF]

First, Im so far happy with the game. Having said that, heres some of my general feelings: First, although its a great game, IF I wasnt a SE4 player, I would find it far to obscure and hard to get a handle on to play it. I think your average gamer geek will be put off by its inaccessibility.

Second, I think the later game (after 100 turns or so) will be even more tedious than it is under SE4. A lot of the shortcuts appear to have been made less accessible, with more keystrokes needed. Such as cancel orders, repeat orders, etc,

Now, a lot of lesser gripes, all of them fixable (I think), an upn which I base the above comments (and please note that I have not yet played tactical combat, and probably wont for a while, its just not my bag):

First, please tell me I can do simultaneous games in the full version.

For the love of Pete, please make the sector item window (bottom middle of screen), orders window (bottom right), and quadrant window (bottom left) moveable! They obscure the bloody solar system map, and there is dead space on the left and right that they could be moved to. Its extremely frustrating to not be able to see the entire solar system at once. And, all other windows are moveable, so why not these? It would help the visibility A LOT.

From the -planet report- screen, under ‘construction tab I instinctively want to be able to add to the build queue for that planet. Any way to add a double-click functionality that brings up the -set construction Q- screen? And, yes, I know I could hotkey Q to get there, but its much more instinctive to use a double click.

Anyone yet figured out what difference radiation, gravity, and temperature make? Are they just fluff?

Its not clear to me how I rename planets.

I look forward to someone coming up with a mod that makes the graphics much less cluttered. The new UI is way too busy, way too much deadspace, for my tastes, and a lot of it is unnecessary fluff.

Intel should be defaulted to -100% to defense- at the start of the game (or kill the ‘reminder at end of turn glitch mentioned earlier)

Would be very nice to have an abbreviated facilities view - for those planets with more than ten or so facilities, its annoying to have to scroll paste a bunch of the same ones to see what is on the planet. Why not just title them -Research facility x 10- etc. Ditto for ship components (mentioned below).

Apparently, the race of a ships crew is now noted for each ship. How is this important? I like it, a lot, but Im curious as to what actual effect it might have on the gameplay.

Ships are now listed as having ‘production values - which really appear, so far, to just be maintenance costs. But am I to take it that ships will now, with the right components, be able to produce various resources and thereby make them available to the empire at large?

Apparently, we can no longer have an abbreviated view for ships - when I start having dreadnoughts with hundreds of armor, its gonna be real annoying to try and scroll through the ship components to see whats on it. Any chance of fixing this so it says -armor x 50- instead of listing 50 armor components?

Its more of a pain to ‘cancel orders for a ship then it was before - have to go to ‘orders settings then hit ‘cancel orders. Likewise for ‘repeat orders. In the later game, these shortcuts become very important, but theyre awful hard to get to, despite the fact that there is plenty of screen space to put them on the initial orders window.

For the ‘item list window (bottom middle) the ‘back to list button lights up, even when there is only one item in the list. Seems wrong, (a bit misleading)

One side-effect of having hex contents obscured until you come within sensor range of them, is that a colonizer (or any ship) will bypass a good planet because you give it orders before you know what is in the region of space. A rational ships captain of a colonizer, for example, is out to find a good planet, and make a colony on it. Unfortunately, since you give it movement orders and only after it has moved all turn do you discover what it passed by can you colonize things. It would be logical to have a -colonize best planet- option that it enacts when it has movement orders. This probably isnt possible given the current movement mechanics, but it would be a big improvement.

Exploit/Bug: on the quadrant map, outgoing warp lines are indicated, even when you havent yet seen the sectors that contain them (in the systems). For example, if I go into a new system, and I havent explored any sectors there yet, I can still go to the quadrant map and see how many outgoing warp lines it has, and interpolate their general sector location as well.

In the 2D view, the empire flag graphics come in front of other graphics - this makes figuring out which planet is selected pretty tough sometimes. Can the highlighted hex borders be made to be in front of the flag graphics, to make it easier? Or at least make them a different color than white so theyre easier to see.

When designing fighters (and probably ships and units as well) when you have shift-clicked on a component, and you want to go to -next page- you can click the next page button. Thats good. But you cant click the ‘middle or other decks button to go there. SO, youre placing a lot of engines on a fighter, and you run out of spaces on the upper decks, so you want to go to the middle decks, but you cant without going back to the component section, and then going to select the deck, and then going back to once again pick up the engine component. Very awkward.

The whole layout for the ship design screens will get very annoying as ships get bigger. I cant imagine placing hundreds of armor components on a dreadnought, since it appears I will have to choose a location for each armor bit I put on. Is there no way to shorten this, and just allow me to place multiple armor straight up? I fear the latter stages of games will become very tedious for this reason.

Is it possible to turn off the ‘Colony type screen? Who has ever really cared about colony type? Does it make a difference? If so, it shouldnt.

Frankly, I dont see why the design screen needs to have stats for the unit on different window panes. Why should I need to push a button to figure out ship speed, and switch back to figure out tonnage still available, and so forth? Theres lots of dead space available here - why not get rid of a ‘page and display all the information on one?

The RETURN key isnt enabled!??! ARGHHH! For ship design, and a lot of other things, return key should = ‘OK. Unless Im the only keyboard jockey out there.

Its quite annoying to have to go through the ‘filter key to get to my unit designs. There are button spaces left - why not just have a ‘units/ships toggle button?

I never understood why SE4, and now SE5, forced me to calculate -facility space remaining.- Were always shown the facility space used and total facility space, but the difference between the two is the only number we, as players, really care about. I should be able to order and rank planets in various queues by ‘available facility space and not have to mentally do that calculation myself.

The Construction Queues window custom layout function should have all the functionalities of the ‘Colonies window - for example, I would find it very ueful to show construction queues by planet, nclding their population and number of facilities and so forth, not just things like their construction rates etc.

When constructing units, the option -one turns worth- was very useful (pretty much the only thing I ever used for constructing units). As far as I can tell, that is gone now. I think that it is automatic however (ie: if youset a planet to construct 50 fighters, it will construct one turns worth eac turn until it gets to fifty, rather than construct 50 at once on turn X). But still, the option to do -one turns worth- was very helpful.

In the tech research window, its hard to grasp that an advance in tech is often really just an advance in the level of an existent tech. Tech level pictures should have a number displayed that indicates the level I am about to achieve, rather than just the type. If I am researching projectile weapons, and the advances I expect to get are DUCs, then Im confused, because, goldarnit, I already have DUCs, why am I spending money on getting them again? If I research industry apparently Im going to get space port, but dont I already have them? See what I mean? Its confusing for newbies, I fear.

In SE4, from the log window, you could go to the news item, and do relevant things, and when you were done, you would return to the log window (not all cases, but most). This is no longer the case. Given that there is a much longer log window than before, it means that I am starting up the log window many times each turn. Again, bodes ill for the late game. Or I am just not doing something right (highly possible)

It seems as if one really needs to use both mouse and keyboard to make this game work. It should be more that one can use EITHER mouse OR keyboard, having to use both defeats the purpose of using them each alone. Not sure what can be done at this point, except to redo the hotkeys and mouse-short cuts, but needed to be mentioned.

Thats it for now, more to come tomorrow Im sure,

Tks,

AMF


Ps: apparently you can’t display apostrophes on the forum, so my above grammar is challenged to say the least.

[wilhil]

another bug I think...

I have loads of research facilitys on diffrent planets, some building, some planets complete. I upgraded them all... so now some of them are upgrading, then I researched another level before they were finished upgrading so I clicked upgrade again. Now, it looks like I have lost quite a few research facilities on diffrent planets

I wish I was one of the beta testers!

edit - on further look, it doesnt look I have lost any that were built, but the ones that were building have disappeared from the queue to be replaced with one upgrade

[wilhil]

amf, you say keyboard jocky... you know for cancel orders you can press backspace?

honestly, there was always shortcut keys for pretty much everything but I always used to use the buttons!, now I still have the options for both but because the cancel order is awkward to get to (one extra click!) I am using the backspace button.

if it was straight there, I would press it rather than backspace though.

I understand some of things being hidden as they are only sometimes used, but I would of though cancel would be a important one! and it did take me a moment to find as I thought it would be always visible!

and some other things, I had a ship in a enemy sector and clicked repaired, rather than go back the way it came, it went foward to the unexplored bit and went through a warp hole I didnt realise was there (but like AMF said, I could of seen from system view), and then went to a shipyard somewhere else! I thought this was funny!

I like the fact you have to explore new systems though, it really gives the impression of we are just here in space as later on with better sensors it becomes easier to explore.

[Renegade 13]

Whoa...84 new posts since I came to the forum last night...that's insane!

[Q]

I had a look at the data files: the damage types seem really fascinating. As far as I understand you can create almost unlimited damage type combinations, different armor and shield types. This is excellent.
I still do not see however why the ship design has to be so complicated if you consider how little effect it has functionally. I would prefer to be able to skip the layout and add the components like in SE IV (make this an option!). The auto complete seems to be useful only at the beginning, later you have to check carefully: it did not include combat sensor or ECM to my ships although I had the technology.
In the construction window I would still prefer the "one turn worth" option for units, even if now the construction of larger numbers is divided into turns automatically. However if you upgrade your unit designs, you are stuck with the old design if you entered a large number in the construction window.
The system map display is not optimal as already mentioned: overlap with other windows and the large empire flags make it hard to get all the relevant informations quickly.
I can't tell anything yet about the AI except that it seems I am far ahead of all AI empires.

[wilhil]

@ renegade 13, demo is out, a lot has happened!

also, how long is combat meant to last and when does it quit?

some times attacking a ship can last for ages but when I was in the middle of attacking a planet, it just stoped

[Captain Kwok]

Alarkif,

Right click on an object when it is selected to see all the applicable orders. This will help you to learn the hotkeys. Also make sure you have the help text on as it will allow you to find the orders you want faster. 'N' to re-name a planet when selected. Right click also allows easy access to many screens like cargo or the construciton queue.

There is simultaneous ofc.

The planet stats are fluff right now.

The return key is enabled on many windows but not all. Also note you can dbl-click on most items to select and close.

System display options under Empire Options is where you can turn off colony type selection. It's really only important if you're using ministers or something to ensure they build what you want.

One turn's worth is less necessary as we have construction point spillover, but I guess for situations where you want to occupy the queue for just 1 turn it would be helpful still.

You can make your own hotkeys.

[scJazz]

arghhhhhh The progress bar for the download is going tooooo slowly! Why can't life be instantaneous!

(I am using torrent btw)

Just griping...

[Q]

One minor imperfection: if you upgrade a design and create it, you return to the available ship/unit design list with the new design highlighted.
Because you most probably want to make obsolete the old design this is one more unnecessary mouseclick. In SE IV the old design was already chosen to be obsoleted.

[Noble713]

AMF said:
One side-effect of having hex contents obscured until you come within sensor range of them, is that a colonizer (or any ship) will bypass a good planet because you give it orders before you know what is in the region of space. A rational ships captain of a colonizer, for example, is out to find a good planet, and make a colony on it. Unfortunately, since you give it movement orders and only after it has moved all turn do you discover what it passed by can you colonize things. It would be logical to have a -colonize best planet- option that it enacts when it has movement orders. This probably isnt possible given the current movement mechanics, but it would be a big improvement.

I'd argue that you should send Explorer ships to survey systems (very useful button IMO) before you send in colony ships. I don't even include sensors on my colony ships.

AMF said:
In the tech research window, its hard to grasp that an advance in tech is often really just an advance in the level of an existent tech. Tech level pictures should have a number displayed that indicates the level I am about to achieve, rather than just the type. If I am researching projectile weapons, and the advances I expect to get are DUCs, then Im confused, because, goldarnit, I already have DUCs, why am I spending money on getting them again? If I research industry apparently Im going to get space port, but dont I already have them? See what I mean? Its confusing for newbies, I fear.

The way I look at it, your scientists may have a general idea of what areas/equipment will be improved, but not the specifics. You make a good point about confusing newbies though.

And your comments about the ship/unit design screen are spot-on. Defintely not user-friendly.

wilhil said:
some times attacking a ship can last for ages but when I was in the middle of attacking a planet, it just stoped

Yes! I had that same problem! You can compare notes with my experience here: http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...t=1#Post446044