SE4 System Notes

[Paul1980au]

Capturing the enemy homeworlds is a quick way to ensure their surrender - the fact they defend that planet most means if you strike their fleet there they find it hard to regroup. Capture it will 300+ troops. Once you have the homeworld if they wont surrender - capture the bigger planets first esp those with no domes - native population atomosphere build enormous amounts of facilities. Small planets are hard to defend ie lack of space for WPs etc.

Use boarding ships to capture enemy pop transports they usually have up to 300+ populations and can be used to colonize youre domed planets to exchange with the captured pop and remove the dome and expand back system planet facilities.

[Yef]

I use it mainly to mark the alien Homeworlds.

[ April 28, 2004, 12:37: Message edited by: Yef ]

[Tampa_Gamer]

I think to be truly useful - they need to be incorporated into the main strategy screen. Perhaps there can be a little shape in the upper left corner of the sector which will appear if there is a note (kind of like the green triangle for excel notes if you are familiar with that program). Another related wish list item is to be able to tell notes to automatically pop-up or create a line in the turn summary in XX number of turns.

-TG

[Roanon]

The SE system notes are MUCH to cumbersome to use, have poor editing tools, bad overview and lack any search or list feature.
I use excel and space emires simultaneously and toggle between them when playing. I enter every planet into a list that I can then sort/filter for atmosphere, type and size, much more useful than the planet list in SE. I also enter colonization priorites from 1 to 5 stars so I don't have to think the same thoughts every turn again when searching for the best planet to colonize from a given spaceyard planet. Plus, whenever I start building a colony ship I note where it should go and replace the stars on my list with the turn number planned.
Without this, it often has happend to me that I had double-targeted some planets with 2 colonizers built at different planets. Or that I did not know where a freshly produced colonizer should head because in the meantime all eligible nearby planets of that type already had been colonized.
In large galaxies, like the 20 player NGC games, having to check like 20 different notes windows that can only be viewed one-by-one is equivalent to zero information.

[Ruatha]

I usually uses the planets window for this, there you can see if a ship is heading towards a planet, you can see the special planets, the ones with right atmosphere etc, and you can see how far away it is from the system the ship is built.

[Kamog]

I use a low-tech method. For detailed notes about enemy planet locations, facility information etc, I write them in a notebook using a pen.

[Roanon]

The planets list does not have much usable information. I really hate that list in its imperfection.

I usually plan to use a ship for a certain planet when STARTING to build it, so it doesn't help if a ship is listed as already heading to a planet or not. Also, it might happen that a ship is en route to a planet but has to load population for a certain atmosphere at another planet first. As you cannot specify an amout to load with the "load" order, you have to manually load at that planet and can only give colonize order after this, again preventing that dumb list to display the "ship en route" entry.

Furthermore, the list/sort options suck. I am looking for a planet for my Rock colonizer. I have all 3 colonizing techs, so it is impossible for me to get a list with only Rock planets. It is not even possible to sort by Ice/Rock/Gas. The list also contains every planet in even the most remote systems where just an explorer has been. Or you have to enter these under "avoid" EVERY TURN - which also is not very user-friendly.

You cannot even enter a line of text that would display on that list. For example, if there is already a spaceport in that system. Or if a certain planet has to be urgently colonized due to political reasons rather then its resources.

To be useable, this list should at least have: user notes, more sort criterias, filters. I tried to use this list in my first games, and messed up my colonizers hopelessly. Now I have no colonizer flying around for more than 2 turns unless deliberately designed for exploration.
A small improvement, but every bit adds up .

[Caduceus]

I would say that the Notes option is fairly useless as it doesn't come onto the main screen. Meaning, if I make notes on a planet/system, I have to go back to a minor screen to revisit the information.

It would be more useful if this information could be seen in the starchart at the right side of the main screen when the cursor falls on a system.

Wildcard

[PvK]

That doesn't make it "useless". It may make it inconvenient and easy to overlook. But it can certainly be used.

PvK

[Roanon]

"I can be used" is correct, it is usable. But still useless Tabbing into Word or Excel is much more convenient and gives you far more options for usage.