Interface ideas

from Stardock Forums
Here are a couple ideas I think might make some things easier.

Ship Management:
As it stands on the Ship List View we can sort in different ways... Name, Class. What I would like to see is a tree type structure. For example if I sort by Class then all Frigates would be inder a primary branch labled Frigates and all the others as well under their respective groupings. These primary branches could be colapsed or expanded. That way if I want to deal with just my Colony ships or my Freighters then I could expand just those ships into view...

Zooming: I would love to be able to use the large view port to zoom in and out or possibly be able to resize the mini-map by draging the bottom left corner... or clicking a button on the bottom left to open it to twice as wide by twice as tall... Reason being is playing on the large maps is a real pain to try to get a big picture...

Skip Move: I would like a definate button to be able to skip a move and have that ship/fleet taken completely out of the rotation for that turn rather than the way it cycles back and forth to make sure I have gotten all my vessels moved...

Constructors: Needs a sentry button or a button to just park one. I work my ship in groups. Each small cluster of stars all send their ships to a local rally point. Once I have a sizeable fleet I send them to a regional rally point, then once there send them to the needed locations. Reason for doing this is that with the distances travelled it is possible to have over 100 ships heading somewhere. For the game to managge each individual ship takes a while for the turn to run so that is why I group them to reduce the time it takes the pc to manage all the ship movement.

Thanks and like the subject sayd these are just ideas.

later,
oldamster - the idea machine
525 views 22 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Skip Move: I would like a definate button to be able to skip a move and have that ship/fleet taken completely out of the rotation for that turn rather than the way it cycles back and forth to make sure I have gotten all my vessels moved...
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Spacebar

Needs a sentry button or a button to just park one
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S. G if you don't want it to wake up when alien ships pass by. (Still wakes up if you're at war with the alien ship's owner, though)
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Thanks PJ I will give those a shot...

later,
oldgamster - old dog been taught new tricks


edited for a spelling error
[Message Edited]
Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Collapsible branches for the ship list would be awesome. Actually, any metord of filtering what ships are on the list would do. I hardly use it after the first 2-3 years because it is too long. (That's partially my fault - I like lots of sensor drones.)

Zoom: I have a feeling that the graphics engine totally lacks this ability and that it would require a major rework to make it possible. You do know about the tactical view, don't you (key F9). That's about as good as we get for the large overview of what's going on...

More on sentry / guard / other ship options: If you use the info panel for a ship (the round i button) you get a full list of things that the ship could do. Its one way to manage the rally points and things of that nature, if you are like me and can't memorize the hotkeys.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
More on sentry / guard / other ship options: If you use the info panel for a ship (the round i button) you get a full list of things that the ship could do. Its one way to manage the rally points and things of that nature, if you are like me and can't memorize the hotkeys.
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The only problem is that all of the options aren't necessarily there. If you use info, there is no indication that constructors can "guard," but if you hit "G" they most certainly do (not that they make very good guards ;))
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Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
OK... Space bar and S does the trick. So does F9... I found the new colony I'd lost!

So that still leaves ship management...

later,
oldgamster - thinks 3 solutions in 4 hours is good
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I would really like for systems with multiple planets is some way of specifying which planet I load or unload a transport or colony ship.

This is for those situations where there is one planet with a high PQ where everybody is very happy, but the other planet around the same star is of a lower PQ and the morale is lower. It seems daft that I can take people from both planets and move them to a new system, but I can't move people within a system - or have I missed something?
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
have I missed something?
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Only sort of. Whenever you offload people, it takes from all systems, but when you put them back, it only puts them on one planet. My advice is to use a combat transport and offload until you can load the excess on to your happy planet. Eventually you can put a system into the correct balance this way (not the ideal solution, but it will work).
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
I would really like for systems with multiple planets is some way of specifying which planet I load or unload a transport or colony ship.
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What happens depends on which ship you use. When you use a colony ship, it offloads to a single planet. When you use a Transport, it offloads evenly to all colonized planets.

So, if you need fine control over where your colonists go, use colony ships. OTOH, if your target system is alot of class 25+ planets with morale of 100%, load everybody up on combat transports and keep all your planets at high morale instead of literally destroying one of them and leaving the others at 100% (and possibly losing alot of high class planets because of that one poor morale colony).

~SDC~
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Alignment suggestions, perhaps for GalCiv2

When we have to make a choice that affects alignment, it's too easy, you know which does what, and just how good or bad it will be, the only unknown is how much it changes your alignment. This strikes me as unrealistic in the extreme.

I think a better & fairer method would be:
1) Random order.
2) Don't give the outcome until the choice is made.
3) Randomize the outcome, sometimes taking the good option should be beneficial and equally taking the evil option shouldn't always be rewarded.

The way the game is at the moment, if you want to be 'good' you just choose the 1st option, if you want to be 'evil' always select the last. To me this neither reflects the players true nature nor allows 'real' role playing. However if a player actually had to think; Is this option good? Is this one evil? It might result in a more interesting game.

Also while on the subject of alignment; could other actions could influence it?
It's odd that I can be 'saintly' start a vicious and unprovoked war, and still be saintly!
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Thing is, you then get into ambiguous morality issues. What's good and what's evil?

Taking the event about the worm-creatures, for example, giving my people the best living conditions I can doesn't seem an evil thing. Eradicating the worm things is doing the right thing for my poor population, who, after all, I bundled on to a colony ship and forced them on to this planet!

Not giving the outcome wouldn't be fair, I don't think, as the values vary quite spectacularly. I certainly wouldn't want to eradicate a species if they aren't making *that* much difference to my people, but if the bug war is making the good citizens of my empire unhappy, I say, break out the fly spray! Heck, it's no different from eradicating those evil, warmongering Torians. My people shouldn't have to live in fear of anyone (well, except me)!
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Ook Ook

(You wouldn't be an Orang Utang would you? I'm well aware of the difference between a Monkey and an Ape)

Thing is, you then get into ambiguous morality issues. What's good and what's evil?
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That's the whole point. Your alignment should reflect your actions not 'press button 1 for good' etc....

I think not giving the outcome in advance is essential for role playing and would force people to think a bit before they make a choice.

As for the worms and bugs, after you with the fly spray.
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Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
It's odd that I can be 'saintly' start a vicious and unprovoked war, and still be saintly!
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The Crusades anyone?
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
It's odd that I can be 'saintly' start a vicious and unprovoked war, and still be saintly!
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The Crusades anyone?
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I think you'll find the only people who thought the Crusaders were good, godly and just were the crusaders themselves and their backers, most other people *especially* the inhabitants of the "holy" land just thought them to be a bunch of evil murderous b**t**ds
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
I think you'll find the only people who thought the Crusaders were good, godly and just were the crusaders themselves and their backers,
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Whose perspective do you play the game from?? ;)
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
Whose perspective do you play the game from
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Good point.

Is the alignment objective or subjective?
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
I don't even think the Crusaders were really under that impression. They managed to sack Constantinople - an allied Christian city!

Think about this - the Spanish Inquisition thought themselves saintly and doing God's work and whatnot, and nonetheless employed torture. If I consider myself good, why can't I research evil techs, if I use them in the "right" way?

"Good" civilisations don't start wars. Even prem-emptive ones. Especially ones without any proper justification. And they certainly don't impose their way of life on other people. While pretending to do it for the good of the people. Sound familiar, anyone? ;)
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
"Good" civilisations don't start wars. Even prem-emptive ones. Especially ones without any proper justification. And they certainly don't impose their way of life on other people. While pretending to do it for the good of the people. Sound familiar, anyone?
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Apart from your blatant political viewpoint, we're back to the perspective thing. Do you think the Roman Empire deemed themselves evil? They certainly did evil things. They also brought about tremendous advances in society. All while doing the very same things you've just stated.
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
If I consider myself good, why can't I research evil techs, if I use them in the "right" way?
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You'll be saying "The ends justify the means" next ;)

"Good" civilisations don't start wars. Even prem-emptive ones. Especially ones without any proper justification. And they certainly don't impose their way of life on other people. While pretending to do it for the good of the people. Sound familiar
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Ah, but they consider themselves to be good, which is the crux of my point, your alignment should reflect your actions and behaviour, not what you think it should be or you believe it to be.

Anyway it may be noon there, it's 1700hrs here & I'm going home.
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
Yup, but did they consider themselves good? (and were they considered good by the powers around them?)

If you consider the Mongol Empire, they certainly did very nasty things, but they probably didn't consider themselves evil, though many others did (and still do, to the present day). It's just what, you know, ravaging hordes of horsemen got up to in those days :)

Also, what about the viewpoint of other empires to yours - if you are a good empire but doing nasty things like starting wars, the other good aligned empires still like you more, although from their perspective, you may not be a very nice neighbour.
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
The developers have stated emphatically that the morality issue is a gameplay feature to be put into a box of morality events. Thus a "saintly" player or AI can be dastardly galactic conqueror, and remain saintly.

I see no reason to change the events to make the choice less clear. There are balance issues with morality (benefit/penalty not consistent with alignment shift, the ability to trade for and use alignment specific techs even if you do not meet the alignment criteria, to name two), but the general concept works. Evil choices give you benefits, but you risk having the good civs try to wipe you out, with no guarantee that being evil will matter to the evil civs. Good alignment brings penalties, but the good civs will always have a plus to their relations with you.
Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top
Wow, did I start that?? LOL

By the way, I think that Brad deliberately made the choices "cookie-cutter" choices to keep the morality events from confusing the game. I remember him saying that sometime ago.
Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top
Isn't the polar caps event broken? It seems that sometimes, the "good" choice is less penalising than the "neutral" choice.