Thoughts on Handling Idle Ships

from GalCiv3 Forums

Hi, first off I'd like to say that overall, GalCiv3 has been a pretty enjoyable experience. But, that said, there's one particular aspect of the user interface that I hope receives some more iteration in future patches.

If you couldn't guess from the title, that UI bit is how idle ships are handled.

As it stands, if a ship is idle and you want to end your turn, it is necessary to click the "pass" button on the ship. This sets its moves to 0, and then the ship will no longer count as idle.

While manageable for small numbers of ships, in my empire that controls half of a "huge" sized galaxy, managing every single one of my idle ships sometimes proves to be a major pain--lots and lots of clicking. Idle Ship > Pass ; Idle Ship > Pass ; Idle Ship > Pass, over and over again until I'm allowed to end my turn.

I can understand the argument for this system: in a lot of cases, it's important to always have ships doing something useful, and this UI element is in place to aid players in managing their empire.

However, a large portion of the time, I just want my ships to reach their destinations and sit there. I know you can put a ship on the "guard" command and they won't count as idle, but then in the future if I move my ships up to stand watch on my advancing influence border, I've got to tediously put them on the guard command just so I don't have to deal with clicking through a ton of idle ships at the end of each turn. There have been a lot of times where the idle ship buttons pops up and I've said "Crap, which one of these things did I forget to set to guard now?"

So, in short, I think the idle ships button does its job, but it does it in a way that intrudes upon the gameplay. I find myself fighting with the mechanic a lot.

I have a potential solution that would fix these concerns:

 

 

So I think this solution would do the job nicely, but it does need a tad bit of explaining:

>The Idle Ship button becomes a separate entity, and no longer replaces the turn button when ships are idle.

>It will only appear (Or at least be clickable) when ships are, indeed, idle.

>It will function identically to how the idle ship button normally works--it will cycle through all idle ships.

>When you click on the turn button, it will advance the turn, passing every idle ship if there are any.

>(Potentially--this issue could be handled in many ways) To notify the player that a new ship has completed construction, there could be a small little (+) icon or something denoting "hey a new ship is dun buildin" next to the idle ship button. This would help communicate to players that they have new ships on the field to give orders to, which is something very important to know. IIRC GalCiv2 gave you a pop-up every time a ship finished which could be a bit annoying, but I think this simple icon modifier would be low-key but effective.

 

Why would this work?

As said before, since it appears the main function of replacing the turn button with the idle ship button is to keep players aware of their ships and properly utilizing them, this new approach will still accomplish the same goal. The location of the idle ship button next to the turn button will make it very clear that players have ships that aren't doing anything, and they'll be able to individually inspect which ships are idle without being forced to manage every ship under their control.

I'm not sure if this should be expanded to other situations that would hijack the turn button: Colonies are super important to always keep managed, and there generally won't be very many of those (compared to ships) that will need your attention. Shipyards, and ideology points also make sense, especially research. Maybe shipyards would auto shut-down when construction completes and another UI notification pops up next to the turn button? I suppose at this point I'm rambling, but as a fellow game developer, my mind is always trying to find ways to streamline the user experience.

 

Thanks again for the awesome game, keep up the good work!

5,931 views 7 replies
Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I like this idea but I think some idle ships should still override the end turn. Random scouts or military ships can sit around doing nothing for all I care but colony ships, constructors, and freighters are all quite important and you'll never have more than a handful of them running around that need direction. Maybe this could be an interface option to select certain ship types to be ignored by the end turn button: colony, trade, constructor, military. Or whatever categories make sense.

As for shipyards, I think another button would be appropriate. If you are going to extend such functionality to selection and command of ships then it only makes sense to also do the same for shipyards.

 

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Set the ships to guard or sentry. The mechanics are already in the game to prevent this issue. Guard will have them stay in a location defending it, while ships set to sentry will become "active" on your turn if someone elses ship(s) enter your sensors range. These are in the command menu in the bottom left. I hope this helps.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Mohobie, reply 3

Set the ships to guard or sentry. The mechanics are already in the game to prevent this issue. Guard will have them stay in a location defending it, while ships set to sentry will become "active" on your turn if someone elses ship(s) enter your sensors range. These are in the command menu in the bottom left. I hope this helps.
End of Mohobie's quote

The functionality that Psiyon is asking for is available in the later Civilization games.  If I remember correctly, you get an "i" in a button that tells you that you have idle units, but it doesn't stop you from ending the turn.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I have to say I also think the current "Sentry" and "Guard" commands are adequate, if you forget to guard or sentry a ship you will have to deal with it before advancing the turn of course but only once for each ship you forgot to set to "guard" on one turn once set to "guard" they will remain that way until you tell them differently. 

What I'm saying is I think you have come up with a reasonable fix for a problem that doesn't really exist.

 

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

The option to bypass idle ships automatically is what I take from that. I suppose that could be useful. I wouldn't personally be worried about the option myself, but I do understand a bit better.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Mohobie, reply 3

Set the ships to guard or sentry. The mechanics are already in the game to prevent this issue. Guard will have them stay in a location defending it, while ships set to sentry will become "active" on your turn if someone elses ship(s) enter your sensors range. These are in the command menu in the bottom left. I hope this helps.
End of Mohobie's quote

Yes, I'm aware of this, but as I outlined in my post, the fact that I need to individually and manually set each of my ships to the guard or sentry command creates a lot of extra clicks and actions that ultimately shouldn't need to be taken, as it would be a simple process to automate.

 

Quoting econundrum1, reply 5

I have to say I also think the current "Sentry" and "Guard" commands are adequate, if you forget to guard or sentry a ship you will have to deal with it before advancing the turn of course but only once for each ship you forgot to set to "guard" on one turn once set to "guard" they will remain that way until you tell them differently. 

What I'm saying is I think you have come up with a reasonable fix for a problem that doesn't really exist.

End of econundrum1's quote

I think there is a definite problem present. One of the most core principles of user interface design is the universal "Keep It Simple, Stupid". While GalCivIII's methods for interacting with the game are certainly functional, I feel that it is ultimately not as simple and streamlined as it could be when taking into account the many different playstyles and map sizes. I feel this issue with idle ships outlines one of the most problematic areas, as it requires potentially excessive user input. If you're a player who intricately likes to manage every single aspect of their empire down to the letter, than yes, GalCiv's current idle ship mechanics are not going to get in your way, you'd be doing all of those actions anyway. Additionally, if you're playing on a small map and have a small amount of ships in play, yes, the current system will also be relatively non-intrusive and easy to pass by. However, I'm not a player who likes to micromanage every little thing. I am also a player who prefers very large maps. It should also be said that I am not the only player who plays GalCiv this way, and looking through other forum posts and steam forums rants, some other people seem to be frustrated with how idle ships are handled as well.

Let's demonstrate this through a more concrete example. Again, this is my experience, not everyone plays the same way that I do, and I understand that.

Currently in my game I probably have around 60-80 ships out on the field that I need to keep aware of, and I also control about a third of a "huge" sized galaxy. My influence is advancing at a pretty fast rate. I've got a lot of alien races furious at me, so naturally, I like to keep my borders lined with defensive vessels. Every 7-10 turns or so, I need to advance my ships forward along the border so they can be in an even better position to wreak havoc in the event of a war. I seriously dread when this happens, because this is how it goes:

With a total of probably 40 or so ships stationed on borders, I have two options:

1: Move them all up, one by one. Wait for it to reach its destination. Click Orders. Click Guard. Click on the next ship. Rinse and repeat ~40 times.

2: Move them all up, one by one. Don't bother clicking guard. When this process is completed and I want to end my turn, deal with ~20 idle ships. Click idle ship > Click Orders > Click Guard, rinse and repeat. Next turn, deal with more idle ships that completed their move and then set them to guard.

Either way, this is tedious, and it shouldn't be necessary because this system is basic enough to be automated. I don't even want my ships to guard a position--I know I said I'm not one to intensively micromanage things, but I don't want my ships to engage anything unless I explicitly tell them to because I don't want them to risk losing a battle. (Is that how guard works? It's hard to tell if it's my ships making the attack, or the enemy attacking me while in-between turns.) I wish I could just pass every turn--but I can't, because that would mean the game would force me to go through 40 idle ships every turn.

My solution changes the aforementioned flow to this:

1:Move all the ships up, one by one. Rinse and repeat. When they get there, they sit there idle and don't interrupt play.

And that's it. I could tell a ship to guard if it's strong enough to handle any potential hostiles here and there, but for the most part I just want my ships to sit there at the border on stand-by. If I want to make use of my idle ships, I can click the detached idle ship button and loop through what I have available. The important bit here is that I can do that at my leisure--the game is no longer forcing me to attend to these ships.

 

Hopefully this more clearly illustrates my experience with dealing with idle ships. It should also be said I've only played the game for about 10-15 hours so far, so these are my first impressions. Maybe it's something you get used to after playing it for a longer time, but as of now, I'm still fighting with it.