[Suggestion] UI Hotkey Additions

from GalCiv3 Forums

Hi, first off fun game.  Got this a week ago.

My clicker finger is getting tired playing this game so much, if there were a few hotkey additions I think the UI / ease of play would improve quite a bit.  The following are new hotkey functions I would like to see.

 

1.  Hotkey to open the build screen on your selected planet, shipyard or starbase.

2.  Hotkeys to cycle select and focus on your planets, shipyards, or starbases.

3.  Hotkey to buy or cancel a build order.

4.  Hotkey to move between the colonies, ship, shipyards, starbases, rally points, and notifications lists menu on the far right.

5.  Hotkey to open up the menus at the top (victory, govern, technology, ideology, dip, designer)

 

6.  Bigger ask:  I play a custom race with coercion.  I am constantly clicking and setting the sliders on my planet govern screen, then going to look at the shipyard assosciated with it.  Basically trying to min/max my production of the planet item im building and the shipyard.  In the planet govern screen, it would be a super big help to be able to see on that screen how many turns the item I'm building has left, and how many turns the shipyard assigned to that planet has to build the next ship.  So that one screen is all I need to use instead of three.

 

7.  Not a hotkey, but it would be great if you could see how much production a planet item or ship needs to complete by hovering over the item.  If my ship is half way to build I can't tell exactly how much production I need to finish it, and have to guestimate with the slider.

8.  Lastly it would be great if leftover production would roll over into the next item to be built, maybe at a penalty (your planet has 50production/turn, it takes 10 to complete your item, so 40 rolls over into the next item, maybe at a 50% penalty so only 20 of the 40 roll over... if this was in place there would be less of an OCD need to tweak the sliders every turn.

[EDIT] 9.  Another BIG thing I've seen others suggest is:  Be able to select which ship you want to respond to a starbase request for constructor; people customize the constructors but ya have to manually manage it... would be a HUGE benefit to playability.

 

Thanks for listening!

12,475 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I'd like one for renaming a Starbase.  Every single starbase I rename so I can remember why I built the thing.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top


6.  Bigger ask:  I play a custom race with coercion.  I am constantly clicking and setting the sliders on my planet govern screen, then going to look at the shipyard assosciated with it.  Basically trying to min/max my production of the planet item im building and the shipyard.  In the planet govern screen, it would be a super big help to be able to see on that screen how many turns the item I'm building has left, and how many turns the shipyard assigned to that planet has to build the next ship.  So that one screen is all I need to use instead of three.
End of quote

This was in previous versions of Gal Civ.  Would be nice to see it back.

 

Also:

- Hotkey to upgrade selected  improvement in the colony screen.  This would save the player from having to both scroll the list and make another click.  Gal Civ 2 had an upgrade button that was displayed when an upgradeable improvement was clicked, that would work as well.

In the Ship Designer:

- Hotkey to move selected part.  (Has been requested before on other threads)

- Hotkey to toggle a selected component or part  through all the available anchor points on the part it is attached to.  Attaching components is the single most frustrating thing in an otherwise wonderful ship designer.  (Imagine the program whistling "You Can Look but You Can't Touch"  While I spend 5 minuets trying to attach a life support module where I Want it placed.

-Hotkey to toggle visual display of anchor points on and off.  Had that in Gal Civ 2.  They ruin the view when I don't need to see them and, with some designs, it is impossible to see certain portions of the ship at all due to a concentration of anchor points...  just a swath of red.

Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Any dev response to these hotkey requests?  I find myself taking breaks from play to give my fingers a rest of constant clicking and double clicking, where a few additional hotkey functions would fix.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Number 8 is already true.  Hover over the empty space below your build list (shipyard or planet) to see the excess manufacturing available to be applied to the next item.  This will not apply to the planet "Projects", but will apply to anything else.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting coopervegas, reply 3

Any dev response to these hotkey requests?  I find myself taking breaks from play to give my fingers a rest of constant clicking and double clicking, where a few additional hotkey functions would fix.
End of coopervegas's quote

I'm working on a list and will see what we can get it.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top



[EDIT] 9.  Another BIG thing I've seen others suggest is:  Be able to select which ship you want to respond to a starbase request for constructor; people customize the constructors but ya have to manually manage it... would be a HUGE benefit to playability.
 

Thanks for listening!
End of quote

This actually was a bug.  You'll be able to select custom constructors in the next beta.

 

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting erischild, reply 4

Number 8 is already true.  Hover over the empty space below your build list (shipyard or planet) to see the excess manufacturing available to be applied to the next item.  This will not apply to the planet "Projects", but will apply to anything else.
End of erischild's quote

Ah ok thanks.  I see when I build a ship with excess units if I hover under my build list there is an 'accrued Manufacturing Points: x'.  The progress bar doesn't show it but I guess its there.  I assume its the same for research techs and planet build lists?  Might be nice for the progress bar to show the accrued points but at least its there (I'm OCD and spend a lot of time moving the sliders for max. efficiency).

 

 

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting coopervegas, reply 7


Ah ok thanks.  I see when I build a ship with excess units if I hover under my build list there is an 'accrued Manufacturing Points: x'.  The progress bar doesn't show it but I guess its there.  I assume its the same for research techs and planet build lists?  Might be nice for the progress bar to show the accrued points but at least its there (I'm OCD and spend a lot of time moving the sliders for max. efficiency).
 

End of coopervegas's quote

 

It is true for planet build lists, but will not flow into the special planet Projects.  You lose accrued manufacturing when switching to one of the Projects.  Either plan ahead or bite the bullet.  It is true for techs, but if you select multiple techs by reaching deep into a tech tree branch, you can bypass the one-item-per-term paradigm.  This is an issue in really late game stages for some players who build up insane research rates but disable Tech victory.

It is possible, through extreme OCD management, to flood a build list to a point where it is always doing one item per turn and accumulating manufacturing points.  The only way I see to handle that is to have more and more insanely expensive things to build, but even then, it just means we all race to flood an even deeper pool.  So plan ahead for that or your OCD will get to you.  Not that any of us know anything about that, no.

All in all, you can relax for most of the overflow issues, which is a big help.