A Few Quality of Life UI Suggestions

[Merrivale]

Just a couple of suggestions after today's stream:

Borrow from EUIV when it comes to captured planets and political borders: it's much easier to see visually what's going on if the captured areas change colors.

Borrow from HOI for battles in the outliner: I'm assuming that the actual battles are visible in the outliner (as an aside, I'd rather see the outliner than faces, but I may be in the minority there), but other than a icon change next to the fleet telling you it's in battle, we don't have a way to see how that battle is going next to the fleet itself.

Borrow from all of your games: add go to buttons to the pop-ups. Wiz got a pop-up and literally could not find the subject.

Borrow from all of your games: I'm hoping that this actually exists as an option and is just turned off, but I prefer pop-ups to alerts for some things, like: my fleet is in battle, I reached a destination, or I lost a planet/province. Pretty much all PI games have this as optional, I'm hoping that's the case here.

Borrow from EUIV: rally point construction for navies.

Actions to do all of one thing in a system: research debris, build stations, etc.

 

[Derron116]

1. Agreed.
2. Agreed.
3. Dearly needed.
4. Agreed.
5. Rally points are needed in all games (Except HOI as it has its own system). I liked Vicky 2's system.
6. Maybe.

Overall, I like these suggestions.

 

[Smiles_]

Agreed. I think somewhere they mentioned go-to buttons were coming, but maybe I am miss-remembering.


Smiles

 

[Merrivale]

Shameless bump because I didn't tag @Wiz and this thread may have moved down the list too fast for anyone at PI to really see it.

 

[13Foxtrot]

There are a few more moving pieces in this game so the messages might turn into a spamming exercise, but I know what you mean.

 

[MechaThumper]

Also add an alliance and federation map mode, or something to distinguish easily who is allied or in a federation. Since you can't be allied with more than 1 group it should be possible to do even in the current map.

 

[SobakenKusaken]

Rally points are indeed necessary. It was painful watching all that micromanagement with building individuals ships, then selecting each one ship and sending them one by one to the destination system where they'd be merged in one fleet. And blorgs didn't even have that many spaceports, I can't imagine how crazy it gets when you have dozens of them operating all at once. Same goes for researching debris, there's just too many clicks involved.

 

[Merrivale]

There are a few more moving pieces in this game so the messages might turn into a spamming exercise, but I know what you mean.

Yeah, it's definitely not for everyone and I get that it's total death in multiplayer, but I find that I will forget about units, particularly when there is a lot going on. I've been very pleased with the pop-up implementation in every other PI game so I imagine this will be similar.

 

[Cynical Dreamer]

This all sounds great and all, but as Wizz recently tweeted, there are only 12 people in the core team. I guess many did not work on EU or CK. This being a new series, it's very much make or break. Once the game has suceeded, as I am sure it will, the team will surely get the ressources to do all the things we'd like - but right now, they are polishing up everything so that the game comes out in a playable state.

 

[Texas_Jack]

5. Rally points are needed in all games (Except HOI as it has its own system). I liked Vicky 2's system.

I really don't understand why other games don't use Vicky 2's system. So easy to use and manage

 

[doomdude1]

They could just use the CK2 system where you can set what alert is a popup and what isn't, also sidebars.

 

[Sir Garnet]

And what about pop-ups NOT popping up in the middle of the screen to obscure the action and make issuing orders difficult? (Unless I want them to conceal the unpleasant from view)

 

[Merrivale]

And what about pop-ups NOT popping up in the middle of the screen to obscure the action and make issuing orders difficult? (Unless I want them to conceal the unpleasant from view)

PI games always come with the ability to turn pop-ups off. The first thing I always do is go through the message settings, one by one, to get everything the way I want it. I'm guessing that's already the case with Stellaris, my real question is what pop-ups can be turned on.

 

[Admiral Howe]

1) Good idea.
2) Good idea.
3) Absolutely needed.
4) Good idea as a toggle-able option.
5) Needed idea.
6) Nah, skippable.

Still, 5/6...01_GOOD_IDEAS_PROPOSE

 

[Sir Garnet]

I definitely want pop ups ON, but offset, not in the middle of the screen where the action is, just as I want pie, but not in the face.


I love pop-ups, alerts, side displays, the log. Just want to be able to sideline them to dispose as needed.

P.S. If I could drag the pop-up spawn ponts to a second display I'd be even more thrilled

 

[Umega]

I agree with the coloured diagonal lines for occupied worlds/space. Pop-up messages that appear in the middle of the screen instead of smaller alerts at the top would be great to.

 

[Sir Garnet]

I agree with the coloured diagonal lines for occupied worlds/space. Pop-up messages that appear in the middle of the screen instead of smaller alerts at the top would be great to.

Yes to diagonal shading etc for occupation.

God NO! to pop-ups in mid screen, unless that most inconvenient location is a player choice.

 

[Aries666]

This all sounds great and all, but as Wizz recently tweeted, there are only 12 people in the core team. I guess many did not work on EU or CK. This being a new series, it's very much make or break. Once the game has suceeded, as I am sure it will, the team will surely get the ressources to do all the things we'd like - but right now, they are polishing up everything so that the game comes out in a playable state.

To be fair if a game is laborious to play because you often have to make 10 clicks were 1 would do etc, you probably aren't going to be playing that game very long.

A really good example of this is planetary invasion in Stardrive where you had to manually recall your troops from every single individual tile after conquering a planet, ugh.