First Impression

[faijeya]

1) Build planetary defenses everywhere
2) Make sure both variants have a slot alotted for point defense
3) Build a sacrificial destroyer (all PDs) at the colony before the attack
4) At the first turn get that destroyer as close to the planet as possible
5) Have fun

[enpi]

well I guess there will be more buildings than just labs and factories in the final version, no? If not, then the building slots really dont make much sense. (would also be a litte boring to have only 2 types of improvements for the whole game)

Maybe i am wrong, but a good game should always offer options. For example when investing in a new building the player should pose the question to himself: should I buy more defenses? Or should I invest in my infrastructure in order to get money or resource xy or z? Or should I invest in a megabuilding which has no bonus by itsself but enhances other building on the planet. (for example in Galciv there is a durantium plant which is very efficient when combined with adjacent factories - the more the better, but has not much manufacturing bonus by itsself)


Maybe its the best would be to let the player have techs which add to the number of available building slots in the course of the game and combine the defense slots with the civilian slots.

And please make the building buttons smaller. I had already a little spasm in my mouse finger just because the permanent downscrolling

[sven]

And please make the building buttons smaller. I had already a little spasm in my mouse finger just because the permanent downscrolling

Well, eventually, I suspect we're going to need a multi-pane layout with ships, improvements, and refits, and maybe terraforming all on different panes. But, I wouldn't want to be responsible for any injuries... so, as a stopgap, I've add an option in 'dev' for 'smaller production items'.

[Gyrfalcon]

But, I wouldn't want to be responsible for any injuries... so, as a stopgap, I've add an option in 'dev' for 'smaller production items'.

I hate to see it any smaller because the art is so purdy. I definitely would like the production list(s) to be better organized.

[Arioch]

I like the smaller icons; the artwork is displayed at a larger size in the pane on the right when you select it, so I don't think there's any loss of visual fidelity or interest. I think it's actually a big improvement.

I also think the sensitivity of the response to the mouse scroll wheel in this list should be increased.

Tabs for different categories in the production screen (and perhaps the ship designer screen) are a good idea, as long as they are optional (that is, if there's an "All" tab in addition to various categories). I'll keep that in mind when doing mockups for the upcoming redesign of those screens.

[faijeya]

Tabs lead to a significant percent of players overlooking them and never finding the functionality they contain.

Just saying.

[Gyrfalcon]

I was thinking of suggesting that All be the default tab, actually

[Arioch]

I was thinking of suggesting that All be the default tab, actually

Yeah. The idea is that the "All" tab is shown by default, and the user selects a category tab to narrow the selection if he feels there are too many items.

[faijeya]

Well, filtering is better, but a thought-out arrangement of icons on a snigle pane usually beats it too.

[Arioch]

Well, filtering is better, but a thought-out arrangement of icons on a snigle pane usually beats it too.

In the ship designer, putting the highest-tech items at the top of the list is probably sufficient, but I don't think that solution works for the production screen.

[faijeya]

I'm no UX expert and I definitely do not have the image of the completed game in mind.
However, production screen and ship design screen are completely different things.


Production screen needs to be streamlined as a player visits it really often, up to multiple times per turn.

1) After a planet is developed, there are three empty squares in the upper row - factory, lab and planetary defenses.
As autodevelopment is the way to go:
1.1) planetary defenses may be included into autobuild queue (with expansion once the tech is available)
1.2) manual "factory", "lab", "farm" buttons may be replaced by "development profiles" in a separate UI element (even to a drop-down list)
2) idle behavior ("stockpile", "trade", "research", "auto") can also be moved out into a separate UI element (again, even to a drop-down list)
3) idle behavior choice should be remembered and applied immediately after a player's order (like ship or a... ship) is complete

This way these lavish tiles are reserved for player's creations, for starbases and ships, and both colony-essential behavior modifiers are moved out (and are, preferably, accessible from the production tab at the main map).


Ship design screen, while somewhat counterintuitive, is better than StarDrive 2's and is far, far better than GalCiv 3's.
As a player goes there with the intent to indulge into some creation, it's ok as it is.
Filtering out all incompatible modules from the list after clicking on a slot may be a cheap and effective improvement.

[enpi]

"
Ship design screen, while somewhat counterintuitive, is better than StarDrive 2's and is far, far better than GalCiv 3's."

While I agree with SD2 (which is not a good game in most aspects) I dont think you cant compare the design system of galciv 3 and sis with each other. Galciv design is 3 magnitudes more complex, and for this IMO its quite intuitive.

[faijeya]

GalCiv3's ship design is at the same level of complexity as Endless Space's is.
You're limited only by mass, you have three attack types, three corresponding defense types, engines and some mechanics-specific things, like scan or flight ranges.

Everything else is eye-candy as where do you place modules, how do you scale, rotate, animate and paint them is completely irrelevant to the ship's stats.
It may seem complex and deep, because you can't turn the eye-candy off, but it's the usual dumping of modules into an empty shell of a hull.

Having specialized slots on a hull actually adds complexity (which isn't a good or bad thing on its own) as different hulls are different.
Think Mechwarrior 3's mech equip and Mechwarrior 4's.