Reianor3

Join Date 02/2008

Interface & management in general.

While I greatly enjoy the strategical freedom that GC3's management options provide, the actual process of using them is quite unenjoyable.

Let's start with the basics.

Overproduction

It's one of the most basic functions of most 4x games out there.

Normally, these games don't expect you to manage your production to the exact levels of productions costs.

So if, for example, you had a colony producing a total of 50 points of social manufacturing and you ordered 5 improvements worth 30 points each you'd expect that to be done in 3 turns.

Well, not in this game. Or not in my version of it anyway. I've been told that it's supposed to be working. It's not. Not for me at least.

What happens here is we get one improvement per turn. Furthermore it's not a simple "per turn issue". NONE of the overproduction goes towards the next item in the queue.

Get a colony to output 29 points of SM. Order 2 improvements (30 each). And what do we get?

0) 0/30 0/30

1)29/30 0/30

2)0/30

3)29/30

4) Empty queue.

This basically reduces the value of 29 SM points down to 15.

Continuing on...

Planetary governing.

Is inconvenient to say the least.

The above mentioned lack of overproduction basically means that you need to manually set your production to "effective" levels. Effective here is something that will not cause overproduction. Furthermore you need to reallocate your production levels each time either your production or your SM, or the item's cost changes.

And here it gets worse.

Let's say that we want to build a 30 point improvement. Our 29 points of SM are no good, so we go to the governing screen and set it to 15. We close the screens, and continue with the game, expecting an improvement to be built in 2 turns.

Well, tough luck, but while we were sure that the planet has been set to 15 SM per turn it was actually less than that. And you now have 29.98/30 teasing you from your planetary queue.

Frankly, I believe that this kind of management should be "automatable". Even if we did have working overproduction mechanics, what about maintaining a fixed level of research or wealth output? What if the player just needs his money-land to cover his maintenance, keep 10.1 points of SM for the 20% influence bonus through the cultural festival, and send the rest of his total production to the shipyard? It doesn't take a genius manager to set the right numbers, but it take a whole load of tedious work to set and maintain them. It's not that difficult to instruct a machine to calculate several necessary outputs and to sent the remaining output to a chosen outlet, but we do not have that option in the interface.

Baring that, we should AT THE VERY LEAST have the option to input the numbers MANUALLY. If we need 15 points of production DON'T make us pixel-hunt for it. Give us an option to type "15" and be done with it. Barring that at least tell us that we missed 15 and hit 14.99.

We can only currently see up to the second digit on the planet screen and we can see no digits on management screen. (Which is the only place where you can see your planet's SM.)

Events and event bonuses.

Currently the event decision screen blocks the access to the rest of the game's interface. This is a poor design decision. Sure, after you are well aware of that you can work around the problem by cancelling any colonization request, and then manually colonizing planets, after you've analysed your situation and got a clear idea of what you would want the planet to do and what you wouldn't. Still, it's inconvenient and wrong. If a player attempts to colonise through auto-move he might not be able to tell what exactly is he colonising. He may be gimping his would-be research base or he may be buffing his would-be industry giant, and he has no way of telling which is it.

Furthermore, it's a bit out of the scope of this topic, as it is also a gameplay element, and not just an inconvenience, but I strongly believe that the player should be allowed to see the planet's layout BEFORE he makes the event decision not after it.

Research.

We have no queue here, and we don't see the research's "point cost". This is so fundamentally wrong that I don't even what to get into details why it is.

Though I'll have to... at least partially...

Research trading.

Two things. First - we don't know the values of the research we're trading. And even taking estimates is inconvenient as you have to change screens, or even problematic as it may be someone else's proposition. Not to mention multiplayer, where you'd have to reopen a trading screen of another player.

Second - we can't refuse a research gift from AI. EVEN if that robs us of a chance to pick a research specialisation that we desire. Need I say more?

Patrols.

We have FOW, and it plays a big role in the game, but we cannot properly utilise mobility as a means of defence against a "sneak attack".

We can order a unit to move, and it will remember the order. We can order it to "go sentry" and it'll wait till the right time to poke us. But we can't order it to move around and tell us of any sneaks that it happens to run across while auto-moving. As a result if we want to avoid sneak attacks we either have to rely on stationary sensors OR move each and every damn patrolling scout manually.

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Forgot to add two more things.

First there's no easy way to check the planetary event bonus on a planet. And there's a nice space for it, right below the planet's inherent feature tooltip.

And second there's no screen that shows empire-wide (or even world-wide) bonuses and penalties.

If memory serves ES and EL have a special list where you can see the summary of all faction-wide features, resource bonuses (somewhat akin to GC's Relics), unique bonuses (Like GC's events) and such. It's not exactly a first priority issue, but its a reasonable thing to have in any well-designed and functionally complete interface. As long as the game itself provides a reason for it to exist that is. C5 for example had no such list, but it didn't really need one. They had no RANDOM global bonuses. All the ones you had were either from wonders (the list of which you could re-check to refresh your memory) or policies (which were again easy to check) or faction (which was just one bonus, which obviously you'd have a hard time forgetting)/

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This. This. Allllll of this! I don't usually post and rather enjoy reading the 'discourse' in the forums about such mechanisms as starbases and sensor boats and planet distributions (no matter how inflammatory they might get).

But here is everything that I knew I thoroughly disliked about the game and some things that never occurred to me until now, presented in a much more eloquent fashion than I could hope to post. The AI and gameplay choices debated elsewhere on the forums are minor niggling problems to me, but the interface...OH, the INTERFACE. If it was a sick horse, I'd put it out of its misery.

The interface, to me, was the worst thing about GC2 and is by far the worst thing about GC3. It's not intuitive to use, icons and concepts (like Total Manufacturing) are vague and undefined in many places, and critical information is hidden under tool tips or outright OMITTED (all as detailed in the original posts). It doesn't work and display information transparently in the way that I've come to expect from any 4X game of this magnitude .

Basically, at the current moment (v1.03 opt in), the game to me is playable on a small scale, where the micro required to maintain an empire is not simply backbreaking. Beyond maybe a dozen planets or so in an empire, the game is still very much playable but is not fun to play, because of the aforementioned pixel hunting on the colony management screen and the micro required to get the most out of your planets (Especially on the highest difficulties). Virtually all the time I spend in game now is putzing about in the ship designer after a ~ + unlock all technologies command.

That's my two cents. Please don't let this post die!

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Not much activity here... But i also find these issues quite important. Definetely worth talking about and improving.

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Pity that this thread is so unpopular

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androshalforc

Join Date 03/2007

+62

Overproduction

you are mixing up two things here

1) the ability to build multiple buildings per turn

this is not in the game and the devs have pretty much said it wont be

2) production overflow

this is when any excess production goes into the next building

this is in the game and works as intended ( which means you will not build more then one building per turn)

What you can do with this however is if you produce 100 manufacturing on turn 1 and have 3 buildings queued that cost 30 each

you would finish the first at the end of turn 1 leaving 70 manufacturing

on turn 2 you could stop your manufacturing so you produce 0 at the end of turn 2 you get your 2nd building leaving you with 40 points.

At the end of turn 3 you build your 3rd building leaving you with 10 points. Which stay in your overflow until you que up another building

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Quoting androshalforc,

reply 5

Overproduction

you are mixing up two things here

1) the ability to build multiple buildings per turn

this is not in the game and the devs have pretty much said it wont be

2) production overflow

this is when any excess production goes into the next building

this is in the game and works as intended ( which means you will not build more then one building per turn)

What you can do with this however is if you produce 100 manufacturing on turn 1 and have 3 buildings queued that cost 30 each

you would finish the first at the end of turn 1 leaving 70 manufacturing

on turn 2 you could stop your manufacturing so you produce 0 at the end of turn 2 you get your 2nd building leaving you with 40 points.

At the end of turn 3 you build your 3rd building leaving you with 10 points. Which stay in your overflow until you que up another building

Ok, i can't speak for the OP, but in my mind, building a single thing per turn is totally acceptable. It's not the ideal outcome, but it's one of those little things that makes GC3 gameplay what it is .

As for your second point... I am almost certain that is not how the game works.

For research, rollover definitely exists. I've rolled through several low tier techs in one turn in pursuit of a Tech victory, had some science left over, and used that leftover in a different tech line. That works, and has been yelled to death in other threads.

With regard to your 100 Social Manufacturing (SM) example, you're very mistaken. I can't verify my forthcoming statements as I am away from my computer for several days, but I know that if yout have 35 SM, that extra 5 should carry over if you wish to build a 30 cost building in one turn. Still good so far.

BUT SM (or really any generated resource) doesn't work like a bank--you can't just save up 100 points you generate one turn, reallocate your resources on the planet, yet keep building like nothing happened with magically 'stored' points! Speaking from experience with specialized manufacturing planets ( on Very Slow [-50%]!) generating 400+ manufacturing per turn, I can't just go one turn on full blast, get a bunch of accrued points, then go 100% wealth for 10 turns and still have that 400 manufacturing hanging around In the 'overflow' or whatever.

So if you have 100 SM, that initial building gets built, and that extra 70 carries over--but if you turn off the manufacturing the next turn, 30 should go to the next building in the queue, but the rest (40) disappears! Poof! Gone!

So if you leave your manufacturing turned on for your planets every turn, you're really just spinning your tires and sending a lot of points into the ether. But to manage colonies efficiently (eg: making exactly a multiple of what Manufacturing you need to get something built and sending the rest to Wealth or Research), it legitimately requires an insane amount of micro to keep you from spending more manufacturing points than you need.

And to do this micro, the interface is WOEFULLY inadequate--numbers are hidden in tool tips, you can't put in precise values for anything (so we're left pixel hunting on the colony management screen), and other such irritants.

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androshalforc

Join Date 03/2007

+62

Quoting Thingamabob999,

reply 6

BUT SM (or really any generated resource) doesn't work like a bank--you can't just save up 100 points you generate one turn,

mouseover the empty space at the bottom of your build list (this tooltip only shows up if you have less then about 4 projects in your build list since after that there is no empty space however the excess production is still there this planet had like 20 upgrades a second ago)

it tells you exactly how many points you have in your 'bank'

here i have 12552 points in my 'bank'

the quantum matrix costs 227 and it is listed as NA because i have no incoming manufacturing

ive turned my economy to 100% wealth and my manufacturing to 100% military since i dont think i can shut down manufacturing to 0 on this world this should ensure that any excess goes to shipyards

at the start of my next turn we see that the quantum matrix is built and my banked manufacturing is reduced to 12325 (12552-227=12325)

so we see that yes indeed it does work exactly like a bank you can save up points you make in one turn and spend them the next even with shutting down your manufacturing entirely

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Now THAT's embarrassing...

It does work...

Just to make it clear, I wasn't mixing the ability to make more than one item per turn with overproduction. I just wasn't aware that overproduction worked here at all. Shame on me, I guess, I should have tested that part thoroughly, I didn't, and so I went and made a fool out of myself. I'm actually impressed by this, overproduction here actually pools itself independently of the items in queue which is a step UP from what we get most of the time. And that's a possibility I didn't account for when testing... Just saw a progress bar that didn't fill up an inch and jumped to a conclusion...

And now I'm wondering why research isn't working the same way...

The inability to make more than one item per turn is a bad idea though, if you ask me. It strongly mows down the manufacturing focus on planets. And without it the overproduction is only a usability feature, wherein combined they'd also form a balance element.

AND, it's an "incomplete" usability feature like that as well.

As long as there's something in your arsenal that can use up more points per turn than you can produce it's fine. But the moment you hit the soft cap (more or less the cost of your ships + the cost of your improvements) it becomes pointless to crank out more than that amount of manufacturing per turn - you'll just end up with a meaningless pool that'll never drain itself unless you get the manufacturing back down below the cap. And it's back to square one - adjusting the sliders to the amounts of manufacturing you can use up per turn. The only difference is that you could theoretically do it less meticulously. Practically of such an approach is questionable though. You STILL have to watch your planet's pool as it drains, and you get your "extra output" (I mean the wealth and/or research that you get instead of excessive production) "in bulks" which can actually be a notable downside and is at the very least inconvenient to measure and to deal with. Still it's nice to know that it can be much less of a bother while the planet is below the aforementioned soft cap.

On a different note. I still keep getting the "Oh, I forgot to post about this part of interface!" moments now and again while I'm playing. And it's a shame I can't remember them all at the right time. Or maybe it isn't... I have generally an "overachieving" perspective on things, and it's even more so when it comes to the interface in games. And had I posted every little thing that rubs me the wrong way in this game's interface I might have made a strong impression that I'm clinging to an excessive amount of details.

Well, I'm not. Not yet. Can't be excessive when you still haven't made it through the "normal" part. I mean take a look at the overproduction. It's hidden in a tooltip. Look at TM, it doesn't even HAVE a tooltip. And it's icon is the same as manufacturing itself. Hard to get any more confusion about one element without actually trying to. Look at approval's tooltip it's MISLEADING! It has an INCOMPLETE list of the things that approval affects.

The point I'm trying to get across with this part of my post - there are so many things wrong with the interface as it stands that it's problematic and nearly pointless to list them all. It needs MAJOR fixing and, no offence, but whoever is supposed to be working on it has to have a better approach to it than whatever approach was being taken when the current iteration was being made.

It needs so much fixing that it's just beyond the point of pointing out individual "holes". I've probably mentioned all the major ones (unless I've forgotten something), but the lesser ones are to "abundant" to catch them all at the moment and it'd be pointless doing it unless someone devotes the required effort and attention to deal with what we catch.

On that notice it'd be nice to hear the development team's view on this matter. If they agree with the point that the interface needs fixing and are willing to do so it's one thing. In that case I'm pretty sure the community would be glad to offer it's feedback. If they don't consider it an issue that needs fixing or simply aren't going to fix it in foreseeable future than we might as well drop the effort of discussing it altogether.

Or at least I should drop it. I'm not good with getting things noticed and rising up issues with the community. Or to put it in less fluffy terms - talking to those who aren't willing to listen isn't my thing. So it'd be nice to know if that's what I'm currently doing.

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A quality game manual can help. The one we have is very basic.

The only problem is that nobody reads tha manual

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Quoting Heelidar,

reply 9

A quality game manual can help. The one we have is very basic.

The only problem is that nobody reads tha manual

Manual can explain concepts. But it can't show you active number from within the game.

If nothing is showing your TM, no amount of manuals will make it easy to know your TM. (although that's an officially recognised problem AFAIK)

AND reading the manual is among the first things that a person does if he wants to know the rules. Especially the older audience which is used to useful manuals and lacking in-game tips. Don't get me wrong though, in no way am I meaning to say that "leave it up to manual" approach to rule delivering is right. Nowadays it's "good tone" to explain the controls in the tutorial and the mechanics in the in-game tooltips and help screens. Or rather that's how it is for games that don't need a book's worth of documentation to make all of that clear.

But let's not get too far off the topic here. Manual is no cure for a severe case of bad interface, and that's as far as I'm willing to discuss manuals here.

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Quoting Reianor3,

reply 8

Now THAT's embarrassing...

It does work...

x2'd. I know when I've been beaten. Now the question is...why in the seven hells is this mechanic hidden?! It's nowhere near apparent!

Quoting Reianor3,

reply 8

Also x2'd. Just to get this thread more attention, I guess.

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Quoting Reianor3,

reply 8

I wouldn't go as far Reianor3, but the inconvenience of the interface is something that rubs me the wrong way too. I wrote about it in my own feedback-thread and I concur that the ergonomics of the interface need major improvement.

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I totally agree. Bump bump bump. We still love you Stardock. But geez there are features that are great. But then aren't implemented elsewhere where they are needed! Filters anyone? Anyway the interface is a pain combined with the enemy AI having no FOW. That's just mean. I really hope these are top priority issues with the team. ***Suggestion*** As far as the ideology colonization event is concerned. If it's not difficult a separate button next to done can be added that says planet and tool tips the info. Yea and I like the idea of random generated planet schemes. I don't want to see. I like the surprise.

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