Some improvement ideas

What came to my mind while playing my first two TA games

from GalCiv2 Forums
Hi all,

when I played my first two TA games, I noticed the following things which could be improved IMHO (some may be already posted elsewhere (constant dripping ... ;); and if some of the following things are already possible don't hesitate to tell my ignorant self ;)):

- make it possible to launch a colonizer / transport with 1 pop by one click ("launch empty" button or something like that)
- make it possible to switch through all spotted enemy ships (on larger maps I lose track of them sometimes) or perhaps put in a minimap option "show only enemy ships"
- improve the auto survey / auto explore mode; now, if I have two or more scouts that are closely together and I order them to auto explore, they end up going to the same spot (and if they have the same speed they are likely to stick together ...)
- implement an option "patrol current sector" (like in GC I IIRC)
- improve the auto mine option; perhaps make a second auto mine option that says "auto mine in own territory only"
- make it possible to recall the turn report again after you closed it (those icons on the right are no substitute for that)
- don't show GNN news of races yet unknown to you
- influence mini view (that bar right from the research / income panel on the left) should only show known races
- ownership on mini map should only show known races
- don't make always the evil choice of random events the best one (that one was mentioned by a lot of people already; but according to what I read that seems even by modding difficult to impossible to implement)
- make it possible to see the coordinates of a single tile on the map so that one can make sense of the destination informations of enemy ships (the dashed line to the destination is not shown if you have not enough spy information, but the coordinates are often, at least on enemy fleets)
- make it possible to give custom icons to ship types (just make it an option in the ship designer so that you can assign a custom icon there prior to saving; if you don't assign one, the standard icon will be used; if a larger set of icons to choose from would be included in the game, even better ;)); I find it a bit confusing on larger maps if there are for example only two different icons for attack ships
- implement a build queue for ships; later in the game I constantly switch between transports and other ships because when the pop has reached its maximum then I always build a transport so as to not lose pop growth, and after that I switch back to constructors / war ships / whatever; so a rule "build transport if max pop is reached" would also be sufficient for me, but whether that would be less work than implementing a build queue ...
- calculate the route to a set destination in a straight line instead of always letting the ships go to the next straight or diagonal line directly leading to the destination; so it would be more difficult to anticipate the direction from which that endless stream of enemy ships targetting your precious resource star base is coming ...
- make it possible to assign colony rally points per ship type; as I already mentioned, I don't always produce the same ships per planet, so colony rally points are pointless (pun intended ;)) for me since transports should normally go somewhere else than constructors than war ships than scouts ...
- make the mouse scroll wheel working in the turn report (or is that just me?)

So, that's it - for the moment ;)

And: thanks for a great game (although my alltime space conquest favorite is still MOO2; the one single issue I always had with the GC series was that it feels too sterile, too generic; perhaps partly because of the battle system that was assumably mostly designed with the AI in mind, in contrast to all those individual weapons possible in MOO2 (of which the AI there not ever could make good use, admittedly). At least with the different tech trees in TA that was alleviated to a certain degree.).
8,873 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Too long a list to simply 2nd, but I like many of the suggestions, esp. the click-saving ones.

ownership on mini map should only show known races
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Just pick Blind Exploration when you're starting a game.

I'd like to take this chance to pitch once more for adding an "Upgrade all ships of this type in this fleet" option. It would save many of us hundreds and hundreds of late-game clicks.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
...and would get you in debt for the next hundred game years...
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
...and would get you in debt for the next hundred game years...
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No di55, he is specifically referring to certain fleets. Not the entire empire, which on larger maps is of course impractical since - as you point out- upgrading all ships in an empire of that type (an option that is available currently) is nearly always much too costly.

If only a certain fleet is targeted, the costs would be much less.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
- make the mouse scroll wheel working in the turn report (or is that just me?)
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This. Also, making a double-click on a line of the GNN report taking you to that planet.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd like to take this chance to pitch once more for adding an "Upgrade all ships of this type in this fleet" option. It would save many of us hundreds and hundreds of late-game clicks.
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I second this, I mentioned this in the pre Twilight requests for the expansion. It would be nice to not have to keep searching out individual ships in each fleet to upgrade.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I have 1 minor thing:

Would it be too difficult to put the Galaxy Map button along with the other buttons for showing info on the mini-map that show planets, anamolies, rally-points, race borders, etc?

Here's what I'm talking about with the red marking where the button is currently, and where it should go.

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The placement of the Galaxy Map button doesn't matter to me; what I'd much rather see than adding it to the crowded area on the right is to make it a toggle that applies your mini-map settings to the main window and switches back to normal. This would be really, really handy for larger maps.

For GC3, I'd like to see an entire "Map Room" area that included features like political and tactical layers that players could create and/or mark up with their own boundaries and names, so you could have a tight cluster named, oh, The Far Reaches, and then use that region name to label fleets, bases, rally points, etc. Something like that could also let us do Falklands/Malvinas sorts of stuff as we argue with the game's assessment of what's in "our" territory.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
When viewing the diplomacy screen to trading technologies, I'd like to right-click a technology in the list to see what advantages it gives me. It's too much of a hassle to back out, check the technology tree, and then re-enter the diplomacy screen. Plus, my technology tree doesn't show the other race-dependant technologies I might be trading for.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
The placement of the Galaxy Map button doesn't matter to me; what I'd much rather see than adding it to the crowded area on the right is to make it a toggle that applies your mini-map settings to the main window and switches back to normal. This would be really, really handy for larger maps.
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Even better. That would be nice and plus you wouldn't have people complaining about seeing the tiny dots for rally-points, planets, ships etc.

Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
- make it possible to give custom icons to ship types (just make it an option in the ship designer so that you can assign a custom icon there prior to saving; if you don't assign one, the standard icon will be used; if a larger set of icons to choose from would be included in the game, even better ); I find it a bit confusing on larger maps if there are for example only two different icons for attack ships
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I have asked for this two years ago. It would make the game so much easier to play. No more having to click on dozens of ships just to find out what type they are. Even if we could at least have a different Icon for each ship size it would help, but even better if fleets had different Icons as well.

Oh well, its nice to dream. ( just click your heals together and say three times, I want multiple Icons...
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
When viewing the diplomacy screen to trading technologies, I'd like to right-click a technology in the list to see what advantages it gives me. It's too much of a hassle to back out, check the technology tree, and then re-enter the diplomacy screen.
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But that *is* possible with TA ?! What you describe very much sounds like you are still playing DL/DA?

Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Just pick Blind Exploration when you're starting a game.
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Ah, thanks, somehow I missed that. But I assume that won't prevent those GNN messages about "Yet Unknown Race X made a technological breakthrough"? And it won't prevent unknown races from showing in the influence bar?

Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
And another one:

- Correct those annoying rounding errors (at least I assume it's rounding errors) in the economy screen in the list for what you spend your money. It's very confusing at the beginning of the game where every BC counts when you you play with the spending sliders and your shown expenses jump up and down considerably and won't add up at all to the total shown at the bottom of the list. It even happens that you set your overall spending slider 1% up and your revenue goes down from, say, 24 BC to 5 BC, but you expenses are not changed at all ...
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I do agree, the upgrade all of this typen in one fleet option would be great. Additionally it would be good if upgrading ships could be distinguished from others more easily. I have to click through them often to see, which one has only 1 hp.