Fixing the Horrid UI - Page 6

Slick · #51 November 10th, 2006, 03:22 PM

Here's one. With all the bugs and crashes still in the game, one is forced to "save every turn" so as to protect oneself from losing time played. It currently takes 3 clicks to delete each saved game and they can only be deleted one at a time. How about enabling shift-click in lists to select a block so I can delete all those saved games in one shot? apply to other lists to enable group commands applied to lists.

Slick · #52 November 10th, 2006, 03:47 PM

This is not a UI issue per se, but the game must be modified to allow turn processing with the game minimized. Using SE4 as a guide, and assuming that SE5 will take longer to process turns due to more complexity, why not allow minimizing the game so players can do other things during turn processing such as *ahem* complaining about the UI here.

Suicide Junkie · #53 November 10th, 2006, 10:38 PM

I suggest using windows itself to delete the savegames. Simple and straightforward.

As alternatives to minimizing, I suggest a small 300x100 pixel or so window containing just the progress bar.
Also, a tray icon with the three progress bars climbing pixel by pixel would be good too.

Slick · #54 November 11th, 2006, 12:02 AM

SJ, I know your heart is in the right place, but UI workarounds are the problem, not the solution. Having to do extra clicks or leave the game to delete savegames is the whole point of this thread. It is the very thing that frustrates the players and sucks the fun out of the game. I guess having a workaround is better than no workaround, though.

Suicide Junkie · #55 November 11th, 2006, 01:25 AM

True. I'm kind of seeing it from the multiplayer PoV, where you just load SE, play and then exit again until next turn is available.

frightlever · #56 November 11th, 2006, 01:32 PM

Slick why not just autosave every turn? The game will keep the last ten turns processed as autosaves that way.

Slick · #57 November 11th, 2006, 02:02 PM

That's what I'm talking about. I didn't actually say "auto" save, but with manual save, it's not an issue due to being able to overwrite the last game.

Docwho · #58 November 11th, 2006, 03:28 PM

Under Ship design. A filter for ship size. (I.E. 100kt to 2500kt in drop down buttons that can be moddifed. And/Or by clase name.)

So that we could better pull up the type of ship we want.

Suicide Junkie · #59 November 11th, 2006, 05:27 PM

Filters would be far too click intensive... why would you want to use them?

Just turn off the stupid alpha sorting, and the ships all fall in order of size (same as in the data files)

Same thing applies to components. Turn off the alpha sorting, and you'll have a nice catalog of components, grouped by similar uses.
This is even more pronounced in mods which intentionally arrange the datafiles in a better way.

frightlever · #60 November 11th, 2006, 07:38 PM

Slick, I mean turn on the autosave option so it'll automatically overwrite the oldest save. No need to delete any saves then. Other than the autosaves I'll only keep one save for when I'm about to launch a risky attack (wimpy huh?) or try something stupid. But yeah I know what you mean. There are standard UI conventions and the ctrl-click to select multiple files is one of them.