Hello everybody,

I'm new here so this might as well be the introductory thread.

I have recently bought Endless Space (with Disharmony) on Steam and it's been a good couple of sleepless nights and tireless days, humming the theme music until my co-workers started to look at me in a funny way.

Regardless, I noticed there is a considerable integration of player base with developers, in that a lot of suggestions and ideas are evaluated and from what I've seen, many found their way into the ES1 game.

I noticed there is a section titled game design but it's devoid of threads so perhaps it's not active anymore? No more game design ideas are being accepted?

Seeing as ES2 is in development, I thought I might as well try to contribute to the whole thing in some ways, mostly pointing out my main beef with the game, which has been the UI.

Things that come to mind:

- in system/planet view, various windows' sizes should be adjustable, for example to see all improvements built, all improvements available for construction etc.

- an alternative way of displaying the above, would be a list, which could additionally have columns informing me of the bonuses provided, maintenance costs, net gains in case of variable benefits (like dependent on number of moons or planets) and so on

- number of turns left until a construction is complete in a system, visible on the global galaxy map. Sure there is a slider but it shows the overall progress, which means little when the production is very low

- similarly there could be a number displaying turns left to next population increase on the galactic view, to see instantly which colonies are lagging behind

- more obvious way of splitting grouped ships into independent "fleets". Took me four games to realize that's what the "create" button was for

- some flag in the settings that if checked, would allow you to select only the first fleet out of a stack after clicking the ship symbol. I can't tell you how many times I have sent 4 or 5 fleets to one place when I wanted only one

- a skill tree that showed dependencies and precursors for hero's skills. Right now I have to select a skill and search the list again to see which other skills have been unlocked after that

- display the number of turns it will take for a fleet/ship to reach a destination; I know I can tell this from the dots and colors but again, this is not obvious

- a cleaner, more visible indicator of pirates spotted somewhere or enemy fleets roaming around, so I won't accidentally send my colony ship to get obliterated because I failed to notice the tiny, grayed out ship icon on the destination system, even when it was within a colony's view range

There are many more features that would be very welcome in ES2 compared to the shortcomings of the predecessor. I'm hoping these will be more flexible in ES2.

Second thing is a bit more complex. This is essentially a game of numbers so properly displaying these for the user to analyze and draw the right conclusion is the key to effective management.

Let's take the recent example where I was trying to figure out how dust output is calculated:

The planet in question was a medium (or large) desert with dust exploitation in place and a population of 6 (maximum at the time).

The dust output in the planetary view was 90, the sum of 75 + 9 + 4 + 1 + 1 - from population, planet type, exploitation, improvements, faction trait - respectively.

A baffling list that was very misleading at first. 

The way I would have done that is like this: 

6 * 9 for population on the planet type desert

6 * 4 is a composite of two effects

       6 * 2 for dust exploitation on a planet (any on which this exploitation is used)

       6 * 2 for dust exploitation on desert (on top of the above bonus)

6 * 1 for improvement (in this case hydrosequencing was the only improvement adding dust PER pop)

6 * 1 for faction trait (I'm playing custom sower-affinity faction with a crapload of - and +, not sure which one gives this)

This, I believe, would have been much clearer for the player.

Instead the game takes the values for 1 colonist and adds an arbitrary number 75, labeled "for population", which is correct but it is the REMAINDER of population after the first colonist, so 5 * 15 added to the initial 15 (9+4+1+1).

I hope you follow me in this.

This holds true for other FIDS values and faces even more complexity when you look at things from the system overview, with anomalies, luxury bonuses, moon temples, approval, heroes, abundances...

I certainly hope this is streamlined and clarified in ES2.

So I have a bunch of these ideas, some of which I have described above and I would like to somehow present them for at least a quick glance and consideration.

Maybe this has already been addressed, I have not seen any such threads after a quick search.

There's a number of humongous threads related to various sections of the game but none deal directly with UI from what I've seen.

I moved your thread to the General forum, since this is mostly feedback. :)

Hi and welcome, glad you enjoyed your time with Endless Space :)

You'll be happy to learn that many of the things you suggested in your first part are currently implemented in the game. If you play Endless Legend at some point you'll also see that some of them are present in it as well.

As for the second part of your post, it's a bit trickier: it's all a matter of finding a fragile balance between in-depth explanation and clarity of the information given. For now we are somewhat heading in the direction you mentionned, but not quite as detailed. Depending on which level you look you'll have different levels of info for the FIDS:

• In the system, it'll be (per resource): 
  • XXX from Planets
  • YYY from System Improvements
  • ZZZ from Law/Government
  • WWW from Hero

As well as the upkeep when there is one.

• On the planet, you will have (per resource):
  • XXX from population
  • YYY from population affinity

It will also be possible to see the base FIDS values of the planet by hovering over it, so if you really need to put together the aggregated values from population (for example), you will have the possibility (not as easily as you might have liked, but possible :)).

Don't hesitate to share your feedback in any case!