Spaceport GUI enhancement

I posted a similar concern in the Steam forums, and someone kindly pointed me to Samsonzs's great idea. I'm going to paste my comments from Steam, and then expand on Samsonzs's idea afterwards. So, from my "Spaceport issues" post on Steam:

I've encountered an issue with the spaceport feature (bottom left-hand side of Star System Management screen of each system). If I use the spaceport to ship some of the population to a different system, if that system fills up before the emigrants get there, they disappear completely.

Let's say you have one system with all United Empire population, and another with all Haroshem (minor faction). You want both systems to benefit from the Collection Effects of both population types, but both systems are full. So you can't send population from either to the other via the spaceport unless you find somewhere else to dump some of the unwanted, like a third system.

Assuming you do that and then ship UE to the Haroshem system and Haroshem to the UE system, if those planets repopulate before the emigrants arrive, you lose them. I checked this by seeing that my population of Haroshem went from 12 the previous turn to 10 after 2 emigrants disappeared over a full planet.

I like the concept of the spaceport, because I was wishing for it even before I knew it existed (speaking of which, you might want to include it in your tutorial; if it is in there, I totally missed it). But if I have to clear out excess population BEFORE I can send emigrants, and again AFTER I send them, that's just way too much hassle.

Perhaps whenever you send emigrants, you could add a "placeholder" population icon for each emigrant sent from another system, which holds their place until they get there? Otherwise, this feature will only be useful before systems fill up.

Now, to expand on both of our ideas. Imagine a screen that shows these and all of our systems, like the Economy Screen/Systems panel . It's similar to the Star System Management screen that allows transfers from one planet to another within the same system. But in this screen, it shows all systems, and they're not divided by planet, but by population type.

Suppose System A has 15 UE population and System B has 10 Haroshem, 3 UE, and 2 empty slots. I could drag 2 UE from A to B. But instead of immediately depositing them there, it would place two "In Transit" placeholders, which would ideally indicate how many turns until their transport gets there (assuming pirates don't get them).

Where this would really shine is when dealing with transferring population between two full systems. Similar to how you can "swap" population between two full planets currently, you could "swap" a UE population with a Haroshem population in two full systems. Doing that would replace both populations with placeholders. And while it would be NICE to be able to swap from System A to System B to System C to System A, that's probably too complicated to implement in any way that's intuitive.

Now, I know you may be reluctant to add additional screens, and rightfully so. Sometimes I feel like there are too many screens, and sometimes I feel like I can't find the info I need. Perhaps an existing screen could be reworked, like the current Spaceport "Select a System" screen. Also, I'm not saying the Spaceport section needs to be removed from each system's screen. I think it's fine as is when there are plenty of empty slots, assuming you augment it with some kind of "placeholder" system.

Thanks for pointing out the population transfer bug to full planets. 

I was not aware of it.

Also I agree that transfer between full systems should be possible.

Maybe the fact that population is placed in a spaceport (without a destination yet) should be enough to free slots and allow transfer from a different system.

Hey, that's a pretty simple but elegant solution, samsonazs. That by itself would take care of the problem of swapping between full systems. Only problem is they'll have to set up tent cities outside the spaceports for unscrupulous jerks like me that look at this as a "rehousing opportunity" ;-)

Another possibility for dealing with emigrants arriving at a full system would be to allow their transport to remain in orbit until enough space clears up for all of the passengers. Maybe give them a maximum of, say, 10 turns before they run out of water, air, or food. Just think of the black market opportunities for enterprising "merchants" willing to "help out" a colony ship in peril!

These two solutions combined (or two like them) would take care of my biggest concern (transferring population between systems being too much of a hassle). That would make my suggestion for a drag-and-drop system of transferring population between systems less necessary - more of a "nice to have". But what you said earlier about what should be visible on the "Select a System" screen would still be true.

Whaddaya know - putting population in Spaceport slots DOES free up their population slot in the system already. I dropped someone in a Spaceport slot, even though the currently selected destination system happened to be full. I then went to the full system, and dropped one of their population in a Spaceport slot going to the first system. The next turn, both systems sent out emigrants.

I didn't have the heart to tell them how they're going to die in a few turns when they arrive at their destinations and find them already full again.

medouneu wrote:

Another possibility for dealing with emigrants arriving at a full system would be to allow their transport to remain in orbit until enough space clears up for all of the passengers. Maybe give them a maximum of, say, 10 turns before they run out of water, air, or food. Just think of the black market opportunities for enterprising "merchants" willing to "help out" a colony ship in peril!

One thing I would like to avoid here is having a lot of population "in transit" between planets being sent from one to another and then redirecting them.

But I don't like the idea of all of them dying once they reach a full planet.

So I would suggest that a population ship arriving to a full planet would become a neutral ship and choose it's destination on it's own.

You could end up providing population to your enemy (if they accept them - this is a must option to have so that you don't get flooded by unwanted population but rejecting should have some political consequences)

Or that population could establish a pirate planet / base of operation or maybe even an outpost / colony?

This spaceport management is not enough good about ergonomy.

All migrations actions should be made on a screen with all system visibles in a list. A specific screen so.

What is very important to see about population, is population type ! And I don't see it when selecting the destination.

All of this is not enough manageable with the screen/tools provided, or should take really too much time.

The only time I use it is when I build an new system, I send some people here from a full system.

But I really don't use the space port in a optimised way, like it should and why it's made for !