I can tell that the goal of this interface is to quickly convey information and allow you to act on it easily. The zoomable interface and nice hover over popups play a large part in achieving this goal. Unfortunately, (imho) the interface isn't quite there yet.



My main issue is that the images that represent what is gained by researching a particular item does not quickly convey what you will gain. I think the images need to be color coded in some way to indicate that the research will result in a new structure, ship type, global bonus, etc.



The structure images sort of indicate that they are structures but only some of them, e.g., Particle Scanning has two items that can be built as a result of researching it. One is a star-system improvement (camouflage radiator), and the other is a planetary exploitation (atemporal finance) that. There is no differentiation between the star-system improvement and the planetary exploitation.



It would be better if all the different types of items gained through research could be differentiated in some way. Right now most of the images are a light blue with revealed resources being the only other type of image color.



This would allow for quick identification and navigation of the various research options. It will allow you to quickly navigate the trees to select what you want to research next based on what item you want and would mitigate the need to memorize much of the tree.

Added to the Suggestion summary thread /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/13003-summary-of-suggestions-so-far-discussion

I agree with you, a simple thing to add as well would be to change the linking line's colour, for example yellow for the techs giving you dust bonus and so on... giving you an idea in which direction to research depending on what you want.

Maybe different frame line types and/or colours could help, for example white solid lines for system improvements, white dotted lines for ship modules, yellow solid lines for empire improvements and red dotted lines for battle activities, green dotted lines for diplomatic options, etc.

Nuke wrote:
Maybe different frame line types and/or colours could help, for example white solid lines for system improvements, white dotted lines for ship modules, yellow solid lines for empire improvements and red dotted lines for battle activities, green dotted lines for diplomatic options, etc.

Nice Idea!

The colors would be good, but I think there needs to be more.



o An alternative view or list of technologies category. For example, ship, planetary, kinetics. It’s really hard to find a particular technology. For example, increasing your academy cap.

o In a side panel, you can select a technology family like academy, shields, or teraforming. This selection would highlight all of the technologies that are part of this category.

o Improve the search box to pick up the bonus affects and possibly the text. Right now, it’s not useful.