UPDATE



Ok so the point of this topic is to debate the usefulness of a screen that would pop up just before the turn is processed, just after you click on the End of turn button. That screen would have the task to make you wait by providing you some info on the game that you could wonder about, counting on the fact that at that very time, you have nothing else to do.



I put some choices in the poll and I'd like to detail them :



A unique screen with little info on everything

Could be a reminder of your current position in each game leader board, with a list of fleets/systems that are currently idling, maybe a list of systems that have a problem (not profitable, on strike, missing planetary improvement, etc). The whole thing on one screen.



A cycle through different screens that focus on one topic at a time

Each turn another screen is picked to be displayed to you. Those screens would be focused on different domains :

- victory conditions (reminder of what to do to win, your most promising victory highlighted, your actual challengers if any, etc)

- economy (how and where DUST is gained/lost)

- warfare overview (comparison of MP versus enemies, a list of weak and unprotected systems, a reminder of systems under attack, the amount of MP you currently producing as a projection of how much reinforcement is on the way, etc)

- diplomacy (a big graph with every relations details between empires, major changes of past turns)

- empire bonus (a big screen that lists all bonuses you currently have. Three-four columns. The big deal)

- anyway... you get the point



A unique screen that focus on the topic you chose in game

One of those up there, but you choose the one you'd like to see each turn. Could be an option of the above system.





What I'm not sure about is how frequently those screens should pop up. Each turn ? Every now and then ? Are there screens that should pop up more often than the others ?

Let's debate.







Original post :

[HR][/HR]

I don't know if I'm the only one around in that case, but each time I click on the end of turn button, I sit back and wait. That's exactly the time when I stop wondering about management and start wondering about how good I'm doing against opponents. So I try to check scores and victory conditions, but obviously, the turn being processed, I can't check anything until it's done.



And still, I'm left here waiting, with nothing else to do than that. But that waiting time could be useful !



Let's pop up a screen right after we click on the end of turn button but right before the turn is processed. That way, even if game slows down a bit or start freezing for a moment, that screen would still show up. You could display various useful informations on that screen :



- a more readable and detailed Empire bonus list, maybe broken into categories (events, traits, tech, etc)

- an economical summary that list how and where DUST is lost or gained.

- a more detailed leader board with players' scores, maybe with an explanation of how they're calculated.

- a focus on one of the victory conditions to detail what's happening.

- a diplomatic newsletter that lists recent changes throughout the galaxy or maybe inform us with notable active deals, dunno.

- maybe a ship design overview that compare actually installed modules VS new modules that have been researched, with a total empire refit cost projection.



Anyway, the point is to exploit that waiting time with something useful to do that you couldn't afford the time to do while in game, shuffling around with fleets and prod queues. Those little messages on the side of the screens are fine indeed but only exploit our time when we need it to play, which is fine because those little message give us important informations that we need right now to take decisions just in time. They're not interesting informations that we need to wonder about on a more global scale.



And that's where the "End of turn" screen comes into play.





What do you think ?

Can't believe this hasn't been suggested but as far as I can tell this suggestion is new. Might be wrong though.



As for the suggestion itself, that would be awesome, especially later in-game when the loading times stretch out.

There's been a suggestion to be able to do things during the end turn waiting time, but so far no exclusively new screen.

There, topic updated. See first post

A little bit surprised why this hasn´t been posted before... Answered!

I also was surprised not to have thought about it earlier, not only when I come to play Endless space. This feat could really help many other turn based strategy games.

Well there are obvious problems with it : you can't really display any up-to-date information since you're actually computing the up-to-date ones. Most informations you could display here are data viz of global events or concepts that don't really change that much between turns. Anything micro is out of the question. Some macro elements won't even have any sense.



BUT (and it's a big but ) you could actually display some sort of before/after informations.



1. you pop up the screen with the situation (say average fids on empire, the four scores)

2. you let the computer go crazy on computing

3. when finished processing data, you append the screen with the new scores. Now you can see that this turn you gain an average of +5 food, +20 prod, +2 science and -15 dust.



So it COULD be done that way. Dunno.





The easiest way to use that waiting time is already widely used in games and softwares : tips and help on loading screens. We're on the same page here.