There are several things I noticed after playing for my first couple of hours after getting the game last night. Several of these are fairly straight forward and I think would help things feel a lot smoother.



I welcome any discussion on these as I think it will help the devs make a better game. I would like to ask we try to keep things more on the topic of functionality and display rather then artistic design.



New Game Menu

1) Right Click exits - One of the first things I did when getting onto this page was hit the right mouse button while hovering over the list of empires to see if it would do anything. Right click for context sensitive menus is a common thing monst people expect, thanks in large part to operating systems using them. However instead right clicking exits and takes you back to the main menu. This is annoying because right clicking is so common in so many applications you can easily do it by mistake. I know right click exit is used on most other screens throughout the game but for the creating a new game for new users this can be very frustrating.



2) No Drop down for Player Race - The AI Races you can easily select from a drop down menu. But there is no such option for the player and they have to go into the separate race selection. This was not obvious and a bit frustrating starting out. Going into more detailed view doesn't need to be changed but for convenience having a drop down menu where players can quickly select their race would be nice as well.



3) Select AI Color - There doesn't appear to be a way to pick what colors the AI will use. It would be nice if there was a way to set this.



4) Victory Tool Tips - In the advanced options area you can choose which Victory conditions are available but there is no tool-tip indicating what each of them actually means. It would be nice if a tool-tip would explain then the way most of the other items are.





Main Game Screen

1) System Name Size - The system name and Icons on it don't scale as you zoom in and out. At first this may seem like a good thing but when trying to zoom out for a wider view of the map it gets cluttered making it hard to actually see anything else, such as star lanes and fleets. It would be nice if they would decrease in size so as to not clutter up the star map.



2) More System Details - It would be nice if it would show what is currently under construction, how many turns remain, number of turns until population growth, if there are any ships in Hanger of system. I refer to the Civilization series as an example on the build and population growth display. It doesn't have to be exactly the same but some indicator on these things would be nice. This makes it easy to see how things are going at a glance from the galaxy map without needing to go into another menu.



3) Ship Icons with zoom - Unlike the System Name the ship icons get smaller as you zoom out. This makes it hard to see where your fleets and enemy fleets are. I find it very hard to get a good overview of the galaxy because I can't see my fleets on the zoomed out galaxy map, where I'd like to get a view of how things stand.



4) Ship Icons Mouse Over - When you mouse over a system it enlarges both the circle around the system and the ship icon. This is very confusing as it make it seem like there is only one click-able function there. Mousing over the ship icon does not increase it's size like the system does thus giving the appearance at first glance that it is not click-able. The Ship icon should enlarge like the the system circle does when you mouse over and should not enlarge when mousing over the system. This would make if very clear there are two functions available that are different.



5) Dust Income Display- In the top right corner it displays how much dust you currently have but not how much you are making/lossing. It would be nice to know this information at a glance without needing to mouse over it or go into empire screen. The mouse over has this displayed in a convenient to read format so I'm not sure why it wasn't simply displayed that way at the top of the screen.



6) R&D Scrolling Text - The text box is so small and hard to read with it scrolling by that it's practically useless. Having a larger box would be nice so you can read the name of the item being researched instead of having to wait for the full name to scroll by. It's faster to simply mouse over the R&D icon and see the pop then it is to wait for the scrolling text to go by. Also since all the R&D Icons are round on the tech page perhaps they could be used instead to replace the R&D Icon and show what is currently being researched.





Empire Management Screen

1) Empire Wide Bonuses - This display is extremely difficult to read and generally not all that helpful. It would be better instead of putting in 20+ line items at the start of the game and constantly adding more with techs if it would instead display the totals of each bonus. This way you can see quickly at a glance how much bonus R&D, Dust, Production, Moral, and etc. Instead you have to scroll though a long window list, which has a very small window to begin with, trying to spot all the bonuses and add them up. On each total Bonus you could then have a mouse over tool tip which displays how much of that total bonus is coming from various areas, similar to how Moral and FIDS displays are.



2) More Room for Resources - As the game goes on and you have a lot of resources the resource window only seems to display 1 row so you have to scroll down to see your resources. A slightly larger window, which could also be extended to the Empire bonus window by moving planet display now, would be nice so you can view multiple rows.



Research Screen

1) Turns to Research when zoomed out - When you are zoomed all the way in it gives a lot of detail on R&D items without needing to mouse over them. But when trying to get a better over view of the tech tree the 2 other zooms seem lacking. At the Medium zoom still have the side display but drop the tech name to save space. And maybe but the number of turns to research under the Tech Icon if there is no space on the side display showing what items unlock. Then on the furthest zoom out instead the circle simply have a number which is the number of turns to research an item. That way you can zoom out and quickly see what items can be developed in short order without needing to scroll around at the closest zoom which is a hassle. I don't mind the tree layout but late game with everything scattered about it hard to navigate.



2) Right Shift Click - When selecting multiple Techs only the Left Shift key works. For simplicity sake both shift buttons should work as that's common behavior in most applications. Also consistency would be good when it comes to selecting multiple things, as in Tech window it's shift and for ships/fleets it's CNTRL. I think this is the first program I've seen that does it differently, as most it's either CNTRL or SHIFT for multi-select throughout the whole application, it doesn't use one for some instances and the other in different areas.



3) Better Query Control - If you misclick anywhere the R&D query is cleared. I've done this accidentally so many times that it's just frustrating. Personally I think the default should be add to query and not need to hold-shift to begin with. There also needs to be a way to clear items from the query. I had querying up a few techs only to realize I need another one sooner or I want to hold off on one. Then I need to completely redo the R&D query because you can't remove items from it, which I think should be as simple as clicking on their icons in the query window.



Military Screen

1) Zoom to Fleet - I don't know why but double click to go to fleet does not always work. This combined with the small fleet icons making it so hard to track my fleets that it has driven me to near rage quit more than anything else in the game, actually it's the ONLY thing that has pissed me off that much. Because I CAN'T FIND MY FLEETS! When you have a lot of fleets on a huge map it's hard to keep track of them all. I don't know if it's a bug or the double-click sensitivity turned down to low but the later in the game it gets the less it seems to work. Just add a zoom to this fleet button/icon next to each fleet would make this 10x better and cut down on clicking.



Ship Design Screen

1) No Stat Display for Invasion Strength - One of the module you can equip to your ship says it increases invasion military force by 60. But the question is what is the normal strength of your invasion force? Also what is the Strength of the Planet Defenses. I don't think I've seen the values listed on any display, only buildings and modules that say they increase it.



2) Better Tonnage Usage Display - Perhaps the individual modules could have their tonnage still displayed when they are added to the ship. This way you can see at a glance how much each module weighs without having to refer back to it on the module list, especially since many look very similar with shading difference. Also when mousing over the Total Tonnage used the tool tip could be actually useful instead of stating the obvious. Like displaying the total amount each group of modules is taking up, thus if you have 7 Kinetic Guns that each take up 8 Tons with would display "Kinetic Guns 56 Tons" and so on for each item. The "The tonnage of selected Ship" tip can remain in the tool-tip window is need be.

Diplomacy Screens

1) More useful feedback in Negotiations - I get messages like not enough war wariness, Invalid Diplomatic Status, and etc. What does that even mean?!? First off war wariness I've seen used in other games where moral goes down after prolonged war, which is a BAD mechanic because it assumes all races would be anti-war hippies and none would be blood thirsty savages that enjoy war, but that's getting side tracked. Anyhow I see no reference to this anywhere else in the game so it seems a bit odd. As for Invalid Diplomatic Status the only thing I can think of is they don't have the tech, in which case it should not appear as an option to begin with or be grayed out. Also not sure these may be simple Debug messages left in. Either way better feedback that the player can understand is needed. Especially when the meter shows an offer is all the way to the right, indicating it's greatly in their favor, and they still refuse.



Academy Screen

1) Hero Cap Display - There is no indicator what your max number of Heroes is are that you even have one. I was very disappointed when turn 50 hit and I got new heroes for hire only to find that I couldn't hire them for some reason and took some digging to figure out there was a cap. There should be a display that says how many active heroes you currently have as well as how many you can have max on the academy screen.



2) Scroll through Heroes - There is no easy scroll through your heroes. You have to click on one and it centers that one then click on another to slowly scroll through your heroes. As the game goes on you can have quite a few heroes and it's bit of a hassle to scroll though them. There should be a scroll bar and perhaps the middle mouse wheel could scroll through them.



3) Hero Bonuses - I refer back to the Empire Bonuses on this one. It has the same problem as the game progresses you get so many bonuses from different locations it gets hard to keep tabs on how much your getting. Having it just display the totals in the window instead of individual amounts would make things a lot easier.





System View Screen



Planet View Screen



New Screens & Misc





To be continued...



I have more to say but it's getting late so I figured I'd post what I have thus far and add the rest later. Also seems I hit char limit.

Reserved for future Info (In case I hit char limit again)

A number of your suggestion have been already suggested and summary is posted here /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/13003-summary-of-suggestions-so-far-discussion



I will be updating this later today

PyroMancer2k wrote:
2) No Drop down for Player Race - The AI Races you can easily select from a drop down menu. But there is no such option for the player and they have to go into the separate race selection. This was not obvious and a bit frustrating starting out. Going into more detailed view doesn't need to be changed but for convenience having a drop down menu where players can quickly select their race would be nice as well.

I wanted to highlight this (Couldn't find it in the thread jetkar mentioned). There has to be something on the new game UI to indicate how to change the player's race. Superimposing a selection-down-arrow over the upper right of the emperor portrait would be fine.



I had to read the manual, of all things, to figure it out myself. The only things I've had to look up in the manual have been this and the detailed definitions of the victory conditions.