[Suggestion] Tech tree highlighting

Tsetasi

Newcomer

6 000g2g pts

12 years ago

May 20, 2012, 3:04:20 PM

I finally had a few hours to play a full campaign yesterday and found myself spending a decent amount of time rooting through the tech trees looking for techs that gave me certain bonuses. While I'm aware that the tech trees aren't huge and it's easy enough to commit most of it to memory after a few campaigns, something that may come in handy to help folks (particularly new or rusty folks) organize their tech strategy is a dropdown to select something you want to look for (e.g. fleet cap, planetary exploitations) and have appropriate techs highlight so you can zoom out and get a rough idea where to poke around.

davea

Newcomer

davea

Newcomer

700g2g pts

12 years ago

May 20, 2012, 3:52:02 PM

The dropdown is an interesting idea. However, did you notice the color coding in the upper right hand side of each icon? This color indicates what it is for. But since there is no key, that does not help as much as we wanted.

hinges

Newcomer

hinges

Newcomer

12 years ago

May 20, 2012, 5:25:29 PM

I definitely would appreciate filters/highlighting on the tech tree.

A couple more things on tech tree navigation:

- There doesn't seem to be a way to see the details of what each tech unlocks at anything but maximum zoom. At any other zoom, you just get the names of the unlocked stuff in the tooltip, with no way of telling what it is, or what it does. Could we get the icons for the unlocked things in these tooltips?

- At maximum zoom, we get a box with the icons for the stuff we unlock, but there's no way (without hovering and reading the tooltip) to tell planetary exploitations and starsystem improvements apart - they've both got coloured triangles in the corner. Could the icons for these be made more different - coloured circles for planetary exploitations perhaps?

NeMounet

Newcomer

NeMounet

Newcomer

12 years ago

May 20, 2012, 5:28:36 PM

The problem with color coding when you want a global strategy, is that it's only visible when the tech trees are fully zommed, and from here you lack of global vision.

I understand color coding must stay simple. actually, distinction between module and improvement is made by icon's shape, and if you add too many distinct shapes, it will become unreadable.

A dropdown system has the advantage that you can just filter tech by numerous criteria, without loosing readibility.

IMO, you should keep the color coding as it's a simple, easy and pleasant way de easily see the trend of a tech. And adding a dropdown system for global planning and / or easily locate particular techs

davea

Newcomer

davea

Newcomer

700g2g pts

12 years ago

May 20, 2012, 5:40:53 PM

What exactly should the tech tree look like when filtered? I have played plenty of other 4x games but not one with a filter-able tech tree. Do you mean that all the techs remain present, but the ones which match have some persistent highlight color? I hope you do not mean to dynamically rebuild the tree with the non-matching techs temporarily deleted.

MODVieuxChat

Chameleon

Truth is a chameleon. Herbert

MODVieuxChat

Chameleon

25 400g2g pts

12 years ago

May 20, 2012, 5:45:05 PM

There's already a color-coded structure. So why not some button (round, with just th ecolor), you click on them and the tech with those colors are highlighted ?

Tsetasi

Newcomer

Tsetasi

Newcomer

6 000g2g pts

12 years ago

May 20, 2012, 6:07:08 PM

davea wrote:
The dropdown is an interesting idea. However, did you notice the color coding in the upper right hand side of each icon? This color indicates what it is for. But since there is no key, that does not help as much as we wanted.

davea wrote:
What exactly should the tech tree look like when filtered? I have played plenty of other 4x games but not one with a filter-able tech tree. Do you mean that all the techs remain present, but the ones which match have some persistent highlight color? I hope you do not mean to dynamically rebuild the tree with the non-matching techs temporarily deleted.

The color coding is handy for sure, but that gets lost in zoomed-out views. Come to think of it, I haven't seen a filterable tech tree in any 4x before either, and lord knows there are games with bigger tech trees than these that really could have benefited from this sort of thing.

An example of what I was thinking was, say, filtering for system improvements. Zoom out all the way and techs that unlock system improvements would be highlighted with the color of their improvement. That way, as an example, I'm looking for science improvements, I filter that, zoom out, and there are a bunch of blue dots on the right tree and a couple rainbow dots on the bottom tree. With this high-level view I can get a rough idea of where I need to plot to reach it, or hover/zoom to see more specifics about given techs.

NeMounet

Newcomer

NeMounet

Newcomer

12 years ago

May 20, 2012, 6:13:34 PM

As Tsetasi said above, just a highlight stuff, to easily locate specific tech. At least it's how I imagined it when I wrote my previous post

planetcore

Newcomer

planetcore

Newcomer

12 years ago

May 22, 2012, 7:13:37 PM

I think it would also helpful if the search tool would light up the searched for tech or make it pulse. Because right now I find it a bit broken when all it does is make sure the tech is somewhere in my window but I still have to search for it. Search tool also need to be able to search through the attributes so if I need to improve happiness I can find where I should direct research. I some ways this is why SMAC still has my favorite research setup. You pick the tech direction(s) and let it do its thing which is really more realistic anyway you really can't just say I want to find a new metal okay that will be 7 years boss! Anyway I kinda felt the whole tech tree was a real disappointment. Personally I felt the options weren't really interesting and I'd like to just automate it by leting my choose % of research going to each category and what weapons class to focus on, maybe what planet types too colonize. THat's 4 sliders and two drop downs could replace the urrent tech tree.

That's my rant on the tech tree.

Draco18s

Newcomer

Draco18s

Newcomer

6 000g2g pts

12 years ago

May 22, 2012, 7:30:12 PM

planetcore wrote:
I think it would also helpful if the search tool would light up the searched for tech or make it pulse. Because right now I find it a bit broken when all it does is make sure the tech is somewhere in my window but I still have to search for it.

Two things:

1) search, if you get results, hit the locate button. It will recenter your view on the found tech.

2) the search does not search descriptions! So you can't search for "academy cap" or "command points."

VIPXorUnison

Stellar

Fan of the Endless Universe since the ES Alpha. Attended the Gamescon 2012/2015/2016/2017.

VIPXorUnison

Stellar

41 700g2g pts

12 years ago

May 23, 2012, 9:01:10 AM

Yeah, when Endless Space will become a well-known and great 4X game, it isn't due to the great tech tree.

I agree that the highlighting would be pretty useful, so far I haven't used the search because it just randomly shows me something and I can't search anything specific anway so that would be a help.

planetcore

Newcomer

planetcore

Newcomer

12 years ago

May 24, 2012, 8:38:35 PM

I've gone back and played a few more games now and I am starting to feel the tech tree really isn't adding anything to the game. I ignore kinetic weapons, I research colonization techs early on to rapidly expand, and I get to the research boosting techs as soon as possible, trade and diplomacy happen if I need more comand points and I'm not at war so I can actually use trade. So really I'm not finding the tech tree is really making different play styles possible!

I think a lot of techs need to be rebalanced, and in AI game we need a better trade system. Also maybe I'm just missing this but is there a diplomatic/influence/trade/spy play style I'm not seeing because all my games turn into death battles.

If any developer reads this I actually think they should go look at the old 4x game Ascendancy. And in an unrelated question why is Ascendancy the only 4x I've ever played with a 3d map?