It would be nice to have a button that would cycle through all of your fleets that haven't made an action during that turn, and disappears when all your fleets have moved. Another button could cycle between systems not producing anything. Of course it's up for debate as to where they would be placed, but I would recommend the area just to the left of the end turn button. It is a good location because it serves as a reminder before you end your turn, but wouldn't clutter the interface.

I can't remember if the fleet overview screen shows movement remaining, but if it doesn't already it should be a quick fix. And it would avoid cluttering up the galaxy UI needlessly.

Mansen wrote:
I can't remember if the fleet overview screen shows movement remaining, but if it doesn't already it should be a quick fix. And it would avoid cluttering up the galaxy UI needlessly.

The fleet overview screen does in fact show movement remaining, but when I'm Hissho and have 30+ fleets all moving around, I'd also like a little button. Anyone here play age of empires? Yes, that button is pressed constantly.

A keyboard shortcut would be nice as well. It would help in avoiding cluttering up the UI.

PuddlesOfDoom wrote:
A keyboard shortcut would be nice as well. It would help in avoiding cluttering up the UI.

keyboard shortcuts would be great too, but the benefit to a visible button that disappears is that it's a visual reminder that you may not be done your turn yet. Great for games being played while doing other things.

On the other hand, you rarely need to move all of your idle fleets. And icons quickly fill up the interface - especially on smaller resolutions.

Mansen wrote:
On the other hand, you rarely need to move all of your idle fleets. And icons quickly fill up the interface - especially on smaller resolutions.

We're talking about 1 icon that cycles and disappears, maybe 2 if you add one for systems with no production. you don't need an icon for each fleet, just 1 that when you click on it, it cycles through the fleets.



It's a minor addition that will vastly improve the ability to mange your empire without wading through menus.

What if the fleet button at the top of the screen changed in a way to indicate that you had some idle ones? Yellow to mean you have one-ish and red to indicate more than one-ish. You could even have it grow in size to go along with the colour to draw more, but subtle, attention. The "warning" wouldn't require action, and would just politely sit at the top of your screen letting you know that you had some fleets that might be bored. Of course, fleets set to guard system would be omitted from the total. Similar could be done for lazy star systems who are not building anything.

The way Civ V handles this is pretty good, just automatically cycle through units/fleets which still have orders outstanding. Disable the end turn button until all fleets have received orders of some sort.

Obviously 'guard system' and 'invade' should count as orders - it's up to the player to remember where he put fleets on guard duty.



Of course the real change that would be fantastic would be to 'grey out' or otherwise indicate fleets on the map which HAVE moved. I found it a total pain making a distinction between fleets I had given orders and those which I did not, especially once you have quite a few fleets. Moo2 did this pretty well back in the day so there's no reason why ES can't find a solution to present this in a more user friendly manner

paradigmx wrote:
We're talking about 1 icon that cycles and disappears, maybe 2 if you add one for systems with no production. you don't need an icon for each fleet, just 1 that when you click on it, it cycles through the fleets.



It's a minor addition that will vastly improve the ability to mange your empire without wading through menus.

And one small icon becomes two then becomes three and so on. It's a question of knowing when to stop - and more importantly, what can we do without.



As I've pointed out earlier, you will always have "idle" fleets. The game isn't about moving your fleets every turn to stay mobile - it's about defending core systems.

Mansen wrote:
And one small icon becomes two then becomes three and so on. It's a question of knowing when to stop - and more importantly, what can we do without.



As I've pointed out earlier, you will always have "idle" fleets. The game isn't about moving your fleets every turn to stay mobile - it's about defending core systems.

Big difference between idle and defending or performing another job. Idle suggests that a fleet is doing -nothing- useful and awaiting orders. I think you're missing the point a little.. It's all about making the game more accessible and user-friendly and your argument is "I don't want more icons and I personally play it differently" - which is an extremely poor argument against functionality that would help other people. Now, the ability to turn specific icons/warning messages off entirely for those who can play without, that would be useful. That way, those people who find some of those icons annoying can just turn them off permanently.

Mansen wrote:
As I've pointed out earlier, you will always have "idle" fleets. The game isn't about moving your fleets every turn to stay mobile - it's about defending core systems.

If a fleet is defending a system then presumably you will have set it to 'guard' mode, in which case it isnt idle.

Having a hotkey just becomes even more useful in this situation, because i've often forgotten to set a fleet to guard mode, and as a result enemy ships have slipped by, resulting in me having to chase them down inside my borders. A 'next idle fleet' hotkey would have highlighted this.