Post your TA suggestions here

I love the new icons in the tech tree, however i do think a small box at the bottom of the tree explaining what each icon represents would make understanding them easier. I am not sure on a few of them and i have played the game from the beginning. For a new player they would just confuse the tree not as i know they are intended to do which is enhance the tree.

Or at least have rollover/hover pop-up explanations for them.

Ditto the Arcean color. Also, the default dark blue color for text on the galaxy map for Terrans is kinda dark and hard to read against the black space background. I'm not sure if this changed from DA or not... maybe not, it's been a long time since I've played Terrans. For reference, I'm making these comments based on a color-calibrated NEC LCD2190UXi, so I don't think it's just my eyes and monitor. I usually don't have problems reading other game UI's.

Like Drengin, I couldn't figure out the new icons right away under the tech tree blocks. I was expecting to see mouseover info for that.

Most of the interface colors give me a headache. I usually stick with the soft purple-gray color that the Korx have as my interface for all races. Easy to see, not hard on the eyes.

- The textuers of some window elements (ethical choices, research finished, etc) seem a bit too transparent.



The textures behind the choices in the screen shot make the transparency look like a mistake.

in the diplomacy window have two different colors for the techs to be exchanged: one for the ones your opponent can research one for those he can not. (and the same for the other race techs one colour for techs you can research one for those you can not)

right now there are only three tech trees and it is already huge once all the tech trees will be implemented it will be tough to remember if a given race may or may not research impulse drive for example.

and +1 for the mouse over for the little icons under the techs in the research tree would be helpfull for being able to now straight away what a given planetary improvement does exactly

What might also be helpfull for the tech tree is if you where to click on a tech that you can't currently research the research would be set to the prerequisitits of this tech by default. For example if you click on xeno factories at the begining the research would be set to artificial gravity-> planetary improvements ... etc by default untill it reached the tech you clicked on. (not sure of the exact order of prerequisits...)

-I'm not sure if maybe it's already planned for, but I'd love to see more fleet technology. I recall only a few techs in the arcean tree, and it seems like the angle of fleet-specific modules could really go far for making fleets useful again. +attack, +def, +hp, +speed, +range, +repair, and so on.

-This isn't specific to TA, but an option to change interface color mid-game would be great. Sometimes I'll choose a color and not really get bothered by it until I'm two hours into a game. At that point I rarely want to start over just because of a bad color choice. This would also likely help out the people who are getting headaches with the default arcean/terran colors.

- The new Immense maps seem illegilble at maximum zoom-out with the default game resolution.

This POV is based on very brief mucking about with the initial beta on default settings. For folks as fixated on Gigantic maps as I am, the new larger map is one of the major selling points for TA.

IMO, the default resolution cannot reasonbly support the upper levels of the strategic map. If you switch to high or max zoom-out at game start on an Immense map, you end up with your home system being pretty much a blur. Seems to me that the game should somehow tell folks who try for Immense maps that they need to choose, and be able to run, default+ settings.

p.s. Please read Purge's OP carefully and try to "play along." It is a very constructive request.

This is probably going to get me banned from the forum... but I'm glad to see someone else saying this. I think Stardock is a great company, full of talented game programmers, and I'm happy to give them my money.

But they need to hire a good graphic design guru. The UI has had weird colors from the start, and it's only getting worse. Good graphic design and legible fonts/colors isn't rocket science, people. This is a solved problem, and you don't have to re-invent the wheel. Just hire someone who knows about this stuff.

Why would that get you banned? Last I checked, these forums weren't overrun with ban happy, "thou shall not criticise the administration" admins.

As for the UI: on some popups (especially ones that you just click away with an "okay" button) there seems to be spot in the graphics for a button in the center of the window. This "pad" for a button is nice looking, but it confuses me sometimes when I click it first instead of the ACTUAL button to its right.

Someone posted this on another thread, but it's been a long standing one with me as well...


- Have an option for ships on auto survey to not explore black holes.


I'm often running several ships on auto survey and I would like for them to do double duty as scouts/explorers for my colonization rush. Every time one of them hits a black hole they become of limited use, especially on the big maps. I usually just build extra survey ships to cover my losses...

BTW At some point I'll probably try to suck all these up into the OP.

Ok, nothing specific to TA but i think thats where these ideas / tweeks may come in.

- Not having planet flip notifications occur while im reviewing the GNN end-of-turn info.

- Not having so many gray races or be able to better diferentiate between Krynn and iconian. Korx is kinda pinkish in a way so thats ok.

- Be able to move the window that asks you if you want to upgrade a starbase. so i can see where i am and what starbase im dealing with.

Nothing TA-specific, but a little green "Earth-like" icon for those planets that are habitable by all without any colonization tech... just to make things consistent

I traded for "Space Militarization" as Drengin (under their tech tree, it's called "Stellar Conquest Strategies") from a minor and the tech no longer displayed the different flavor text/name that the Drengin tech tree gives it. Nothing major, but it feel it should be noted that it happens. Can't remember if I already had the tech or not, I probably didn't, but I'll try it again sometime...

Yup that would be nice

What do I want? Not much really:

-Multiplayer
-Carriers
-Epic Generator

Those would be beyond "tweak"

A few suggestions I already made in an other thread:

two minor things right away:

- zoomable minimap in the "governors" screen;
- the "esc" on the keyboard always brings you back to the main screen and only if you hit it while you're on the main screen it would bring you to the menu screen;

One major change: UP rules

when sanctions are to be decided, i.e. "max trade routes for evil civs", all votes for sanctions (max 1 route, max 2 routes, max 3 routes) should be counted together and weighted against votes for no sanctions (no change). If the votes for sanctions outweigh the votes against sanctions, then the least punishing option that has been voted for should be chosen (in this case the "max 3 routes").
This same principle should apply also for all other voting procedures when a "no change" option is available.
When a civ leaves the UP it should get a huge damage in reputation but trading with individual other civs should be allowed, based on how good relations with that civ are: the threshold might be the a "friendly" or a "close" relationship. If the relation is equal or above trade should be allowed, if it's lower than trade shouldn't be allowed.

Other major change: trade revenue

I read many posts where people say that trade is unimportant and underpowered compared to tax income. The truth is that tax income is related to your total population while the basic trade revenue is related only (at least to my understanding) to the populations and to the distance between the two trading planets. So on a gigantic (or now: immense) map with everything abundant and the astronomical total population figures that players can reach trade revenue gets quickly unimportant compared to tax revenue.
One easy possible solution: make trade revenue function of both the trading planet AND of total population. The drawback of course is that the trading planet's role would decrease over time as your total population grows and in the end it would come equal to sort of an "automatic" trade that you can't really influence.
The other solution (that I would like to see implemented) is to calculate trade revenue in function of the distance, the population of the trading planet plus (and this is the change I'm suggesting) the population of all YOUR planets that are connected to the your trading planet though a specific internal trade network.

So how do you build an internal trade network?

Well, you guessed it, with freighters, just as you do with trade routes (one freighter per connection between any two planets).

So what's the big deal about this idea?

Well, in case of a war the internal trade network could also be targeted (just as you would pillage the improvements of an enemy civ in Sid Meyer's Civilization series).

So in the end there's no need for big changes, just connect your own planets with freighters (daisy chain connections are sufficient) to add to the "trading" population of your trading planet. I presume it wouldn't be hard to teach this new rule to the AI.

BTW, the Galactic Privateer would only protect your external trade routes, not your internal trade network.

Anyone endorsing my idea?

Personally, I don't see trade as underpowered; on the contrary, it is often a life saver for me. I tend to run my economy into the ground expanding early game, and usually I start to get trade networks up right as the extra bit of money is enough to keep me from going bankrupt.

Later in the game trade becomes less useful as tax revenues go up, so maybe more ways of increasing trade revenue would be in order?

And a suggestion: Can the Super Trader ability please please PLEASE be reworked so that it doesn't automatically research ALL techs that give ANY bonus to Trade at all? That's very annoying when I'm trying to add Trade-boosting techs but can't because a Super Trader would be overpowered with them... Perhaps make it techs that give extra Trade Routes, instead of techs that give extra Trade?

There are a lot of good comments on color here. Please remember that there are many of us who are color-blind and/or have vision problems. Please add non color clues in addition to color.

J

- I'm holding a candle for improvement with the Auto Explore Conga Line (where ships automatically scouting out territory would be aware of other ships' exploration efforts and act accordingly instead of choosing the same exploration path each time).

Not to mention the Auto Mining Conga Line... (Miners should really head towards the nearest asteroid they can upgrade when you click Automate, instead of always going for really-far-away unbuilt asteroids first...)

Not sure if this would be a tweak or a major change but:

- Allow techs to have more than one pre-req.

This probably would not change much with the normal game, but for those people that like to mod would probably get a lot of use out of it. The idea I had put forward on this before was something like this:
Start with normal stardrive.
Impluse drive requires the normal drive & Fusion Power.
Warp drive requires Impluse drive and Anti-matter Power.

Jarod

Well as the U.P. goes, I think everyone shouldn't vote at one time. I mean congress doesn't have a bill and they say cast now! They debate and think about it, atleast thats what they should do. I still am scratching my head why the evil civs are picked on. I mean couldn't the evil civs go to the one good guy and say "Hey! We don't like you having trade routes, you use them to promote anti-slavery movements. So let's vote." -they vote- Evil guy:"Ha! sucks for you loser."

The usuall U.P. is biased, so I think the evil guys should be able to secede, band together, and form their own U.P. Ofcourse, they couldn't trade with their old U.P., but they would be limited to trade with each other. I guess it would be a big galactic clubhouse.

Does anyone else support or like this idea? Feel free to criticize or compliment.

I kinda have the feeling most of this is bigger than a tweak, but what the hey, here it is!(Is there a major idea thread around here?)

Besides my U.P. thing I have a better idea of how to make the espionage system a little more practical and easier to read the data you get. I mean you get a big list and it's such a pain to read for a single tech this will definitely make it more easy and convenient: WWW Link

A lot of people liked this and I hope it gets recognized again. Since the espionage in TA is getting redone, why not do this?

Two suggested tweaks,

1) Can the planetary improvements be colour coded or have some way to sort them?
2) When you click on the rally set point in the Shipyard, can it pop up there, rather than having to close the planet screen?