New Tech screen feedback

from GalCiv2 Forums
Here's my first feedback on the New Tech screen.

Firstly it is very confusing. The left hand side clearly splits the techs into categories and this works well. What's confusing is the right hand side, where the techs seem to be all jumbled together with no clear order or reason for placement. Some techs can be selected for research, some can't. No understanding as to which or why.
- There needs to be better highlighting as to researchable techs, already researched techs, and not yet researchable techs. I suggest 3 levels of brightness with already researched techs being fully lit, researchable techs being moderately lit and not yet researchable techs being either hidden or faded.
- There also needs to be a clear logic in the placement of the techs based on cost and availability. This definitely needs some work and possibly a small redesign of the screen to make it clear.
- There needs to be an easy an instant way to see what the next cheapest tech is within a category
- all available techs for research need to be side by side and clearly identifiable

Second point is that there needs to be a clear way of 'selecting' a tech to research and a reminder of what tech is being researched. A 'research' button would do the job. I don't want my current project to be changed just because I looked around the tech tree.

Third point is that the screen does not currently update the weeks remaining unless you click off a tech and back onto it. This leads you to believe you are researching nothing at first.

All in all though I like the potential of the new screen. Just a few tweaks and it will be very nice,

Paul.
10,101 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, that's definatly the screen that needs the most work.  We'll merge you're list with ours and try to make the screen more understandable.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A few of my own thoughts on that screen:
1. I want to be able to select a tech that's several steps from where I am now. It should be able to select the proper path of technologies from where I am to where I want to be. It could then maybe have an overlaying "connect the dots" line of sorts showing the path.

2. I know the completion bar at the bottom right of the screen isn't complete yet (ironic), but it's location isn't the best, it's easy to miss. Maybe add a % complete text overlaying part of the tech box you're researching as well.

3. To make it clearer on cost, maybe add another small text overlay to every tech box giving the number of weeks (in form #w... so 8w, 10w, 1231w whatever). Alternatively, if you don't want to give weeks, maybe a color outline to the boxes. Green for cheapest, Red for most expensive (with whatever colors in between)

4. Add some space between the horizontal lines of techs to make them appear more distinct. At first I couldn't tell if it was just one line per tech family or if it was some complex matrix/ladder

Oh, and it shouldn't just auto-select a new tech to research when a previous one is done. I liked the old way in GC1 where it prompted me by popping up the tech screen and made me choose before going on. If you miss the beaker icon on the left of the screen when a tech finishes, you could waste a lot of time researching something you didn't want.

I know this is phase 2 stuff, but I wanted to write it down while it was fresh in my mind.
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Zoomba, your mention of missing the beaker icon touches one of the more annoying features of the UI. That is, the next turn button enables at the same instant the icons start sliding on the screen. Since they're very dim at first, they're easy to miss. Several times, I'd hit next turn and only then realize that there was an indicator icon dropping down the side.

I think that to improve this situation, we should be able to turn off the drop animation, or set a button to keep the next turn button disabled until the icons finish dropping. I'd also like a way to go back and see the history of the indicator icons, as we had in GC1.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
This screen is going to go go through some surgery in the next couple of weeks.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Aren't you supposed to have the day off? How are we supposed to ambush you Tuesday with our demands if you're spying on us?

Yeah, I know, that's why you don't want UI input on most of the game yet, it's all subject to change (yes, someone asked for input on the research and ship design screens, but my suggestions are for the main screen). But for a user to not give their opinion is as unnatural as my senile old "food is love" cat staying off my lap when I'm eating. And probably just as annoying when the natural behavior occurs.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
next turn button enables at the same instant the icons start sliding on the screen. Since they're very dim at first, they're easy to miss. Several times, I'd hit next turn and only then realize that there was an indicator icon dropping down the side.


I was going to point this out as well. I'd add that what appears to be a "News" popup box only stays on screen for a fraction of a second after it appears.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The "News" popup is probably the auto-save notification, which goes away automatically as soon as the autosave is finished. I've managed to read it a time or two when it happens. And before you think of unchecking autosave to test this idea, I did that last night, but it kept autosaving (as evidenced by the fact that I could go into the "load game" window and see updated times, though the game hangs if I try to load them.).
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
No understanding as to which or why.

Well, one problem is that only researchable tech can be selected. We can't see clearly the difference between already researched tech and techs whose prerequisites are missing. Perhaprs changing the color of the label could help. something like :
- green for tech already researched
- white for tech tha could be researched (as currently)
- red for tech whose requirement are missing

But there could be some problems on techs in the green field or on the red field.

It could be also nice to be able to click on each tech to see the prerequisite or the available tech after it. Currently, we can see that lots of researchable techs depend on ion driven even if they aren't in the propulsion field.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I want to second point #1 from zoomba: "select a tech that's several steps from where I am now", and add the following...

When reasearch of one tech is complete, I would like research to default to the next tech in the chain to my target tech. This way I can forget about tech until my longer term research goal is achieved. (Still need the beaker icon to notify me of steps completed along the way, in case I need to change my tech strategy.)

This would save a lot of clicks over GalCiv 1 (the way I use that screen at least).