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Home » news » forums » Space Empires V » Space Empires V General

GUI - Planet info

Submitted by gigawing2 on Tue, 2007-10-02 03:04. Space Empires V General

First of all, I'm fairly impressed with the user interface in SEV. I've seen screenshots of old SE2 and the game has come a long way. You can also do a lot with the Construction Queues and Colony Lists and custom filters.

However, there's a lot of info buried under submenus.

For example, let's say I want to resupply a ship, so I look for a planet with lots of supplies. In order to do this I have to:

* Click on planet (double-click doesn't work)
* Click on planet icon (double-click brings up useless photo)
* Click on Construction crane (lol?)
* Click on the UPPER LEFT (it's not even a button!)
* Click on the Cargo tab...

...just to find out that the planet has 20000/20000 ordinance and 0/20000 supplies (doh!) And there's a planet report button, but that's greyed-out if ships are present.

All this info - Supplies, ordinance, population, construction speed, facilities - should be viewable from the system, where most of the screen is black space anyway, or with a single or double-click. You can do this with more icons, icons that change size/color, or raw numbers.

Think Ascendancy, where planets were covered with facility icons, and bigger planets were actually bigger and had more squares. You could tell at a glance if a planet was all research or all minerals, and just click on squares to build or upgrade (of course, Ascendancy could build more than 1 thing at a time, but that's not the point.)

A simple fix like double-clicking a planet to bring up the construction window would add immensely. A hovering popup window could show the supplies, and the planet photo could show the facilities.

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Re: GUI - Planet info

Submitted by Brad on Tue, 2007-10-02 05:16.

All the info you want is available in the planet report. Right-click and select the planet report from the menu (should be one of the last options) or I think the hotkey is shift+space. Or use the item report button, middle button on the top-right corner of the small window bottom centre of the screen.

Specifically regarding resupply, you can just use the Resupply At Nearest command and let the computer figure out where to send the ship.

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Re: GUI - Planet info

Submitted by gigawing2 on Thu, 2007-10-04 02:09.

Thanks. I know all the info is there, it's a question of how much info is available at the topmost view (system view).

For example, to colonize planets, currently I have to:

1. select colony ship (find out what type it is, eg. rock, ice, gas)
2. find a rock planet
3. select colony ship
4. send to rock planet.

now you can see this can be done in 2 steps:

1. select rock ship
2. send to rock planet

it would be nice if the ground type and atmosphere were visible in the system view without clicking.

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Re: GUI - Planet info

Submitted by Pit Fiend on Thu, 2007-10-04 03:33.

1. Go for planet menu
2. Layout type and atmosphere
3. Find a suitable planet
4. click 'send colonizer' on the right

Very easy i think and a good copy of this feature of MOO2

Best regards,
Pit Fiend

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Re: GUI - Planet info

Submitted by Jayne Foss on Wed, 2007-10-10 02:35.

Also, with the graphics packs you can download, you can identify what atmosphere a planet has by the colour of its atmospheric glow. Pretty AND useful!

Not to mention I seem to be able to tell rock, ice, and gas giant worlds apart by look now. The textures are pretty good for that, really.

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Re: GUI - Planet info

Submitted by Harmonious Hegemony on Wed, 2007-10-10 11:49.

I agree about the atmosphere and planet type, but the size still needs work. Often a planet that looks 'large' is really small. Otherwise these are a great improvement over stock.

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Mod Designer

Re: GUI - Planet info

Submitted by Fyron on Wed, 2007-10-10 21:12.

All planets of a certain size have an identical model radius, and thus an identical size on the screen. The only exceptions are the ringed planets, which have a smaller planet body to compensate for the large rings. All large ringed planets have the same radius, as do all huge planets, though, so its still ok.


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Re: GUI - Planet info

Submitted by rditto48801 on Thu, 2007-10-11 03:27.

I think all non-ringed planets in stock need to be made a little smaller, so a Medium planet is the same 'size' as a Medium ringed planet.

Another benefit with 'smaller' looking planets would be moons. They could actually be shown as tiny little spheres orbiting a planet and thus able to be in the same sector as a planet, rather than a moon simply being a tiny planet in a sector adjacent to a larger planet.
Might also be nice of a Large or Huge planet could have a 'moon' that was of small size (or even medium for a Huge planet), and with gas giants having the capacity of having more moons than regular planets.

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Re: GUI - Planet info

Submitted by Innuendo on Thu, 2007-10-11 05:51.

Moons would be cool, I'm sorry for getting off topic but Rditto has reminded me of SEIV when moons would appear with the planet in tactical combat, they don't in SEV do they? I haven't seen it. Anyway I was just thinking that a huge gas planet, with a few/many moons would be a nigh impregnable fortress. If you had long enough range weapons you could fill up all the moons with weapon platforms and create a screen around the planet that attackers would have to get through to get to your juicy facilities/population. I suppose really it would be the equivalent of a really huge planet with many, many weapon platforms on it, I just thought the idea seemed cool.

Back on topic, I think FQM does a lot to 'improve' the graphical display of SEV, making atmosphere's easier to pick out, etc. I'm not going to bag 'stock' because SEV is a great game, and I'm thoroughly addicted. I'm just glad that the community has this and other forums to be able dicuss ideas for modders, and MM even, to implement in SEV. The pirate mod is one I'm really hanging out for.

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