Page 1 of 1

Planet ordering in star systems

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 2:30 am
by Starionx
Currently, planets are displayed in order according to their number suffix. From a visual perspective, star systems with a large number of planets (I've just found one with 7) starts to become a little cumbersome, having to scroll up and down the list (which gets bigger once you start colonizing some).

What would be nice is for the ordering to go something like this -

Player controlled planets
Computer controlled planets
Neutral planets
Empty planets
asteroids/gas giants

This way, planets and asteroids/gas giants that you have no intention of colonizing would stay at the bottom, thus minimizing the need to scroll down the list.

Thoughts?

Re: Planet ordering in star systems

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 3:01 am
by MatGB
I think I, personally, would be very happy with that.

I think we'd get sooo many complaints because it broke the perception of realism. If it were to happen it'd need to be a display option that defaulted to current order, and I've no idea how much work it'd take.

Re: Planet ordering in star systems

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 3:43 am
by dbenage-cx
Possibly a right click menu to change the sorting between name/owner/size/position in system(current default), should not be too difficult.

Re: Planet ordering in star systems

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 4:49 am
by Starionx
MatGB wrote:... I think we'd get sooo many complaints because it broke the perception of realism...
I couldn't stop laughing at this (and I do understand it was said with a smattering of semi-sarcism). Obviously, we all play video games to be in tune with the real world. :lol:

Re: Planet ordering in star systems

Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2017 11:56 am
by Oberlus
I like to find the planets always at the same position, so I would like the "change ordering" option but not an automatic ordering that changes each time a new colony is placed.
In the end, I always have all the planets of a system and eventually I need to see them all, so there won't be any kind of ordering that saves me from browsing down and up from time to time.
Regarding this, I noticed that the initial ordering of planets of a system gets reversed once you colonise one of them (n.b., only once). That does not bother me so I wouldn't care "fixing" that.

Regarding realism, assuming the ordering corresponds to the actual orbits around the star (first planet being closest one), the current form is not "realistic" in that you can find every kind of planet in every possible orbit around the star (e.g. infernos in the farthest, coldest orbit and tundras in the closest, hottest one) and with every possible combination of environment and size (e.g. huge barren and tiny terran are supposed to be extremely rare since huge is expected to retain its atmosphere and tiny are not). But I agree that that kind of realism is not necessary, and would be probably a drawback with respect to species balance.