Charts, and other things that could help

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tabbydan
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Charts, and other things that could help

#1 Post by tabbydan »

I have some suggestions that would help me as a player and I think would help lots of players.

I'm running 0.4.8, my apologies if these items are already fixed

Map view upgrade to indicate partial colonization.
Currently, the UI is brilliant for a system mixed between two or more players (it shows all the players colors and in more or less the right fraction). However, this brilliant aid is not used for a partly colonized system. In lots of games, I have systems where I've colonized part of it but not all of it. If the UI had my color and grey (uncolonized) in the system name etc on the map that would help me easily keep track in map view (without having to read through the "Object chart").

Map toggle:
It would be nice to have a button in the map view where one could toggle the star display. In one setting the stars would show as they do now. In the other setting, the star would display as a minimal number of letters (abbreviation) for its star type. Currently, unless I have map view enlarged ridiculously I have a hard time telling the difference between a white and a blue star, a red star and a neutron star (neutron stars are important for me), a yellow star and an orange star, likewise, black holes are depicted rather darkly and can be hard to find without zooming in. The toggle would change those stars to something like "W", "B", "R", "N", "Y", "O", "BH".

More charts:
A star chart: (like the object chart except the primary object of each line is the gravitational sink of that system, shows all the subobjects in that system too later in the line)

A race chart: Shows all the potential races in FO and gives their attributes in chart form: research, production, population, stealth, piloting, defensive troops, offensive troops... could color races not yet encountered in the current game in gray, encountered ones in white

A ship hulls chart: Shows all the potential hulls in FO, PP costs for each, number of each type of slots, structure, stealth, etc

Planetary bonuses. Currently, unless you are in map view and you click on a star, you have no indication of any bonuses. It would help things if the object chart showed all the planetary bonuses on said objects (if the object can be seen but the bonus can't yet be seen I'd put a '?'). Another toggle on the map view might allow one to see all the bonuses for that star (provided they are visible). I'd also recommend another chart like the Objects Chart but restricted to all the objects you have outposts on or have colonized. If colonized it would show what the focus is on that object (would help streamline 'have I already set one of these to growth focus' etc)

Fleet tools:
-summation of other fleets: allow the user to click on a non controlled fleet and get a summation view of it (top-level summation: total armor, total firepower; next level a sum of each type of ship showing their total of armor and firepower...) currently if the computer or another player has a fleet split you see it as it is split/grouped and have to do all the summation manually (annoying)
-splitting/grouping your own fleet: would be nice if there was an option to group all of a given type of ship (specific design rather than hull type), or likewise to split that group in half, third, etc. Also, a tool to split off from a grouping all ships that are damaged beyond some threshold (such as 75% structure, 50%, 25%...)


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A backend (non-UI) tool that might be real nice is an "upgrade" hook. In 0.4.8 the installed program doesn't seem to have the ability to call back to the mothership (I assume FreeOrion.org) and see if updates are available. I did end up using snapd or something like that to get a more recent version but the end result is that I still have 0.4.8 as the fully installed version and (unfortunately) a compressed image of a bleeding-edge (I probably should have specified 0.4.10) release somewhere on my hard drive

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Charts, and other things that could help

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

tabbydan wrote: Tue Dec 08, 2020 8:52 pmCurrently, unless I have map view enlarged ridiculously I have a hard time telling the difference between a white and a blue star, a red star and a neutron star (neutron stars are important for me), a yellow star and an orange star, likewise, black holes are depicted rather darkly and can be hard to find without zooming in. The toggle would change those stars to something like "W", "B", "R", "N", "Y", "O", "BH".
It wouldn't be a toggle, but you could edit [https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... /art/stars]the textures for those stars on the map[/url] to make them clearer, or replace with letters.
It would help things if the object chart showed all the planetary bonuses on said objects
What is a "bonus" in this suggestion? If you mean all the meter modifications for all the meters of a planet, I'd like to see a mockup how you imaging arranging that very large amount of into in not much space in the objects list...
I'd also recommend another chart like the Objects Chart but restricted to all the objects you have outposts on or have colonized.
There are filters for the object list.
If colonized it would show what the focus is on that object (would help streamline 'have I already set one of these to growth focus' etc)
The object list's columns can be customized.
objects list showing a single empire's planet and their focus
objects list showing a single empire's planet and their focus
planet focus in objects list.png (73.42 KiB) Viewed 5227 times
A backend (non-UI) tool that might be real nice is an "upgrade" hook. In 0.4.8 the installed program doesn't seem to have the ability to call back to the mothership (I assume FreeOrion.org) and see if updates are available.
Recent versions have a button to open freeorion.org from the main menu. People seem to dislike programs phoning home automatically, though...

tabbydan
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Re: Charts, and other things that could help

#3 Post by tabbydan »

the "bonuses" I'm talking about are: caretaker's fruit, positronium ash,.... basically "bonus" attributes on a planet that impact that planet or your whole empire.

You could have a column with either the icon(s) for the bonus or the name of it.... then looking at the object chart quickly tells you if you already have one of the said type and the world set to "growth" focus.

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Oberlus
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Re: Charts, and other things that could help

#4 Post by Oberlus »

You can set a column of the objects window to Specials.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Charts, and other things that could help

#5 Post by Geoff the Medio »

The way the objects list works would make actually showing icons, instead of text, somewhat more difficult to implement. Would need to check the type of the column when generating the Control that represents it and handle accordingly...

tabbydan
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Re: Charts, and other things that could help

#6 Post by tabbydan »

After I posted I was playing and did see (as Oberlus mentioned) you can turn on a column in the chart to get that. -oops-

The only slightly thing annoying about that column is it includes other things (stealth added by monsters, high tech natives)

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Oberlus
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Re: Charts, and other things that could help

#7 Post by Oberlus »

tabbydan wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 6:48 pm After I posted I was playing and did see (as Oberlus mentioned) you can turn on a column in the chart to get that. -oops-

The only slightly thing annoying about that column is it includes other things (stealth added by monsters, high tech natives)
Yeah, there is no specific field for growth specials, just specials in general (and stealth added by monsters and high tech natives are specials). I agree it's sometimes annoying, specially late game when it is full of monter's stealth specials. A partial solution would be to always show first in the list of specials the growth ones, so that ordering by specials columns is still useful to find out what planet to set to growth.

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Re: Charts, and other things that could help

#8 Post by Ophiuchus »

I think there was a "any growth special" filter
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