Finally tried 0.4.8...

[Ophiuchus]

The stockpile is not essential. Ditto.

I am really happy that stockpile/Sly made it into the game so that peaceful expansion is a viable strategy.
Long live the gas bags

[ovarwa]

Hi,

I personally think that the volunteer nature of the team, making contributions as they are inspired to do so, is a great aspect of the project, even though it does not maximize progress towards a particular goal.

Sure! Volunteers feel inspired to work on what interests them, and probably did not volunteer to work on stuff that does not.

The things I want to see most, revisiting the tech tree and ship systems and improving the AI, are among the most complex projects, with the latter largely depending on freezing features for a while. Adding a new feature is much easier, providing a faster reward.

Anyway,

Ken

[ovarwa]

Hi,

*lol* I browsed some older postings and noticed that I first tried FO in December, 2014. So that's 4 years ago. My pattern has been to try the game, comment a bit, play a bit more, then stop and wait for the next release. I think this is my third iteration.

Most of my issues are exactly the same! There's a post from me noting how the AI deploys its ships in dribs and drabs, for easy picking off. There's a post complaining that the UI requires way too many clicks. Stability issues. Research curve. Getting Ancient Ruins early. Wanting to prioritize existing features over new ones. Stealth.

That's not to say there haven't been improvements, large and small! Probably the only thing that hasn't changed (in this regard, at least) is me. /2

Anyway,

Ken

[Ophiuchus]

That's not to say there haven't been improvements, large and small! Probably the only thing that hasn't changed (in this regard, at least) is me. /2

Well, if you want to contribute by commenting you probably should try to give input on the features which have been laid out for the next release. Stockpile(s) were in the original design for FO AFAIK. Why e.g. fighters were implemented actually i do not know.

There is a thread about scope and aims for the next release. If you have a look there the people also favor addressing their personal pain points ("broken features" usually) as the game is already quite playable. Addressing feature creep would have been possible there.

Geoff is silently implementing influence and policies in the Government branch. You could build and playtest that version and give helpful input. I think that would be valuable and helpful.

[EricF]

There's a post complaining that the UI requires way too many clicks

Could you give an example of something you think takes too many clicks?
The UI seems fine to me, but I'm used to it so I may not notice something
you have. We might also be able to show a simpler way to do it.

[ovarwa]

Hi,

There's a post complaining that the UI requires way too many clicks

Could you give an example of something you think takes too many clicks?
The UI seems fine to me, but I'm used to it so I may not notice something
you have. We might also be able to show a simpler way to do it.

Sure. I'll walk through a use case, the beginning of turn sequence:

A sitrep appears, with a list of events that I need to walk through. If it involves a ship, I can click once on the ship to have its window come up. That's good, but it doesn't always work because the ship must have a name. If it is my fleet of troop ships, for example, no. If it involves something being produced on the planet, I'd love for a single click on the planet name to bring up the system window for that planet with the production screen focused on that planet, or for there to be an icon right there so I can either go to the planet on the map or go to the production screen. Nope. So, to get to the production screen for the planet, I can click on the planet name, which (usually; the UI often ignores clicks, even when other apps do not) brings up the system window; then I can mouse over to the planet and double-click on it to (usually) bring up the production window focused on that planet. Instead of a single-click. In the production screen, a single click on a planet in the system window does not consistently change production screen focus to that planet. So there's a lot of back and forth while dealing with sitrep. Going to the objects screen instead is not helpful; my goal is to deal with sitrep.

Another use case, managing research: I want to browse the tech tree. But there are no keys that let me move it back and forth, the way I can the main map. So I have to do other things to get the information I need, involving more clicks and hand motions. I can very easily add an advanced tech to the queue and bring along its prerequisites. But what if I want to undo that? Lots of clicks since every item must be removed separately. Even if I want to keep it, I often have to reorder it all to optimize when my target tech is researched, involving more clicks. I can remove or pause a tech, but not also do that to every tech that depends on it.

Another use case, designing a big ship with 8 weapons or whatever: This takes at least 16 clicks (because FO does not always notice clicks). It could take 9.

Getting to the production screen focused on a planet should involve a single click on something in sitrep and something on the system window. The happens at least once on every planet colonized from an outpost.

Starting a colony from an outpost should be a simple operation from the system window. Similar to an outpost or colony ship, we'd get an oval letting you colonize, which would bring up a list of your legal choices and their pop limits. Maybe a second oval, to let you immediately choose your best choice.

I can think of others.

Anyway,

Ken

[ovarwa]

Hi,

That's not to say there haven't been improvements, large and small! Probably the only thing that hasn't changed (in this regard, at least) is me. /2

Well, if you want to contribute by commenting you probably should try to give input on the features which have been laid out for the next release. Stockpile(s) were in the original design for FO AFAIK. Why e.g. fighters were implemented actually i do not know.

*grin* My comment for a long time has essentially been "maybe don't implement any of these yet."

Geoff is silently implementing influence and policies in the Government branch. You could build and playtest that version and give helpful input. I think that would be valuable and helpful.

I didn't comment about this months ago precisely because I think it would not be helpful. There was a conversation here about policy and policy cards and my thought was, "Oh no, someone has been playing civ6."

My comment? If even a single brain cell that could be used for teaching the AI how to group fleets is instead caught up in influence, policies and governments, these features are problematic at this time. Or rebalancing the tech tree. Or fixing hulls. Or...

Perhaps valuable, but maybe not so helpful.

Anyway,

Ken

[ovarwa]

Hi,

Cluster galaxy: Weirdly, even though I have been using the same 300 stars and 12 players for nearly all of my games, I feel that there is a lot less pressure before conflict with the AI, and more room to expand. Don't know why.

Anyway,

Ken

[Jaumito]

Hi,

There's a post complaining that the UI requires way too many clicks

Could you give an example of something you think takes too many clicks?
The UI seems fine to me, but I'm used to it so I may not notice something
you have. We might also be able to show a simpler way to do it.

Sure. I'll walk through a use case, the beginning of turn sequence:

[snip]

I can think of others.

Those are nothing compared to the gazillion wasted clicks when you have to manage fleets or the production queue. The latter would be so much more user-friendly if you could drag-and-drop items onto it.

[Jaumito]

Cluster galaxy: Weirdly, even though I have been using the same 300 stars and 12 players for nearly all of my games, I feel that there is a lot less pressure before conflict with the AI, and more room to expand. Don't know why.

Lots of chokepoints, that's why.

[Geoff the Medio]

There was a conversation here about policy and policy cards and my thought was, "Oh no, someone has been playing civ6."

More so reading reports about Civ6 playthroughs and multiplayer games. http://www.sullla.com/Civ6/civ6.html

If even a single brain cell that could be used for teaching the AI how to group fleets is instead caught up in influence, policies and governments, these features are problematic at this time.

I don't do any AI scripting, so me working on other stuff doesn't detract from work on that.

Or rebalancing the tech tree. Or fixing hulls.

I could in principle work on content balancing, but it's something a lot more people can do, so I don't prioritize it with the (recently limited) time I do have to put into FreeOrion coding (after reviewing or otherwise dealing with others' pull requests).

[Ophiuchus]

"Oh no, someone has been playing civ6."

Yes that kind of comment is pretty useless. On the other hand if you would have reasons why that is bad or how that could be improved maybe could make the whole thing better.

If even a single brain cell that could be used for teaching the AI how to group fleets is instead caught up in influence, policies and governments, these features are problematic at this time. Or rebalancing the tech tree. Or fixing hulls.

I certainly disagree.. AI and rebalancing the tech tree are personal pain points (which are only relevant because the game is playable).

For the 1.0 release ("feature complete") especially tech tree, species, hull rebalancing at this time is most probably a waste of time/effort. (Of course it would be great if someone would tackle it for 0.5 including influence and policies).
Especially for python/C++ developers (because we dont have enough of those).
Rebalancing effects is a huge effort and you basically have to redo it with every change/addition of major features. And you need a lot of playtesting to do it right (most FO developers do not have time for this). But you dont have to be a developer to fix that kind of problem.

I think c++ developers should improve in direction of 1.0 release ("feature complete", influence, fixing stealth mechanic), also python developers should work on improving AI mostly in combination with features which are probably not going to change.

Since Mat vanished we are missing someone who is ready to tackle the balancing.

[defaultuser]

Since Mat vanished we are missing someone who is ready to tackle the balancing.

Yeah, where did he go? I hadn't realized until you mentioned it that I hadn't seen any posts in a while. Looks like the last one was in January, and he was last on the forum in March.

[Geoff the Medio]

MatGB has posted more recently on GitHub: https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/issues/2246

[ovarwa]

Hi,

Hi,

Could you give an example of something you think takes too many clicks?
The UI seems fine to me, but I'm used to it so I may not notice something
you have. We might also be able to show a simpler way to do it.

Sure. I'll walk through a use case, the beginning of turn sequence:

[snip]

I can think of others.

Those are nothing compared to the gazillion wasted clicks when you have to manage fleets or the production queue. The latter would be so much more user-friendly if you could drag-and-drop items onto it.

Hmm. For fleet management, the features that would save me the most clicks involve grouping all ships of a type together and pulling out all injured ships in a fleet into a separate fleet. For production, I don't like the way I never know where the production window will open; I often have to scroll to what I want. A "most likely" pane in that window would be helpful, containing, say, the last 2 ships I've build there and the 3 newest applicable buildings. (If the place in an outpost, it should include the best colony I can build there.)

What are your issues with fleet management? I do find that clicks and hand movements add up, so you might have noticed some I take for granted. (I think *you* are taking the stuff you consider 'nothing' for granted. All that opening and closing of the production window, going to and from planets and so on really adds up. Whereas I usually only need to manage a fleet after a battle or after I've accumulated a bunch of ships somewhere (like the system in which they were built, or an internal mustering point), and the thing I need to do is combine ships or separate those who need R&R.

As for drag and drop... when it comes to fleets, I find that moving the ships across fleets or to the 'new fleet' fleet is often unreliable. That's probably because FO doesn't perform well on my system.

Anyway,

Ken

Anyway,

Ken