UI/General Suggestion

[ac_snowman]

Apologies if this should have gone elsewhere but I didn't see a general type suggestions thread.

Love the game so far. Love, love, love it. SMAC is still one of my top three games of all time so I love the influence here.
Game is slick, beautiful, and (near as I can tell so far) nearly bug free. Kudos for taking the time to actually finish the game before general release.

To my suggestions:
1) There should be an option to have the interface snap to a battle during turn change. I like to see what's going on and most of the time I have no idea that my troops are being attacked aside from an event notification.
2) Related to #1 - I didn't notice it until mid-game but I am not getting an event notification on every battle.
3) Probably the most frustrating thing about trying to see my battles is having diplomacy, research, etc notification pop up on top of the battle I'm trying to watch. I've centered the UI on a spot where I'm likely to be attacked and just as it starts, bam somebody wants to praise me or offer a gift or something and I've missed the battle. Maybe have battles resolve before any notifications pop.
4) A little more "How to" in the manual or Compendium would be appreciated. The pop up tool tips are great and the UI is very intuitive but there's some things I've struggled to understand. For instance, I still really don't really understand Operations.

That's what I've come up with. Really just some things to make the game that much better.

[fortydayweekend]

1) There should be an option to have the interface snap to a battle during turn change. I like to see what's going on and most of the time I have no idea that my troops are being attacked aside from an event notification.
2) Related to #1 - I didn't notice it until mid-game but I am not getting an event notification on every battle.
3) Probably the most frustrating thing about trying to see my battles is having diplomacy, research, etc notification pop up on top of the battle I'm trying to watch. I've centered the UI on a spot where I'm likely to be attacked and just as it starts, bam somebody wants to praise me or offer a gift or something and I've missed the battle. Maybe have battles resolve before any notifications pop.

I don't mind the slightly confusing battles, it kinda makes sense that you can't pay attention to everything. Choosing what you want to watch before hitting End Turn helps, and you can often scroll to find them as they happen.

The windows popping up are really annoying though. Totally agree on that one.

Also on this, maybe one notification for each bombardment/artillery hit would do, e.g. "your 20 units were killed by a nuclear missile near xxx" instead of every single one having an individual notification.

[lsc9x]

AC: Operations are like "spells" in other games like MMOs.

You research the ability in your research screen, then the operation will be listed in your production screen. Once you "buy" an operation in the production screen, it will be "produced" like any other unit, and then once it's available, it will be listed as a button in the upper left hand corner of the screen. It will stay there until you decide to use it.

Also, they stack, so let's say you get "Field Training" in research, and then buy 3 units of Field Training. Field Training will be produced as fast as your production allows, and the units will be stacked each turn they are produced. Then, they will be listed in the upper left corner with a (3) next to it, meaning you can use the operation 3 times. Now let's say you have 4 colonial troops guarding a spot on the map and they are about to get killed because they are too low a level. You decide to boost their strength by using Field Training, which raises their level by 1 for each Field Training you use, making them a little tougher to fight. If you use all 3 Field Trainings, you can raise the level of all units on that hex by 3 levels. In the case of field training, it is wise to stack as many combat units as you can on 1 hex, because ALL units in that hex get the training. It's kind of a waste of Field Training if you have only have 1 unit on the hex.

The same thing applies to Orbital Bombardment, Satellite up link etc. In the case of Satellite scan, though, it works a bit different. Once you build the satellite up link building in your city, you do NOT "produce" satellite scans. Instead, those scans are stacked automatically, with one scan being handed out to you once every 3 turns (not sure if this number changes....). So, every 3 turns you will get a "Satellite Scan" button in the upper left, which works exactly like Field Training, meaning that you can then use to scan 1 hex on the map, surrounded by all the adjoining hexes. This scan will reveal all units in that hex along with their strengths and other unit information. Great way to monitor enemy troop movements, find hives, find resources, reveal the map etc. If you build more satellite up links in each of your cites, you can have those scans rotating out all the time. If I can, I go for that almost immediately because it saves sending troops out to explore, risking slaughter by aliens.

The upshot to operations is that they can help you in many different ways, depending on which operations you get. The downside to them is that they often take up turns in your production queue, cost money, and aren't as powerful as producing combat units.

[ieshadover]

There really needs to be an auto zoom center when my units and especially cities are being attacked. I also have not found anything that gives advance warning of enemy units near my cities. Just starting and twice have to restart a game because native life just walked in whipped out my only city. If people want to play blind the automatic warning of enemy units nearby could be toggled on and off. Also mini map is almost a useless feature as is. Being able to resize and better color distinction would greatly help it out.

There also need to be some more automation, a big one is road building. Having to move my former and click build road for each hex is nothing but a big pain. I should be able to click build road to and then click an end hex. If there is a problem area or a tricky area I can certainly manual select individual road areas but when I really just want an easy A to B location road auto is the way to go.

[willgamer]

There really needs to be an auto zoom center when my units and especially cities are being attacked. I also have not found anything that gives advance warning of enemy units near my cities. Just starting and twice have to restart a game because native life just walked in whipped out my only city.

I think the idea is that your main city should be garrisoned, especially after about turn 40 when you received a message that the natives were turning hostile.

[ac_snowman]

You research the ability in your research screen, then the operation will be listed in your production screen. Once you "buy" an operation in the production screen, it will be "produced" like any other unit, and then once it's available, it will be listed as a button in the upper left hand corner of the screen. It will stay there until you decide to use it.

lsc9x -
Thanks for the awesome explanation and examples. It all makes sense now. Your whole post should seriously be copied and pasted into the compendium with the next update.
Been to busy to play lately but can't wait to get back into the game and actually use this part of the game.