User Interface Improvements

[kwhitehead]

As I try to fight my way through this game I see a number of problems with the user interface so here are some suggestions:

The Battle Report screen covers up the area of the map where the battle took place. Condense it some, make it smaller and put it anywhere but on top of the region the battle occurred in. It is very difficult to get your bearings when the relevant part of the map is covered up. There are to many regions to recognize some by name only.

The Roster needs more usefull filters. Like listing out of supply units, low supply units, units that haven't moved or don't have orders. Right now the filters still leave lists to long to be useful except where units that don't have large numbers are concerned like Engineers.

Give us some keys that cycle through units that work.

[Paul Roberts]

Hello kwhitehead!

The Battle Report screen covers up the area of the map where the battle took place. Condense it some, make it smaller and put it anywhere but on top of the region the battle occurred in. It is very difficult to get your bearings when the relevant part of the map is covered up. There are to many regions to recognize some by name only.

You may have a point, although the info box shows a whole lot of information and thus needs the screen space. Maybe it should be capable of being temporarily minimized? After a few games, though, even the more obscure region names will have a place on the map in your head.

The Roster needs more usefull filters. Like listing out of supply units, low supply units, units that haven't moved or don't have orders. Right now the filters still leave lists to long to be useful except where units that don't have large numbers are concerned like Engineers.

Are you using the latest patch? The patch adds a number of filters to the roster "F1" page, including low supply, low health, low cohesion, low command points, etc.. It's really very useful.

It's also easy to miss, since some of the filters become available by toggling between the two versions of the F1 page: hitting F1 again toggles between rostering individual Units and rostering grouped Forces. The various unit type filters (infantry, cavalry, big ships, small ships, etc) are available in the Units roster, while the other filters (low supply, etc) are available in the Forces roster. It's intuitive after the first time you use it.

Give us some keys that cycle through units that work.

I've heard that there are problems with the Ctrl- filters. I only use the normal E/R/T/Y keys, so I haven't run into the problem. I understand that Pocus is working on it.

[kwhitehead]

Hello kwhitehead!

You may have a point, although the info box shows a whole lot of information and thus needs the screen space. Maybe it should be capable of being temporarily minimized? After a few games, though, even the more obscure region names will have a place on the map in your head.

Are you using the latest patch? The patch adds a number of filters to the roster "F1" page, including low supply, low health, low cohesion, low command points, etc.. It's really very useful.

It's also easy to miss, since some of the filters become available by toggling between the two versions of the F1 page: hitting F1 again toggles between rostering individual Units and rostering grouped Forces. The various unit type filters (infantry, cavalry, big ships, small ships, etc) are available in the Units roster, while the other filters (low supply, etc) are available in the Forces roster. It's intuitive after the first time you use it.

I've heard that there are problems with the Ctrl- filters. I only use the normal E/R/T/Y keys, so I haven't run into the problem. I understand that Pocus is working on it.

Moving the display off of dead center would be a big help. Giving it a summary size and a "detail" size which could be toggled would also improve it. As far being able to tell exactly where a battle is occuring it is going to always be difficult. Your maps are extremely busy. Sometimes you can not easily spot what state it is much less what area of that state. You have to look at the little jump map in the corner to orient your self.

Last time I tried to patch beyond 1.12 the game got corrupted so I will probably have to wait until 1.13 to see the improvements. I will check to see if any are on 1.12.

Problem is worse than just the Ctrl- keys. The E/R keys under 1.12 will not show all units. You have to manually browse the map looking in each region that has units to catch them.

[Gray_Lensman]

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