Easier Asset Monitoring and Management

[Royce]

Once you start acquiring planets, and building many ships it becomes very difficult to keep track of where everything is and where it's needed. The map view is too cumbersome for this purpose, and the planet/ship views are not as helpful because everything is broken down individually.

What I think would be great is a systems menu. It would display every system in which you have planets or ships. It would show every planet and ship in each system at a glance. It could have factory icons for the planets showing open and occupied factories, show trade and harvesting routes for each planet, etc. All in one place. I have a bunch of other ideas for this, but I don't want to go overboard too much unless it's something people are interested in, so what do you think?

[Wrath]

Cannot +1 this enough. I'm afraid until a much better system for tracking everything is devised, I will never get far in this game. Especially for tracking trade and harvest route & amountss, which so far seems to be the key for progressing in the game, and I haven't been able to grasp so far.

[Syelnicar]

I would go for a system/sector menu. It doesn't need to be anything too crazy... you could even modify the current Planets screen to do so. I don't know if in the code, the planet objects have an attribute that shows what sector it's in, but if it does, you could just implement an option to sort it all by sector (grouping all the planets in one sector together), or to sort them as they are now. Further additions could then be added on top of this later on, but as is, I don't think this would be too difficult to implement.

[Royce]

Sorting planet view would be a nice option but it doesn't really do much to help with monitoring everything at once. I really want a view that will show me everything, my planets, their ore and factories, my non-AI ships and fleets, harvesting and trade routes, and also non-owned planets and ships in systems where I have a presence. I'm picturing something where every list item is a system. From left to right (horizontally scrollable) would be # of non-AI player ships at the sun, # of other players ships at the sun,, then each planet in the system followed by # of player then other ships at that planet. Tapping a # would show you the ships in a box at the bottom of the screen, while tapping a planet would give you planet details with a page or tab for trade and harvesting route details, and another for factory activity.

Edit: I guess, in essence, what I'm saying is I want a unified and organized ship and planet view with added factory info and route info. I think the best approach for this would be a menu organized by systems, where every system where I have a planet, or even an idle ship, is shown.

[Syelnicar]

But also keep in mind that this is still a fairly new game, with I'm sure lots of things on their to-do list. Your idea sounds great, don't get me wrong. I'm just trying to find a middle ground with an easier implementation until such a thing can be developed.

[VanderLegion]

But also keep in mind that this is still a fairly new game, with I'm sure lots of things on their to-do list. Your idea sounds great, don't get me wrong. I'm just trying to find a middle ground with an easier implementation until such a thing can be developed.

The problem (and I agree with what he's saying) is that your suggestion doesn't help. All it would do is group planets in the same system together, which you can already easily do by using naming conventions and sorting alphabetically (I use a system name, then Prime for a colony if there is one and 2+ for the other outposts, or 1+ for each outpost if there's no colony), but that doesn't tell you anything about what ELSE is in the same system - ships, production, etc. The ship view doesn't sort by planet/system (that I know of), so that view doesn't help any.

And easier to implement isn't always the most important thing. I would argue that easier access to information - such as Royce is asking for - especially trade routes and harvesting routes is a CRUCIAL update that this game needs. I enjoy the game so far, but I doubt it'll end up being something I play long-term if that doesn't get fixed, its just way too difficult to keep track of stuff right now once you have more than a few colonies/trade routes.

[Syelnicar]

1.) My idea and your guys' ideas aren't mutually exclusive. :P

and 2.) I was not aware that planets could be renamed.

[Leedot]

Edit: I guess, in essence, what I'm saying is I want a unified and organized ship and planet view with added factory info and route info. I think the best approach for this would be a menu organized by systems, where every system where I have a planet, or even an idle ship, is shown.

And you want it all on a tiny screen. ;) - In all seriousness though I think this is something that can achieved on the global planet menu with some reorganization / elimination of some redundant information / addition of better reporting on the planet's income streams along with sorting planets by their system.

[Royce]

And you want it all on a tiny screen. ;)
Well I do play on an iPad so there seems to be more space than maybe there is. I really don't see how everything I want could be incorporated into the planet menu. For instance how would my ships parked at an opponent's planet be shown there? How about my probes parked in deep space? What about planets that are unowned or owned by another player in systems that are mostly mine? I really feel like we need a system to track everything in one place and I'm afraid any attempt to do so with improvements to the current planet menu would be destined to fall short. Anyway, maybe it's something for the iPad client. Once that comes out, I won't care about people struggling to monitor their empires from their phones :p

[2pourdrummer]

I think the planet screen would work with tabs down the left side that could pull up different views. I would like to see where my resources are going, it's hard to tell how much shipyards actually get. Maybe one tab for high level, with others showing more detail... but it's going to have to be a must in order to stay organized. Right now, I have about 20 ships going over 4 galaxies. I can't figure out if I have enough ships going to a sector and where they are all going. After a few hours, you can't remember how many are going where. I have to wait until everything settles and then see where everything is. Waste of time and will hurt me later in the game.