beta feedback

I finally got it to run w/ my monitor (Samsung 213T)!

The following are UI issues related to playability:

Bug: The context help is spastic in several places (e.g., Buttons on bottom of main screen). Instead of appearing based on cursor location (after a delay), one has to position the cursor and then move it around on the control.

Ship Design: needs info on individual components (e.g., engine speed). Also needs info on required itemes (e.g., life support for colony ships)

Map Navigation: needs at least one level of zoom for main map (e.g., can't see all anomolies in range of ship w/o scrolling).

All screens w/ green controls (specifically scroll bars and check boxes). These are almost invisible against background. I don't think it is my driver; everything else is fine except...

Mini-map: doesn't identify resources except with a slight contrast that is virtually invisible. Needs the old '+' from GC I with good contrast.

Mini-map: needs zoom as in GC I.

Mini-map: a nice improvement over GC I would be a view where explored stars are color-coded for the maxim PQ.

Colony Management Window: needs for entries displayed for build queue. (I would recommend a separate pop-up dialog for the queue.)

Research Window. Navigation of matrix is just awful. Despearately needs scroll bars.

Research Window. Need RPs needed for each development in the matrix.

Domestic Policy Window. Should have total BCs available w/ net turn income. (I know it is in the lower left, but some redundancy is good for playability.)

On the upside:

I like the startup Windows.

I like the Civ Manager's Planetary Details listing.

Overall, I think the look & feel is better than GC I.

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Ship design: For the most part, the data is there. There are a few cases where the relevant data got pushed of the right of the visible area due to how much other info is in the box, however. Colony ships don't NEED life support, it's just very useful. In fact, I've got versions of colony ships and constructors saved with no life support specifically so that I can crank them out faster when I'm not spreading out.

Main map zoom: It's there. Not sure what the hotkeys are, but the mousewheel zooms in and out smoothly on the main map.

Minimap zoom: It's there too. There's a small + and - button near it that zooms in and out.

Not sure what you mean by colony window needs a build queue display. It's got one in the lower right corner.

Agree completely on the tech window needing a different way to scroll. Don't need to replace the existing one, just need to augment it.

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Mini map zoom: have you seen the + and - button at the left of the minimap?

Life support: it is used only for extending range. So in some case, you won't need them, like for colonizing planets in system where you have already one planet.

As for the main map zoom, if you don't have a mouse wheel but have a way to do it in windows, you may want to configurate the setting in gcconfig to use hardware mouse.

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The research matrix also needs zoom IMAO. Due to the color coding, that might be useful even at levels where you can't read the entries anymore, but you would see how far you got in certain areas. At least make it more compact so that more stuff can be displayed, it's more confusing than anything right now.

A "compass" on the main map would be nice. The minimap provides a virtual "north", but I would like not having to look at the viewport outline on the MM just to see what direction I'm looking.

(edit) before I forget it: When choosing galaxy size and switching to a custom map and back again, no "video" is played in the galaxy display anymore for the current size. Even switching to another size and back again doesn't fix it.

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