\o/

A cheer. Y'know - arms and a head?

As opposed to The Hitler: o/

I second the motion.

True, might as well go all the way and determine which most helpful (new) shortcuts (adding to the usual ones even if by the "cheat" session trick.) would need to be integrated directly to the main interface. (Btw, it really puzzles me that this type of idea (tks, Stanley) hasn't been brought up sooner, or if it ever was!)

Anyhow, here's what i feel should probably make the cut in supplement to what's been mentioned above;

- Specific locations, some targets or/and preset rally points (although this one IS indirectly there!)... somehow defined as a configurable/extendable list (menu driven might be used too) where many key-items can get selected at ONCE and very rapidly. Not that far from the current ship/planets side panels, but with more versatile functions.

- Comparing immediate statistics for/from numerous categories; sometimes, i just want to have a quick glance at opponent's progress or simply determine the exact number of planets they have, their latest treasury variations represented in net BCs values, the relative winning conditions level attainable by my nearest competition, etc. Instead of bringing up the "Stats&Graphs" auto-cycler and having to estimate a general result.

- Waypoint tags or some kind of "post-it" notes to indicate a few things about anything one may find necessary; say...
a) i set a goal to take over a race and the tactical plan requires a certain pattern of invasion to make it less costly or faster
b) i stick or install a series of tiny markers/flags/stars/dots/whatever directly ON the map for me to consult or be reminded about at times or within a steady group of strategic steps.
Then, those would be accessible via an interface button-like-shortcut... also.

Lots of other useful things may fit that request.

- Zyxpsilon.

While I agree with the notion of the convenience, I also have to agree with Moosetek13. If you give the computer too much control over your own empire then there is very little difference between you and the other AIs.

This game is great! I definitely want to avoid a MOO3 incident where the developers gave the user so much automation that your empire pretty ran itself... and you didn't even know what was going on "under the hood".

Mmmm, popcorn.

No, I see what he's saying. But I can also see how further automation can lead to less tweaking. Less tweaking leads to less "hands-on". I like to tweak, and it sounds like Stanley does too. The original post was a matter of convenience but I think some subsequent ideas took that request of convenience and turned down the road of "let the computer do X for me."

While I support convenience, let's also must be mindful of what screen real estate there is to offer, too. I tweak my taxes during the early game extremely often. And a slider on the main screen may help out then but it takes up space too. What about that slider later in the game when it doesn't matter so much?

How about a tax button that is called 100% approval you could just hit this and then don't have to fiddle with the slide bar to find the magic number!

Now how about that?

you don't need any slider on the main page. you put it on the econ window. Its not exactly taking up as much space as research or stats n graphs. You either put both sliders on there and have one active and one inactive. Or you put 2 buttons next to it to toggle the slider for tax or approval.

%100 is an important number but so is 70 and 51.

Part of the problem is the huge discontinuity from 99% to 100%. Get rid of that, and problem solved. (IE make pop growth a continous function off morale)

I don't see a big value in a "lock" for morale. Mostly because it is just an average, and you'll have some planets higher or lower anyway. (except 100% of course...)

As far as the sliders, the thing I've wanted to have the research slider jump to +/- 1 week of research. So if you had some easy tech you wanted, when you went to the slider screen, a single click would jump the slider to 1 week. Or if you had the final expensive tech, you could easily get it set to 2-3 weeks with having to re-adjust the turn before to avoid waste.