Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: Gothars on August 03, 2012, 10:17:22 AM

Title: Some simple UI suggestions
Post by: Gothars on August 03, 2012, 10:17:22 AM
This are just some comfort tweaks, i made a mock up screenshot for your convenience.


(http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/7781/suggestion3.jpg)

1. The personnel marker has a middle value that shows the additionally required minimal  flight crew to operate all ships. Right now I always have to buy my crew in estimated chunks.

2. There are buttons for ship/fleet repair in the fleet tab of a allied/neutral station. If you click "Repair Ship" you can hover over a ship to see the required supplies to repair it (as shown) and then click to reapir. If you hover over "Repair All Ships" it will show you the total supplies costs.
For added comfort a auto buy function could be integrated to buy supplies if the fleets are not sufficient.  

3. (Not shown) A "Fill Ranks" button, that lets you hover over a ship to see how much pesonell is required and then click to fill it with the cheapest available crew.

e/ fixed required crew display
Title: Re: Some simple UI suggestions
Post by: hadesian on August 03, 2012, 10:24:07 AM
I think you'll find hovering over personell reveals needed skeleton crew and current crew levels, as in usable crew. The problem with what you've proposed is it'd need an extra bar for marines, which wouldn't make sense and such
Title: Re: Some simple UI suggestions
Post by: Gothars on August 03, 2012, 10:41:17 AM
I know about the hover-info, but the relevant info seems a bit buried in there, especially if you have many ships (and is has the marine-problem too).

I see the problem with marines, but that could be eschewed if the required additional number would be displayed.
F.e. if your ship can hold 100 crew and needs min 50, but you have 40 crew and 40 marines it would read 80/10/100.
Title: Re: Some simple UI suggestions
Post by: Alex on August 03, 2012, 11:24:05 AM
Thanks for mocking that up - these make sense, I'll keep 'em in mind. You're absolutely right that the crew info is buried too deep.
Title: Re: Some simple UI suggestions
Post by: Wyvern on August 03, 2012, 12:28:31 PM
One more thing I'd like to see in the UI: What a ship's unskilled crew requirement is.  For example, if I remember right, 50% of a destroyer's crew doesn't count towards skill level, and will get filled in with green crew if you've got any.  But... how many green crew do I need for an Aurora?  An Eagle?  A Paragon?  I have no idea.  It should be simple enough to make the UI show something like "Skeleton Crew: 25 [13 skilled + 12 unskilled]" or the like.

This is one of the reasons I still miss the little ship icons that used to show up in the cargo screen - you could just pick up a block of 500 green crew, and then go look at how many were assigned to each ship.
Title: Re: Some simple UI suggestions
Post by: Gothars on August 03, 2012, 01:17:22 PM
Thanks for mocking that up - these make sense, I'll keep 'em in mind. You're absolutely right that the crew info is buried too deep.

Glad to be of help :)

One more thing I'd like to see in the UI: What a ship's unskilled crew requirement is.  For example, if I remember right, 50% of a destroyer's crew doesn't count towards skill level, and will get filled in with green crew if you've got any.  But... how many green crew do I need for an Aurora?  An Eagle?  A Paragon?  I have no idea.  It should be simple enough to make the UI show something like "Skeleton Crew: 25 [13 skilled + 12 unskilled]" or the like.

This is one of the reasons I still miss the little ship icons that used to show up in the cargo screen - you could just pick up a block of 500 green crew, and then go look at how many were assigned to each ship.

I'm not sure about this, but to my understanding the number of acceptable green crew members varies with the other crew levels. So if you want an veteran crew, you could go for 10% elite and 40% veteran and 50%green or 50%veteran and 20% normal  and 30% green...that makes it hard to display it simple.