I would even expand the suggestion as such: allow 3 modes where the player can manually cycle through using a keyboard shortcut,
- (existing) full UI
- (existing) small UI
- (new when flying) no UI
I understand the existing automatic behaviour is here to free precious screen estate on low resolution screen. Letting players choose how much UI they want could be a "simple" way so satisfy everybody.
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Also, another place/situation where I find this annoying: go to a planet, enter the "Establish colony" menu ... the bottom left UI disappear ... then you don't have a clear view on your crew situation anymore. The strange thing is, the game tells this is the "Crew/Cargo (
I)" tab but that's not really the case. If you switch to the "
Fleet" tab, then bottom left UI comes back. Going back to the false "Crew/Cargo (
I)" tab lets you then proceed or not with the colony business.
Summary:
- having the bottom left UI disappear when you might need it to establish a colony is unfortunate, suggestion: keep the full bottom left UI visible in that view? or let the user change UI mode as suggested above? or expand the information displayed in the "establish a colony" view to include the minimum crew requirement for your fleet
- having a "establish a colony" view inside a "Crew/Cargo (I)" tab is needlessly confusing, suggestion: transform the "Refit" tab into a temporary "New Colony (R)" tab