First of all, I'm brand new here. Just came across Aurora a few days ago and I'm loving it now that I'm starting to get a handle on the basics!
The User Interface is not terrible by any means, something that makes the game much easier to play and understand. I love all the tool tips for buttons and other controls and though the overall layout took a bit of getting used to at first, now it's pretty straightforward and I've adapted well. The biggest thing to get used to was that many of the options are in the same window as the lists and info instead of popping up in a separate little window or toolbox when you want to update or change something. At first this confused me but I'm used to it now and think it's a good move because it reduces window pop ups and work to edit things.
The SuggestionsI've been playing for a few days now and only come across a few minor errors so far (not game killing at all). Just data and screen refreshing errors mostly, usually fixed by a reload.
But there are a few modifications to the User Interface that I'd find really handy. Others might as well, so I'm listing them here to get feedback.
1)
Task Group Order System Groups: The list of Planets, colonies (etc. ) can get pretty long and cluttered even when you've got everything except colonies and planets turned off. This would be much easier to read if the main "System Locations Available" List Box was a TreeView that grouped the Available Locations by System, and maybe even by category like Planets, Jump Points, Asteroids, etc. The biggest thing though would be parent groups for the Solar Systems (all Sol destinations, etc. ) like how it's listed in the Population and Production window on the left, or in the System Hierarchy View.
2)
Constructed per Year: A lot of lists in the game tell you how long it'll take to complete a whole Task, but it would be handy if the Manufacturing tasks (especially in Construction) also listed the overall productivity of the Task per year, like how many Research Labs (or other things like Construction Factories, Mines, etc. ) are actually being built in a single Year. I know you can calculate this yourself by using the ratios and data listed on the screen, but it'd be nice to have this right there for you automatically.
3)
Trip or Actions Time Needed/Taken: It would be really handy if when you command a set of actions for a ship, that somewhere on that screen it would tell you an estimate of how long the entire list of commands is likely to take. Or if that's too awkward to do, just having a value shown of how long the last set of orders took to complete would be really handy, so you can see how long it took for your Freighter ship to pick up and deliver Materials or other components from start to finish. Time in days and hours would be ideal. I'm often wondering how long in hours/days it'll take different ship movement jobs to be finished. Knowing this in advance (or after the fact even, and then you can just remember it yourself once it's been shown) would make planning out fuel storage and the like much easier as you know what the ship is going to actually need because of how long their ordered journeys take.
4)
Task Group Management: I find trying to manage Ship Task Groups a little annoying. I've gotten used to some of it now that I've found how to re-assign groups and such, but there's still one thing that bugs me, though I don't know if there's any way to change/improve it. My issue is with Task Groups only being listed in the Task Group Orders window by a Combo Box instead of a normal List. It would be handy having a small List instead because then it's right there easily showing you your Task Groups automatically. It might be even better if it were a TreeView allowing for a Grouping Hierarchy related to ship type (Constructor Task Groups, Survey Task Groups, Combat Task Groups, etc. ). Looking at the window I realize that this might not be possible because of form space limitations, but it'd be handy if it could be done. Even if it's just a small List instead of the one line combo box.
5)
Right Click For More Details: Some lists in the game, when you click on them, will show a little description of what the item you've clicked does, but few of them do. Back in the old classic game Master of Orion whenever you right clicked on a list item a little pop up help window would appear and give you a description of what the item was for or all about. Just a short description and a list of major stats would be great for most lists. It could even just be a Pop Up Message Box. That way when you right click on an Item in the Construction/Manufacturing list, or other lists of components or instructions, it would quickly tell you what the item is for and about.
Like I said, the User Interface is quite usable and many miles ahead of Dwarf Fortress (billions of times better than Dwarf Fortress, lol), but I think a few more tweaks and changes could make it even better.
Of course this could all simply be a matter of personal preference and I might be the only one who would like these changes. What do the rest of you players of the game think? And if it would help, I'd bet that the Players would be more than happy to write up the little Help Pop Up Descriptions if that feature was added into the game, if that was an issue (time, work, etc. ).
All in all, very interesting game! I'm loving the incredible detail and complexity, the massive scope of it all!
