I am having trouble with zoom related slowdown.
If I zoom in to add a waypoint to a planet or JP on its own it is a bit slow but playable but if there are any fleets at the same location it becomes unplayably slow. Its a particular proble with JPs because the waypoint does not snap to the JP as it does with planets so if I want to have my marker dead centre (for reasons of OCD neatness) I have to zoom to 0km scale and this can create a serious problem with non responsiveness if ships are present.
I guess this is a known thing, I was wondering if there are any tips or tricks for working around it? Apart obviously from not zooming in to 0km on fleets.
One workaround I found was to add a random waypoint elsewhere away from the fleet, as you can use that to snap the POV away from the slowdown over the fleet to the clear space WP and zoom out again more easily, though that requires a little foresight.
Does anyone know why this happens?
I have noticed this slowdown as well, though not quite as bad as you are describing.
It's not yet been bad enough for me to consider workarounds, but here are a few thoughts:
1) Have you tried unticking the Fleets box on the Display tab before zooming in?
2) You can insert the new waypoint directly in the database.
For this to work, you have to save and close the game, then do the insert, then open the game again.
Depending on your save/load time, this could take longer than the slowdown itself.
If you want to try this out, I'll gladly write a script for the insert, so that all you have to do is plug in two (maybe three) values. Doing it manually would take too many steps to be a reasonable workaround.
3) Before zooming in, SM-move any fleets present to another location. Then do your work, zoom back out, and move the fleets back.
This is probably the easiest answer if you don't have a large number of fleets in one place.