First Impressions

Describe your experience with the latest version of FreeOrion to help us improve it.

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shawndream
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First Impressions

#1 Post by shawndream »

I just downloaded the latest release version and started playing a game on windows with default settings.

I'm experienced with MOO and several other turn based strategies, but new to FreeOrion, and thought I would share my first impressions. (Even if much of it is UI related which is not the current priority)

1 - Galaxy map and stars are beautiful and really sell the deep space feeling right off the bat.

2 - The default FPS really loaded the cpu my i7 laptop, got better when I turned it down. Maybe start a bit lower, or some other way reduce CPU load when it's just sitting there doing nothing.

3 - Selection and movement of ships was really unintuitive and felt unresponsive and clumsy, almost broken. It would have been much better if the fleets in a system (or leaving/coming) showed up in the right hand star/planet pane, especially when selected. That said, once I got used to it, movement is pretty easy.

4 - On that note, the hodgepodge of tiny floating windows is an overall albatross, and annoying to juggle around that pretty map.

5 - The turn sitrep clickable events are awesome, as are other places you can click right through to info. Another window on the pile though.

6 - The streamlining of production and research alone with no currencies is pretty cool. The warning signs when you are wasting production and research are good, although I don't understand the nuances of multiple projects and the PR+turns costs yet.

7 - The research display is pretty clumsy, zooming out to see all your options (without filtering) winds up shrinking the text to non-existance. Larger buttons with better text handling packed closer together would be better.

And that's my first impressions.

I've read the forums and wiki a bit, but I couldn't find the definitive current stuff folks could do to help, and info about how to compile under windows. (I have a little Cfamily experience, along with a variety of other languages, python most recently).

My next planned steps (besides trying to muddle through a full game or two) involve mocking up some UI samples in Kivy, which I'm experimenting with right now, but I'd be happy to try helping out in other ways.

UPDATES

- Found the windows test version downloads thread and grabbed 6535 for testing.
- Found very recent links with suggestions of little things to fix and SDK for windows dev

Looks like my playtesting and playing at coding can be done on more recent stuff. (Although I'll have to figure out SVN and the full SDK+EDI).
Everything I post is self-created unless noted otherwise. It is simultaneously released under GPL 2.0 or later, CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0, and GNU Free Documentation 1.2. Make something awesome with it please!

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: First Impressions

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

shawndream wrote:I've read the forums and wiki a bit, but I couldn't find the definitive current stuff folks could do to help, and info about how to compile under windows.
If you haven't already, see:
http://freeorion.org/index.php/Compile
http://freeorion.org/index.php/How_to_Help

shawndream
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Re: First Impressions

#3 Post by shawndream »

My Visual Studios is still struggling to update, but I've played some more (and just lost a monstrous post) so I'm going to share a little more newbie feedback:

8 - Tech tree is confusing, so many choices at once. I like that it seems you aren't expected to get all the techs, but it seems there should be a way to make it simpler for beginners to know what to pursue next. Maybe a little less realism and a little more gamism in tech and tech names, or organize the techs into simply named groups: Basic, Improved, Advanced, Etc Ship Design/Colony Improvement/Arms

9 - Techs that do nothing but unlock other techs seem like a ripoff. Every tech should have some direct value.

10 - You should be able to queue the next tech in a line for research after it's requirement finishes. A grid with those missing requirements merely faded would allow that.

11 - The menu shouldn't be a modal dialog box far from it's button, and it's missing a "save and return to main menu" option.

12 - Random should be the default, with an option to enter a seed this time. 90% of the time people then do not need any extra clicks to start a new game, and in the rare case they want to type a particular seed, one extra click makes little difference.

13 - I could use a real time clock option.

Lest you think I'm nothing but whining and words, I put together some pixels in the gimp. A mockup of the main screen with all the rogue windows corralled into my ideal menus.

I'm going to post that over in the general forum, that seems to be the place for speculative ideas like that.
- EDIT - I was wrong, if I look outside the general forum group there is a Design Brainstorming subforum. It may be moved there.
Last edited by shawndream on Mon Nov 25, 2013 4:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Everything I post is self-created unless noted otherwise. It is simultaneously released under GPL 2.0 or later, CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0, and GNU Free Documentation 1.2. Make something awesome with it please!

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MatGB
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Re: First Impressions

#4 Post by MatGB »

shawndream wrote: 8 - Tech tree is confusing, so many choices at once. I like that it seems you aren't expected to get all the techs, but it seems there should be a way to make it simpler for beginners to know what to pursue next. Maybe a little less realism and a little more gamism in tech and tech names, or organize the techs into simply named groups: Basic, Improved, Advanced, Etc Ship Design/Colony Improvement/Arms
I'd like to split the current Ships category into Hulls and then Equipment/Arms/Armour, but yeah, learning all the techs, then working out which are worth taking and what strategies work with what is a fairly steep learning curve.
9 - Techs that do nothing but unlock other techs seem like a ripoff. Every tech should have some direct value.
I actually disagree with this, sometimes when discussing balance it's suggested to increase the cost of the tech for, say, the Black Hole Generator. Thing is, that's also a prerequisite for other techs later on which are still useful even if you haven't got any black holes that are usable, etc. I don't think there's going to be a way to do this to make all happen, I'd like virtually every 'part' tech to be an offshoot of prereqs that aren't optional for development.
10 - You should be able to queue the next tech in a line for research after it's requirement finishes. A grid with those missing requirements merely faded would allow that.
You can do this, in the research window at the bottom unselect the 'complete' option and select the 'locked' option, then you can queue stuff way into the future (and shift clicking lets you queue something at the top)-hint: if you're going down the organic hull line, then simply selecting the tech for the Ravenous Hull also queues up most of the essential Growth techs as well-you'll want to add other things into the queue like weapons, armour, etc but virtually everything you've queued is a low cost per turn tech so other stuff researches as well.
11 - The menu shouldn't be a modal dialog box far from it's button, and it's missing a "save and return to main menu" option.
Disagree on the former, I like it front and centre, but agree on the latter, that and/or save and exit would be useful.
12 - Random should be the default, with an option to enter a seed this time. 90% of the time people then do not need any extra clicks to start a new game, and in the rare case they want to type a particular seed, one extra click makes little difference.
I want to have the seed I'm currently using stored for restart or other purposes, especially for testing—plus, if we start doign walkthroughs for new players you'd need to know what they'll be facing.

I started dipping into the game a few years back but only really started committing time to it a few months ago, watching it progress has been interesting, I love the idea behind it, but the UI needs work and some of it isn't at all balanced.
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

shawndream
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Re: First Impressions

#5 Post by shawndream »

MatGB wrote:
shawndream wrote: 9 - Techs that do nothing but unlock other techs seem like a ripoff. Every tech should have some direct value.
I actually disagree with this, sometimes when discussing balance it's suggested to increase the cost of the tech for, say, the Black Hole Generator. Thing is, that's also a prerequisite for other techs later on which are still useful even if you haven't got any black holes that are usable, etc. I don't think there's going to be a way to do this to make all happen, I'd like virtually every 'part' tech to be an offshoot of prereqs that aren't optional for development.
The precurser tech could allow creation of a building needed for building those peices (so you can get started making that, allowing you to make them when their research finishes), and the building itself could provide some small benefit, like +2rp or pp.
MatGB wrote:
shawndream wrote:10 - You should be able to queue the next tech in a line for research after it's requirement finishes. A grid with those missing requirements merely faded would allow that.
You can do this, in the research window at the bottom unselect the 'complete' option and select the 'locked' option, then you can queue stuff way into the future (and shift clicking lets you queue something at the top)-hint: if you're going down the organic hull line, then simply selecting the tech for the Ravenous Hull also queues up most of the essential Growth techs as well-you'll want to add other things into the queue like weapons, armour, etc but virtually everything you've queued is a low cost per turn tech so other stuff researches as well.
Ahh, excellent, so it's just hard to see because by default the tech tree displays less daunting.
MatGB wrote:
shawndream wrote:11 - The menu shouldn't be a modal dialog box far from it's button, and it's missing a "save and return to main menu" option.
Disagree on the former, I like it front and centre, but agree on the latter, that and/or save and exit would be useful.
I think if people get used to doing most of their work on the right, right below the menus (see my mockup in general) that would be where they would look for it first... but the location isn't as important to me as stopping it from holding up every other button. Modal dialogs are the devil, when you click on menu the whole screen (including the menu button you just clicked) becomes useless except for that narrow strip. The menu buttons should always work.
MatGB wrote:
shawndream wrote:12 - Random should be the default, with an option to enter a seed this time. 90% of the time people then do not need any extra clicks to start a new game, and in the rare case they want to type a particular seed, one extra click makes little difference.
I want to have the seed I'm currently using stored for restart or other purposes, especially for testing—plus, if we start doign walkthroughs for new players you'd need to know what they'll be facing.
Good points about new players... Random could be a checkmark that stays on once the player selects it though.
Also, the quickstart could serve some of that purpose (or a tutorial/campaign could be spun up)

Also for restarting, now that savegames store their seed, the load game menu could show that, maybe even have a button to start a new game with that seed. (improving the load screen is one of the listed intro tasks in this thread I might try tackling)

And don't forget about autosaves. (If anything I'm trying to wean myself off of rewinding whenever surprised or dissappointed)
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: First Impressions

#6 Post by Geoff the Medio »

MatGB wrote:...if we start doign walkthroughs for new players you'd need to know what they'll be facing.
A walkthrough / tutorial would likely not be based around a galaxy being randomly generated when starting the game.

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Re: First Impressions

#7 Post by MatGB »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
MatGB wrote:...if we start doign walkthroughs for new players you'd need to know what they'll be facing.
A walkthrough / tutorial would likely not be based around a galaxy being randomly generated when starting the game.
Exactly, but if you know exactly what the settings are and what the seed is, then the randomness is massively reduced, IIRC it's just monster spanws that are independent of seed?

I'd actually like to do a walkthrough to test the idea out for 4.4 release, whenever that's going to be, not a start to end thing, more a "here's what you could do in your first 50 turns" with enough screenshots and similar to make it easily followable.

Time dependent, obviously, it'd need to be done using the RC.
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Re: First Impressions

#8 Post by shawndream »

MatGB wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:
MatGB wrote:...if we start doign walkthroughs for new players you'd need to know what they'll be facing.
A walkthrough / tutorial would likely not be based around a galaxy being randomly generated when starting the game.
Exactly, but if you know exactly what the settings are and what the seed is, then the randomness is massively reduced, IIRC it's just monster spanws that are independent of seed?

I'd actually like to do a walkthrough to test the idea out for 4.4 release, whenever that's going to be, not a start to end thing, more a "here's what you could do in your first 50 turns" with enough screenshots and similar to make it easily followable.

Time dependent, obviously, it'd need to be done using the RC.
How stable is the random generator?

I thought Galaxy 0 changed significantly between 4.3 and the current SVN release, for example.

Seems like making a walkthrough based on that would be wasted pretty quickly.
Everything I post is self-created unless noted otherwise. It is simultaneously released under GPL 2.0 or later, CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0, and GNU Free Documentation 1.2. Make something awesome with it please!

shawndream
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Re: First Impressions

#9 Post by shawndream »

MatGB wrote:
shawndream wrote: 10 - You should be able to queue the next tech in a line for research after it's requirement finishes. A grid with those missing requirements merely faded would allow that.
You can do this, in the research window at the bottom unselect the 'complete' option and select the 'locked' option, then you can queue stuff way into the future (and shift clicking lets you queue something at the top)-hint: if you're going down the organic hull line, then simply selecting the tech for the Ravenous Hull also queues up most of the essential Growth techs as well-you'll want to add other things into the queue like weapons, armour, etc but virtually everything you've queued is a low cost per turn tech so other stuff researches as well.
I tested this last night, both the preview the turn before and the result after the turn agree, the turn you finish off a tech, it will refuse to spend anything on the tech it unlocked, even if that means wasting RP.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: First Impressions

#10 Post by Geoff the Medio »

shawndream wrote:I tested this last night, both the preview the turn before and the result after the turn agree, the turn you finish off a tech, it will refuse to spend anything on the tech it unlocked, even if that means wasting RP.
Is that implied to be a problem? Sounds like it's working as intended, as long as on the next turn, it does allocate RP towards any unlocked enqueued techs.

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Re: First Impressions

#11 Post by MatGB »

It's different to the way production works, but with almost identical display and other mechanics-not necessarily a problem, but at times a bit annoying, especially in the early game. I don't care one way or t'other but it will confuse newer players for two mechanics with similar setups.
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Re: First Impressions

#12 Post by Geoff the Medio »

MatGB wrote:It's different to the way production works...
How so?

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Re: First Impressions

#13 Post by shawndream »

It's GOOD that the turn preview and the actual spending agree, but it does seem odd and counterintuitive that the game enforces a turn of waiting before you start working on the next step you now qualify for.

Just giving the feedback that it is something that behaves differently than a new user might expect without a visible benefit or reason.

The player should have a sense of discovery and fun form learning the game, but I think this counts a wrinkle that might reduce their immersion, rather than enhance it.
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Re: First Impressions

#14 Post by Geoff the Medio »

I don't understand the confusion or why this would be unexpected. You need to know X before you can work on Y. During turn N, you learn X. Then, on turn N+1, you can work on Y. You can't start working on Y before you've finished X.

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Re: First Impressions

#15 Post by MatGB »

But, if you're almost there at the end of a turn, then why would the scientists stop for the rest of the turn before going onto the next bit? It works differently because if I set something to build on repeat, or just following on after another, all points go to the next item in the queue immediately it's finished.

Take, for example, Death Ray research, and this happens to be a lot. It'a rare that DR is top of my list, it starts being researched with a partial turn-but when DR1 is almost finished, then I normally get a "you have spare research points" flash for that turn only, and queue something irrelevent to eat them up-but then next turn my researchers go straight back to working on DR again and whatever soaked up points last turn waits until DR2 is almost complete, etc.

My "weapons tech" guys just stop working on weapons and start doing something else entirely for a bit, then go back to weapons.

Not saying this is actually a problem, but it is a bit weird and slightly annoying.
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