Recalibrating Population & Production

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yandonman
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Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#106 Post by yandonman »

Does anyone use the bar graphs? I personally don't. I only ever look at that panel to change the focus.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#107 Post by Geoff the Medio »

yandonman wrote:I only ever look at that panel to change the focus.
I was planning / thinking of moving the focus droplist outside the subpanel. Current focus selection seems important enough to always show.

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Sloth
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Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#108 Post by Sloth »

yandonman wrote:Does anyone use the bar graphs?
I don't.
Geoff the Medio wrote:
yandonman wrote:I only ever look at that panel to change the focus.
I was planning / thinking of moving the focus droplist outside the subpanel. Current focus selection seems important enough to always show.
That sounds like a good idea.
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Vezzra
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Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#109 Post by Vezzra »

yandonman wrote:Does anyone use the bar graphs? I personally don't. I only ever look at that panel to change the focus.
Same for me. I mean, sure, the bars are nice to look at, but (at least for me) they don't really convey the information better than the numbers do.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#110 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Vezzra wrote:[bars] don't really convey the information better than the numbers do.
The bars are more useful for seeing the differences that will result from changing focus.

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Vezzra
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Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#111 Post by Vezzra »

Geoff the Medio wrote:The bars are more useful for seeing the differences that will result from changing focus.
Granted, but if it comes down to struggle with balance problems because of the need to limit meters to a max of 100 or to sacrifice the bars, I'd choose the latter. Bars might convey that info better, but just displaying numbers still should be sufficiently clear.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#112 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Before removing the bars, I re-suggest considering using bonuses that aren't population dependent, or that are population dependent but capped at a max value so that some point having more population doesn't further increase resource output. Getting more resource output would need to be done by researching and producing or acquiring other things, and would have a population-independent growth rate, making the max value of population not as much of an issue when balancing the max value of resource output.

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Vezzra
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Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#113 Post by Vezzra »

Geoff the Medio wrote:...I re-suggest considering using bonuses that aren't population dependent, or that are population dependent but capped at a max value...
As in: increases industry by one tenth of the planets population, but not more than 10 (for example)?

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Bigjoe5
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Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#114 Post by Bigjoe5 »

yandonman wrote:Does anyone use the bar graphs? I personally don't. I only ever look at that panel to change the focus.
Of course I use the bar graphs. Are you saying you mouse-over the resource icons to see the new target meter values every time you change focus?
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#115 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Vezzra wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:...I re-suggest considering using bonuses that aren't population dependent, or that are population dependent but capped at a max value...
As in: increases industry by one tenth of the planets population, but not more than 10 (for example)?
Yes, though probably slightly rephrased. Not sure how best to say it to make clear that the increase is at most 10, rather than the final value of the meter is at most 10.

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em3
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Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#116 Post by em3 »

I was pondering replacing current bar graphs so that they would show (current/target) * 100%, but that could end up misleading, as the point would be to minimize the graph length (as it would be inversely proportional to target value). :?
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yandonman
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Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#117 Post by yandonman »

Bigjoe5 wrote: Of course I use the bar graphs. Are you saying you mouse-over the resource icons to see the new target meter values every time you change focus?
Not even. I look at the research number at the top of the screen. If I'm running low, go find a large population planet without construction bonuses and flip it to research focus. Watch the research number at the top.

And, there's nothing I can do to hasten to focus change, so there's no point in watching it. Watched kettle never boils and such.
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Dilvish
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Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#118 Post by Dilvish »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
Vezzra wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote:...I re-suggest considering using bonuses that aren't population dependent, or that are population dependent but capped at a max value...
As in: (for example)?
Yes, though probably slightly rephrased. Not sure how best to say it to make clear that the increase is at most 10, rather than the final value of the meter is at most 10.
I think the mere addition of "by ... +" makes it quite clear, as in "increases industry by one tenth of the planets population, but not by more than +10." (emphasis to highlight added text)
em3 wrote:I was pondering replacing current bar graphs so that they would show (current/target) * 100%, but that could end up misleading, as the point would be to minimize the graph length (as it would be inversely proportional to target value). :?
I think that ( (target-current)/target) * 100% might have the problem you're concerned about, but the actual calculation you cite would not, and I think it would be a fine one.

Though I myself would probably prefer to just have the focus changing widget in the main panel and forego the bars entirely, just using mouse-over the numbers to get detail when I want it. Normally hidden bars available to them what wants 'em I can put up with though :)
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unjashfan
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Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#119 Post by unjashfan »

The bars are more useful for seeing the differences that will result from changing focus.
Why not replace the bar graph with a couple numbers that show current production, target production, and the difference of current and target production? This way the differences resulting from changing focus is displayed as a number. Maybe something like this:

Current Research: 20
Target Research: 5
Difference: -15

I think someone can look at this and say: "OK, I'm losing 15 research here in the long run if I switch focus permanently."

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Recalibrating Population & Production

#120 Post by Geoff the Medio »

unjashfan wrote:...replace the bar graph with [three] numbers [and lengthy text on three lines]
There needs to be as few numbers as possible in the UI to avoid unnecessary extra visual clutter and perceived complexity, so at most there could be

(ICON) Current / Target

when expanded, and

(ICON) Current

when not.
yandonman wrote:And, there's nothing I can do to hasten to focus change, so there's no point in watching it. Watched kettle never boils and such.
The point is to see whether a particular planet is going to benefit much from the focus change. If it's a very production-heavy research-poor species, this should be evident in the size of the target meter bars when changing focus.

That said, an "auto boost X resource output" button on the main map toolbar could be added. This would work like auto colonize / invade, and would automatically pick a planet to switch to X focus for the player. Would likely solve many of the complaints and requests for planet management tools, would be useful for players (like you?) who change focus to bump up a research output indiscriminately, and shouldn't be too hard to implement.

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