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General 0.3 Discussion

Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2005 6:11 am
by Tyreth
Now that the announcements board is protected to moderators only, you can post in here anything about 0.3 release that crosses your mind.

Enjoy.

Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2005 6:13 am
by SuperH
I was just thinking to myself on the way to work today,

"I really wish FreeOrion 0.3 would be released."

And I was about to turn off the computer and go to sleep, tonight, when Gmail notified me of a new message.

It was, of course, the 0.3 announcement.

I will, of course, not be sleeping much tonight.

Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2005 1:41 pm
by Zanzibar
And there was much rejoicing!! :D

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 1:07 am
by JosEPh
Need directions to the appropriate thread on what version .03 is doing.

So far looks like you can do research and colonize 1 planet besides the HW. Can't build anything; i.e. Buildings or ships.

You can starve your colony to death. Did that 1st game. Still sorting out the food, mineral, prod., etc. bar with the Highlight and the outline.

Looks good.

Ship/fleet triangle/icon a bit small. Had trouble catching it a few times.

Can't wait to be able to Build *stuff*. Version 0.4? Maybe?

So observations from a *lurker*.

:) JosEPh

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 1:56 am
by Tyreth
You can build ships, including colony ships, and buildings. You can also research new buildings and more.

Check out the quick play guide on how to: http://www.freeorion.org/index.php/V0.3 ... Play_Guide

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 2:21 am
by SuperH
JosEPh wrote:So far looks like you can do research and colonize 1 planet besides the HW. Can't build anything; i.e. Buildings or ships.
You could build ships and colonize as much as you wanted in 0.2 also.

Took me a minute to figure out you had to have a planet in focus to put a ship in the queue, maybe that's the issue.

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 6:45 am
by Geoff the Medio
JosEPh wrote:Can't build anything; i.e. Buildings or ships.
As Tyreth linked to, check out the Quick Play Guide... though to build stuff, you:

1) Left click on the Production button
2) Left click on a system you control (coloured your empire colour)
3) Left click on a planet you control (has resource icons, population)
4) Left click on a buildable item category (eg. ships)
5) Left click on a buildable item
6) Left click Add to Queue
Image

You could also double-click at step 5) to elminate the need for step 6).

You could also skip step 1) and double click on a system on the map to open the production screen to that system directly.
Ship/fleet triangle/icon a bit small. Had trouble catching it a few times.
You might try zooming in a bit. Use the mousewheel or the e and r keys.

Just be happy I made Tyreth double the size of those fleet icons...

(told you so, Tyreth...)

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 9:53 am
by The Silent One
I wonder where I see the buildings I've constructed?

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 10:20 am
by Daveybaby
JosEPh wrote:So far looks like you can do research and colonize 1 planet besides the HW. Can't build anything; i.e. Buildings or ships
I had this problem as well. Spent ages trying to figure out why clicking the 'add to build queue' button didnt do anything. Its not immediately obvious that you have to select the planet as well as the system. (IMO shipbuilding should all be being done in a system level build queue anyway, but, meh...). In fact its not immediately obvious which planet is selected anyway.

This seems to be a common problem with the UI at the moment, it all looks very nice, but there isnt sufficient feedback as to whats going on (the focus system also seems to be a bit vague w.r.t. whats actually going to be the result of changing focus on your planets - some bars change by a couple of pixels... but... what does that mean?)

I know its still early days, but the only reason i am jumping on this now is... well... moo3 and all that. And i am admittedly a bit of a useability / ergonomics fascist. Which is a GOOD THING, in case you were wondering :D

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 10:54 am
by noelte
At this point we shouldn't argue about detail in the UI. There are surely some flaws, but it's IMO ok.

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 10:55 am
by Daveybaby
Hey, not arguing - just pointing out what i see as flaws in the hope they will be addressed. Yes, theyre minor flaws in terms of UI coding, but they can have quite a big impact on the feel of the gameplay. Constructive criticism dude.

As for it being early days, well in my experience, UI bugs are like code bugs - if you dont address them ASAP they get worked around until everyone on the project is used to them and they become 'standard', and fixing them becomes more work than leaving them as they are. The difference between UI bugs and code bugs is that at some point the general public are going to be exposed to them directly.

And IMO, now that youre 'going public' with 0.3, things like this become important, as of right now.

Anyway, like i said, i'm a usability fascist. Its my job. I'm going to be picking holes in this stuff constantly from now on, so get used to it :P

Constructive criticism

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 2:11 pm
by dstjames
I agree with you daveybaby. It looks really good but It needs to be user friendly. Thats what turned me off of MOO 3. I'm one of those people who never reads the manual. I think CONSTRUCTIVE criticism is exactly what the developers are/should be looking for at this point. When your working so closely on a project you dont notice the flaws until someone else points them out to you. Its the minor things like this that really make a project looked polished. One other VERY MINOR thing I didnt like was that there isnt an X in the corner to close the production or research panels. Most other dialog boxes have an X in the corner to close them so you assume that is the standard way of closing something but on these screens you have to click on the research or production button again to close them. Just doesnt seem intuitive to me.

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 2:17 pm
by Hatti
Hi,

Had the same problems to figure out how works the construction part but no more problems with this now.

One little estetical problem: On my system the mouse cursor is only visible as long as I move the mouse and cloaks directly after stopping the motion. Pushing a mouse button to select an item works well, even with the cursor cloaked.

My system: P4 2.8GHz 1024Mb Ram ATI 9800Pro (?128Mb?)
Logitech Mouse MX1000

Regards,
Hatti (Kunsch Alain)

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 2:33 pm
by noelte
Daveybaby wrote: I'm going to be picking holes in this stuff constantly from now on, so get used to it :P
:lol: 8)

I haven't done much since a year. It's a shame. :(

I also poked around a little and wasn't happy about production UI. But most of it is obviously. So, i'm surely not running mad and poke zach ;) He did a really good job and nearly all of it by himself...

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 4:15 pm
by Aquitaine
UI was not a huge focus for v0.3, because the systems in v0.3 -- production and research -- were primarily implemented as a 'see what we can do with this' sort of idea and not a 'play with all your friends because it's the best game ever' idea.

I fully expect to spend a lot more time working on UI going forward. But don't give the programmers a hard time about it for v0.3 - they did what was asked of them and what was needed, so if you want to pick on someone for the v0.3 UI, pick on me for not writing 'and lo, there shall be yon user-interface as follows' into the design document.