Idea for conflicts screen summary

[phantum]

Being mostly paranoid for loosing hard earned reputation, trade permits and such like I spend a lot of time scrolling down the conflicts screen before doing anything ... and still miss things sometimes.

I had an idea for a summary grid at the top or a different screen with faction houses on both axes and each square has markings/colour codes to show any conflicts/trade agreements etc.

[slayernz]

I want to preface my response by saying that the following is my thoughts on gameplay rather than anything disparaging towards your approach. If you think I am being abusive to you, feel free to fire multiple torps at me okay

As a Captain, I think it's your responsibility to know what's going on. You have to pay attention to the ebbs and flows of the galaxy because you're the one most impacted by the choices you make.

Actually, the encounter screen has been dramatically improved from earlier versions. For a while, there wasn't any "Status" button, so you really had to remember "Yes, I don't get on with Thalun, and No, they aren't allied with anyone I actually do like ...". When Cory added the Status button, it kept us quiet for a while, but then after additional pushing, he even included all of the factional interaction stuff.

This means that now you can quickly see who your intended target is friends with, AND you get the chance to check status to see if you are carrying restricted goods, your reputation/permits, and even your existing ship damage.

To give you more than that would be to effectively spoon-feed you with information, and is on par with adding training wheels to your ship. You have the information available with just a few clicks of your finger - if you don't pay attention and miss something significant, then your crew won't buy the "the multiinformational display unit didn't tell me everything I needed to know right away" excuse.

[boeu]

Hear hear

[oldalchemist]

Political officers do a nice job of warning about embargoes.

I'd say let her warn you about other political actions, too. (or the spy for spy battles, or military officer for solar wars)

[phantum]

No worries slayerNZ, (U a kiwi by the way or a coincidence?)

What you say about being in touch with the game is all fair enough. However it is only a game simulating a life with different rules to our own, and (I at least) am only picking it up and putting it down, it is not possible to be as aware as a captain would be in real life. Not to mention game time is so much faster than real life -and I find it hard enough to keep up with the international politics on earth required for my trading in real time!

I think you might have miss understood me though, I was talking about the part of the status screen under trade, conflicts that lists all the interstellar political relations. My suggestion was this screen have a summary in in tabular form, as described above. It would only be a faster way of absorbing information, which I would expect the successful captain would be able to program his computer to display...

If you follow the super15 do you scroll through the seasons match results or do you look at the points table?

Cheers

[Cory Trese]

what if the pol officer had a *REPORT* that was that grid.

i like the grid idea only because i know i can make one =)

[slayernz]

Yup, I am a kiwi (but living in OZ) and I hear what you are saying with the points table thing. However, I don't watch the Super 15 because I spend too much time playing silly phone games and can't afford to buy Foxtel .

It is hard to keep abreast of all of the silly factional infighting. Veering ever-so-slightly off topic, it has been suggested before, and I suggest it again, it would be spectacular if we got toasts/messages when conflicts/rumors actually stopped as well as when they start.

For example, it would be great to see:
"Due to a difference of opinion about hat fashion, the Trade alliance between Cadar and Rychart has ended"

"The Surplus in Spice has ended at Xeen Prime, but there is now a shortage in Vudka due to a large number of impromptu parties around the Space Port"

"The palace at Kashtisha has been re-opened. The prince had mistakenly confused badly poached eggs as an attempt to poison him"

[oldalchemist]

You know I'm crazy about officer reports. They should:
-use up Records
-cost money
-be a nice big screen of data

[phantum]

Actually I am not quite so keen on the grid being related to the political officer as I see it more a computer display of existing information. It is something the cabin boy could do, not fit for an officer earning 2% commission! I do have other ideas for officers though ... I like the idea of toast messages when a conflict ends too. That was another reason for the table to quickly check when a faction was free to trade again.

I would think a political officer would be more of an intuitive report, such as predicting future political events a few weeks ahead of when they occur. Another potential officer improvement would be in dealing with rumours, the officer could deal with the rumours so repeated rumours and more general ones are filtered out, or maybe instead presents a filtered list of all rumours they heard while on shore leave...

It would be cool one day to see more specialised roles for officers, like their own screen, and skills that consume resources.

[oldalchemist]

Thinking machines are illegal. Cabin boys swab decks, push cargo, and hide from the First Mate's smouldering gaze. You want someone to compile that data into a useful format? That's what an officer is good for. Crew are there to buffer you from torpedo hits, angry enemy captains, and whatever hungry thing was living in that magma cave.

[phantum]

Ok then I think my first stop is for a navigation officer to plot courses since although the non-relativistic calculations are fairly trivial they would take up a lot of time and paper.... (generating a lot of records too!)

May 16, 2011 11:54:36 GMT -5 oldalchemist said:

Thinking machines are illegal.