Way to turn-off empire tree completely?

The empire tree is the defining feature that makes Sins so micro-managable on such a large scale. Especially when you have multiple battles going on then it becomes essential.

Granted you arn't an avid MP player but it still has its uses. Learning to use this will greatly increase response speeds greater than any form of zoom in and out can do.

Ships do keep reasonable formations and for some ships you want them to clusterfuck with your emenies such as diciples and flak. If your LRFs are getting in there then you're doing something wrong.

The point is that you are trying to make the game a bit too easy with just pre-set formations and distances. And frankly having them all seperate distances turns battles into boring musket fights.

I too, want to turn it off completely.  I don't ever use it.

I find that very hard to believe. Everybody has to use it for 1 thing every once in a while.

It doesn't even take up such a large part of the screen. Just use stacks and compresses into like half the size.

I dont really use it either.

You cant make it go away 100% but you can unpin everything and with nothing selected there is no tree.

The only thing that will pop up is when ships jump and whatever grav well you have selected. Takes up a smaller part and can be ignored this way.

I just set it to only autopin frigates/capital ships. That way the only thing on the empire tree is things I want to keep an eye on, no giant wall of planets.

The only time I use the empire tree is to check the health of my assets in battle. Otherwise, I'm generally not interested in all the extraneous stuff that tends to collect there. I haven't figured out how to stop it from auto-expanding when pinning planets is turned on. I do like the idea of having a listing of planets under my control, but when it gets so long I have to scroll the usefulness is eliminated.

I think it's a useful feature in general. It just doesn't tend to work for me. If there was more tweaking to make sure it only delivered information I considered relevant then I'd make better use of it.

I just wish that you could toggle the autoscrolling on and off. For a quick update on all of your units it's great, especially in the middle of a battle, but I hate how it autoscrolls to the current gravwell all the time.

I reduce it down to pinning just fleets and starbases in progress. Since starbases auto-pin with no option to do otherwise, I keep them there until they're upgraded and done. Then I unpin. Fleets are there and it's useful for managing cap abilities and monitoring health. I stack the frigates and cruisers so I know their numbers, but I rarely worry about every single one doing some unique function.

Beyond that, I use the warning tabs and spacebar to get me to places of recent activity.

Planets auto appear when you're operating in that grav well, but my tree is small enough to avoid auto-scrolling and I have the planets compressed when I first encounter them.

Its not hard to believe, not at all. Some people (like me) are able to orient themselves easier in space (meant as starmap) than in some spreadsheet (empire tree). That is all. Maybe its useful on mega large maps with 100 planets - although in such case i suppose you got to scroll the tree a lot, so not really - but i never played those and probably never will, as it just makes the game more repetitive.

That it is one of the defining features, that is just marketing blabber. It is not for ME, and from those other posts, seeing how other people try to screw with it, collapse it to the smaller size possible, unpin everything etc..., it seems, that i am not alone. 

Finally, the battles in Homeworld had more moving objects and were fully 3D, but because the ships did not tend to clump together like there is no tomorrow, they were easier to manage and it was definitely not less fun. 

Sorry to burst your bubble, but i really don't use it at all.  I minimize everything that pops up on it and never look at it again.  As timmaigh said, i much prefer orienting myself to the starmap and am able to better micromanage that way.  While i'm sure it is invaluable to some, the empire tree simply is not useful to me.  I don't want it gone from the game, i respect that others (perhaps the majority) find it one of the most useful tools in the game.  I do not.  So a toggle would be nice, but not a neccessity.

And to further astound you, i also happen to prefer playing the advent in SP and MP.  I find their combat strength and sheer damage potential to be most impressive.  Far superior to TEC or Vasari.  I've an impressive MP victory record with the Advent.  You simply can't beat them for sheer damage, and they are quite good with the strike craft.

If you want turn off it press CRTL+| (the key near to number 1 key), is the console key. (this button unpin all in this moment of the empire tree).

If you want haven't auto pin, go to options --- Interface, and disable all Auto pin options.

If you want turn off HUD / UI press CRTL+ALT+Z.

Now if you want only have capital ship on empire tree, look the left top in the screen you have a mini search, now in the left of this you have a PIN botton, when you selec ships / estructures and click this boton YOU PIN OR unPIN IN EMPIRE TREE

Sorry if you no understand my english.

I find it's annyod me on main srceen, but I don't mind if this is other tab hide screen like reseaching screen or something like that, but not on "main" screen.

Actually, the empire tree, although I have it on a tight leash, is one of the features that makes me wish for dual screen support. I have two monitors, but Sins leaves me to turn one off. If I had a second screen, I wouldn't mind having a secondary battle screen, but moreso would like a place to put research windows, the empire tree, and other tidbits.

I usually hotkey my fleet groups and structures of interest.  For casual play at least, that's more than enough to get the job done.

The empire tree is just useless clutter to me, too.

The empire tree is for the most part useless to me, also, you get a speed boost if you do not pin items in late game.