Locks for production wheel

from GalCiv3 Forums

I thought it might be nice to include some locks on the production wheel. Clicking the appropriate button creates a curve intersecting the current point along which the production slider can move

Example 1: Click the Manufacturing icon to lock the manufacturing value, allowing you to vary your wealth and research as needed. In this example, Manufacturing would stay at 4, but the others would vary.

Constant value

 

 

 Example 2: Click between Wealth and Manufacturing to maintain the current 2:1 ratio between the two, allowing you to vary the research as needed. The leftmost point on this curve would be W-66.6%, M-33.3%, R-0%.

Constant ratio

 

23,287 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Nice pictures.  I called this idea "isolines" in Athlgrond's Planet Management Suggestion thread.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I see you have already expressed another idea I had: auto-adjusting allocations to maintain an approval level (in your solution, a bouy). I need to come up with something clever not already thought of by Gilmoy.

I had fun micromanaging in GC2, though I didn't worry about every single fraction of a production unit as you like to. The amount of micromanagement that seems to have been introduced in GC3 is an order of magnitude greater, it seems. They (or a modder) might need to come up with a bunch of governors, though that runs the risk of taking micromanagement out of my hands.

Now that I think about it, the isolines could provide a reasonable micromanagement structure for the approval. Click the Manufacturing:Research isoline to get the right wealth allocation (thus approval) keeping your other production in ratio, then click the constant wealth isoline to vary Manufacturing and Research without having to hunt and peck for the right wealth allocation for the desired approval. Sure if they fix approval so the bonus doesn't go down in steps, there's less to worry about turn-by-turn, but you strike me as a person that would ride the 100% approval edge anyway.

ObjectDock - Access shortcuts and frequently used applications from an animated dock.
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Pass this bill into law.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I support this idea!

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

k1

 

I also like this idea and think it would be very useful!

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

We have something like this planned, but it will be awhile before we have anything for players to use. 

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting mormegil, reply 6
We have something like this planned, but it will be awhile before we have anything for players to use.

 

Sure, go ahead and tease us like that! Such nice guys you are... ;)

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I convinced myself that the production wheel offered more control over production compared to sliders. Today I realized I was wrong. The wheel has two advantages: allows more precision (more than 101 settings per axis) and allows me to quickly set a rough estimate of how I want my production allocated in one click.

Aside from these, the sliders are at worst equivalent. They have built-in isolines! That makes them more convenient (though again less precise) for micromanaging. Click the lock button to retain the desired value. Or if you want to retain a ratio, increase or decrease the slider not part of the ratio.

Seems to me the interface should have both the production wheel with isoline locks and sliders with locks. Oh and I don't like having to click the "Govern" button every time either. As a person who micromanages to some degree, the Governor screen is far more convenient as a default planet window than the planet map. Guess that makes me a Galactic Number Cruncher.

I also realized that adding per-planet production allocation is going to add to the micromanagement, no matter how great the UI is. I'd be more inclined to use the global allocations checkbox if I knew unused social manufacturing was automatically going to military production and unused manufacturing in general was going to wealth, like it was in later versions of GalCiv2. I realize Projects are supposed to fill that role, but the Social-Military slider heavily complicates this. I'd like to see extra production reallocation more automated and more easily accessible than having to click "Govern" and mess with the Social-Military slider.

I have another thread coming involving projects, so I'll leave that topic alone here.

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Aside from these, the sliders are at worst equivalent. They have built-in isolines! That makes them more convenient (though again less precise) for micromanaging. Click the lock button to retain the desired value. Or if you want to retain a ratio, increase or decrease the slider not part of the ratio.

 
 
actually I hated the sliders in gc2 the lock function always glitched once locked it would remain locked for the rest of the game
this caused me to avoid using it
so I would set research to 50 % causing social and military to be 25% each
but I wanted social at 40% so I would slide it up and now military's at 15% and research is at 45%
then I'd adjust research again dropping social to 38% and military to 12%
adjust military now research is at 51 and social is at 39 
and for some reason at this point the game figured out what I wanted and started trolling me by never allowing me to get those last 2 points where I wanted
Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting androshalforc, reply 9



so I would set research to 50 % causing social and military to be 25% each
 
but I wanted social at 40% so I would slide it up and now military's at 15% and research is at 45%

 

then I'd adjust research again dropping social to 38% and military to 12%

 

adjust military now research is at 51 and social is at 39 

 

and for some reason at this point the game figured out what I wanted and started trolling me by never allowing me to get those last 2 points where I wanted


 

Not much different than the production wheel, in my experience  ^_^

Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

All truly intelligent UIs are Malevolent.

Clever UIs only seem that way ...