I wanted to take a moment and put together a list of things that I noticed about the interface of Distant Worlds. Most of these points are very small (some are downright nit-picky). Most of my notes are written on the images with red text. So here goes...
Layout of table for adding other empires to the game:
Unwarranted pluralization in Welcome to Your Empire window:
The Zenox might take exception at being referred to as a rodent race. This could be changed to Feline or Felidae:
A few things regarding the Fleets screen:
Flickering text issue:
Right now when you left-click or right-click one of the ship entries, that ship becomes selected. I thought it might be a viable shortcut to also bring up the relevant context menu for the freshly selected ship. In this case the "Move here" and "Queue Next Mission->Move here" entries in the context menu would not be included in the context menu:
Text that is too long currently gets truncated in the ship entries. Consider growing the entry to the right if it is being hovered over with the mouse so the player can see all of the info:
The two previous ideas could be applied to all the other lists as well (Space Ports, Mining Stations, Construction Ships, etc.)
Small formatting bug:
A few things about the Design Ship screen:
Alternative way of expressing reactor efficiency:
Searching the Galaxy:
I thought a Search button could be added to the Galaxy Map. The player could begin typing in a name and the list would be updated with matching entries as-they-type. If one of the entries is clicked on by the player its corresponding location is also selected on the Galaxy Map. This could be very helpful when managing a large empire. Press ‘G’ to open Galaxy Map then ‘S’ to open Search then start typing the name of the location and select it from the list.
Capitalization typo:
A reproducible bug in the Designs window:
Other Things
1. Default action for military ships when hovering mouse over independent colony is currently Attack. I usually want to Patrol them instead (until my colony ship arrives), so maybe change default action to Patrol?
2. It is currently possible to scrap private sector ships such as freighters through the Ships and Bases screen (F11). I think this is an unintended feature as the state isn’t supposed to control private ships.
3. Pressing 'G' opens the Galaxy Map, so tapping it again should close it (just like the F1-F12 keys open and close their respective windows).
4. When multiple ships are selected, pressing 'S' doesn't stop them (not to be confused with fleet selections which do respond to 'S' as expected).
[s]5. When you right-click on the galaxy map the view centers on the spot you clicked. I think it would be useful if it also selected the object you right-clicked on (if there was an object at that spot) and displayed the context menu for that object (if it has one). In the event that there are multiple objects stacked at the spot you right-clicked, an object selection menu comes up instead of the context menu. I think this would be a great feature for cutting down on the number of clicks needed to get things done.[/s]
[s]6. I often inspect the cargo holds of ships. To do this I left-click the ship to select it then double click in the selection window. This becomes a lot of effort after a while. You could add a "Details" entry to the context menus of ships (including private ones) that would do the same thing. Now all you would have to do is right-click the ship and select the Details option (assuming that the select object on right-clicks method in the previous point is implemented).[/s]
7. Consider disabling right mouse button view drags when an object is locked on (via keyboard 'L'). Or better yet, allow the right mouse button drag to proceed and have the view snap back to the locked object once the right mouse button is released. As it is right now the view keeps skipping back and forth from one to the other.
8. There are some minor typos in the Galactopedia:
Galactopedia: Combat - Colony Invasions
In this case your opponents territory primarily consists of their colonies. [opponents=>opponent’s]
Galactopedia: Combat - Ground Combat
Each two billion citizens of a colonies population are... [colonies=>colony's]
...the colonies development level will be temporarily set back... [colonies=>colony's]
Galactopedia: Economy Tips
Ships, bases, troops and intelligence agents all have ongoing maintenance costs. [see next note]
So you should carefully plan your needs for any new ships or bases. [this statement sounds like it should be combined with the sentence above]
Only recruit troops that you really need to defend key colonies. Build up more troops only when you plan on war. [to me it sounds like these three statements should all be in a single paragraph]
...and recreational facilities that make the colonies citizens happier. [colonies=>colony's OR colonies']
Galactopedia: Fleets
...for major assaults against targets like colonies or spaceports. [spaceports has been written as two separate words (space ports) in numerous other locations]
9. I think I saw both spellings of the word "defences/defenses" in the Galactopedia.
10. The mouse cursor seems to be confused about what it wants to be while hovering over the plain text (selector vs arrow) and links (finger vs arrow) in the Galactopedia. I think the finger would be good for links. I believe this is happening because both the Galactopedia window and the galaxy view in the background are trying to set the mouse cursor.
11. There doesn't seem to be much consistency concerning the beeps and boops that sound when the F2 to F12 windows are opened. Sometimes you'll get a beep when you click the icon to open one of those windows and no beep if you use the function key instead. Sometimes you'll hear one, two, or three boops when you open the Construction Yards window or Ships and Bases window. My suggestion here would be to get rid of all the beep sounds for all the buttons in the top center group. They can be silent just like the vertical group of buttons at middle left. Or settle on something consistent - that metallic "tink" sound seems to be the most common. Just a suggestion though.
12. Regarding sentences in bulleted lists: I think the convention you were going for was to never end the last sentence with a period. Some of the bullets have periods at the end.
13. In the Main Menu the text in the textbox that appears when hovering over "Start New Game" ends with a period whereas the others don't.
