Matrix Games Forums

I love the game so far. It has been what I expected and more. The UI changes from DWU are incredible, but the way certain things are handled (or have changed from DWU) through the UI could be better:


1. When selecting multiple ships:

• The bottom left card should tell us the total number of ships (this information is already shown for fleet cards).

• It would be nice if we also got a breakdown of ship design models, and a way to click on each listing to further select/deselect the ships of a certain role (e.g. only select the frigates from the current selection) or certain designs (e.g. only select Frigate Mk4 from the current selection).

• Give us the ability to deselect certain ships. The easiest way would be to right-click on their icons on the selection card.

2. Ship and Base Lists:

• Each entry should include the design name and hull type (not just the role) of the ship. This information is quite important, especially for military ships and it's weird that it's not directly on the UI. It makes finding the ships you are looking for extremely tedious. There should be enough space allocated to include these names in full, as much as possible.

• If the above is impossible, then at least the card that appears when hovering over an entry, should include the design name and hull type of the ship. Preferably, I'd want both to be implemented.

• More filters and sort options would be nice. Some suggestions: Ships under construction, Ships not under construction, Ships requiring retrofit, Hull type, Design, Date added to list

• It would be amazing if we could create our own custom filters. We should be able to select multiple filter options to trim down the list to exactly what is required and allow us to sort it the way we want. For example, a message box could open up with tick-boxes to select different existing filters to use in combination with each other.

3. Character Lists

• The overall character list (in the character tab) has filters to only show characters of a certain role. The Admirals & Generals list (under Military tab) doesn't have this option. There should be a way to turn this into 2 separate lists.

• It would be nice to be able to sort characters according to location.

• Why is there a Leader sub-tab under Empire tab? There's only 1 leader at any time right? This is taking space that could be used for something else. Instead the leader could be a clickable picture on the Overview panel of the Empire tab.

4. Population Management

• Population Policy should have its own sub-tab under Colonies tab (or Empires tab). The way to find it now is hidden away and I've noticed several people asking where it is (for those wondering: Select your colony, and on the selection card at the bottom left, there is an icon showing 3 people, next to the population and growth rate of the planet. Click that)

• It would be nice if we had a list of all the different populations in the empire: Totals of each species, breakdowns on each planet, etc.

5. Ship Management

• There should be an easy way to switch between Manual and Fully Automated. If you try to handle it through the button, the game forces you to go through the whole list of automation options from Manual to Fully Automated. Instead there should be a way to "scroll back" the list when clicking the button. E.g. if you right-click it. In fact, this philosophy could be implemented to all buttons that "scroll" through multiple options: Left-click = Forward, Right-click = Backward

• In the Ship Construction tab, I feel that the first sub-tab should be Construction Ships, and Construction Yards should be second. I use the Construction Ships tab far more often than the Construction Yards tab, but I understand other people might have a different experience here.

• On a ship card there should be a SECOND retrofit button that opens up a list of all available designs for retrofitting, in case we are using multiple designs of the same hull type to fulfill different things.

• There should be a SECOND refuel button that opens up a list of all available locations for refuel

6. Fleet Management

• There should be a way to tag fleets with a certain keyword (e.g. Attack, Defense, Patrol, Invasion, Support, Reserves, etc) and then be able to sort/filter fleets according to these keywords.

• There should be an easier way to change Home Base for a fleet, without zooming in on the location from the Galaxy and then Ctrl+Right-click. Too many people seem to ask how to do this.

• There should be a button to send the fleet back to its Home Base

• Top Up Fleet With Ships button is mostly useless, as it seems to work somewhat arbitrarily and sometimes based on how the fleet looked at a certain point. Instead this button should work in tandem with my suggestion for Fleet Templates (see below in 7. Constructing)

• Not exactly QoL: Fleets behave erratically if you ask them to collect space debris, instead of asking a single ship. It should be possible for the game to select one ship in the fleet and send it to collect the debris.

7. Constructing

• There should be a button on Construction Yards that brings up a dialogue box like the Build Order sub-tab of the Ship Construction tab. This would give a Build Order only to the specific shipyard. Otherwise, this could be implemented on the Build Order sub-tab instead (e.g. give us a dropdown list to use ALL available shipyards for the Build Order or only a specific one)

• There should be an easy way to cancel a Build Order, instead of manually going through lists to cancel ships under construction.

• When giving a Build Order, there should be an option to set an Assembly point (e.g. all ships constructed from this build order should go to this location)

• When giving a Build Order, there should be an option to put the ships of that particular Build Order in a New Fleet or an Existing Fleet.

• There should be an option to create a custom Build Order that accomodates the above suggestions for people who use multiple ship designs per role. For example, I would like to create a Build Order that is going to construct 20 Type-A Frigates, 10 Type-B Frigates, 2 Type-1 Destroyers, 5 Type-2 Destroyers, 3 Type-3 Destroyers (etc) that will all be in a new fleet and will all be sent to assemble at the colony of Xaxax.

• We should be able to create our own Fleet Templates of what ship types and how many of each type should be in a fleet. These templates can then be put in through Build Orders. These templates should be modifiable at any time and should be used to top up ships in a fleet. These templates should accomodate multiple ship designs per hull.

• There should be options to exclude Asteroids and Systems with Enemies/Monsters/Pirates from the New Mining Locations sub-tab on the Resources tab.

• It would be nice if there was a way to sort through the global queue for mining locations (and prioritize something over something else)

8. Research Window

• Currently, opening the window scrolls automatically to the currently researched project. There should be an option to turn this off and instead keep the view to where it was before closing the Research Window last time.

• The Queue lacks a scroll bar. It is possible to put so many research projects in the queue, that you can not see the bottom.

• There should be an easier way to prioritize research projects in the Queue. For example Ctrl+Left-Click could send a project to the top. Or an even better way would be to allow us to drag and drop research projects throughout the queue.

• If I click to research a project that requires an Initiation Cost, and I pay that cost, then for whatever reason I change my mind and cancel the project, then the initiation cost icon on the research project card should change colours to indicate that the cost has already been paid (for those wondering: if you cancel a paid project, the game won't force you to pay that cost again)

• There should be an option to auto-crash-research programs if funds are available. This could be project-specific or apply to any project.

• 8. Navigating the Galaxy

• If I have assigned a Hotkey button (0-9) to a ship/base/fleet, and I click that button, the game usually zooms in on the item (I say usually because sometimes it doesn't do it for some reason). This should NOT be happening. Clicking the hotkey once should ONLY select the item, without zooming on its location. Double-clicking the hotkey should select and zoom in on the item. I find myself doing this too often: Zoom in a system to find a target, locate the target, click the hotkey to select a fleet, the game zooms in on the fleet lead ship, which is usually in another system, zoom out to the galaxy and then zoom in back on the target, attack the target. This is just unnecessary time wasting that could be solved if clicking the hotkey just selected the item without zooming in on it.

• There should be a way to select something inside a system from the Galaxy view, without zooming in. For example: Ctrl+Left-click on the system to open up a context list that lists everything in the system, along with who it belongs to. This list could sort through its entries from Colonies -> Spaceports -> Research Stations -> Fleets -> Construction ships -> Exploration ships -> Colony ships -> Military ships (excludes other civilian bases and ships)

• On the Map Options panel (bottom right) there should be a button to highlight all known systems with a certain resource

• The Location Badges should have an option to turn off badges, but keep System Names up. It would be nice if colonized systems had a highlighted name though (like in DWU). I like the current System Badges in both forms, but sometimes it can make the screen too cluttered.

• There should be a button to rotate the view towards the Galactic North (the way a New Game has oriented the view by default)

Hope these suggestions help to make DW2 even more amazing than it already is!