Ok, I have tried it for about one hour and a half (with cheats in console to not wait much and try more stuff). As for the actual feedback (needless to say that it is much better than before, but still some issues/doubts):
1. Growth per pop groups makes little sense to me in the management tab. Once you have many species in a planet that tab might as well not exist as it has so many things there that you can't know whats happening. For instance:
That is just 2 species. As I have more, I won't be able to have any idea about what is going on as I am not going to scroll for 2 minutes to see (and forget the first entries while at that). Instead it should show per species, not pop groups. This is right now the old species tab that people complained a lot of. We don't need this info. Just each species growth.
2. Small UI detail, clicking on the header of a strata does not collapse/expand it, only clickng in the arrow:
3. I still don't understand pop growth in 4.0. I have seen my necrophages growth normally even though my prepatent species is rapid breeders. Either it is broken or something weird is happening. I also blame the issue mentioned at 1 that makes estimating stuff incredibly difficult.
4. I am unable to decide which pops grow/don't grow per planet. In this vary same build it is a major issue mechanic and RP wise. This build is about my Necrophages not being able to reproduce but instead being billions of them in stasis, only awakened by 'ascending' other species. With the new 'all pops grow' mechanic my Necros grow, ruining my entire RP, but also mechanically because I gave them Exotic Metabolism and their uncontrolled growth is sinking my economy. Previously you picked which pop to grow on each planet and knew the exact amount of people you had everywhere of the other species. For instance on my colony I only had a few pops in ruler jobs, since they didnt grew and there was not Chamber on the planet, I always had the exact same amount. Now my main pops grow everywhere, ruining my carefully planned RP and build around them being the elite and very few. This also affects slavery hard. As an example, imagine getting some nerve stapled or serviles pops and not being able to control their population per planet. You either stop growth everywhere (you dont want that, as you want them in worker planets) or you deal with the fact that some of them might end growing in places you dont want them to. This are just examples, I can think of several more. At the very least for authoritarian nations this should not be the case.
5. I dont see an option to 'decline' pops anywhere. Previously, as some (but certainly not all) might know, you could force decline an species on a per planet basis without needing to Purge the entire species, you just set them to slave and went to the decline frame and chose them. They started to decline in that planet. I do not see this option anywhere. I am assuming that it was forgotten and still not added (perhaps not even planed) But if it is not added, then it will be one more thing gone with 4.0 (we are already losing on a lot, even if a lot of people dont even notice yet)
6. I have 0 idea how pop assembly is working. Maybe related to 1, but I can't find with my clone vats are doing, nor who are they cloning, and I can't chose who I am cloning. So I am guessing that it is just adding to pow growth. If so, this is horrible. Previously one of the best things you could do with clone vats was to 'steal' templates from other nations. And even if you didn't do this, you would be able to pick which pops where to be assembled. This is not charity, I don't want everybody to access the vats when this is a Gubernamental building I built for whatever purposes I had (like printing soldier pops for gene armies or whatever). While Vats are probably changing with Biogenesis, I see no place to pick the assembled pops, so I still see this problem.
7. The Modify Template for gene mod is to thin and forces lots of scrolling (just as pop groups do in the planet management tab)
8. Like others have said, hovering over a pop in the Economy tab is weird, the output listed does not relate to the job and makes grasping thins difficult or even impossible depending on the job.
9. Move the Planetary features summary to the Surface tab, as we have it now. This part:
The reason is the same as the building queue, we need to see at a glance while Tabing over the planets what is where. Previously you just hovered over that place while tabing and you knew what you had on each world. Important to note that I am not saying to remove/move the planetary features box, only the summary.
10. Overall, I think that most stuff in the Management tab should be in the surface tab. A common loop of planetary management in 3.14 is like this:
- Tab over planet
- Check for issues, such as crime or unemployment
- Build what needs to be built
- Check if there are features, decide what to specialize based on this and district count, also consider special buildings that depend on features (such as betharian power plants)
- Ascend if desired
- Consider editing the sector if needed (now also on another tab)
- Tab to next planet.
This was all done in the same tab, no need to go to the second tab to see the features then come back to build the building and waste time, clicks and patience. Now it needs to be done.
The issue now is that some things (buildings and zones) are on the first tab, while others are on management. While it makes some sense it is tedious and bad when you have many planets and people have complained fo planet management before, so imagine now...
instead I would advice to replace the Ascension part with things to manage the planet population and decisions. For instance, it is a great place to show a list of the decisions active and their remaining time. As well as being also a great place to put the "Assembly" frame. Right now it is a huge box for some info that does not need so much space.
Overall I think that the current planetary UI is vastly superior to the new one. My reasoning is simple: it provides the exact same information while using less space and tabs, without 'tiring' my or 'spamming' useless data and requiring less interactions to do my job as the player. Currently this UI fights the player and hinders his work by forcing him to travel through several tabs for no real value. I should only go to the tabs when it is actually needed, like in 3.14. If I need to do something pop related I go to the pop tab, if its armies to the army tab, for actual planetary management everything is there in the same window, making my life easier and my wasted time lesser. I honestly believe that the new UI (while pleasant for some) is a downgrade that bombards us with unnecessary info and gets in the way.
11. I hate the leaders changes. I have explained why several times and even made a post in the forums with more details about why it is a bad idea mechanics and 'feeling' wise.
And before someone comes and says that we had one DD for the planet UI. You are right, and I mentioned this issues there, yet we still have them. So I will mention them again with the hope that something is done about them. Hopefully, it is not things being intended (except leaders, which are and hate them nonetheless) this way but rather not finished yet. IF you are a dev, and it is intended then at least come here and tell me that you are aware but won't do anything about (for whatever reason) so I can just shut up and go cry in my dark corner. But until then I will assume that you (the devs) are not aware and keep saying it EVERY SINGLE TIME with the hope that it gets improved.
