Mock-up of a reworked District and Zone UI for 4.0

[Weyird]

I really, really think PDX should make the planet UI bigger, and merge the population and planet summary windows.

The planet UI has always been functional at best, but never good. This is an opportunity!

 

[ShaTiK]

Neat. But as per 3.99.02 there are 4 districts - city, gen, mineral and food. Everything else - industry, research etc are zones within city district, and you can only have 3 zones within city district, while base resource ones get their own special zone (that only provide 3 building slots for disctrict-specific buildings)

 

[DrFranknfurter]

I actually really, really love this.
Tho tbh i think swapping the housing/jobs/amenities info to be under the art (where the population and fearures are) might be better, so that thay population info can be nearer to where the jobs population stuff is.

The beta update today made the change you suggested:
Planet housing/jobs/amenities information is now below/floating over the planet art on a semi-transparent ribbon

Other beta changes:
Planet art now 60% wider, 23% taller
District elements now ~10% taller (to fit the words Development X/Y)
District boxes 24x9 pixels instead of 16x16 (50% wider, 45% shorter)

Changes result in about 70 pixels less vertical space to work with
(that I used for Pop groups and features, so it's frustrating trying to do an updated mock-up)

Other random UI thoughts from 3.99.3:
Amenities numbers are 2 pixels lower than the rest,
Unemployment numbers 1 pixel lower than the rest,
Crime icon 4 pixels higher than the rest

Pretty, but poor contrast may make it harder to read:
yellow numbers on grey-yellow building windows,
blue amenities icon on blue sea
blue housing icon on blue sea,
blue civilian pop icon on blue buildings

 

[DrFranknfurter]

Neat. But as per 3.99.02 there are 4 districts - city, gen, mineral and food. Everything else - industry, research etc are zones within city district, and you can only have 3 zones within city district, while base resource ones get their own special zone (that only provide 3 building slots for disctrict-specific buildings)

The mock-up has some intentional differences from the beta.

The mock-up shows:
1. How much more information could potentially fit on one screen (beta shows this information on several other tabs, so you have to swap around a lot)
2. How it could work if zones were changed into districts instead (beta merges all advanced jobs into a single district, so you have no control of job ratios)

Developing the City District in the Beta adds jobs I don't want, in a fixed ratio I don't like.
Adding and replacing zones in the Beta results in shifts of thousands of jobs, when I'd rather job shifts were smaller, more gradual and granular.

Drastic changes to 4.0 plans are unlikely at this point, but I wanted to show how easy it would be to fit more information on the planet screen.
And at the same time push-back slightly against the concept of zones, as I'd rather add more districts to be able to build the exact jobs I want on a planet.

 

[ShaTiK]

The mock-up has some intentional differences from the beta.

The mock-up shows:
1. How much more information could potentially fit on one screen (beta shows this information on several other tabs, so you have to swap around a lot)
2. How it could work if zones were changed into districts instead (beta merges all advanced jobs into a single district, so you have no control of job ratios)

Developing the City District in the Beta adds jobs I don't want, in a fixed ratio I don't like.
Adding and replacing zones in the Beta results in shifts of thousands of jobs, when I'd rather job shifts were smaller, more gradual and granular.

Drastic changes to 4.0 plans are unlikely at this point, but I wanted to show how easy it would be to fit more information on the planet screen.
And at the same time push-back slightly against the concept of zones, as I'd rather add more districts to be able to build the exact jobs I want on a planet.

Cool. I personally don't like the current iteration of zones and I would rather see something like you variant, with different districts.
As for UI - for some reason Stellaris UI really don't like using the free real estate to show information to the player, despite the fact that vast majority of players have +22 inch displays nowadays. But given the horror that is Civ7 UI there must be some trend going on in the industry with regards to UX...

 

[Ryika]

Cool. I personally don't like the current iteration of zones and I would rather see something like you variant, with different districts.
As for UI - for some reason Stellaris UI really don't like using the free real estate to show information to the player, despite the fact that vast majority of players have +22 inch displays nowadays. But given the horror that is Civ7 UI there must be some trend going on in the industry with regards to UX...

The lead said on one of the recent streams that it's because they want to continue supporting 720p resolutions. Apparently, ~5% or so of players still use them.

Seems like a bad trade-off to me, but then again, I'm not in the 5% that would be unable to continue to play the game once that support is dropped.
Although arguably, perhaps it would be better if those ~5% were expected to rely on mods to make the game playable, not the ~95%.

 

[ShaTiK]

The lead said on one of the recent streams that it's because they want to continue supporting 720p resolutions. Apparently, ~5% or so of players still use them.

Seems like a bad trade-off to me, but then again, I'm not in the 5% that would be unable to continue to play the game once that support is dropped.
Although arguably, perhaps it would be better if those ~5% were expected to rely on mods to make the game playable, not the ~95%.

Yeah, this seems a bit backwards. Nice of them to think of the less fortunate gamers, but if the ratio is indeed 95 to 5, then of the top rated mod shouldn't be '1080p UI overhaul' and its variations since it should be in the game by default, rather a mod '720p UI' with some downloads.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

Cool. I personally don't like the current iteration of zones and I would rather see something like you variant, with different districts.
As for UI - for some reason Stellaris UI really don't like using the free real estate to show information to the player, despite the fact that vast majority of players have +22 inch displays nowadays. But given the horror that is Civ7 UI there must be some trend going on in the industry with regards to UX...

I'm rubbish at UI stuff, but this thread was a quick and clumsy attempt to show what could work within the limits the developers have set, i.e. fit as much as possible without making the planet window any taller or wider to maintain support for all players.

The world would be a much better place if we had a few more UI Programming Interns out there seeing what needs fixing and trying to improve things for the average person (not merely serving the <1% with small views). The Civ 7 UI wasn't as good as Civ 6, and it may take several big expansions to get back to that level of quality. Possibly because the UI Programming Intern who fixed 25% of Civ 6 UI bugs had moved on to other tasks and was, sadly, not free at the time.

It does feel like a trend, and there's not enough UI/UX designers in general. Good UI is so important to smooth gameplay, and so frustrating when the UI/UX works against you.

 

[Weyird]

Isn't the current lead dev of stellaris a previous UI person? So I'd have thought it would be a priority for them.

 

[fourteenfour]

Get rid of energy districts as they are silly considering it no longer is a currency which was the primary driver for building them and the starbase improvements. then we could have two rural districts/zones and three to five zones for customization... one was set aside for government. seriously what use is energy now?

 

[DrFranknfurter]

Had a look at 3.99.3.
(I still don't like it... so I tinkered with the UI again)

Here's what it looks like with redundant information cut out, and closer to 3.14.15 in style and layout:

3.99.3 Mock-up v1
1. Removed most of the redundant text:
Name of each district (wasn't needed in 3.14, the icons were enough
"Upgrade district" (wasn't needed in 3.14, clicking districts to select them to show build options was enough)
Name of each Zone (we have icons for that, name can be shown when selected)
"Developed districts 3/20" (we have district icons for that)

Notes:
1. It's really annoyingly awkward to arrange 7x3 build slots
2. There's room for 2 more zone's worth of build slots and/or 4 more districts...

If no features are changed then I'd improve it by adding more other information I'd like to see, for example:

v3.99.3 Mock-up 2
1. Added Pop groups + happiness
2. Features
3. Employment numbers (Listed by strata as a scrollable list in this mock-up)

Obviously you could use the space in other ways, but those are the most important things I'd like to see at a glance.
What would you rather was in those blank spaces?

 

[Cosmic Fishering Fleet]

I don't know if this would persist in 4.0, but machine intelligence empire I started in beta has another nexus district instead of agricultural districts and the ability to swap both it and generator and mining districts. So, districts outside of the main one could be non-rural for now. I think mockups like this should be tested with different governments to ensure that they will be applicable everywhere.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

I don't know if this would persist in 4.0, but machine intelligence empire I started in beta has another nexus district instead of agricultural districts and the ability to swap both it and generator and mining districts. So, districts outside of the main one could be non-rural for now. I think mockups like this should be tested with different governments to ensure that they will be applicable everywhere.

The #374 Dev diary said:
"This build of the Open Beta build will not support Gestalts, unusual planets like Habitats or Ringworlds, or especially unusual civics, origins, or playstyles."
3.99.3 said: "Habitats are now semi-functional in the Open Beta"

So I don't think gestalts, machine worlds or ecumenopolis planets are fully ready to test yet and there'll be some major bugs if you do, and placeholder UI.
It's worth testing habitats though, my quick test game with them indicated they will need significant balance feedback to make sure they're fun to play.

From quick test-games I've seen:
Machine worlds swap agricultural districts with coordination districts (no extra space needed in the UI),
Habitats swap agricultural districts for research districts (no extra space needed in the UI),

I don't know how ecumenopolis UI will work, the updated Dev Diary #371 mock-ups have ecumenopolis planets look like normal planets, the difference being the three rural districts swapped with "Arcology". If they still provide the same 3 build slots each it shouldn't take up any extra space in the UI.

But once artificial planets are functional in the beta I'll see what extra information needs to be displayed compared to standard planets and play around with the UI some more.