Categorize Reasearch
Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 5:04 pm
There's a lot of research available and .15 will bring even more. We already have an awesome tech tree view which helps identify missing dependencies. However the main part of the research UI is still just a massive wall of research icons. When you have a lot available and it's not really in any particular order (I believe it's ordered by cost) it's easy to overlook a more pressing research and go for the wrong one.
My suggestion is fairly simple: Bring a bit of order into that wall of icons. Introduce some very rough categories and split the icons into tabs or columns or blocks. Even just two or three categories could help reduce the chaos. If you go through them one by one you may find more but obviously don't overdo it.
Here's how I'd chose them:
* General – Things that don't fit in the other categories, mainly production related things and intermediate research (processing, batteries, etc.)
* Logistics – Anything related to moving things, i.e. belts, inserters, trains, signals, power poles
* Military – Quite obvious. Should include all research that only affects combat, especially all those shooting speed and damage upgrades.
As an additional bonus mods could introduce their own categories. For people who play with a lot of mods I believe that will be very helpful.
Note that the tech tree should remain mostly untouched by this, i.e. it should of course still show dependencies from other categories.
Cheers
My suggestion is fairly simple: Bring a bit of order into that wall of icons. Introduce some very rough categories and split the icons into tabs or columns or blocks. Even just two or three categories could help reduce the chaos. If you go through them one by one you may find more but obviously don't overdo it.
Here's how I'd chose them:
* General – Things that don't fit in the other categories, mainly production related things and intermediate research (processing, batteries, etc.)
* Logistics – Anything related to moving things, i.e. belts, inserters, trains, signals, power poles
* Military – Quite obvious. Should include all research that only affects combat, especially all those shooting speed and damage upgrades.
As an additional bonus mods could introduce their own categories. For people who play with a lot of mods I believe that will be very helpful.
Note that the tech tree should remain mostly untouched by this, i.e. it should of course still show dependencies from other categories.
Cheers