User Interface Confusing manufactures

[ayvinul]

I'm currently (on live worlds) in the middle of the sentient → ascended goods transition.
The interface is thoroughly error-prone.
Here's a capture of one of my T2:

and here's one of my T1:

There are two things that could be massively improved there.

First, the orientation. Each time I open a manufacture, I have to remember that sentient goods are a new row, except that when you unlock ascended goods, it becomes a new column !

I understand redesigning the window when ascended goods got introduced, but come on, it would be have been much nicer to retrofit it into the sentient goods interface, so that they match.

The second thing is that there is zero visual clue about boosts !
We could have some kind of highlighting that would make it obvious what you want to build. (Either that or a confirmation about unboosted builds). For instance:

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who wasted 9 hours production because he set up his manufactures right before going to bed to figure out in the morning he did produce unboosted goods.

 

[Prueba2]

Yes! Please!

 

[Earwen1]

Yes, I fully support this!
I'm getting confused all the time since I have started with Ascended Goods (On live server, as I didn't get this far on beta yet.).
And have made quite a lot non-boosted goods by mistake.

 

[Alcaro]

Totally agree!!! +1

 

[Lelanya]

+ 1

 

[SirSmithy]

+1

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I think it was just easier for the programming to keep non-ascended factories with rows, rather than switching them all to columns like when all three types can be made in a factory. We were confused by this switch on hitting chapter 18, but think of all the early chapter people it would confuse if pre-sentient factories suddenly switched to columns from rows. There would be a lot of 24-hour productions being made by accident, when they wanted the 9-hour production. So the compromise would be to switch to columns once sentient goods are unlocked.

 

[ayvinul]

I think it was just easier for the programming to keep non-ascended factories with rows, rather than switching them all to columns like when all three types can be made in a factory. We were confused by this switch on hitting chapter 18, but think of all the early chapter people it would confuse if pre-sentient factories suddenly switched to columns from rows. There would be a lot of 24-hour productions being made by accident, when they wanted the 9-hour production. So the compromise would be to switch to columns once sentient goods are unlocked.

well, pre-sentient good factories can stay as they are. I never even considered changing them.

The simplest fix though is to highlight the boosted productions a bit, so that people who have 2 or 3 boosts (sentient/ascended) for a given type of manufacture have a simpler choice building.
I remember an older version, where they introduced a check "are you sure you want to build an unboosted manufacture" ? (check everybody turned off once they reach ascended goods. What I propose is a similar quality-of-life improvement.

 

[TitiElven]

+1