Hey Cornishman, welcome to the forums!
Ship fuel/range is likely to undergo changes in the future as you're not the first person to mention this. It's a new system as well, so it's inevitable that there would be changes. As for changing it so you don't have to enter the redeploy screen though, i'm not sure how that would work. There are only two ways I can think of to implement your idea - both of which have downsides. The first one would be to replace the system screen with a ship display. But this would mean losing the system view, unless some option to switch between the two views is implemented. But if you're clicking a button to switch, you're essentially doing the same thing as accessing the redeploy screen anyways. The second way is to add some kind of new box to the screen where this info could always be displayed. But that has downsides because it would mean losing a big chunk of the map to give room to this new screen.
The UI has always been one of the most important parts of the game to Mike (The developer). We're glad you like it.
As .Iceman said, a lot of people have mentioned this problem, so you're not alone in thinking that. Myself personally, I don't there's anything wrong with it, but then again i've been using the game for so long i've practically come to ignore the background lol. Mike knows of the problem though, and he's discussed a few ideas with me. These ideas include reducing the brightness of the image, using a different image, or adding a game option to turn the background off completely. I don't know what he has decided to do yet, as he is currently swamped with his "real" job.
As .Iceman said, upgrading ships is more a case of scrapping and rebuilding, rather than simply upgrading. This is because of the way the shiplist is set up though - upgrades represent completely new designs, rather than just adding a couple of new systems to existing designs. This was the only way we could squeeze so many different ship designs into the game without having massive, unwieldly shiplists. Upgrading WILL require you to physically send your ships to a shipyard for upgrading. This does NOT apply to non-combat designs though (Colony Ships, Transports, Hospital Ships, Construction Ships), which will auto-upgrade. As for stations, you will need to send a construction ship to them and initiate the upgrade that way. (So it's the same system as in BOTF)
As .Iceman said, if buildings automatically upgrade, the entire upgrade system would be useless. The system could perhaps do with some kind of tweaking though, so perhaps colonies could start with older tech, but not the oldest tech - eg. colonies would start from 2 tech levels behind. This would mean the colony would still need to develop, but it wouldn't need to develop from scratch. Part of the reason for the current odd-seeming implementation is to artifically slow down the pace of colony development - it simply wouldn't make sense for a new colony to start churning out fleets for instance, when the priority should be on building farms and power plants. I'm sure things will improve over time as people get used to it and more ideas are discussed and implemented though.
.Iceman is correct about the population health stat. Population health represents a modifier that reduces the chances of plagues and diseases afflicting a population - the higher the modifier, the greater the reduction. It also affects how quickly the population will recover once an infection takes hold. Plagues will be random events - they can affect any population at any time. Some structures will also have population health bonuses, such as Federation Clinics. But diseases can have political and sabotage effects/causes as well. Whilst the exact details haven't been nailed yet, it may be possible for ships to accidentaly spread plagues to other systems. This would ave major negative diplomatic implications if you infected another race. Your ships could also help other races treat/cure diseases, which could boost diplomatic relations. Your intel services could also purposely infect other races with plagues to weaken them. The intel system is due to overgo a major overhaul though, and i've been told to keep quiet about what those changes are. We want to keep it a surprise.
Dafedz, another forum member and a well-known modder of BOTF, has produced a massive database of game information, which you will likely find extremely useful. It wasn't originally designed with Supremacy in mind - it was meant more as a general idea of what BOTF2 *could* be like. But over time he has customised the information to be more specific to Supremacy. This means some of the info may be outdated or wrong, but as a rule of thumb it's the biggest source of game information that you cana access. You can find it Use the links on the left-hand side of the page that loads to accesss different pages of information. You might especially find the second-from the top link the most useful - the one called the "BOTF2 Masterplan". I also maintain a list of known bugs and their fixes this list includes some of the missing/incomplete game features as these are often some of the most asked questions. (Eg. where is the combat system?) I also recently added a list of what you can't yet do in the game due to game features that haven't yet been implemented if you read the download post information.
Thanks for the great feedback, and please keep posting as you have questiosn or ideas. This game is being made by the fans, for the fans, so the more people contribute, the more people will like it.
