Re: Few suggestions from a new player

I thought I'd respond to your concerns. Steve Orens has done a great 
job with this port, considering the limitations of the small palm 
screens.


> - Selecting fleets is a real pain when they are near or on top of 
the
> name of a system.  It can take me 10 tries in some cases.

Click on a planet, then use the Show Ship Info command (from the 
menu, or type /S). The game shows you a row of dots on the bottom of 
the screen. Tap the first for the first fleet, etc. This works every 
time, so you don't have to struggle to tap the tiny ship icons. It 
would be nice if the first dot/fleet was selected as soon as you 
enter Ship Info mode, though. Also, when you Build a new fleet, that 
fleet should be selected immediately.


> - Moving fleets in the above situation is impossible depending on 
the
> zoom.  Instead of the fleet moving, you get the whole screen 
moving. 
> The only workaround is to select the fleet (after trying 10x), zoom
> out to max, give the fleet its orders, and then zoom back in.

I hear you, here. When moving a fleet, be sure to drag from the 
center of its planet to the center of the target planet. If you don't 
use the center of the planets, you confuse the game and get a scroll, 
rather than a fleet move. I always play in the middle zoom mode, and 
things usually work like I expect, but it did take some getting used 
to.
 

> - Fleet management does not have the best interface.  It's the worst
> part of the interface, in fact.  The Group Fleets screen is NOT
> intuitive - maybe this is a smaller version of the Mac screen that
> everyone knows how to use?

I agree that the UI isn't always intuitive, but I can't think of a 
better way to do it on the small palm screen.

 
> --Documentation is poor.  The online documentation states "Spaceward
> Ho! for the Macintosh comes with built-in help. To learn more about
> Spaceward Ho!, download the Macintosh game."  This doesn't do me a 
lot
> of good since I don't own a Mac.

I think Steve targeted the game toward players that were already 
familiar with the Mac game. I couldn't find any real help for the 
beginner, either. Maybe when I get better at the game I'll write an 
intro for new players. I'm a cowboy now with 930 points.


> - It would be useful to click on a ship and see more info than the
> offence/defense rating.  I hate having to go into the Organize 
Fleets
> screen to have to set Delayed Arrival or Battle Attitude, or even to
> find out what its range is.

This hasn't been much of a problem for me. Screen real estate is 
valuable on a palm game, and game writers don't want to waste it 
showing you info that you already know. Since it is expensive to 
design new ship types (something that took me a while to learn), you 
will usually not have many different types at once. So the 
offense/defense numbers are sufficient to identify your ships.


> - Does the Mac version have the capability of multiple Armegeddons? 
> Seems to be a bit too powerful.  Just playing around with this (it's
> fun to blow up half the galaxy) took me up 6 ranks in about 10 
minutes.

I've never used Armegeddon. Maybe I'll have to try that.


> - There is a sporadic fatal exit when I try to leave the game to 
other
> apps (I have a T3).

I havent seen the crash on exit, but I have seen an infinite loop in 
the $ screen twice. If I scroll in that screen with the stylus, 
rather than the up/down button, it can go into an infinite scroll 
loop, continually scrolling through the planet list, then starting at 
the top again. Reset is required.



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