Reflector Monthly Update - May 2020

The Great UI Rewrite

May was focused on the big UI redesign for Alpha 2. The main goals of redesign are:

  1. Everything should be fully usable with only the mouse or only the keybaord
  2. All important information should be visible at a glance without needing to "inspect" anything or take any other actions
  3. Controls and mechanics should be easily discoverable

I've made good progress, especially on the first two points. Here's a gif demonstrating the changes and below that, a detailed list:

GIF

The first part of June will be dedicated to the remaining major pieces of the new UI: build controls (in progress), the status panel, the resources panel, and the jobs panel. Beyond that, I have a long list of smaller UI enhancements, but at that point I'll likely start alternating between playtesting/balancing and working on the UI. For alpha 1, testing by both myself and others revealed a lot of UI improvements, so I want to get that started as soon as the new UI is "good enough".