Finally, the 'Imperial Economic Adjustments' box on the 'Budget' screen has four options: 'Additional Research Spending', 'Military Budget', 'Unrest' and 'Grants to Planets'. 'Additional Research Spending' is where most funds for research and development come from. What planets get a share of these monies and just how large of a share is left in the hands of your top-most bureaucrats. 'Military Budget' is straightforward in intent. This funding will determine production levels of ships, ground troops and defensive structures for planets deemed again by upper-echelon civil servants. 'Unrest' determines how much of the annual budget you are willing to set aside for planets to combat unrest and, to coin a cliché, turn those frowns upside down. Colonial development is the means through which 'Grants To Planets' financing is spent, such as being put toward DEA structures.
Due to space limitations, we will wait until Part 6 to return to look at the 'Ledger' screen. Suffice to say in the part above we have considerably covered most of the material contained within the Finance menu of Master of Orion III.
BRIEFLY BACK TO THE 'MAIN SCREEN`: A SUGGESTION
As far as I could tell the following is not possible in the version of the game I received, but I could have overlooked it. It is also conceivable that it has since been implemented. In any event, it flows in as a suggestion albeit a minor one. Think of the ability to “hide” the Windows taskbar. I would love to see this as an option with the tabbed menu items along the bottom of the 'Main Screen'. It should not be the default setting, though – we wouldn't want any one of the menus, each of which contains vital information in varying degrees depending upon the stage of gameplay, to live a pixeled life unbeknownst to the player. As a player becomes more aware of these menus, the ability to have them operate “in stealth” could be a welcome option.
In any event, you needn't have to click on each of the tabs to bring up their corresponding menus: the F2-F9 keys bring them up in order that they are presented on-screen. Hitting their designated F[X]-key again will close them. Other keyboard shortcuts include 'SitRep' (Spacebar) and the 'Galactic Encyclopedia' (F1). I will finish of this edition of my extended MoO3 preview with a nod in the direction of the latter.
YOU WILL KNOW WHERE TO LOOK IT UP
As the game manual introduces it, “[t]he Galactic Encyclopedia is your online hyperlinked database that supplements this manual. It is your catch-all information source for every aspect of the game” ( MoO3 Manual ( Page 20 ) ). You can choose from a menu of items listed alphabetically by 'Subject' or by 'Table of Contents'. In either mode you can also perform a keyboard search to narrow down the number of choices. Another handy feature is the 'See Also' box that provides access to related topics at the cost of just one more click of the mouse.
Until next time...
MoOving In: A Detailed Preview of Master of Orion III 