It is difficult initially. It took me a few tries as well. I recommend waiting a bit then try try again. You will be rewarded.

I played the SotS demo the other day, and it's a lot more fun than I remembered. I don't like the pace or scale of the game, but I understand why others like it.

The UI isn't bad apart from the research tree, which gives me headaches. (I had to down an ibuprofin at one point.) At the very worst, it's as bad as that of any other space-based 4X TBS. Fleet management is actually handled quite well. 

I don't get the dislike of the UI on the research tree.

It is zoomable you realize.

That and it's not a huge pile of many worthless techs you need to research to get to a good tech.  Depending on how you set econ/research, you will only bother on a few areas of it anyway, until you have either lost, or built your empire to a size where you're not as concerned about the next tech anyway.

I mean I loved MoO and MoO2 (and 3 for that matter), but the tech 'tree' in those games was hardly a 'tree', and fairly uninteresting anyway.

I realize it's zoomable, but then you have to deal with painfully small icons and poor anti-aliasing. The tree wouldn't have either of these problems if it were represented using projected textures, rather than models. 

I have no problems with the tech tree itself, just how it's represented in the interface. Personally, I like static tech trees more than randomized ones, but different strokes for different folks and all that. 

On another note, I just watched several videos showcasing the interface in SotS II, and it looks fantastic! They've kept the headache-inducing tech tree, but the starmap is excellent! I love the side window with the system view! And everything is nice and flat - no complicated hierarchy of windows like in other games. I'm working on a space-based 4x RTS as a personal project, but have been struggling with the interface. I'll definitely be stealing a lot of these ideas.

You can turn on the names via toggle, so no matter the zoom you can clearly see what each tech is.  I've not had any AA issues, but everyone has different specs on their machines.

I think all the talk about specifics is missing the point. The problem with the tech tree isn't that it's unplayable, it's that it's less playable than its alternatives - namely, the two-dimensional representation used by nearly every other game on the market.

Sure, the problems may not be so bad or maybe they can be ameliorated. But I shouldn't have to settle for not-so-bad or have to do something to ameliorate a problem which need not exist in the first place. (e.g. Yes, the interface can be zoomed, but then technologies are harder to select than they need to be; yes, better aliasing solves some of the problems with resampling, but it doesn't solve all of them; etc.)

Really, I think it comes down to this: interacting with the three-dimensional tech tree just isn't fun enough (for me) to outweigh its disadvantages. Ease of use shouldn't be the only consideration when designed user interfaces - sliders are easy to use, but aren't very fun - but this is a case in which (again, for me) there isn't any advantage to the system, only disadvantages - irrespective of how significant these disadvantages actually are. 

Exactly zigzag. It's possible to use it anyway and it's possible to fiddle around to make it slightly less painful... but why? This is a problem that's been solved already, there's no excuse for them to use a clearly inferior method just to be different. (And yes, this is entirely a UI issue. I'm not talking about the techs themselves, just that 3d circular room BS.)

I want to play the game, not screw around trying to make the UI show me what I want to see.

To each their own.

I don't find it any less easy to use than the tech tree in Civ4.

Can you give me an example of a complex and robust tech tree which 'does it right'?  You can't use any of the MoOs, they are neither complex nor robust.  I wouldn't really accept GalCiv either, because if my memory serves me, there was a lot of scrolling to be done there as well.

But I get the feeling that this isn't really a UI issue.  Fun?  Interacting with the tech tree is something you do once every 'X' (where X is usually >8) turns.  The tech pace, as well as the tech design (not the UI) is different from most other 4x games I've played.  In as much as it's not the every turn focus it can be in other games.  I just don't buy this 'the UI is crap' argument, because it's not crap.  It's different, and sure, you may or may not like it, but it's no less inferior to anything else based solely on ease of navigation, or representation of information.  That is, what game gives you that complete tech tree picture which is actually useful?  What game does not require you to scroll (circular vs. flat?  who really cares?) to navigate the tech tree?  Or worse, jump between tabs to see the different areas (more clicky, still have to scroll probably).

So what is the point of UI anyway, if that's really what we're griping about?

Is not a UI issue.  It's a learning curve issue for not just how to use the UI (because come on, the UI in SotS is not difficult to figure out), but what the techs actually are, and how they implemented techs and research as a mechanic in the game.  Or, what do you really want to see?  The whole tech tree laid flat?  That would be rather pointless considering the zoom level you'd have to go out to see the whole thing (as evidenced by those who put it flat on the wiki).

So if you don't like it, so be it, I'm not going to argue that you should like it.  The idea that the UI is bad, is just bizarre to me though, because it does everything you want a UI to do, and it tends to do it with fewer clicks than most other UIs I've seen (you know you can drag it right?).  It also displays the information you need, though sure, you need to do some customizing on zoom level or display setting or whatever, but meh, once you set that up, and once you learn the hot keys it's as fast to get anywhere as anything else, for the level of detail and complexity it contains.

The UI for SotS is very clunky. You can't see who has NAPs without scrolling over the info in the Diplomacy Screen, you can't see how close your tech is to being finished without scrolling over the research box, simply moving a ship takes 3 clicks, scrolling all around the tech tree is a PITA, rebellions and outbreaks have no audio notifications and can easily be missed if you're waiting a couple turns, etc... (For a tech tree done right, SoaSE.)

A bigger problem though is lack of documentation on stuff. I had to go to the wiki to figure out just what the hell 'Integrated Battle Systems' does because the game only gives a vague idea of what it actually does.

What game does not require you to scroll (circular vs. flat?  who really cares?) to navigate the tech tree? Or worse, jump between tabs to see the different areas (more clicky, still have to scroll probably).

There's nothing wrong with scrolling or tabs. Or at worst, they're necessary evils because of the need to represent a large amount of information on a small screen.
Circular scrolling gives me headaches...

If the tech tree is complicated enough, some amount of scrolling will be necessary because it's impossible to fit everything on one screen at once. But being able to horizontal scroll to see farther ahead isn't the same thing as needing to scroll this stupid circular thing around (or apparently zoom it out, which I didn't even know you could do becuase it's not at all obvious from the screen that you can do that) in order to see what options are available to you right now.

SotS doesn't even let you see that far ahead in the trees, so what you're really looking at is just what's available to you right now. Civ 5 manages to do that with a single list on the side of the screen with absolutely no fuss whatsoever. There's certainly none of this circular scrolling around nonsense, and looking at that list doesn't take you out of the game to anther screen. It would be easy to do that in SotS, and it'd also be easy to optimize the existing research screen to display every option on one screen without that "looking around a room from the center" motif. That was just some UI guy trying to be creative and failing usability 101.

It really is. My day job involves a fair amount of UI design. As a result, I do not have a high tolerance for bad UI that gets in my way.

That you don't have to do it as often as some other games is no excuse for a poor UI.

I sure hope the devs of SotS 2 don't have your sense of denial. Also you're wrong, UI design is a well studied and documented field. There are absolute wrong UI decisions based on very large amounts of usability research. The research UI IS inferior in navigation and informatoin presentation because it takes what could fit in a relatively compact design with a known navigation pattern (horizontal or vertical scrolling, not that you'd need to do either in the early game given the number of techs available) and instead throws a confusing and annoying circular design at it instead.

Since SotS doesn't give you the complete tech tree like other games do, that isn't even a relevant factor. For what it's actually trying to present it does a very poor job of it. And even if it was a complete picture it'd still be doing a poor job of it because of how little of it you can fit on the screen at once due to the need to circular scroll and the amount of space being wasted on screen for that.
 

Really? You're arguing about UI and you don't know what the point of a UI is?

No, I was able to learn pretty quickly that I had to circular scroll. That doesn't make circular scrolling a good or even acceptable method of navigating the tech trees. It's far more cumbersome then the alternatives seen in other games (in particular with how it's laid out, a tabbed structure like Sins of a Solar Empire has would be a drastic improvement).

What do I want to see? I want to be able to jump from branch X to branch B without having to circular scroll through Y, Z, and A first. Most UIs make that easy either by simply having them all on screen or having simple scrolling or tabs to jump to the one I want. SotS instead gives me the annoyance of circular scrolling a few times until the one I wanted in the first place swings around into view. If I gave this UI to my dad, he'd quit the game and go do something else within 45 seconds. That's not a good thing.

Other people have kindly already replied to this pointing out the other areas where the UI is deficient. It doesn't do nearly as good a job of presenting information as it could or should. The research one is just among the most obvious examples.

If you want to see games with good UI, try anything from Blizzard. Those guys take usability seriously, and one of the reasons why WoW destroyed so many other MMOs over the years is that there was a three year stretch where WoW's UI simply destroyed everybody else on the market (and anywhere that the base UI was deficient somehow, modders took care of until Blizzard upgraded). It's only been recently that games like Rift have launched with competitive stock UI. The Civ 5 UI is also quite good, though the game itself has some issues.

Circular vs horizontal (and vertical often) is the same thing as far as I'm concerned.  It's no better or worse, just different.  As to it being obvious that you can zoom or not, RTFM.  I mean seriously, that's the extent of your issues it appears, you didn't bother to learn what you can do with that UI.

Not a UI issue.  A game design mechanic.

Confusing?  Known navigation pattern?  Seriously.  I don't find it confusing, I find it nicer than the others I've seen, to each their own.  But this notion that it's a flawed design is your own notion, not a fact.  And since you didn't even bother to learn how to navigate it using the full set of tools available to you, it's a flawed notion.

Zoom out all the way.  Again, you simply don't seem to know what you are talking about here.

Apparently you've never heard of a rhetorical question either.

Zoom out, activate names.  Problems solved, if you had just bothered to RTFM, or you know, look at the icons on the screen...

Zoom out.  Problem entirely solved.  Yah you have to scroll a bit, but meh, same freaking difference in a horizontal approach.

No, research is not the most obvious example.  Again, because you don't realize what tools you have available to use it.  Sending ships is a bit clunky, I'd agree, but on the other hand, we're not talking about that mechanism.

Blizzard made a space 4x?  Cool what's it called?

I love the 4X games.  One game that I think should be remade was the extremely underrated game Emperor of the Fading Suns.  What impressed me most about that game was a distinct history and distinct setting.  It took the gothic sci-fi to the extreme and when playing the game you felt that you were in a gothic sc-fi setting similar to warhammer 40k.  It would be great if this game were updated because it would feel different then a lot of the current 4x games.

I have gone to GOG to download some of the older 4x games including Master of Magic, Alpha Centauri, Civilvization Call to Power 2(Another underrated game), and Shadow magic.  The graphics may not have been as good on them, but more things were done with the plot, espcecially in Alpha Centauri.  The post in this inspired to do so and also to revisit master of magic.

Add me to the list of people who can't stand the SotS UI!

While SotS is just below DW, (my fav), and while i really enjoy the challenge of the 3D galaxy - I hate the circular tech 'screen.'  I wish they would make it optional, and user customizable.. and give us the option to use a flat tech tree like in civ, or whatever.