Right now the biggest annoyance to me in the game is the constant "hey do you want to attack" screen. Over and over and over and over again all game long, I have to stop that screen. And sometimes when I am fighting someone, my scout will hit the screen for another race I am not at war with, I'm not paying attention, and suddenly I am now at war with a new civ!!! A few very quick QOL improvements that can dramatically reduce the problem. 1) The screen should never come up unless I am already at war. I am 100% fine with having to start my wars manually. But if I'm not at war, I should never see that screen. 2) When I tell the system I don't want to attack, I really mean it. I don't know what logic triggers the screen (more enemy ships coming in, my own ships coming in?)... but there are many times when I tell the screen to go away, and it keeps on coming back for the same system....over and over again. This makes sieges exceedingly tedious, and I would love for this to go away.
Check the "Suppress Combat Popups" option in the Game Settings. I think that's what you are looking for.
Oh bless you! That did the trick, what a difference! EDIT: Darn, I spoke to soon. Yes it does reduce the popups when my allies are wandering around my planets (which is great), but it doesn't tackle the main problem. 1) Every time my surveyor goes to a new planet, a new popup. 2) While I'm sieging, enemy sends a new ship....new popup. EDIT: Ok I've narrowed it down. It looks like for issue 1, the survey ship doesn't generate a popup if there are no forces there, but does if there is a civ there (even one I am not at war with). So yeah, that is a lot of my annoyance right there.
