In the board game, energy management was literally a mathematical equation to be solved. You added and subtracted here and there until you had everything just so. Gut instinct replaces mathematics and the result is a more intense, chaotic, and exciting experience. The switch to real-time is almost universally successful. There are a lot of ship's systems to control, meaning lots of little buttons to control them and limited real estate in which to do it.
Tiny icons are the result.
Compound that problem with a UI design that sports too many screen elements they appear to be buttons, but are in fact non-functional window dressing. Furthering the problem is that script and color choices for non-Federation races can make the UI brutal to use because you can't even read what's on the screen. Racial UI differences Because of the aforementioned problems, the game sometimes gets to a place where it is simply not possible to accomplish what you want to without pausing or slowing the game down. Fair enough, and in single-player mode you can do just that. But the game is vastly more appealing as a multi-player experience, where such options are not available.