Micromanagement reduction or dumb question?

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Il Duce
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Location: Venice - the Doge's palace on the Pacific.

Micromanagement reduction or dumb question?

Post by Il Duce »

...Either for possible consideration in the next game, or perhaps as an SR2010 mod:

It would be nice to be able to throttle the build queue on a base - i.e. to disable build slots such that an n-slot base is constrained to build on less than n slots. This would be very useful when trying to throttle expenses - so that you don't have to manually release items from the queue to limit the expense of building. Sometimes I just want to have a base slowly building replacement units - such as a series of three engineers and three recons - but I don't need them all at once. I could just put a recon and an engineer on the queue in continuous mode -but then I have to keep looking at the queue to stop it when I have built the three of each - and in this mode, i'd be building two items at a time. What I'd like to do is disable all but one of the bases' slots, and queue up a series of eng/rec/eng/rec/eng/rec and forget about it.

This would probably be a help to many players who need to continue building across an inflation threshhold - they have other things to watch besides a build queue. Like the price of commodities that they are trading.

Perhaps just adding a no cost-/infinite build-time 'pseudo unit' to the global units list would do the trick? call it a slot-filler or a place holder [and make it tech 0].
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Lightbringer
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Post by Lightbringer »

I have used that queue trick many times before. While I'm not disagreeing with your idea, it seems to me that if you want to build units in a "one slot" environment, then you might build them at an outpost with a one unit build cap. That is what I do when I want to space out construction like that. Of course you might not have one handy... :)
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Il Duce
Brigadier Gen.
Posts: 577
Joined: Aug 10 2005
Location: Venice - the Doge's palace on the Pacific.

Post by Il Duce »

Well, that's the whole point. Building a whole bunch of outposts isn't cost effective, and it also doesn't have the supply effect of a larger base. I just need a governer mechanism to minimize micromanagement. The 'ideal' elegant solution would have been a check box on each slot to enable it or disable it, but a placeholder or dummy build item would work just fine.

For instance - I want to build on one slot of two different bases (as I want to position my reserves), and each of them is either an outpost or larger. I know I can micromanage my way around this but that was the main issue - I don't want to have to monitor for 'unit complete' messages, nor do I want to pause and check queues every day - after all, this is the age of automation. While I am a compulsive micromanager, I only want to do it to a meaningful end, when it isn't a distraction from other micro tasks - such as monitoring commodity prices or watching the development of ugly stacks on my neighbors bases.
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Legend
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Post by Legend »

This may become a consideration for future engine work... but I think there are ways around this.

First thing, turn off auto build - either globally or for each base. Then the cabinet minister won't build things on you.

Then the issue of continuous building units... you can select a unit in the queue, or in construction and remove it's continuous status... (in the middle of the base popup). If you shift click on the continuous checkbox, the next unit will become selected... as a quick way to turn this on or off quickly.

If you want 3 engineers to be continuously built - in a base with 6 slots... then only queue up three of them.

Another idea is to focus your building... don't build things in smaller bases.. and focus your building in larger bases.

Or, if you want to build 1 unit in each of two bases... use one to build artillery and one to build infantry... alternate i guess.

These are only a few suggestions...
I do see the benefit of reducing the capacity of what is being built in your bases... especially in naval ports... I usually can't afford to build to full capacity everywhere.
Il Duce
Brigadier Gen.
Posts: 577
Joined: Aug 10 2005
Location: Venice - the Doge's palace on the Pacific.

Post by Il Duce »

..I never use autobuild or ministers... I just really want to not have to go in and manage each queue separately, nor do I want to actively relocate units from a central build facility.

Enabling or disabling continuous build begs the question. I want to minimize meaningless micromgmt - not add to it. Dinking around with starting items on the build queue is nothing but a distraction.

What I really want to do is queue up an entire formation or complex of units - I just don't want them to be built all at once, and I don't want ot relocate them or sort them out from a central location after they are built. I just want to know that in two years (for instance) a brigade of three - engineers, a recon, an aa and two arty units will probably be ready at a specific location. This is my normal approach to building, and I'm confident that many others also build formations this way. All I want to do is be able to throttle the queue(s) in order not to run up my build costs. As it stands now, I build up rather lengthy queues with all items paused and release them as money and circumstances require. It's a lot more work than it needs to be. I do not want to add to my little pile of notes reminding me that certain things have to get done at a future time. After all - I'm the ruler - not the flunky who has to execute the ruler's orders.

Guess I'll have a look at the units list and see if I can't just cook up what I mentioned - a no-cost, never-completes unit called 'dummy.' Or possibly rowboat for the navy, rubber-band glider for the airforce, and, um, er, goldbrick for the army. I was just hoping that someone who already knows how to do this would volunteer.... hint, hint. Tat is - it's not new development work, just a unit add.

Or was I that unclear about what I am looking for. Didn't seem unreasonable to me.
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