I think this is a good suggestion.
And yeah, all you'd have to do is make it available at a higher level
Building + Expansion
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Guest
a new building expansion button! mua hahaha
i think their should be a button you can press that is in the expand menu that when you press it, it buys the materials from NPC market, i know their is a NPC for wood, steel, and stones. so you would pay the npc price and it calculates, then you pay the price of each item used instead. and it would be instead of using your stock in the warehouse. kinda hard to explain what i mean but i think you get the picture... sorta lol
basically: you press the button, it asks you if you would like to pay npc price, and warns you it might cost less if you use items in warehouse, you click yes and it charges you per SQM and supply cost.
cause i hate going to market and buying each material individually! lol its tedious to me.
basically: you press the button, it asks you if you would like to pay npc price, and warns you it might cost less if you use items in warehouse, you click yes and it charges you per SQM and supply cost.
cause i hate going to market and buying each material individually! lol its tedious to me.
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Guest
Re: a new building expansion button! mua hahaha
ScottyPenatilliIndustries wrote:basically: you press the button, it asks you if you would like to pay npc price, and warns you it might cost less if you use items in warehouse, you click yes and it charges you per SQM and supply cost.
cause i hate going to market and buying each material individually! lol its tedious to me.
1: A real businessman allways watches the market flutuations and sees what he can buy cheaper and the NPC surelly isn't the cheapest you can find.
2: Don't like to be in the market looking for what is missing? you don't have to... when you give an expansion order and there's materials missing, the game tells you and gives you a direct link for the product (the same link you find in the warehouse) you just have to follow and look for the necessary amount.
3: The kind of automation that you are proposing it's not needed in the game.
P.S. - If you use firefox you can open a tab for each product. when you buy one you pass to the other tab and have the other!!! Easy, isn't it?
Thanks anyway for your opinion.
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Personally, I like the idea, but I do agree that it borders on a level of automation that some will like and some won't. Here's a few of my thoughts on the matter. (Disclaimer: I am a known and admitted overly verbose writer. 
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Automation already exists in the game to some extent. It has to. The fact that you can set a production run for a whole week if you have the resources is still a low-level automation in my opinion. The fact that you can put goods on the marketplace and have money instantly credited to your account is another good example, although in this example you pay a 10% fee for this automation. People who don't want to pay the fee for this automation have to post in the forum, wait for an interested buyer, and then send a contract. So I believe the question is not "Do we allow automation" but rather "How much automoation do we allow?"
At the opposite end of the spectrum, there is what I think of as high-level automation that is the kind most people agree can ruin the game. This would essentially be anything that allows a player to "program" how they want their company to run and then not log in for weeks or months and come back to see how much profit they've made. Maybe the easiest way to define this spectrum of automation is based on how long it allows you to stay away from the game while things are still happening "for" you.
I believe that to make a game reasonably fair for a variety of player types, it should allow a player who logs in once a day to have very little disadvantage to the player who sits at the computer 24/7. I realize that there will always be some advantage, especially for those who play the markets, to be online more often, but I think regular operations such as building, expanding, and production can be more fair.
The example from this thread fits into the category of automation that I agree with. Most buildings take between 5 and 10 hours to build before you can expand them. Even if a player logs in twice a day at times separated by 12 hours, as much as 7 hours might be wasted between the time the building is completed before the player can log back in to start expansion or production. Even if the player has all the resources ready for expansion in advance and knows when the building will be completed, he still may not be able to log in for several hours (or in some cases days) to start the expansion. This is different from production where you at least have some control over when the production will complete. While I don't think this is a major issue in the game, it would be a nice feature to have at times.
A similar level of automation that I think would be even more useful (although more difficult to code) would be to allow directing the next step in a production or sales building. Most people setup their production for regular daily cycles, but to avoid waste, you are forced to predict exactly when you can log back in next. I have run into this problem when I usually log in at the same time every night, but some days, I have to log in a couple hours sooner or later because of my real life schedule. In the first case, I am forced to cancel production early and end up with some scrap q0 materials. In the second case, my production facilities waste a couple of hours doing nothing. I think this is another case where players should not be penalized for not sticking to a strict schedule.
My thought is that you could incorporate into the administration buildings a way to set the next step for the building. You would say what you want it to produce and when the current production is completed, if all the required materials were present in the warehouse, the next step would commence. You could, alternatively of course, require all the materials up front as a kind of cost for this activity (you basically have to stockpile a little extra raw materials). I think the important distinction here for not going too far with this is that you still have to log in daily (or once every production cycle) to tell it what to do next; you just don't have to log in exactly when the production is going to be finished. There would be no way to say "do this every day". In this way, I believe you increase the flexibility of playing the game without allowing people to profit while not playing.
I realize this idea is probably too much automation for some people, but I think it is just right (Goldilocks anyone? ) I think the ultimate purpose is to make sure that people are still actually playing the game on a regular basis without penalizing them for not being able to log in at a specific time and I believe the abovementioned ideas help provide the balance between these two goals.
-Tim
)Automation already exists in the game to some extent. It has to. The fact that you can set a production run for a whole week if you have the resources is still a low-level automation in my opinion. The fact that you can put goods on the marketplace and have money instantly credited to your account is another good example, although in this example you pay a 10% fee for this automation. People who don't want to pay the fee for this automation have to post in the forum, wait for an interested buyer, and then send a contract. So I believe the question is not "Do we allow automation" but rather "How much automoation do we allow?"
At the opposite end of the spectrum, there is what I think of as high-level automation that is the kind most people agree can ruin the game. This would essentially be anything that allows a player to "program" how they want their company to run and then not log in for weeks or months and come back to see how much profit they've made. Maybe the easiest way to define this spectrum of automation is based on how long it allows you to stay away from the game while things are still happening "for" you.
I believe that to make a game reasonably fair for a variety of player types, it should allow a player who logs in once a day to have very little disadvantage to the player who sits at the computer 24/7. I realize that there will always be some advantage, especially for those who play the markets, to be online more often, but I think regular operations such as building, expanding, and production can be more fair.
The example from this thread fits into the category of automation that I agree with. Most buildings take between 5 and 10 hours to build before you can expand them. Even if a player logs in twice a day at times separated by 12 hours, as much as 7 hours might be wasted between the time the building is completed before the player can log back in to start expansion or production. Even if the player has all the resources ready for expansion in advance and knows when the building will be completed, he still may not be able to log in for several hours (or in some cases days) to start the expansion. This is different from production where you at least have some control over when the production will complete. While I don't think this is a major issue in the game, it would be a nice feature to have at times.
A similar level of automation that I think would be even more useful (although more difficult to code) would be to allow directing the next step in a production or sales building. Most people setup their production for regular daily cycles, but to avoid waste, you are forced to predict exactly when you can log back in next. I have run into this problem when I usually log in at the same time every night, but some days, I have to log in a couple hours sooner or later because of my real life schedule. In the first case, I am forced to cancel production early and end up with some scrap q0 materials. In the second case, my production facilities waste a couple of hours doing nothing. I think this is another case where players should not be penalized for not sticking to a strict schedule.
My thought is that you could incorporate into the administration buildings a way to set the next step for the building. You would say what you want it to produce and when the current production is completed, if all the required materials were present in the warehouse, the next step would commence. You could, alternatively of course, require all the materials up front as a kind of cost for this activity (you basically have to stockpile a little extra raw materials). I think the important distinction here for not going too far with this is that you still have to log in daily (or once every production cycle) to tell it what to do next; you just don't have to log in exactly when the production is going to be finished. There would be no way to say "do this every day". In this way, I believe you increase the flexibility of playing the game without allowing people to profit while not playing.
I realize this idea is probably too much automation for some people, but I think it is just right (Goldilocks anyone?
) I think the ultimate purpose is to make sure that people are still actually playing the game on a regular basis without penalizing them for not being able to log in at a specific time and I believe the abovementioned ideas help provide the balance between these two goals.-Tim
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Just saw some of the discussion in the other threads and reminded me of another annoyance. As I mentioned before, I know everyone doesn't agree with this, so this is just my opinion.
I think it is silly to only allow one research point to be researched at a time. This is fine for smaller companies with little RC's, but I think it is just plain ridiculous to expect a higher level player with a 4500qm RC to log into the game every 50 minutes for 24 hours straight if he wants to start a new research area efficiently. Does that seem ridiculous to anyone else?
To me, this would be just like only allowing expansions in 20qm increments. You know, so you would have to log in every 6 hours to keep it expanding. It really is automation that you can tell a building to expand by 3000qm at once (I'm currently doing this myself and it lets me ignore the RC completely for 1 month while it expands itself). This is just another example where I don't see why the initial building and research seem to be handled differently than expansion.
-Tim
I think it is silly to only allow one research point to be researched at a time. This is fine for smaller companies with little RC's, but I think it is just plain ridiculous to expect a higher level player with a 4500qm RC to log into the game every 50 minutes for 24 hours straight if he wants to start a new research area efficiently. Does that seem ridiculous to anyone else?
To me, this would be just like only allowing expansions in 20qm increments. You know, so you would have to log in every 6 hours to keep it expanding. It really is automation that you can tell a building to expand by 3000qm at once (I'm currently doing this myself and it lets me ignore the RC completely for 1 month while it expands itself). This is just another example where I don't see why the initial building and research seem to be handled differently than expansion.
-Tim
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I see what you're saying, but here's the flip side of that.PolymerTim wrote:I think it is silly to only allow one research point to be researched at a time. This is fine for smaller companies with little RC's, but I think it is just plain ridiculous to expect a higher level player with a 4500qm RC to log into the game every 50 minutes for 24 hours straight if he wants to start a new research area efficiently. Does that seem ridiculous to anyone else?
Player sets the target research quality of 127, and never touches the building again. That's not good.
The only way I could see this working is if you can set for multiple tiers of research at once, but you don't get any of the research available until it stops. That would take a different bit of coding, but I could see it being possible.
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Oh, well that's a fair question. I could answer that.
I know nobody is specifically at home thinking "yes! I get to wake up early and restart my research!" But it's something to do, a commitment that ties you to the rest of the game. And that's important.
Ostensibily the playing of the game is the less tangible stuff: making deals, scouring the market, deciding what to build and when, etc. Restarting buildings is sort of a busywork to the game, comparable to rolling dice, shuffling cards, training a skill, logging in for a raid, etc ... in other games. It adds some substance to the experience. More importantly, it creates a sense of urgency that gets your butt in the seat. That's important.
With each level of automation added, it allows your thoughts to move from "I don't have to log in right now" -> "I don't have to log in today" -> "I don't have to log in..." That's just how people's minds work, they drift away and one day think "why don't I play that anymore?" Because it was never even a conscious decision, it's just what happens when you think of the experience not as "log in and play" but as "start it and walk away."
Now I don't really speak for the game's creator (Nasenprinz) but every time you hear "not too much automation" I'm pretty sure that's why. And something that would let you set a building and then walk away forever? Way too much automation.
I know nobody is specifically at home thinking "yes! I get to wake up early and restart my research!" But it's something to do, a commitment that ties you to the rest of the game. And that's important.
Ostensibily the playing of the game is the less tangible stuff: making deals, scouring the market, deciding what to build and when, etc. Restarting buildings is sort of a busywork to the game, comparable to rolling dice, shuffling cards, training a skill, logging in for a raid, etc ... in other games. It adds some substance to the experience. More importantly, it creates a sense of urgency that gets your butt in the seat. That's important.
With each level of automation added, it allows your thoughts to move from "I don't have to log in right now" -> "I don't have to log in today" -> "I don't have to log in..." That's just how people's minds work, they drift away and one day think "why don't I play that anymore?" Because it was never even a conscious decision, it's just what happens when you think of the experience not as "log in and play" but as "start it and walk away."
Now I don't really speak for the game's creator (Nasenprinz) but every time you hear "not too much automation" I'm pretty sure that's why. And something that would let you set a building and then walk away forever? Way too much automation.
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wow, lots of ideas here 
1. in the expanding idea, you can set a max of m2 like 100 maybe ??? or make it if you lvl you can set more m2 ???
2. about the button for buy from the NPC i dont agree, the nice thing to make its search for a lower price, why i gonna buy from NPC ??? and come on its only 3 products (wood,steel,stone) isnt a hard work to buy
3. about the idea of production and sales, i agree on production (but only if you can add 1 task, no more than that, then you need to log in everyday to set the next task) but i dont agree on sales (that will cause a lot of trouble, how ?? you set 2 task selling X item for 10 each, the first task gonna have the time you want, but what about if market change ??? you can lose a lot, you can have a lot more time to sell, etc.)
4. about the researchs, like Knolls say, i agree only if you can make 1 more lvl
5. (only for Knolls) Send me a IGM/IFM telling me whats the game you play that have raids, i play one like that too, maybe its the same
1. in the expanding idea, you can set a max of m2 like 100 maybe ??? or make it if you lvl you can set more m2 ???
2. about the button for buy from the NPC i dont agree, the nice thing to make its search for a lower price, why i gonna buy from NPC ??? and come on its only 3 products (wood,steel,stone) isnt a hard work to buy
3. about the idea of production and sales, i agree on production (but only if you can add 1 task, no more than that, then you need to log in everyday to set the next task) but i dont agree on sales (that will cause a lot of trouble, how ?? you set 2 task selling X item for 10 each, the first task gonna have the time you want, but what about if market change ??? you can lose a lot, you can have a lot more time to sell, etc.)
4. about the researchs, like Knolls say, i agree only if you can make 1 more lvl
5. (only for Knolls) Send me a IGM/IFM telling me whats the game you play that have raids, i play one like that too, maybe its the same
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I completely agree with these points. I think a happy medium can be worked out that settles everything you and I have both expressed. In fact, most of these details have already been worked out in production and expansion, they just haven't been applied to research.Knolls wrote:With each level of automation added, it allows your thoughts to move from "I don't have to log in right now" -> "I don't have to log in today" -> "I don't have to log in..."
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And something that would let you set a building and then walk away forever? Way too much automation.
In my example of expanding, I am currently expanding my RC building and won't touch it or really think about it for a whole month. That level of automation is already in the game. Luckily, I have plenty of other things to do in the game daily to keep me busy. Of course, the downside to having my RC under construction for a month is that I can't actually use it during that time. Likewise with production. Plenty of people set productions (mostly power generators) for a week at a time and just play on the weekends. Again, the cost for this activitiy is that you get nothing until a whole week of production completes. Those who understand compound interest will realize that there is a bigger penalty to this type of gameplay than just delaying profits.
So why can't research be the same. My RC is 4500qm (or will be in a couple more weeks) and if I want to research a new area to q13, kapitools tells me it will take 1 day and 1 hour. Unfortunately, I can't log in every single hour for 24 hours straight so I recognize that for my style of play, it will take me at least 3 days. This doesn't seem right to me. I think this could be done as simply as production with very little extra coding. All you have to do is require the full monetary cost up front and the actual research level achieved stays at its current level until all of the research is completed or cancelled. If cancelled, no money is returned, but the research level that could have been completed in that time is given. These aren't new rules, I'm simply putting together the ones from production and expansion that seem to make sense for this case.
It seems very simple to me. In this case, you are not really encouraging players to set it and forget it. If a low level player wants to set his research for 127 and forget it, he would first have to have a huge sum of money and then wait indefintely for no return. I'm sure you can see this wouldn't happen. This only allows larger players to avoid the unnecessarily frequent early researches. I don't think automation has gone too far when it allows a player to avoid logging in 13 or more times in one day. I don't really see how this could be abused to go more than a few days before becoming excessively costly.
I see your point on that one. Honestly, I'm a producer and haven't sold anything in a store in months so I hadn't thought of those details. The fact that stores calculate sales time based on the current stats does comlicate things. I think this kind of thing is not so necessary for sales anyways since nothing is really lost when you restock a shop that is not empty yet. You don't lose anything (except maybe a little time from a partial sale) unlike with production where you can lose large quantities of valuable raw materials. So I think the idea of setting a next step in production is more apllicable to production anyway. And yes, it would only be a single step allowed, so you would still have to log in regularly. As Knolls pointed out, the important thing is not to let someone play the game without thinking about it. Allowing only one production step (assuming a daily production cycle) you are still logging in everyday, you just don't have to log in at the same time your production is completeing. It frees you up to log in at any point during the day and keep things running. I think that is fair.djmix666 wrote:3. about the idea of production and sales, i agree on production (but only if you can add 1 task, no more than that, then you need to log in everyday to set the next task) but i dont agree on sales (that will cause a lot of trouble, how ?? you set 2 task selling X item for 10 each, the first task gonna have the time you want, but what about if market change ??? you can lose a lot, you can have a lot more time to sell, etc.)
-Tim