Building priority ratings

[mothwentbad]

Some other TD/RTS games have something like this already, and it would help a lot here, too. There could be a building priority rating (I'll also call them "tiers") to each object under construction, with, say, 4 options: high, regular, low, and off. And maybe even a universal slider to go with this, from 0 to 100%, which makes the priorities either strict (don't even start on the lower tiers until completing the higher tiers) to 0% (ignore priority settings, except for pause, maybe).

Below, "surplus" means the rate at which you make new energy faster than you spend it under the specified settings. "Reserves" will refer to the number on the green bar saying "energy".

The exception to the prioritization scheme could be that even with the slider set to strict, it would still build some lower priority things at a rate that just barely uses up a surplus. There could be an option or two for this, too, such as "only dip into lower tiers when the reserves are maxxed out" or "always use up any surplus".

I know I'm not the only one here who has ever taken bizarre, circuitous routes across the map to avoid spreading my energy expenditure too thin too soon, because I didn't feel like pausing and adding new collectors one at a time.

If you wanted to get fancy, you could set up a queue within each tier. Say my mortar is high priority, but I also want to lay down four speed reactors. I'd set the reactors to medium priority, but I'd want to build them one at a time instead of all at once. Actually, storage, speed, and reactor should all have separate queues automatically. Maybe there should be an option to always queue within a tier - that is, if you set queing on for all units, then you will never spend more than a tiny remainder on things you couldn't build at full speed at your current energy generation rate.

So that got a little complicated, but it could help a lot. Some of these would work better as sliders (particularly things that are on a per unit level), while other things might be better off in the options menu or something.

[thomaswarner]

I thought about this, but I never posted it.

[Cheesecake]

bump

Lucky me I used search before posting a new thread  ;D

[mothwentbad]

Thanks for the bump... I personally think "smart mortars" is my best idea ever, if you want to do any more bumping. ;)

[Twi]

I approve of this idea.

[UpperKEES]

I actually like it the way it is now. I consider micromanagement part of the game and wouldn't like it if I can 'set up' a map completely and just let it run. I like to be busy managing my energy; it keeps me alert. The only thing I would like is a deactivate button for civilian buildings to stop building temporarily, as is possible for military structures.

In addition it would be nice to have a button for military units that enables it to fire, but not request for more energy. For example: I like a mortar to empty it's ammunition without draining energy. The only way I can achieve this at the moment is disconnecting it from the network, but often it links other structures as well, which makes disconnecting impossible.