Rebuilding is a big part of the "grind."

[Shrugging Khan]

Having them require supply, and giving the command station a, say, tenfold building time and cost sounds good to me. Even if it starts after two minutes, you either have to wait a while for it to finish or bring in the engineers. It would also be very vulnerable in that time, since AI ships will probably make it a targeting priority.

[BobTheJanitor]

Longer rebuild times or long delay times followed by auto rebuilding makes the feature less attractive. If it's going to take much more time or resources than it would to just send a colony ship over, there's no reason to use it. You have to make the trade-off fair. In return for not having to click as many buttons, how would it make sense to suggest that the player should pay extra resources or wait 2 minutes or what have you in order to get a comm station back? It's not that hard to rebuild comm stations right now, it's just mildly inconvenient. The fix isn't to make it cost extra time or resources, it's just to make it less inconvenient.

I still like the idea of sending a remains rebuilder and letting that do the work. It gives you control of the process, it still requires the use of a fragile unit that can easily be destroyed by anything hostile that's still around, and it doesn't automatically try to build stations that I might not want to come back yet (sucking up resources for no good reason). Give it the same build time and cost as a colony ship plus a command station. Done. Equal to sending a colony ship but with much less micro.

[chemical_art]

Longer rebuild times or long delay times followed by auto rebuilding makes the feature less attractive. If it's going to take much more time or resources than it would to just send a colony ship over, there's no reason to use it. You have to make the trade-off fair. In return for not having to click as many buttons, how would it make sense to suggest that the player should pay extra resources or wait 2 minutes or what have you in order to get a comm station back? It's not that hard to rebuild comm stations right now, it's just mildly inconvenient. The fix isn't to make it cost extra time or resources, it's just to make it less inconvenient.

I still like the idea of sending a remains rebuilder and letting that do the work. It gives you control of the process, it still requires the use of a fragile unit that can easily be destroyed by anything hostile that's still around, and it doesn't automatically try to build stations that I might not want to come back yet (sucking up resources for no good reason). Give it the same build time and cost as a colony ship plus a command station. Done. Equal to sending a colony ship but with much less micro.

While true, there can certainly be a trade off. As it is, the player already gets the luxury of not having to worry about colony ship cap, and defense in depth shall shift to becoming even more powerful then it already is. Not having to micro rebuilding is a very powerful benefit; it is OK to at least have a delay. If the delay in building is not a few minutes, you can screw up the AI as it remains distracted trying to destroy 3 or 4 neutral worlds that keep trying to rebuild after a minute. Rebuilding command stations is not like rebuilding turrets or other things because the AI always goes out of its way to destroy it.


This optional micro reduction should help manage a large empire; it shouldn't be nearly as efficient as microing a colony ship unless you can adapt the AI to deal with this.

How shall the rebuilder work? The builder is lost when the command station is lost from what I remember. So if you have to use a rebuilder, you have to still send it to the world to be rebuilt, and then manually tell it to either FRD or build the command station. It sounds click-intensive, which is exactly what the proposal is meant to reduce. No need to swap mouse clicks of a colony ship to those of a rebuilder.




Also, if the player wants to rebuild sooner, nothing stops them from still using a colony ship.

[Shrugging Khan]

Solid conditions, then: Supply, and no AI presence.

[Commiesalami]

Solid conditions, then: Supply, and no AI presence.

I think that these are reasonable.  Have you posted this on the Mantis?

[BobTheJanitor]

Also, if the player wants to rebuild sooner, nothing stops them from still using a colony ship.

For sure, my main point is just that for this idea to work it has to be easier than using a colony ship, and no more punitive in time or resources than using a colony ship. Otherwise, the obvious result is that everyone just keeps using colony ships and asking why this change was made in the first place.

Solid conditions, then: Supply, and no AI presence.

Sounds fine to me. I just don't like the idea of there being a 2 minute delay or something before it happens. Then if you have 5 planets smashed in a row you'll be waiting 10 minutes before they rebuild. Zzzzzzzzzzzz...

Although maybe you wouldn't care so much, Khan, because you'll probably be away making a sandwich while this happens.  

[Buttons840]

While true, there can certainly be a trade off. As it is, the player already gets the luxury of not having to worry about colony ship cap, and defense in depth shall shift to becoming even more powerful then it already is. Not having to micro rebuilding is a very powerful benefit...

This optional micro reduction should help manage a large empire; it shouldn't be nearly as efficient as microing a colony ship unless you can adapt the AI to deal with this.

We are getting into a subject here which has a very long past, which may be necroed - fair warning....

Your thinking of this as a game element, when it's meant to be an interface convenience for the player.  It doesn't allow you do to anything new, but it makes things a little easier on the mind of the player.  Personally, the "changing gears" of planning an offense only to be interrupted by rebuilding a command station is the worst part - it's not about the time needed, it's about the interruption and distraction from more fun elements.

Also, I'd be happy if there was no delay on the rebuilding as well.  I only suggested it hoping to appease X and Keith (they are friends of the AI).

[Philo]

I think this is a good idea for having less annoying micro.
From what I see though, it should take 5 minutes after you have supply to that planet for it to start automatically building the CS. 5 minutes so there is still some incentive to use colony ships to rebuild the planets as it only takes about 1 minute with them. No additional costs or remains rebuilders needed since that would go against the lessening of the micro aspect.

But just in case you forgot to build somewhere along your route (when you have 40 planets it starts to get confusing finding where exactly a CS was destroyed) you wouldn't have to manually go there and do that crap.

[Buttons840]

I think this is a good idea for having less annoying micro.
From what I see though, it should take 5 minutes after you have supply to that planet for it to start automatically building the CS. 5 minutes so there is still some incentive to use colony ships to rebuild the planets as it only takes about 1 minute with them. No additional costs or remains rebuilders needed since that would go against the lessening of the micro aspect.

But just in case you forgot to build somewhere along your route (when you have 40 planets it starts to get confusing finding where exactly a CS was destroyed) you wouldn't have to manually go there and do that crap.

This is another non-solution.  Not worth the trouble in this case as nobody will wait 5 minutes.

Why do people think that this will make the game too easy?  Building a command station with no enemy ships around right next to a planet you already control is the easiest thing in the game.  Making this even more convenient will not lessen the difficulty any.  Just allow you think "lets capture that ARS" instead of "o yeah, got to rebuild that command station again."

[chemical_art]

I think this is a good idea for having less annoying micro.
From what I see though, it should take 5 minutes after you have supply to that planet for it to start automatically building the CS. 5 minutes so there is still some incentive to use colony ships to rebuild the planets as it only takes about 1 minute with them. No additional costs or remains rebuilders needed since that would go against the lessening of the micro aspect.

But just in case you forgot to build somewhere along your route (when you have 40 planets it starts to get confusing finding where exactly a CS was destroyed) you wouldn't have to manually go there and do that crap.

This is another non-solution.  Not worth the trouble in this case as nobody will wait 5 minutes.

Well, even if it took 10 minutes, I would use it. Because for my empire of 20 planets, being able to rebuild expendable planets that my fleets have cleared would be great, When I have to manage 100 things at once, having one less source of clicks would simply be worth it.

It is a convenience, not a necessity in my mind.

[chemical_art]

While true, there can certainly be a trade off. As it is, the player already gets the luxury of not having to worry about colony ship cap, and defense in depth shall shift to becoming even more powerful then it already is. Not having to micro rebuilding is a very powerful benefit...

This optional micro reduction should help manage a large empire; it shouldn't be nearly as efficient as microing a colony ship unless you can adapt the AI to deal with this.

We are getting into a subject here which has a very long past, which may be necroed - fair warning....

Your thinking of this as a game element, when it's meant to be an interface convenience for the player.  It doesn't allow you do to anything new, but it makes things a little easier on the mind of the player.  Personally, the "changing gears" of planning an offense only to be interrupted by rebuilding a command station is the worst part - it's not about the time needed, it's about the interruption and distraction from more fun elements.

Also, I'd be happy if there was no delay on the rebuilding as well.  I only suggested it hoping to appease X and Keith (they are friends of the AI).

Well, I consider it a game element. If you could automatically rebuild, you inheriently gain more time to do other things. For me, during mid to end game, theree is often 2 or 3 minute minute delay, on average, between clearing out a planet and dragging the colony ship to rebuild, unless I'm are first starting out or microing everything. To rebuild instantly is simply abusable, and actually not really practical (if even possible) using other methods. The closest you can get to simulate that is to use MK III engineers and to bring in colony ships via teleporting shuttle, which costs quite a bit a knowledge. So the player DOES gain an advantage, because they can rebuild their planets their economies faster, defenses, etc. faster.

But the AI reaction is what I am more concerned about. If you can quickly automatically rebuild the station after the AI has been cleared, then any future ai that pass through the world will take a swipe at that station. When you have the ability to do this over many worlds you have an automated delay mechanism for the AI that does not involve caps. Given enough time, I am confident I could find a way to exploit this to making the AI take at least 5 minutes  longer to hit my homeworld from any direction by distracting them. Those 5 minutes can change a game during an exo or CPA.

You really need at least a 3 minute delay to keep it as an automated, back up rebuilding.

[Philo]

It is a convince, not a necessity in my mind.

Yeah, that's what I mean too. This way if you have to focus on the battle at hand you can, but if you really need the resources right now you can always go and build the Colony ship.

It's not meant to replace the Colony ships in my mind. On a small new empire you'll pretty much always want to have Colony ships going and replacing the buildings, but on a 20 planet game, you might actually want to focus on your attack and take a slight economical drawback while the bases rebuild themselves.

I know I would.

Edit: For the above poster, yes I'm all for at least a 5 min. delay in the auto-build of Command Stations. In large maps it can take 2 minutes just for the Colony ship to travel all the way to your places.

[BobTheJanitor]

Edit: For the above poster, yes I'm all for at least a 5 min. delay in the auto-build of Command Stations. In large maps it can take 2 minutes just for the Colony ship to travel all the way to your places.

You're forgetting the fact that it requires supply. How in the world could it take 2 minutes to get a colony ship to a planet in supply? Drop it next to the wormhole and then click the ship and ctrl + click on the wormhole. It's there in however much time it takes your engineers to build it.

Edit: In fact, if there were just a way to give a colony ship a command that says 'go to this planet and drop this kind of command station right next to the wormhole' it would make me happy. My main problem with rebuilding is having to babysit it through the process. Wait for build, let it go to the planet, then click and select build option and place the station. I usually get distracted waiting for the build and come back later to realize that planet never got built and the colony ship has been sitting there for 5 minutes waiting on orders. (Of course if you want to select placement that's not right next to the wormhole you'd have to do it manually)

[Philo]

Well, I don't usually keep any engineers anywhere but my home planet so I also build the Colony Ships there. So that's prolly due to me being lazy. So ok, if you can bother with teleporting lvl 3 engineers to an adjacent planet to build the Colony Ship there it won't take much time at all for it to travel.

[BobTheJanitor]

Well, I don't usually keep any engineers anywhere but my home planet so I also build the Colony Ships there. So that's prolly due to me being lazy. So ok, if you can bother with teleporting lvl 3 engineers to an adjacent planet to build the Colony Ship there it won't take much time at all for it to travel.

It still fascinates me how many different ways people can play this game. I usually have at least one engineer on every planet, except those that are so far back in my empire that they're guaranteed to never see AI or friendly fleet presence. And yeah, I always build my Colony Ships right next to the planet they're colonizing or that I'm launching my transports from.