Rebuilding Rebuilders

[corfe83]

Keep in mind, making non-HW planets not totally "self retaining" (like the lack of auto self respawning command centers) serves an important balance role, to give the AI an opportunity to deny remote or isolated systems (in this case, denying retaking them).

IMO, this is a good dynamic, as it gives a good offset to the advantages of a non-contigous "empire". Is it too harsh right now, and/or is the current system skewing " denial of the deny" more in the "annoying " rather "deep/fun counterplay/strategy" direction? Maybe. But I think something that makes holding, keeping, and retaking remote systems more challenging than connected systems is healthy for the game, even if the exact mechanisms may need to be tweaked (which I am still not convinced of)

That said, it would be nice to get a remains rebuilder cap increase and a bit more durability.

I agree it's a good dynamic to lose systems and be denied the ability to regain them. However, I think if the AI is occupying a system, any attempt to rebuild that command station is just going to fail (it will be destroyed) - so this dynamic would still exist. However, when I suffer a really nasty attack and lose 10+ planets, I typically have to make sure to send a rebuilder to each planet that was destroyed, and doing this doesn't feel strategic or fun, it just feels like work.

If we want the penalty for losing planets to be higher, it should be in the form of increasing the "penalty time" for command stations to be allowed to be rebuilt, not in the form of adding any micro.

I am also totally OK with a remains rebuilder cap increase / more durability, and while I agree it wouldn't hurt at all, I would prefer a guarantee that I don't have to go mucking around moving individual units to individual planets, just to get my colonies to rebuild.

[Wingflier]

^Agree with that, it's just unnecessary micro. In a game where you're jumping from planet to planet constantly, in a map of 80(+) planets, any unnecessary micromanagement is brutal in my opinion.

[TechSY730]

The AI can deny you retaking a system not just by occupying the destroyed system, but also by fortifying (by reinforcements or by special force or threat or threat-fleet or whatever) the surrounding planets of the destroyed system, or any system in route to such destroyed systems. Admittedly, this may be rarer to see in an influential degree, as players often tend to neuter planets they don't take on the route to their remote planets.
IMO, This facet of it feels a bit too "natural" in my mind to just discard entirely with a new system. However, the impact it may have in practice might be so small that many other players would not notice or mind that aspect being removed with a new "auto-regen like" system, or feel the loss of this aspect may be worth being able to remove a "micro-chore" with this new system.

[tadrinth]

However, when I suffer a really nasty attack and lose 10+ planets, I typically have to make sure to send a rebuilder to each planet that was destroyed, and doing this doesn't feel strategic or fun, it just feels like work.

If we want the penalty for losing planets to be higher, it should be in the form of increasing the "penalty time" for command stations to be allowed to be rebuilt, not in the form of adding any micro.

Can you queue up an FRD move to each planet on a pack of Remains Rebuilders?  IE, FRD move to the first, then shift+FRD move to the second, repeat.  That should eventually get everything rebuilt, though probably a lot slower than microing one rebuilder to each system. 

Mark II remains rebuilders that teleport! 

Auto-remain rebuild command, like auto-gather knowledge!  Only works if your planets are all connected, though.

Seems like if you repeatedly lose a planet, the cooldown to rebuild should go up each time, then go back down as you hold the planet successfully.  That way losing a planet hurts without the need for micro. 

[corfe83]

The AI can deny you retaking a system not just by occupying the destroyed system, but also by fortifying (by reinforcements or by special force or threat or threat-fleet or whatever) the surrounding planets of the destroyed system, or any system in route to such destroyed systems. Admittedly, this may be rarer to see in an influential degree, as players often tend to neuter planets they don't take on the route to their remote planets.
IMO, This facet of it feels a bit too "natural" in my mind to just discard entirely with a new system. However, the impact it may have in practice might be so small that many other players would not notice or mind that aspect being removed with a new "auto-regen like" system, or feel the loss of this aspect may be worth being able to remove a "micro-chore" with this new system.

Rebuilders do require supply, so if all surrounding planets are fortified by the AI (and those surrounding command centers destroyed), they won't be able to rebuild the command center (or anything else) on the surrounded planet. I don't think this changes the military aspect of it all - you still have to reconquer your systems if the AI takes them from you. You just get to focus on the interesting (military) aspects of the reconquest, and rely on the game to handle the uninteresting ones.

However, when I suffer a really nasty attack and lose 10+ planets, I typically have to make sure to send a rebuilder to each planet that was destroyed, and doing this doesn't feel strategic or fun, it just feels like work.

If we want the penalty for losing planets to be higher, it should be in the form of increasing the "penalty time" for command stations to be allowed to be rebuilt, not in the form of adding any micro.

Can you queue up an FRD move to each planet on a pack of Remains Rebuilders?  IE, FRD move to the first, then shift+FRD move to the second, repeat.  That should eventually get everything rebuilt, though probably a lot slower than microing one rebuilder to each system. 

Mark II remains rebuilders that teleport! 

Auto-remain rebuild command, like auto-gather knowledge!  Only works if your planets are all connected, though.

Seems like if you repeatedly lose a planet, the cooldown to rebuild should go up each time, then go back down as you hold the planet successfully.  That way losing a planet hurts without the need for micro.

Of the ideas you just said, I like the "auto-remain rebuild" command best, but CTRL needs a checkbox to automatically make idle rebuilders do this this (not just auto-FRD, needs to be a multi-planet command). That would totally solve the issue I'm having.

If I can queue up auto-FRD orders for remains rebuilders, that would speed up the process, and make it significantly less annoying, though I don't currently have a save to test if it works.

[TechSY730]

Rebuilders do require supply, so if all surrounding planets are fortified by the AI (and those surrounding command centers destroyed), they won't be able to rebuild the command center (or anything else) on the surrounded planet. I don't think this changes the military aspect of it all - you still have to reconquer your systems if the AI takes them from you. You just get to focus on the interesting (military) aspects of the reconquest, and rely on the game to handle the uninteresting ones.

Actually, if the remains rebuilders claim they still require supply, I'm pretty sure that is a bug. Remains rebuilders can rebuild remains on planets with no supply just fine. They used to require supply, but that was quickly removed once command stations started dropping remains.

Also, the re-fight along the path there is also a military aspect of the reconquest (though one could argue that particular part of the refight is not "interesting").
Also, AI ships no longer just "bum around" forever (or at least for a very long time) on already destroyed planet once everything detected is dead (there were a lot of long lasting bugs where they would just sit around, skewing this particular aspect of this mechanic, but they have been weeded out to the best of our knowledge), they tend to leave for other "tasks" after a while. Which is why I am reversing my previous assertion and I am going to now say that the "surrounding system deny" aspect is actually a pretty significant part to the current balance.


Oh, and for my games, what I often do is keep one remains rebuilder on my remote planets on stand down mode a moderate amount of distance away from the command center, so it won't try to remains rebuild stuff and blow its cover. Then once all the AI ships leave, turn it back on, start the command station, then turn it back off. The additional, auto-built remains rebuilders will then take care of the rest.

[Kahuna]

Making Command Stations rebuild automatically would be really stupid. I want to and some times need to decide myself when I want to rebuild the command station. I might want to wait for that CPA, Special Forces or threat fleet to leave the planet before I rebuild it. Or I might not want to rebuild at all.. in which case I'd have to manually scrap the command station.. which the OP would probably find tedious too.

If selecting a couple Rebuilders and transporting them to another planet is too much for you then I suggest you stop playing computer games and get an xbox.

[corfe83]

Rebuilders do require supply, so if all surrounding planets are fortified by the AI (and those surrounding command centers destroyed), they won't be able to rebuild the command center (or anything else) on the surrounded planet. I don't think this changes the military aspect of it all - you still have to reconquer your systems if the AI takes them from you. You just get to focus on the interesting (military) aspects of the reconquest, and rely on the game to handle the uninteresting ones.

Actually, if the remains rebuilders claim they still require supply, I'm pretty sure that is a bug. Remains rebuilders can rebuild remains on planets with no supply just fine. They used to require supply, but that was quickly removed once command stations started dropping remains.

Also, the re-fight along the path there is also a military aspect of the reconquest (though one could argue that particular part of the refight is not "interesting").
Also, AI ships no longer just "bum around" forever (or at least for a very long time) on already destroyed planet once everything detected is dead (there were a lot of long lasting bugs where they would just sit around, skewing this particular aspect of this mechanic, but they have been weeded out to the best of our knowledge), they tend to leave for other "tasks" after a while. Which is why I am reversing my previous assertion and I am going to now say that the "surrounding system deny" aspect is actually a pretty significant part to the current balance.


Oh, and for my games, what I often do is keep one remains rebuilder on my remote planets on stand down mode, so it won't try to remains rebuild stuff and blow its cover. Then once all the AI ships leave, turn it back on, start the command station, then turn it back off. The additional, auto-built remains rebuilders will then take care of the rest.

You're right, rebuilders don't require supply. The tooltip is correct, I just had outdated knowledge. I've been re-sending colony ships out when unconnected planets (that I wanted to rebuild) were destroyed for quite a long time. I learn something new every day

The re-fight along the path is part of the military aspect of reconquest, I agree, and it's only the rebuilding I wanted to reduce. Perhaps making rebuilders invincible (or nearly invincible) is a bad idea, but I still like the idea of the game automatically re-sending rebuilders to systems connected to your empire, whose command center was destroyed, that contain no enemy ships, only if you have setup your settings in the CTRL tab specifically for this.

The stand-down command for rebuilders is a not a bad idea, but I think it's just about as much micro as moving a rebuilder from some other system to this one.

[Nodor]

I would not mind a rebuilder in the vein of the old mobile repair station.   Put a low cap of 1-4 or so on it, but let it have the ability to "rebuild" 30-50 targets at once.    Make it bloody expensive to build (fortress type cost), and kind of fragile.   It should also move fairly quickly. (60-90)

The idea being that post exo, cpa, raid or other major attack, rebuilding my obliterated turret systems shouldn't take require microing 20 rebuilders through each of those systems, but obviously limiting my ability to keep everything up endlessly in the middle of a major attack.

[Kahuna]

post exo, cpa, raid or other major attack, rebuilding my obliterated turret systems shouldn't take require microing

It doesn't require microing.
EDIT: Set the planet(s) to auto build Engineers and Rebuilders and put them on FRD mode by default.