Auto-stopper food buff

[Borotaur]

I'd like to get a new food buff available on provision house, very similar to baskets:

Worker's Meal
120 fish, 60 bread, 20 sausages, 20 brew
Doubles production for 6 hours, but stops production when food runs out.

To clarify: it has exactly same buff effect as a basket, but as soon as the buff runs out, your worker is put to sleep automatically. You'd want to use this food on all buildings you never want to run unbuffed. Like gold production. Shutting down would be server side so you could trust that the building really is shut down (anyone lost a level5 gold mine due to server not registering a shutdown?). And what's best, you wouldn't even have to log in on the correct time just to shut down everything.

Whether the extra convenience from this buff should warrant a higher cost for it is open for discussion. On the other hand, these Meals could even be cheaper than baskets, since you don't want to use them on a lot of your buildings. Or the price could be identical. Big drastic changes on price would mess up people's balanced economies though, so I wouldn't get too crazy with the price.

Main reason for me wanting buff like this is simply time. In Settlers, you can play whenever it suits you. You can rebuild your mines, wheat fields and wells any time of the day that suits you without any significant difference in production. You can apply baskets any time of the day you want, BUT suddenly you've shackled yourself on a very strict timer, forcing you to show up in time to shut down your buildings. It's the only thing in game that has this kind of effect. And for those of us who actually have a life outside the game, it can be pretty awful limitation. I can honestly say there have been days I haven't been able to run any of my gold production because I already knew I probably won't be able to shut it down in time.

Final note: instead of making a new food buff, this same effect could be reached by adding a toggle on every single building: auto-shutdown when a food buff expires. I'm just thinking that a new food buff would be less work for BB than adding a button to UI.

[bunnyX]

i really like the idea. But the opposition will say that it is "too much automatization" whaterver that means...

[Borotaur]

Compared to recycling plants, silos and water mills that are provided to reduce need for repetitive tasks, this shouldn't stand out much. Except that it would also solve the issue of having economy screwed by server not receiving the gold mine stopping command that seems to occur every now and then.

[sk_setttler]

+1

[Capt-Mannering]

I like this....+1

[Proliator]

A good idea but needs to be altered somewhat.

"To clarify: it has exactly same buff effect as a basket, but as soon as the buff runs out, your worker is put to sleep automatically."

In that statement alone that gives power to your friends to shut down your buildings whenever they feel like, where that control should only be given to the player.
Can you imagine if a group of your friends decided to light up your island at night and the next morning you have your entire island shut down?

If anything your final note to check a box as whether you the player wants to run a particular building only when buffed or always on, would be better.

[Suzalilli]

A good idea but needs to be altered somewhat.

"To clarify: it has exactly same buff effect as a basket, but as soon as the buff runs out, your worker is put to sleep automatically."

In that statement alone that gives power to your friends to shut down your buildings whenever they feel like, where that control should only be given to the player.
Can you imagine if a group of your friends decided to light up your island at night and the next morning you have your entire island shut down?

If anything your final note to check a box as whether you the player wants to run a particular building only when buffed or always on, would be better.

I'm sorry, but I'm one of those children who would find that hilarious! Perhaps it could be a buff that can't be used on other peoples islands.

[Tierarzt]

One of the basic principles of the game, is to care for your island. Logging in to buff buildings and them sleeping them for a week is not care.