Hi,
I wish I had a button for half-speed production of resources, at the moment it's either on or off. We can buff production but not slow it down (without stopping it altogether). For example it could help regulate usage of wheat if more (or less) should go to horse or brew production at a particular time. I only have 1 stable, and it's either on or off. So I have to remember to turn it on from time to time to get a small production, I wish I could set it to half-speed.
Ciksi
what could be implemented for that as well is what the other settlers games had, an order of preference where stuff went to
A slider or other means of choosing the output of the building could be added to the building's interface. It could correspond with the level of the building; if I have built a bronze weaponsmith and upgraded it to level 3, I could choose to have it produce at maximum output, or only at lv2's or lv1's capacity. This way I don't get punished for upgrading my buildings "too high". For example, it's great to have lv5 gold buildings if you have 3x buffs at your disposal. But running a lv5 gold smelter can really cause a hit on your coal balance, so at times it would be nice to have a more balanced output of, say, lv2 smelter and then run the coinage at 3x when enough gold bars have accumulated. Balance is the key word here: pausing and running a lv5 building will leave you with the same and result as running a lower level building non-stop. However, with buildings requiring high inputs, more attention needs to be paid to the stock of input materials (what the OP is referring to with the stable example, I believe). If (s)he runs a lv5 stable along with the other production, wheat stock might hit 0 by accident, making buffs go to waste if buildings aren't able to produce due to material shortages.
I don't personally find this an urgent issue, and it's perfectly possible to work around it with smart pausing/unpausing of buildings and keeping track of your stock. However, I can relate to people who have a carefree gaming style and don't want to take stress over the micromanagement of their production chains.
Right, so people want maximum flexibility in production output with minimum effort on their part. Can't they spend a bit of time balancing their economy, pausing and unpausing buildings, checking stock levels and maybe using trade to get resources?
My wish is only for a half-speed production, nothing as fancy as what King-Fero described, although I can see the benefit of it. My reason is that having to turn on and off production on building requires logging on so many times, it's ok for someone at home all day (or most of the day). For someone with a full time job and a family with young children, that probably means a decision to stop playing. That might be the decision I'm faced with when I start working again.Originally Posted by Sto_Helit
Last edited by Ciksi46; 16.08.13 at 20:04.
Would it not work at half the rate if the resources only became available half the time?
I'm more than likely working right now.
Not quite; if I have a coking plant at lv4 and a simple papermill at lv5, but I'm not producing enough logs for both, then the papermill will NEVER put out paper since the coker consistently keeps my pine log stock drained. I can pause the coker and let the papermill work full-time for a while, then later reverse this to reach a balance between the two. However, pausing the coker will lead to a shortage in coal, which may mess up smelters, swordsmiths etc. if I'm careless and don't keep an eye on my stock levels. On the other hand, putting the coker at half speed would decrease the log consumption and would allow excess logs to pile up over time, to the point where the stock goes up to the number that the papermill requires as inputs. Not only does this provide a steady supply of paper, but it also increases the time it will take until my stock of coal is drained. If I'm producing a surplus with the lv4 output, then it may even be that lv2 output is enough to keep me covered and won't need to mind my coal stock at all.
This is all more or less theoretical, and as I mentioned in my earlier post, it's not the most pressing issue in the game. However, occasionally I do run into situations where such a feature would be useful. I admit I prefer a smooth, self-sufficient production chain over the alternative to pause/trade to keep stocks level, even if lower production rate is less efficient. Combine that with someone who only logs in once a day to play; will they want to spend their evening micro-managing their production chains, or would they be happier just knowing everything is alright and can just launch an adventure and focus on that.
Last edited by King-Fero; 17.08.13 at 13:33.
This was exactly my point. I can't spend my day logging on to micro manage my production, or checking TO for offers. And for some resources that are shared between several production branches, the "work at half the rate if the resources only became available half the time" idea will not necessarily work as buildings might be of different levels on different branches, therefore dragging the resources unevenly. It is not fun spending the little time I have on the game micro-managing the production. It's already bad enough with sending the geologists search for resources and rebuilding the mines. Then there will be no time left for adventures... and the interest for the game will be zero at this point.
Many moons ago I wanted a half-speed button. I thought it was ironic as most people were complaining about slow production, but I didn't want my tooly taking all my bronze bars.
This becomes less of a problem at higher levels as you get duplicates of buildings. At some point you'll have 2 stables. Tweaking production/consumption ratios then is easier as some buildings can be stopped without totally stopping an industry.
Your choices are more limited when you don't have so many buildings.
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