Build Queue [Suggestion]

from Sins Forums

One feature I would really like to see in SoaSE is a "build queue." I've seen it in another RTS, which I won't name. Really helped eliminate some micromanaging.

Basically, the way it worked is that once you'd queued up some units to be built, you could click a button and it would just keep building that sequence. So if you went light-frigate x2, long-range-frigate x3, then clicked the button, once it built the first light frigate, it would place another on the back on the end of the queue.

This would be particularly useful in terms of scouts. My scouts often get destroyed and I forget to build more because i'm keeping track of other stuff. Having scouts automatically built and exploring would mean I'd have scouts all the time.

It's useful in other ways, too, because if you're trying to build a huge fleet but are short on resources, it can hold the queue for you.

18,133 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I don't think this feature would be that useful in practice.  One of the huge issues is that you don't earn enough money in Sins to keep all your factories constantly producing.  Even one factory could drain you dry if it was set to constantly produce a specific unit type.

Some sort of automatic replacement function, where factories replace dead units, but might worthwhile, but this would be somewhat different and still complicated by the fact that you may not have resources on hand to make the replacements.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

This would be particularly useful in terms of scouts. My scouts often get destroyed and I forget to build more because i'm keeping track of other stuff. Having scouts automatically built and exploring would mean I'd have scouts all the time.
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The only time this should occur is that you have used up all of your fleet supply and are waiting for your other scouts to die just to get new ones... or like Darvin said, you have ran out of credits

even if you do use up all of your fleet supply with current ships, the way ships are built is that if you negative, it will wait till there is fleet points that you could build all at once, not one at a time.

cause the system is set up so that it will built automacially if you have the resources if you have the fleet supply so

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Only reason that worked in SupCom is becuase you can build huge armies, alot of units die fast, and you don't really have alimit on how much resources you can get. Build enough Mass Fabricators and Power Generatiors and you can pump out units as fast as you please.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Sins is a game that requires a lot of strategy and a lot of brain power to constantly know what's going on. That's what makes Sins Sins! if you start taking that away by adding the suggestion you have put here, that takes so much away from the skill required to play this game properly, as well it will turn Sins into an average RTS, and that's not good. You see it in almost every major RTS franchise out there...it's all the same, they just build mass units and pummel the enemy, whoever has the most units wins. There's not a lot of skill involved in that, whereas is Sins you have quite a bit to look after and different chokepoints that require tedious work to make sure you are successful in a game. That makes Sins unique and such a fun experience. If you're looking for just a quick game that doesn't require much work, then this isn't the game for you.

Sins is all about patience and pacing. You have to do things to get specific things like more credits, but you can't do it too fast, you have to pace yourself or else the enemy will overrun your system in an instant. With how the economy in Sins works, mixed with the fleet supply limit, a building queue is entirely pointless. You can build as many units as you have fleet supply and resources already, I think that's queue enough.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Only reason that worked in SupCom is becuase you can build huge armies, alot of units die fast, and you don't really have alimit on how much resources you can get. Build enough Mass Fabricators and Power Generatiors and you can pump out units as fast as you please.
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Uh, for all intents and purposes there's no distinction with Sins there.  If you have enough trade ports, you can effectively have all the money you will ever need in Sins.  Resources never deplete in Sins, either.  There are two key differences between the games that affect this issue.

The first is in the way the costs are paid.  In Sins, we have to pay a lump "up front" cost for our units before the factory can begin producing them.  In SupCom, you pay money over time as the unit is produced, and production halts if this cost cannot be paid.  This means that in SupCom we can very easily analyze our expenditure versus income.  In Sins, that's more difficult with costs popping up in huge and spontaneous lump sums.

The second issue is in the determinant factor of affordability.  In Sins, individual units are quite expensive, and most of your time will be spent waiting for the cash to build up to use your factories.  As an aside, the factories themselves are inexpensive.  In SupCom, factories take quite a while to complete their units, so the dominant factor of affordability there isn't the cost, but rather manufacturing infrastrure. 

In Sins, we may have five or six factories, but at any given time we may only use one or two of them (the ones closest to the battlefield).  Moreover, even when we are actively using a factory, it may only be producing units half of the time.  The result is that 90% of our industrial capacity is usually idle, and simply left as a tactical reserve so we can produce a fleet quickly at the designated locations.  This is quite the opposite in SupCom, where under ideal circumstances a factory is almost never idle.