Automation Requests - Questions

[bbenham]

1. When Ship Building is set to "Suggest" or "Suggest and Execute" , if I decline to build a particular ship, the A.I. keeps nagging me over to build the same ship. If I feel I have enough transports, the A.I. doesn't get it, it just continues to ask for more even when I've stated I don't want more. I'm sure there's a delay for how often it asks me, but it's not nearly long enough. I usually get so tired of it asking that I just give in, and the next thing I know, I've got A.I. transports running around picking up troops that I don't want moved.


2. When Base construction is set to "Suggest" or "Suggest and Execute", there's no way to separate the construction of Space Ports from the construction of other bases such as Mining Stations. The A.I. builds way too many Space Ports, which burdens my economy, but I DO want the A.I. to manage Mining station construction. How can I separate the 2? I want more control over Space Port construction, but still have the A.I. to the tedius and plentiful mining and research station constructions on it's own.

[thegreybetween]

I'm not aware of a good solution to #1, and it is a constant irritation. A possible workaround: Within the automation policy settings, there is a place where you can specify things like the ratio of escorts/frigates/destroyers/etc. You can probably manipulate it somewhat by setting the desired ratio of troop transports to something like 0-1% so that the AI thinks you have plenty, but that is clunky at best and you could easily end up with too few of a ship type if you forget you hacked it (or way too many of the higher percentage ships).

But for #2, I think you can probably use the automation settings to hone a better result. There are policies for the target population on colonies when small/med/large spaceports should be built. You can possibly set these to very high numbers, effectively telling the AI never to build them without your manual input. There are also settings to prioritize different base types. While this is probably just to give the AI a hierarchy when resources are too low to build many stations, you might be able to save yourself a little headache by setting mining/research/etc stations to high priority and space ports to a much lower priority (and there might even be a "don't build these" option, effectively making it manual for that type).

That said, I agree that one of the best QoL features that could be added to the game right now would be the ability to tell the advisors "Ask me about this again ____" with options like "Never", "After X years", "when [contextual trigger] occurs", etc.
- No, I don't want to build 5 more troop transports. Ask me again if I accept an invasion mission.
- No, I don't want to give $37,500 to the independent colony in my ally's space. Ask me again never.
- No, I don't want to colonize the ice moon on the far side of the galaxy next to the Boskarans. Ask me again in 10 years (after I hopefully eradicate the bugs)

Otherwise, we get spammed every few minutes with the same requests over and over and over and over. I do the same thing: either cave in and accept the request to later regret it, or turn the policy to manual for a while and hope things aren't too much of a mess when I forget to manage those things later.

[bbenham]

There are policies for the target population on colonies when small/med/large spaceports should be built.... There are also settings to prioritize different base types.

I still have not been able to find such a policy screen. The only colony population Policy screen I can find in the game is where you tell it what to do with the various populations (Assimilate, resettle, etc), but nothing to do with what it will or will not build. Also can't find "settings to prioritize different base types".

Perhaps these are in settings "Files" and not in the game UI ? If so, can you help me find where?
Thanks much.

[thegreybetween]

I'm not in front of the game right now, so bear with my explanation from memory.

1) In the main navigation area on the top left of the screen, you want to select the first tab, for "Empire" (this should have your flag icon on the tab)
2) Under the top section of info will be another row of tabs (finances, funding levels, etc). The last one of these is for " Policy Settings" (it has a shield-in-starburst icon, if I remember correctly). This brings up a very large collapsible list of automation settings for nearly every aspect of the game.
3) I believe it is under the "Construction" heading. You should see items for "Build small space port at population:" (the default is 40 Million), as well as similar lines for medium and large space ports.
4) A little further down in the same section are the settings for building priority. You should see each type of base with a dropdown list letting you set the priority for that base type.

Again, I am not in game at the moment, so I apologize if that isn't clear. Let me know if you are not able to figure it out based on the above instructions, and I will jump in tonight and try to upload some screenshots for clarity if you need them.

[StormingKiwi]

Its in the policy settings in the left section of the UI (I can't remember the name the game gives this section of the UI.)

If I recall correctly, P is the default keyboard shortcut.

[bbenham]

Yea, that's good. Thanks. That will help.

[StormingKiwi]

Yea, that's good. Thanks. That will help.

That section of the UI is called the Control Centre.
You're welcome.

[bbenham]

The thing that confused me was that I was looking at being able to set it "Per Colony" and so was fishing around the colony screen. But this makes sense now. I Basically set the population count to produce a small space port as the same number which it would normally produce a medium spaceport. I also set the A.I. to build 0% transports. That 'should' take are of my problem, although the A.I. might get confused during War with no transports available to it. During War, I only manually control 4 or 5 fleets, 2 of which are my major invasion/transport fleets, and the other fleets I let the A.I. build and manage because it's way too much for me to deal with. This lets me focus on taking over major strongholds efficiently, which is something I don't think the A.I. does well, or at all. Instead, it focuses on smaller systems and whittles down the edges and then prematurely asks for peace when victory is at hand I like to strike the heart and then work outward, but can't manage all the rest of the battles going on, so I'm forced to turn on the A.I. while keeping key fleets under manual control for the major frontal attack.

There really is no perfect way to coordinate my own 'manual' plans and fleet actions with that of the A.I. and that perhaps is the greatest limitation I work with. It's like 2 generals telling everyone what to do and the orders are not aligned.

Much appreciate all your help.

[StormingKiwi]

There really is no perfect way to coordinate my own 'manual' plans and fleet actions with that of the A.I. and that perhaps is the greatest limitation I work with. It's like 2 generals telling everyone what to do and the orders are not aligned.

Yes, this is a great limitation of the game. There should be more ways for the player to "play by policy" and influence and impact how the automation plays and what strategy the automation is following. In many cases, the automation is simply binary On/Off, and then does its own thing without regard for the player's strategic gameplay. I agree it is a huge limitation in the way the game currently works.