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To automate or not to automate?

 
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To automate or not to automate? - 5/17/2014 11:43:25 AM   
towerbooks3192


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That is the question. Been dropping on and off with this game but I have never really had a game that I started from the beginning and at least reach the point where the galaxy is already explored. I have this problem of whether to automate or not to make it less stressful when I don't want to be swamped with information. What is the best automation option? I might try microing in the early game at shadows start but then try to automate once I research most classic start technology. Is the AI reliable when it comes to ship designs? I think I am able to edit pre-set designs but I don't really know how to determine what is optimal speed and other values when it comes to designing ships from scratch.

Any advice would be appreciated.

By the way, I know Larry Monte and Das123(24680) has some great LPs on it, Anyone know any typed LPs on the forum? As much as I love the videos from both guys, I want to find some LPs to get in the mood that I could read while I am on the bus.
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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/17/2014 12:21:52 PM   
Ralzakark


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There is no right or wrong answer.

I play with everything on manual and switch to automated once doing so becomes a chore. For example I manually control my exploration ships at the start of a game and I'm exploring the sector I'm in and adjacent ones, telling them which system to explore and in what order. As the game progresses the perimiter of explored territory gets bigger and bigger, and I tend to use an explor everything in a sector order. And once that gets too much effort I fully automate my explorers.

Much depends on how much time you have on your hands to play and how much micro-managing you enjoy or are prepared to do. Late game much of my empire is automated; if I have to make every decision manually the game progresses very slowly and in the few hours a week I have to play I feel like I don't get much further forward. If you feel swamped with information you have probably not automated enough.

I enjoy designing ships and so always do, so I can't comment on the AI.

(in reply to towerbooks3192)
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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/17/2014 12:46:21 PM   
towerbooks3192


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I have heard a lot of story but never really tried it firsthand that the AI is very much capable of playing the game without you. Is the AI capable of defending itself in wars or something? I have times where I am in the mood to mirco each and every aspect but there are also times where I just want to kind of focus on warmongering and building up an elite fleet. I know that it is not optimal to leave building to the AI but that is what worries me. I don't expect the AI to churn out special ships but I hope it can at least build ships to defend itself or if I manually do it and group it in a fleet that the AI could use the fleet to defend my borders.

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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/17/2014 2:59:58 PM   
LSD

 

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The only things i automate are exploration ships and ship designs. Auto-exploration ships are useless, but micromanaging them is much of a chore, while with ship designs, it's just a matter of me not knowing where to start.

The AI is a bit average with ship designs. I went out of my way to research Ion Defence early, since the pirates use lots of ion weapons, but the AI deemed my cruisers and destroyers unworthy of such a component, in favour of more blasters. With automated ship building, i find myself focussing on construction tech so that the AI doesn't have to make decisions on what components to put in a design: it can just put everything in a massive ship.

As for ship construction: you can put that on "ask me", and the AI will tell you what it thinks it needs. Honestly, the vast majority of the time it wants to build things you really don't need (or don't even want). I think if i left ship construction to the AI, i'd be bankrupt all the time.

< Message edited by LSD -- 5/17/2014 4:00:31 PM >

(in reply to towerbooks3192)
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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/17/2014 5:08:46 PM   
Shark7


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Even a veteran player like me leaves some things to the AI.

However, I personally take control of:

1. Ship design and upgrades
2. Research
3. Fleet formation
4. Colonizing
5. Character locations and missions


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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/17/2014 6:02:44 PM   
towerbooks3192


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Shark7

Even a veteran player like me leaves some things to the AI.

However, I personally take control of:

1. Ship design and upgrades
2. Research
3. Fleet formation
4. Colonizing
5. Character locations and missions



I might try and follow this one. I think it is too stressful for me to micro design at times and only really delve in to it when I try to build specialised ships or something. Never really knew the importance of fleet formation and never even knew until now that the AI might be controlling it or not.

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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/17/2014 6:44:39 PM   
Shark7


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The AI does OK at fleets, but battle is the one thing I really like to manage myself, meaning I want fleets formed up and ready to go, with the ships I want (IE make sure I have enough troops on the fleet to invade, etc).

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'When in doubt...attack!'

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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/18/2014 8:16:35 AM   
Buio


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I use similar choices as Shark7.

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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/18/2014 2:51:59 PM   
Ares106


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I automate some things not only because it helps with limiting micromanagement but also because it makes the game more challenging. Its only temporarily fun to b-line to the best techs and design killer ships that outclass everything. IF you want a fun challenging game let the AI take over research and ship design. This is a great equalizer because the AI working for you is just as bad as the AI working for the other players.

I think the hardest mode is letting the AI take over diplomacy which plan to try out soon.

< Message edited by Ares106 -- 5/18/2014 3:57:18 PM >

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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/18/2014 3:37:47 PM   
towerbooks3192


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Just a question about the options in the design tab. What is the difference between changing the upgrade and retrofit option? I had all on manual just in case.

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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/18/2014 7:38:23 PM   
Aeson

 

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Upgrade - the computer will redesign your ship based on what it thinks is best in that role.
Retrofit - when there is a more recent design in this ship's weight class, the computer will order ships of this class to refit to the new design.

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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/18/2014 11:28:35 PM   
FireLion1983

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aeson

Upgrade - the computer will redesign your ship based on what it thinks is best in that role.
Retrofit - when there is a more recent design in this ship's weight class, the computer will order ships of this class to refit to the new design.


To further clarify this, you need to have the AI completely in control of ship design if you want the upgrade option to work; however, you can select individual ships in the empire control screen for the AI to control, leaving you with the option to control some, but not all of the upgrades.

The retrofit option should work even if ship design isn't AI controlled, altho I'm dubious on this as I don't quite have enough evidence that it actually works.

(in reply to Aeson)
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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/19/2014 3:43:39 AM   
Spidey


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Meh, automation is annoying and excessively chaotic. I might delegate tasks for automation once micro becomes unfeasibly micro-intensive but if you want efficient growth during the first 10-15 years then a lot of manual control is essential. The AI will build stuff you don't need, fail to build stuff you do need, spend eons exploring things that are utterly irrelevant, not build mines where you want them, and tax growth down a lot even though the revenue is minimal.

There is a price, though. By the time someone like Larry Monte is in year 25, I'm probably still only in year 7 or 8. And at that point things slow down a lot, since efficient micro with 40-50 exploration ships is time consuming as hell.

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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/19/2014 2:10:50 PM   
towerbooks3192


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Now I am having mixed feelings about automation especially when I have plans to play the largest galaxy and systems. How worst is it going to be when war would start? I am not talking about little ones but full-scale ones that blows up tons of ships and whatnot?

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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/19/2014 5:23:17 PM   
Shark7


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If you are going to play a 15 x 15, 1400 star galaxy, you definitely want to leave some stuff to the AI. At game start it is manageable, by game end, you'll be tired of micro-managing every aspect of the game. Hence why I take control of only those things that I listed earlier.

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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/19/2014 10:27:40 PM   
Aeson

 

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quote:

Now I am having mixed feelings about automation especially when I have plans to play the largest galaxy and systems. How worst is it going to be when war would start? I am not talking about little ones but full-scale ones that blows up tons of ships and whatnot?

First off, it depends on the war. A fight to take over a minor empire is a very different thing from a long war against an empire that has only you to fight; same goes for a fight against a large empire which only controls a few planets nearby and is otherwise on the other side of a large expanse of empty space and a fight with a similar empire squashed up against yours. The number of enemies that you're fighting, their locations relative to you within the galaxy (especially the proximity of the majority of their good bases to you), the number of fleets that they have, and how many other people that they are fighting will all influence how much of a pain a war will be. If your empire has long borders or if your enemy has the ability to strike deep into your territory, expect to have more issues fighting the war than you would if your empire is compact and your enemy is too far away to strike deep within your territory.

What I personally do is that I have automated defense fleets assigned to important systems, with the home base set to a colony in that system (if available, and preferably one with a relatively strong garrison). These defense fleets are set to defensive stance, system-level engagement range (possibly larger, if I'm more interested in protecting nearby things than in specifically protecting the base system and have a hyperdrive which is fast enough that my fleet might be able to arrive in a reasonable amount of time to protect stuff outside of the system). If I notice that one of these fleets is taking a beating, I queue up a bunch of reinforcing ships, go to the ships menu, and assign these new vessels to that fleet; as long as the home base of the fleet isn't lost, the reinforcing ships will automatically go to the fleet's station. Changing the defended area is as easy as assigning the fleet a new home base (which can be done in the Fleets listing, if you know the name of a planet in the area that you want to protect, or by selecting the fleet and using the 'set home base' button in the lower left corner of the screen). Another thing you can do with automated defensive posture fleets is set up a number of small local defense fleets with one big fleet set up to act as a rapid response force (in other words, have several small fleets covering a system each, and have a larger fleet stationed at, for example, the local shipyard; the smaller fleets will do their best to hold off hostile incursions, and the larger fleet will respond to whatever the computer considers worthy, assuming you set the engagement radius correctly; you can have several layers like this, even up to having base-only defenders, system-wide defenders, nearby stars defenders, sector level defenders, and galaxy-wide defenders, if you really wanted to do so). It can also be advantageous to have some overlap between rapid-response forces, if you organize your defensive fleets this way.

Note that setting a fleet up in defensive posture and giving it a home base and limited engagement range is a good way to ensure that a specific fleet can always be found in a specific area (unless it gets wiped out), and will also allow you to easily spot where that fleet is, if you have the 'fleet postures' map filter active. This can be a good way to keep track of large fleets that you don't really want to automate but don't have enough hotkeys to keep track of, or which you generally want to use to guard an area but will occasionally use as an extra attack force; setting the engagement range to an unusual size compared to what you typically use will help you spot this fleet (e.g. nearby stars instead of system engagement range). You can leave the fleet automated and it will remain in the general area that you set it to defend, and when you need it you can take it off automation, use it for whatever you needed, and then turn automation back on when you're done with it and it will return to where you found it, assuming you didn't change engagement range, posture, or home base.

Aside from that about automated fleets, I like to keep about five main fleets under my direct control which act as my primary battle forces (the exact number and size of the fleets depends on the money situation and on what I feel that my empire needs), at least for offensive purposes. I will also have a couple of groups of transports, possibly with escorts, to use for invasions, and will probably also have some resupply ships (again, perhaps with an escort squadron; both the resupply ships and the transport groups are sized and present based on current and expected needs and the financial situation). Each of these fleets or high value ships will be assigned a hot key (control plus a number) so that I can always find them and rapidly issue orders (I like using 1-X for battle fleets, X+1-X+N for invasion fleets, and X+N+1-0 for resupply ships). One tap of the hot key will select the ship or fleet, while a double tap will zoom to it. The fleets assigned to hot keys are the fleets that I usually play with; the automated defense fleets I mostly just keep an eye on to make certain that they aren't wiped out, though I occasionally make an exception if I feel that it would be advantageous to add a few more ships into an attack or need a little more firepower to defend something.

As far as non-Navy automation during wartime goes, it really depends on how large your empire is and how much damage the computer has done to your infrastructure. Usually, I will only bother with controlling constructor behavior in the early stages of the game, but if a war wipes out a lot of mining facilities in an area I might consider manually assigning constructors, just to keep them from prioritizing things like Dantha fur over the best chromium source in my empire or something like that, especially if the mining infrastructure is damaged enough to impact some reasonably significant fraction of my shipyards. I always personally manage colony taxes and troop recruitment, but I automate facility construction (though I put limits on what the computer is allowed to build - for example, there isn't much point in having a Cloning Facility and Armor Factory on every planet, since usually the native troops are at least adequate for defending, even if they aren't great, and I'm unlikely to be recruiting large numbers of troops on every planet anyways).

Regardless, I'd suggest playing the game and experimenting with automation settings; try some of the things suggested in the thread. See what you're comfortable with allowing the computer to handle, what is too much of a hassle for you to bother with, how many fleets and which types of fleets you like to control yourself. Answering those questions, and other similar questions, will give you some idea about what you should and should not automate, nor are these questions that we can answer for you. Nor is it a bad idea to update the automation settings throughout the game - early on, while your empire is still small, maybe you'll like controlling the constructors and colonization efforts manually. Later, when you have a well-established empire and have other things to hold your attention, perhaps these are things that you'll find you won't mind allowing the computer to handle; same goes for any other settings.

(in reply to Shark7)
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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/19/2014 11:36:51 PM   
FingNewGuy


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Large-galaxy Galactic-scale wars can be a b**** to manage. For example: in my 15x15 sector, 700-star game where I control half the galaxy and primary enemy controls the other half, I have multiple engagements occurring simultaneously. As a result, at times I run on .25X speed, and rely on alerts to tell me when enemy squadrons are approaching important colonies/installations (or just scan the map)I am manually controlling all of my fleets in action against the enemy, AND manually diecting Constructors to repair damage-wars take me a long time to play out.

(in reply to Aeson)
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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/19/2014 11:45:33 PM   
Tavior

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: FingNewGuy

Large-galaxy Galactic-scale wars can be a b**** to manage. For example: in my 15x15 sector, 700-star game where I control half the galaxy and primary enemy controls the other half, I have multiple engagements occurring simultaneously. As a result, at times I run on .25X speed, and rely on alerts to tell me when enemy squadrons are approaching important colonies/installations (or just scan the map)I am manually controlling all of my fleets in action against the enemy, AND manually diecting Constructors to repair damage-wars take me a long time to play out.


You may want to consider putting multiplies repair bots on your starships to keep downtime/constructor repairing to a minimum. Especially if you are handling hundred of them.

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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/20/2014 12:10:14 AM   
FingNewGuy


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Great point and good idea... thanks!

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RE: To automate or not to automate? - 5/20/2014 12:47:51 AM   
Spidey


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quote:

ORIGINAL: towerbooks3192

Now I am having mixed feelings about automation especially when I have plans to play the largest galaxy and systems. How worst is it going to be when war would start? I am not talking about little ones but full-scale ones that blows up tons of ships and whatnot?


Late game is actually a lot easier, since your empire is properly established. By then most things can really manage themselves. You can afford a whole bunch of construction ships on auto just building mines at random. Scouting is done so no need to worry about that. And you can probably afford enough automated defensive capacity in your systems that you don't have to worry one bit about stray ships entering your space.

All you really have to do by then is build some fleets, beat the snot out of your enemies in whatever pace you fancy, invade their planets one at a time, and if you're a hands-on kind of person then probably also check out that your colonies are growing as fast as possible. IMO, the late game is piece of cake and no more micro intensive than you care for it to be, meaning anywhere from "plays itself on full auto" to "nothing happens unless you're ordering it".

The tricky part, in my opinion, is getting to the late game as fast as possible, but if your not fussed about optimization then you can ease up on a number of things and you're still going to do just fine.

(in reply to towerbooks3192)
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