A idea has been kicking around for a while, but been holding back on putting it forward until it became more clear where the game will place itself on the 'automated Sim vs Direct influence colony manager' scale.... but who knows when that'll be, so sod it. Not exactly a design suggestion.... kinda.... maybe... but not quite. And mostly curious how other players would feel about such a idea when held up to certain expectations from the whole 'colonial management' side of things. Core Idea The idea at its core is that colonists would have some degree of freedom to actually request some aspects of production themselves rather than just having the player setting up dozens upon dozens of standing production orders and then going back and micromanaging them later. So if you have a colony with: * Carpentry * Ceramics * Ironworks * Textiles * Chemist A colonist may decide they're feeling rather depressed but the colony is lacking in tonics, so they request the chemist to produce a unit of tonic for them as well as asking the carpenter to produce some planks and the textiles to produce some linen to they can build a fancy new chair for their home to make it less of a depressing place to live. This happens pretty much automatically using the dark arts of distance ignoring telepathic communication that all colonists wield but which is never spoken of due to fear of prosecution from the larger empire. The colonist decides they want A and B items, and query their nearest (or favourite) workshop able to supply said goods to produce them. Once produced these items are automatically owned by the colonist who made the request. Controlling Mechanics There would be some control factor the player can have over this behaviour to ensure that all resources don't get sucked into the void that is spontaneous colonist production requests, the main idea I can see working rather well for such a thing would be to actually replace the existing per workshop standing order system and instead introduce a reservation system on the stockpile level. This could function both on a global colony level that takes into account all instances of a specific good in any and all stockpiles in the colony, and also on a per stockpile level for any potential 'owned stockpile' behaviour that may be introduced further down the road where workshops & offices can have their own dedicated stockpiles. In a nutshell, the player reserves a minimum amount of a certain good in the colony as a whole. So let's say 20 planks, 15 bricks, 10 tonics and 5 bolts of cloth (because multiples of 5 are fun!). With this reservation in place any workshops able to produce reserved goods will create production orders for themselves whilst collectively tracking how many pending orders to meet the reserve amount to ensure no over production.... or at least as little over production as possible when dealing with workshops that for example produce 3 units of goods for a reservation amount that isn't a multiple of 3. So If you had 3 planks (with the reserve being 20) in your colony and 4 carpentry workshops, 3 workshops would create 2 production jobs for themselves (12 planks), whilst the 4th would create 3 jobs for itself (6 planks). Giving a total of 18 planks of the needed 17 to meet the reserve amount. With each workshop being self aware enough to realise how many goods they make per job. Reserved goods are then used for any 'official' jobs the player issues such as building construction, module placement and so forth. As long as the reserve is met, any additional logs are considered fair game for producing excess planks for colonist request orders. Expanding On This Concept With the core idea and one potential control factor outlined, a way to expand on the idea is to then use it to incorporate the idea of shops and other services into a colony. So rather than a kitchen being just a place where the player just says "Makes 20 of each type of pie, 40 steaks, 50 jars of canned goods and keep doing so", instead colonists can visit a kitchen and make actual requests based on what they would prefer to eat (and what is available to prepare). So a colonist feeling hungry might stroll into a kitchen and request a loaf of bread, a worker in the kitchen then fetches some flour and make the bread which is then directly handed to the colonist. As it is currently the player could set minimum reservation demands for food if they prefer the idea of playing it safe. Where the 'on request' behaviour would come into play is to do with the idea of not having to micromanage standing orders as population grows, allows colonists to get their food from a local kitchen rather than having to tromp potentially further away to get to a stockpile that is storing prepared food, and lastly allows colonists to request something they would most like to eat rather than just making do with whatever is prepared. Another idea for expanding on this is certain consumer goods. A colonist may be part of a cult that worships Fishpeople, and to show their dedication and hopefully gain favour with their fishy gods could request a carpentry workshop to create a custom order piece of a small fishperson idol carved from wood to place on their shrine. This wouldn't be something the player would instruct the workshop to make, but it's something the game could generate at a colonists request based on their personality traits and other details. Colonist Prioritisation Where colonist based prioritisation comes into it all is colonists will have degree of control over what pending tasks they consider important to fulfil first. Firstly all official jobs are given higher priority providing the colonist isn't suffering from certain conditions like insanity, depression or whatever else may cause them to disregard the absolute authority of empire official that is the player. However there would be some kind of sway factor even within the realms of official orders. A drunkard would consider whiskey reserve fulfilment to be much more important than iron piping if alcohol supplies are low. A materialistic colonist would consider building high quality housing and modules that they could attempt to later lay claim on more important than digging up farm land. A colonist with the desire to kill another individual would consider the abundance of weaponry to be more important than cooking cabbage (Though cabbage itself can be its own silent killer). Outside of official orders, then any real sense of "For the greater good of the colony" goes out of the window, as every colonist has their own idea of what's best for the greater good, and that would be reflected in how they react to colonist requested jobs. Going back to the drunkard, as long as harvested wheat exceeds any reserve amount stated by the player, they may take it upon themselves to request the brewery produce crazy amounts of whiskey. However the workers in the brewery on receiving that order to make a giant vat of whiskey may give it a lower priority as they're fond of pie and figure if they use all the excess harvest for whiskey then there will be no pies to eat and so only fulfil a certain amount of the drunkards request until such a time as the next wheat harvest comes in.
Earlier developer discussions have implied this kind of mechanism, although they are described with respect to Offices like the Chapel, where a colonist in need of solace can get his/her need fulfilled by a Vicar. So it would not surprise me if this kind of thing were put in place. With limits.
I like these ideas, I do like the idea of colonists ordering things and basically making what they can when they need etc however it would appeal to some and not others not to mention not sure exactly how the devs want to go about it. Agree with Mikel on that note
It would certainly fit into the developers desire for emergent gameplay... it would also be a major pain to find the stores raided of materials when the time came to build something else that needed those raw materials.
Well, my very first thought was that I would not want colonists using up my resources.... but as much as I like my colonists doing what I tell them to do (for the most part), I think it might be so much more interesting for them to do what they wanted that I might be willing to put up with the pain, just to see what happens... At some point we could see true self-sufficiency if we built it right... At that point the colony would be more like artwork... and that appeals to me.
That part appeals to me, but more the military aspect actually. For example, the whole respond to alarms and so on i like. I think it would be nice to see the NCO and such basically controlling the soldiers in that regard, forming up and into certain formations if necessary and so on. If Officers were ever implemented, perhaps your direct orders like to attack a certain base or position and defend and so on is basically an area for them to be in. And at the time, if enemies were approaching on say your colony and that point, they would then carry out all the necessary defence around that designated area until they are "needy" like hunger etc, morale or simply you remove the point and they all go back to their buisness. I am so looking forward to the future of the military in CE. But as it stands the now, I like each section of the game being developed piece by piece added in at the same time to keep each aspect, economy, cults, enemies, diplomacy, military etc etc all on the same bar.
Anyway, people posted a bit quicker than I was expecting so didn't get a chance to finish off the last bit. lol It was going to be a 2nd post, but instead I have edited in the colonist prioritisation part.
With the control factor suggestion as it is, it would very much be up to you how much room for freedom you wished to give for colonist sourced resource consumption. If you had a global reserve set for 50 planks, and only 20 planks in your colony, then colonist requests that would consume planks would be completely ignored until such a time that there stored planks met the reserve amount and there was still logs spare to make more planks to fulfil the colonist request(s). So a player wanting no part in colonist sourced orders and wanted to stomp on their colonists freewill could in theory set a reserve a amount well over what the colony would likely ever be able to meet. Alternatively you could set a middle ground reserve that gives you ample supply for most orders you may want to give over the next week, and then let colonist orders get considered between major official projects. Or like you mentioned, you could set a really low reserve and just let the simulation play out and see where it takes you. The whole idea behind it was for it to be flexible and designed in such a way as for the player to wield it however they wanted.
This would be cool if the upper class colonists did it. They "buy" something or whatever. I'd like to see them fleshed out a bit more.
I think i like the idea, but i'd still rather have a say in whether or not i "authorize" the thing . What about introducing a "requests queue", visible to the player, where the player would be able to vet (confirm or cancel) the request made by a citizen ? On Confirm the order would be introduced in one of the offices (there's still the question of prioritization pending. FOr example, I generally setup my Blacksmith with standing orders for 2 items of every kind, and this takes ages- several days at least - to fullfill). If the player cancels the request (maybe he has more urgent needs ), the citizen would incur a morale malus. From my point of view, this has the added benefit of making the whole thing more visible to the player.
