Were Robot Assembly Plants a good idea?

[AlanC9]

In the previous version, robots were purpose-built for whatever job you wanted them to do. If you saw a tile you wanted a robot to work, you queued one up. (Maybe not on that specific tile if you wanted it worked meanwhile, of course.)

Now robots just show up on the planets with plants. In the early game, that means that either it's on me to ship the robots to planets with farmer and miner jobs that aren't already filled by robots, or I should watch the local districts and dismantle the plant when all the robot-apt jobs are filled. The first requires me to look at a lot of planets, the second means that I'm checking up on the pops fairly often.

This is the kind of dopey micro that 2.2 was supposed to get away from, no? Or an I doing something wrong?

 

[SectorsAreOkay]

You have to make decisions about how your empire operates, yes. That's called playing a game rather than watching doom stack simulator. It's not needless micro. It's meaningful management.

 

[AlanC9]

How is it meaningful when there's no thought required?

The thought part is trivial -- put robots on whichever robot job produces something I need now, defaulting to minerals if both are in comfortable surplus. The hard part is finding out whether that unemployment tick represents a robot, and if it does, which of the free jobs in my empire is suited to that robot.

It doesn't help that the interface is lousy for doing this.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

If you have the proper policies you can choose which robots get built. Egalitarians can't choose which to build currently but I hope that will change, I'm sure this is an oversight and a bug.

Click on the portrait for the POP that grow and you may select which robot version that is built.

 

[Whitecold]

I don't know what issue people have with pop job micro. Let them sort themselves out, they work efficient enough even if you don't get every pairing of bonuses.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

I like that the manufacture is automatic.
I'm not confident that the auto-assignment system will allocate the correct robot to the optimal job.
I do not like that you have to resettle them manually (or have a factory on every world).

I also do not like the prioritisation system; I don't want to build *any* robot, nor do I want to build *only this* robot.
I want a mix, determined by weights.
e.g. 50/50 split between mine-bots and agri-bots, or more complex 20/40/40 split with a 3rd type.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

I like that the manufacture is automatic.
I'm also not confident that the auto-assignment system will allocate the correct robot to the optimal job.
I do not like that you have to resettle them manually (or have a factory on every world).

I also do not like the prioritisation system; I don't want to build *any* robot, nor do I want to build *only this* robot.
I want a mix, determined by weights.
e.g. 50/50 split between mine-bots and agri-bots.

I'm pretty sure the AI allocate the best robot for the best spot but the problem is when there is not good spot available so a Mining drone get a farming job and when a miner job become available it will not automatically switch unless you go to the planet and force them to reallocate.

 

[heliostellar]

The way it is now, pop management with robots simultaneously requires micro and the interface makes micro extremely tedious. They need to let us manually move specifics pops again.

 

[Pale Blue]

I don't know what issue people have with pop job micro. Let them sort themselves out, they work efficient enough even if you don't get every pairing of bonuses.

The automated jod distribution is horrible. I am in negative energy generation but instead of filling the empty generator districts with new grown pops they become clerks that have no use at the moment. Mining bots work as specialists and leave the mines empty and then get filled with research and energy optimized organics. It doesn't even use unemployed pops first. If I build a new specialist building it didn't assign my unemployed specialist to the new job it assigned a previous worker from the same race to the job.


I would love to leave the pop sorting to the AI but for this it would need to actually work.

 

[AlanC9]

If you have the proper policies you can choose which robots get built. Egalitarians can't choose which to build currently but I hope that will change, I'm sure this is an oversight and a bug.

Click on the portrait for the POP that grow and you may select which robot version that is built.

I'm running stock UNE this time, so Egalitarian. Anyway, it's early enough that I still only have default robots.

 

[Leylos]

The automated jod distribution is horrible. I am in negative energy generation but instead of filling the empty generator districts with new grown pops they become clerks that have no use at the moment. .

Clerks generate trade value which generates energy.

 

[fodazd]

My personal opinion: In 2.1, robots were way, *way* too good, so they needed a nerf. The robot assemply plant is a pretty devastating nerf.

While robots aren't overpowered anymore, I am not sure if restricting their efficiency with respect to "Each pop is built to do exactly one job for which it is optimized" was the right way to go. I really liked that about 2.1 robots.

 

[Mastikator]

Is it a good idea?

Yes

Is it a perfect execution?

No.

Is it a better execution than 2.1?

Yes.

 

[Pyoro]

Some sort of Empire-wide pop control screen that you can use to micro all in one place - move POPs around, lock them into jobs, etc would be neat. You could use it if you wanted to, ignore if you didn't.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

In my current game I have a mechanism race and the first two point I simply spent on lower maintenance and better growth speed. Since being egalitarian mean I can't choose which robot that get built in the current version it is better to not specialize anyway.

The robots are extremely efficient at supporting the organic species.

 

[Mastikator]

In my current game I have a mechanism race and the first two point I simply spent on lower maintenance and better growth speed. Since being egalitarian mean I can't choose which robot that get built in the current version it is better to not specialize anyway.

The robots are extremely efficient at supporting the organic species.

I try to just make them generally better, less housing and faster build speed is universally good.

 

[Less2]

Pop management, in terms of what jobs you want worked and who you want working them, is awful.

Additionally deciding what robot to produce is awful since changing the production type loses progress, so you either catch it the month a robot completes (good luck managing this across a dozen worlds) or you're screwing yourself.

 

[SectorsAreOkay]

The automated jod distribution is horrible. I am in negative energy generation but instead of filling the empty generator districts with new grown pops they become clerks that have no use at the moment. Mining bots work as specialists and leave the mines empty and then get filled with research and energy optimized organics. It doesn't even use unemployed pops first. If I build a new specialist building it didn't assign my unemployed specialist to the new job it assigned a previous worker from the same race to the job.


I would love to leave the pop sorting to the AI but for this it would need to actually work.

Don't build excess districts that provide clerks until you need it.

 

[SectorsAreOkay]

How is it meaningful when there's no thought required?

The thought part is trivial -- put robots on whichever robot job produces something I need now, defaulting to minerals if both are in comfortable surplus. The hard part is finding out whether that unemployment tick represents a robot, and if it does, which of the free jobs in my empire is suited to that robot.

It doesn't help that the interface is lousy for doing this.

The thought process is deciding if and when you need robots and if and when you no longer want to construct them.

I'll admit the job prioritization scheme could use some polish, but it's not fundamentally broken. People just want to be able to exactly control where everything goes and that is neither realistic nor good gameplay. Stop trying to micromanage your pops.

 

[Foefaller]

Clerks generate trade value which generates energy.

But even thrifty Megacorp clerks can't generate as much EC with trade as a random dude with a technician job.

Really needs to be a way to set planetary focus in terms of which jobs get filled first. Minerals/Food/Energy/Trade and General at least. Maybe a checkmark for organic pops getting first dibs at higher strata jobs, another checkmark for citizen pops being able to kick out residents at higher strata, and a button that makes the game run a check where is automatically organizes pops by strata to get the right pops the right job for their traits.