Hotkey suggestion: Save default factory queue

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by nuwen, October 5, 2014.

  1. nuwen

    nuwen New Member

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    I love features like area commands, infinite build orders, priority unit builds, etc. that reduce the need for micromanagement. However, when setting up factories, you have to populate their queue, and that requires a whole bunch of clicking/keypressing. This is problematic because you can't just drag a commander/fabber to create a whole line of factories and move on to doing other stuff - you have to populate their queues as the factories are completed (or less optimally but with less micro, select them when they're done, then populate all of them). It would be really nice to be able to give factories a default queue.

    As a programmer (some of my code is in the msvcp110.dll in PA's directory! :->), I am acutely aware of how difficult even simple-sounding things are. Adding UI for this would be expensive. However, I believe it would be much easier to add a hotkey. What I'm thinking of would work like this: you build a factory, populate its build queue, and then press this new hotkey. What this does is:

    * Saves the selected factory's build queue, as the default for all future factories of that type (e.g. T1 bots, T2 vehicles).
    * This obviously includes the quantity and order of units.
    * It also includes whether the factory is set to build-once or build-infinite.
    * Finally, it includes any priority orders (ctrl+click).

    I suppose it could also include whether the factory is energized (although I'm not sure why anyone would want to build factories de-energized by default).

    For bonus points, this could possibly include certain rally points, relative to the factory's location. Telling a factory to send units to assist some other unit couldn't really be saved as a default, but an area patrol could definitely be saved. I usually want my factories to area patrol around themselves for a certain radius.

    There are edge cases to consider (e.g. the hotkey might be ignored if multiple factories are selected), but that's the basic idea.
  2. cola_colin

    cola_colin Moderator Alumni

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    I implemented that idea for hotkey 1 and called it something like requeue a year or two ago back when we did not have the endless loop function, so it was meant to emulate an endless queue button by recording orders given to a factory and then quickly playing them back 50x on the press of a button for new factories.
    I don't know if it still exists somewhere in the code of hotbuild 2. If I remember correctly it's not a lot of code either way.
    reptarking likes this.

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