Give us the tools of Ozymandias!

from Sins Forums
I have a feature request for something that I feel is long overdue in RTS games. I had high hopes that Supreme Commander would be the first to implement it, but I was disappointed (With the lack of said feature, not with the game. Great game.)

What I want is the ability to assemble groups of buildings or units and order them all to be built with a single click of a button. It's sort of like customizing a ship in a standard 4x game, but instead you're customizing a fleet or a planetary infrastructure and greatly simplifying the process for the user to build them.

Fleets are easy - Dictate that a strike fleet has 2 Kols, an Akkan, 8 Flak Frigates, and 5 Siege frigates. Then select your factories or planetary system to work on the fleet and tell it to build them - the units are then automatically qeued up in the available factories, and you've just instructed the game to build a 16-ship fleet with a few mouse clicks.

That's the basics. For increased sophisticated you could have that fleet form up in formation, have it's own group designation or fleet icon at zoomed out levels, and (getting fancy here) have factories automatically build the fleet reinforcements when it's recuperating in a friendly system with factories.

Regarding buildings, it can range from the simple defended interdictor (Phase space interdictor surrounded by four Gauss defense platforms) to the complicated (Just colonized a terran world in the back? Let's make it a research world. One click later I select the 'research world' customized building set I ordered earlier... six research stations, resource mines on the local asteroids, a few hangers and turrets for defense (later on this planet gets a bit closer to the front lines than I like, so I'll manually build a few more defense structures.), and an assortment of trading posts and broadcast centers.)


If you guys can implement something like this, even just the basics of a 'one click fleet or building set' with static selections instead of customizable ones it will be a giant leap forward in managing RTS infrastructure. And if you can let us customize the fleets and building sets we can build either in or out of game, we will respond by building vast interstellar empires at the touch of a button, and we can focus on the overall strategy game instead of clicking on 'build frigate' a dozen times.

I have faith that one day this feature will be an RTS standard - how could we ever have played games building one structure at a time? And I'd love to see Sins of a Solar Empire make it's mark as the first RTS to do so.
2,619 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Interesting ideas. We will be reviewing queuing again at some point. I cannot promise anything, but will keep your suggestions in mind as we refine
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks, awesome! I do hope something like this makes it in, but even if it doesn't I can rest assured that it was considered and not included for a good reason.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Well, even if that's not going to happen, Please fix the 'problem' that the cost of a ship is deducted as soon as you click the button, instead of when construction starts.

Now, if you want to que up a load of frigates, you need the money for those frigates Right NOW. This means you can't que up to many ships, and need to go back to your factories all the time.

If the cost of a ship is deducted when contruction starts (or preferably, during construction, like in C&C for example) you can que up a load of ships without having HUGE reserves of resources right now. You simply pay it when you get there.



of course, comassion's idea is super-plus-better then mine, this one being a bit more conservative.


I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
This is an idea I have had for some time, since MoO to be exact. A most excellent suggestion to be sure. I hope it sees the light of day. If it does get implemented then it would also be neat to be able to add custom fleet icons and track fleet stats to boot. I know it is a bit much but each component of the game should be looked at like a separate system in my opinion.