Rationale:


Building system improvements are central to the game, but each option is locked and blocked by many things:


- Tech (almost all of them )

- System development level (e.g. autonomous administration depend on LV 4, Lv4 depend on LV 3) , etc.

- Strategic or luxury resources


That leads to late-game micromanagement hell. Finished tech and building have notification, but it doesn't help much. i.e. when I unlock a building, say autonomous administration, or wellbeing foundation , I have to locate every system, and check:


0. Do I want to build this on this system ?

1. buildable?  (resources, system level, etc)

2. built or already in list?


If bad luck, I was constrained by resource or system level, I'll have to check again in a few turns to make sure every viable colony gets it.  Multiply that by different buildings and colonys  That's a heavy burden when you have a lot on your plates.



To minimize late-game micromanagement hell as much as possible I suggest a semiautomated buidling order system.


Mechanics:


Advanced player should be able to create custom building orders, and give them names.


Example:

INDSTRY SYSTEM:

  • Drone Networks
  • AI Labor
  • Predictive Logistics
  • ....

It's better if you can copy an existing list, modify it, and rename it into another list.


And you can designate each system with multiple lists and order them in a rank .


At the beginning of each turn, computer scan each system that have lists, If it is in one of the following situations:

  • just finished bulding and is building nothing
  • is building repeated stuff ( converting industry to dust or science)

then computer add the top most viable buiding from the system's lists for the system to build. 


else do nothing .



How I invision myslef playing with that:


I'll have those lists:


  • Upstart basic colonys ( for basic stuff such as drone network and cerebral reality, etc  ), to pick all the universal low hanging fruits
  • Lava industry ( those industy building for hot systems )
  • Food focus
  • high pop industry
  • Anomaly driven science
  • high pop FDSI focus
  • Military Base (big data shipyards , etc)
  • improve resources output
  • industry to science
  • industry to dust

 I can stack different list to accomodate different system condition. for example, one system have two huge lavas, I give it these lists:

 

  • Lava industry
  • Military Base

Another system with huge big population potential:

  • Food focus
  • high pop FDSI focus

After I got a new system, I plan out its lists, then fire and forget, having confidence it will follow it through in the perfect order as I would. While I will be able to focus on more marco things, such as tech progression and diplomacy.


I will also put industry to dust / industry to science  llists at the bottem of every system, so when they have nothing to build, they don't waste industry output, when new option unlocks, they came back in the next turn.


Oh, also a evacuation-oriented list, which list evacuate and industry to dust. After I conquer some craver ravaged systems.


If during a turn  I suddenly have a better idea about how that strategy should be ? no problem, I just modify the related lists  , and next turn it's the new strategy.



FAQ:


Can I still manually manage a system ?

Sure, Just enter that system, put your manual buiding on top of  building queue. It won't break anything.


Why multiple lists, instead of one long list?

Because otherwise, you will need a lot of big lists for different strategy plan,  one for industry and miilitary, another for industry and wonder, etc ....  Those lists are essentially combination of small lists with a lot of repated work.  And any modifacation done to the industry part, you will have to duplicate it in multiple lists. 



Impact on Balance? 

none, it's not even AI, it just routinely follow your pre-defined strategy. And I will prefer my hand crafted strategy to a black box "automation policy" which spam high upkeep building that don't do their best on many systems.


Save-file, and version compatible?

Totally, if a certain building is scraped from the game, just remove it from the list. And you can add new buildings into the list any time


Will it complicate the system for new users?

you can hide it in a option, and new users don't need to bother with it.

Only when you open system panel and build from there, for almost every turn for many turns, tell you about it. On the other hand, getting complicated building priority out of the way, it might even be more accessible for new players.


Will it build inapproriate planet specialization ?

I didn't want to include planet specialization in the first place. they are not a heavy work, since you only need to do it once, and it only blocked by tech, you don't have to repeatedly check them.


Faction specific building?

Just add them to the approriate order, unavailable options are ignored naturally


User generated template ? 

Yes , the more the merrier.



Reference


http://www.chimerasw.com/starbaseorion/news/v1-1-update-submitted-to-apple/


search for
Customizable Build Focuses


they didn't do it well enough , as there are only four lanes of building order, and I cannot rename them.

And it has to be one big list, cannot stack different lists for different systems.