Project queues discussion thread

[kicking jay]

It's been pretty well established that people would like a way to queue* up projects, but every time it's suggested, it's quickly shot down, and with good reason.

While it seems that everybody agrees that this is a good idea, the objection - it is a form of automation - is hard to rebuff. I'd like, then, not to simply resuggest a repeatedly rejected suggestion, but rather to start a conversation with the aim to develop a handful of handicaps which would allow this to be a beneficial addition to players who, while active RP'rs, may not be able to log on frequently enough to efficiently manage many projects, while not letting sleeping players starve to death while working as personalityless robots.

Any ideas for how project queues could be implemented in such a way that does not discourage RP?

*stupidest word in the english lexicon, and that's saying something

[Bmot]

I think I'll be able to say something that sounds smart to me about this... But I'm not really sure yet what that would be, so I'll wait a bit with the real answer.

Besides that, I do think this is an interesting idea, which also sorta came up in the realism thread.

[kicking jay]

I'm currently leaning towards some reimagination of that miserably failed tiredness/exhaustion suggestion of mine, so that if you just work for more than like ten days on end, you start to dramatically slow. Alternately, some version of product quality finally gets agreed on by everybody, and the quality of a tired worker decreases.

Also, I was thinking that maybe you'd have to start some kind of project when developing the queue - if you've got five projects to do in order, you'd have to complete some a five-hour project before beginning the queue.

Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure that'll be a very long-term implementation, as there's probably going to be several other systems developed before queues can be done in a beneficial way.

[Tiamo]

I think you are trying to complicate something that is pretty simple at the moment. And not for the better.
Projects usually take several days to complete. This is well in line with the target of being able to play Cantr logging in about once a day. So no need for longer periods of absence because of this.
The effect of project queues would probably be that many characters will sleep even longer between moments of activity, making the game even quieter than it already is. This is NOT good!

[kicking jay]

I think you are trying to complicate something that is pretty simple at the moment. And not for the better.
Projects usually take several days to complete. This is well in line with the target of being able to play Cantr logging in about once a day. So no need for longer periods of absence because of this.
The effect of project queues would probably be that many characters will sleep even longer between moments of activity, making the game even quieter than it already is. This is NOT good!

I'm pretty sure you didn't read what the OP was. We know that as just a pure queue, it's not a good idea. We're trying to tweak it so that it's useful for people who need it (vacation, have a project that'll finish at two in the morning on monday, etc.), while discouraging people from abusing it.

[Slowness_Incarnate]

I don't think there is a way. I know that if I had this queue...I would only check cantr once a week at most.

[Uma]

I think you should be able to queue projects up to 1 (or 2) days in length.

or maybe 'you can add more projects to your queue until you exceed 24 hours of work'. it's really only the hour long repair jobs that cause the problem. with mass production options for buttons and zippers, making 8 of them becomes a lengthy project. but repair is still awful.

surely automating repair won't break the game?

the worse that will happen is that sleepysally just turns on 'repair duty' and the town shovels things into her hut.


though what if 'repair duty' or any sort of 'do this over and over' action only lasted 1 day. so you have to check in on it, as often as would be reasonable with most projects?

[ObsessedWithCats]

As a basic starting point, a queue with a maximum of one day's work would help out people who can only get online once a day if their characters have a few short projects to do, but will have minimal influence on people who just can't be bothered to log in. Perhaps it requires a one-hour 'plan day' project so people will only use it if they really can't get online more- this way, if your character has three tasks, each two hours long, and you can only get online once a day, they end up taking one day instead of three.

Slightly more complex/exploitable would be a queue with a maximum of seven hours work excluding the last project on the list - it allows roughly the same amount of sleeping as currently but gets a few shorter jobs done first, so if you're away for say five days at a time (during the working week) you can finish off any little things that cropped up at the weekend and still spend the rest of the working week doing something constructive.

(Edit: Uma beat me to it :3 I'll leave what I wrote anyway, just in case anyone's curious as to my line of thought.)

[Uma]

I think 7 hours +1 project would be excelent. and would allow an attentive player to 'knock off' small repair jobs prior to big jobs.

What if, when you were below your 7 hour queue cap, there was an icon next to 'participate' that said 'queue' (icon could be a Q!) THe icon inserts a <7 hour project before your present project. that icon goes away when you have 7 hours of pre-projects.

did that make sense? I think I just made a horrible sentence.

[SekoETC]

Yes, I don't know what anyone can see wrong with allowing people to queue projects up to a day. When the game was first created, all manufacturing projects lasted full days and there was no tiredness or skills so there was no variation in the project duration. That allowed logging in just once a day. That probably explains why stone hammers take two days to make, because in the past there was no midway between 1 and 2 days. It's good that things can be mass produced but most repair projects take less than a day and can't be stacked. That should change.

[Tiamo]

Kicking Jay, i DID read your OP. My post was a direct reaction to what you say in it.
I have no objection against repeating a series of equal short jobs, but do object to queueing up different jobs into vacation length. And i object to complicating a game procedure (starting and working projects) that is now straight and simple, and actually working well.
Read my post in the realism discussion too: it is not good for the game if players log into the game even less often than some already do. Getting players to log on, and play, on something like a daily basis would be really helping Cantr. Robotizing would not.

[kicking jay]

Kicking Jay, i DID read your OP. My post was a direct reaction to what you say in it.
I have no objection against repeating a series of equal short jobs, but do object to queueing up different jobs into vacation length. And i object to complicating a game procedure (starting and working projects) that is now straight and simple, and actually working well.
Read my post in the realism discussion too: it is not good for the game if players log into the game even less often than some already do. Getting players to log on, and play, on something like a daily basis would be really helping Cantr. Robotizing would not.

The idea is there are enough disadvantages to robotically working for an extended period of time that nobody would do so without a reason to (IRL vacation, for example), so that it can facilitate those who would have an OOC reason (or OC, perhaps their char is an obsessive work freak) to work for an extended time at a disadvantage - a disadvantage that would be avoided by logging on frequently (and doing something? sleep?), hopefully which would encourage RP.

That's what it come to. Instead of stating that queues would never be able to help, this is a think tank to figure out a way to implement queuing without discouraging RP. (Bonus points if it encourages RP.)

[Swingerzetta]

The one day idea is brilliant, I wish I'd thought of it. It seems like logging in once a day has become a central pillar of Cantr's design, and for good reason. So, really, a system that supports that idea, by allowing a day of repair work (or whatever) to be done in one log-in, supports this philosophy. I don't really see any benefit to allowing longer periods of automation, whatever the costs, though. People are allowed to sleep during vacations, generally. So, I think the one-day queue idea should be posted to suggestions, and I would vote yes on it, and argue in its favor if such an argument was required.

[Doug R.]

I'm with Tiamo on this one. If you're going on holiday for 20 days, just gather 20 days worth of something, or work on a 20 day project. I really don't see the need for queues. Sure, it's a bit annoying when your project ends at 2am and you lose a few turns of productivity, but I don't see that as a problem that needs a solution.

[Bmot]

I'm not one of the people who care too much about getting the most out of each tick, so I don't feel I need these queue's. Still, I do think the game might benefit from maximum one day long queue. Not longer than that, though.