Feedback Imperial Stockpile (Rev 4,5). Unlimited input Rulez

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Vezzra
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Re: Feedback Imperial Stockpile (Rev 4,5). Unlimited input R

#46 Post by Vezzra »

Gault.Drakkor wrote:I dislike the current interspecies academy.
I'm not overly excited about the current IS content either, to be honest. To avoid misunderstandings: My objection has mostly to do with the fluff explanations, I don't really like that smuggler/special logistics approach very much, it's not very convincing (e.g. even the best smugglers or most sophisticated logistics that can get you past the tightest blockades wouldn't be able to reach systems which have no starlane connection to the rest of your empire at all, e.g. because some starlanes have been removed). I've been hoping that we could come up with better stuff before the release, but I guess we can live with the current improvised content to avoid delaying the release even more.

After all, the current content for fighters/carriers isn't much better (IMO).

That said, removing the min distance restriction from the Interspecies Acadamy makes sense.

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Re: Feedback Imperial Stockpile (Rev 4,5). Unlimited input R

#47 Post by Oberlus »

Gault.Drakkor wrote:[interspecies academy] It has double restrictions of species and minimum distance. Those separate would be OK. But together trying to put all 5 buildings up is a micro-management challenge. A brain teaser puzzle/ in game mini-game.
:lol: :lol: :lol:
I've never build one of them, so I didn't know what I was missing. Now I shall do it! (and keep a version of this FO for future).

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Re: Feedback Imperial Stockpile (Rev 4,5). Unlimited input R

#48 Post by Oberlus »

Vezzra wrote:
Oberlus wrote:I have the feeling that immediate availability of the IS is not right for non-stockpiling species. What do you think about making the IS mechanic unlocked by the first IS tech, and unlock that tech for good/great stockpiling species from start?
That's actually exactly what I wanted to see. I always thought the immediate availability of the IS for all species has only been a stop-gap solution for testing purposes, and would be removed/replaced (with only stockpiling species having it from the start) to get the feature release ready.

All species having (even if just rudimentary) IS capability right from the start is something I definitely did not want...
Geoff the Medio wrote:That might be problematic in that it would require the player to spend some in-game resources to avoid a possible micromanagement issue.
How so?
Maybe something like this: if you can stockpile resources (instead of waste it), you can pay less attention to your production queue and your planetary foci, so someone could devote in-game resources to get access to the IS just to avoid that micro-management and thus the micro-willing players would get an advantage.
However, how much attention and micro-management requires playing without IS is actually almost the same than with the IS, and I can't call micromanagement the normal operation of the production queue.
So for now I don't share Geoff's opinion, BUT I see there is no real problem with the IS being unlocked for all from start, apart from being too much of a fluff.
In fact, if I use my realistic glasses I really dislike the IS concept (the mere existence of stockpiling in the game), so I keep conceptualising it as a network of stealth smuggling ships with infinite input capacity ("their people" is in every planet and can take care of your excess production no matter how much it was, probably because they use it to build their own ships and get back some profit later to pay back, or whatever) but limited delivery capacity (that is easier to believe!), and try to ignore the actual nonsense that is that 30 PPs can get into the IS in turn 10 and then get slowly transferred to another planet during 10 turns.

About the rudimentary IS capacity of non-stockpiling species, it is in fact so small it ain't enough to avoid any micromanagement because putting stuff into your IS is like lending money to a bad friend, you can't count on that money. So now that I think so, with the current implementation we already have the problem that Geoff was overseeing for the initially-locked IS version: the players wanting to avoid (micro)management has to devote in-game resources (and some management) to get several of the IS technologies.

Problematically interesting!

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Re: Feedback Imperial Stockpile (Rev 4,5). Unlimited input R

#49 Post by Ophiuchus »

Gault.Drakkor wrote:I dislike the current interspecies academy.
...But it strikes me as the real goal is: "This should cost X PP per Y systems". The more systems you have the more expensive this should be.
The min separation looks to be like a micro-management way of achieving that.
No. It was not about cost. The idea was to match a distributed empire.

So the distance restriction is there to help stretched out empires.

Maybe also to acquire another species you could go far into enemy territory and invade some natives there. Thats why there is the species restriction.

Also I wanted to restrict the total effect (before that was a fixed percentage bonus to efficiency). So not an unlimited number of buildings.

How about having the effect only once per supply-group? That would match distributed empire even more. (But actually i dont like this idea)
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Re: Feedback Imperial Stockpile (Rev 4,5). Unlimited input R

#50 Post by Dilvish »

Oberlus wrote:About the rudimentary IS capacity of non-stockpiling species, it is in fact so small it ain't enough to avoid any micromanagement because putting stuff into your IS is like lending money to a bad friend, you can't count on that money.
I'd say it's more like lending to a more mediocre friend-- you can count on getting the money/PP back eventually, it just may take a fair while :D

Even with a small max-use the IS streamlines management at least a little bit (no need to worry about finding something to queue up just to avoid wasting 2 PP or something), and it seems to me that streamlining management has to be the opposite of micro-management, and is a good thing.

Whether any of the IS-related techs might run afoul of our guidelines for micromanagement tradeoffs would be a different issue, though, I suppose there is at least the possibility of a problem there.
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Re: Feedback Imperial Stockpile (Rev 4,5). Unlimited input R

#51 Post by Vezzra »

Oberlus wrote:Maybe something like this: if you can stockpile resources (instead of waste it), you can pay less attention to your production queue and your planetary foci, so someone could devote in-game resources to get access to the IS just to avoid that micro-management and thus the micro-willing players would get an advantage.
Well, that has been my guess too, but as you said yourself:
However, how much attention and micro-management requires playing without IS is actually almost the same than with the IS, and I can't call micromanagement the normal operation of the production queue.
I, too, see no difference at all (regarding the amount of micromanagement, the kind of micromanagement probably is different).
BUT I see there is no real problem with the IS being unlocked for all from start, apart from being too much of a fluff.
Too much of a fluff, and I consider it a design inconsistency/incongruity. The IS is a special case mechanic/feature, you don't give access to special case mechanics/features to everyone right from game start. Special case mechanics/features are gated by tech, certain options you can select at game start (like the starting species), etc.

Granting that to everyone at game start doesn't convey the meaning "this is something very special" particularly well to the player (it actually contradicts it). While this is not a game breaking issue, and doesn't necessarily affect gameplay itself in a negative way, it's just ugly from a design perspective (IMO).
In fact, if I use my realistic glasses I really dislike the IS concept (the mere existence of stockpiling in the game)
Yeah, well, I haven't been a big fan either, but we can't always get our way in a community driven project, and the IS certainly serves certain playstyles that shouldn't be ignored just because some of us don't prefer them. Not to speak of our stance regarding realism, so the "realistic glasses" aren't relevant anyway. ;)
I keep conceptualising it as a network of stealth smuggling ships
That's exactly where the fluff explanation critically lacks credibility to the point where is breaks the suspension of disbelief for me. As I already mentioned in an earlier post, the IS can reach even planets that had their starlane connection completely removed, how are ships (regardless how stealthy and optimized for "smuggling") supposed to get to such planets, if interstellar travel exclusively happens along starlanes? I'm not talking about realism here, but in-game universe consistency. I'd rather go with something like "Quantum Logistics", where certain amounts of goods/resources can be essentially "beamed" across the galaxy. Doesn't stand a chance when looked at with the "realistic glasses", but still makes more sense to me...

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Re: Feedback Imperial Stockpile (Rev 4,5). Unlimited input R

#52 Post by Vezzra »

Dilvish wrote:Even with a small max-use the IS streamlines management at least a little bit (no need to worry about finding something to queue up just to avoid wasting 2 PP or something), and it seems to me that streamlining management has to be the opposite of micro-management, and is a good thing.
Not really, IMO. The only thing that happens is that things get a bit shifted around, but essentially you gain nothing (in terms of helping with micromanagement). Instead of having to do something about those 1.2PP that might get wasted this turn (without the IS), your treshold just shifts with a very small IS capability - you still have to deal with that issue, it just kicks in at maybe 3 wasted PP. Because you have to take care that not too much PP get into the IS, otherwise you quickly accumulate more PP than you can reasonably extract and make use of.

I don't think that the IS, regardless of capacity, helps reduce micromanagement, on the contrary, I think it actually requires a bit more. But even assuming it does reduce micromanagement a bit, I can only see that with sufficiently high IS capacity, something we certainly won't grant to everyone at game start.

But maybe Geoff meant something else entirely - Geoff?
Whether any of the IS-related techs might run afoul of our guidelines for micromanagement tradeoffs would be a different issue, though, I suppose there is at least the possibility of a problem there.
Hm, don't think so. The problem only really arises when you have e.g. a tech that does nothing but providing means to reduce micromanagement. Stellaris e.g. has a tech that enables an AI for exploration, which essentially means an AI is going to manage you sience ships (without that tech you need to move them around manually). Big ugh :roll:

But I guess we won't be able to completely avoid that certain gated game elements can impact the amount of micromanagement the player has to do once those elements get unlocked.

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Re: Feedback Imperial Stockpile (Rev 4,5). Unlimited input R

#53 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Vezzra wrote:
Dilvish wrote:Even with a small max-use the IS streamlines management...
Instead of having to do something about those 1.2PP that might get wasted this turn (without the IS), your treshold just shifts with a very small IS capability - you still have to deal with that issue, it just kicks in at maybe 3 wasted PP.
Isn't that already an easier to do, though?
Because you have to take care that not too much PP get into the IS, otherwise you quickly accumulate more PP than you can reasonably extract and make use of.
I don't understand this argument / logic. Even if a player needs to put some attention towards not letting so much PP get stockpiled that it can't be used, that seemingly should be less attention than required to ensure that no PP is left unused at all.

Also, I assume, based on current mechanics, that players who aren't using a stockpiling-focused strategy will still have a small to moderate capacity to use stockpiled PP, which will increase over time during a game. So even if one is stockpiling 3 PP/turn at the start when only 1.2 PP/turn can be used, 20 turns later the capacity might have increased to 4 PP/turn, allowing the previously-saved-up PP to be extracted and used usefully, rather than being completely wasted, with the additional benefit of being usable anywhere, regardless of supply connections.
I think [stockpiling] actually requires a bit more [micromanagement].
How so?

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Re: Feedback Imperial Stockpile (Rev 4,5). Unlimited input R

#54 Post by Vezzra »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
Vezzra wrote:Instead of having to do something about those 1.2PP that might get wasted this turn (without the IS), your treshold just shifts with a very small IS capability - you still have to deal with that issue, it just kicks in at maybe 3 wasted PP.
Isn't that already an easier to do, though?
Well, I wouldn't be so sure about that. It might even depend on the player and the way they play/think.

Anyway, even if there is a slight advantage of the IS when it comes to micromanagement, I expect the difference to be negligible, not important enough to warrant keeping it enabled for everyone from game start.
I don't understand this argument / logic. Even if a player needs to put some attention towards not letting so much PP get stockpiled that it can't be used, that seemingly should be less attention than required to ensure that no PP is left unused at all.
See above, I wouldn't be so sure about that. I mean, we're talking about a player realizing that e.g. 2PP get wasted, and they decide they don't want to waste even that small amount, so they try to enqueue something to use up those excess PP. Happens, but not frequently enough to consider it a micromanagement issue.
Also, I assume, based on current mechanics, that players who aren't using a stockpiling-focused strategy will still have a small to moderate capacity to use stockpiled PP, which will increase over time during a game. So even if one is stockpiling 3 PP/turn at the start when only 1.2 PP/turn can be used, 20 turns later the capacity might have increased to 4 PP/turn, allowing the previously-saved-up PP to be extracted and used usefully, rather than being completely wasted, with the additional benefit of being usable anywhere, regardless of supply connections.
Still suboptimal, and therefore a player who is this concerned with optimizing things, will start to calculate what's better: find something useful to enqueue and not let any PP go into the stockpile, or enqueue something which at least uses enough of the excess PP so that the rest can be consumed rather quickly in subsequent turns, or let all the PP go into the stockpile?

Certainly a non-trivial consideration in many cases. Potentially more to consider than when just having to decide what to enqeue to eat all those PP up.
I think [stockpiling] actually requires a bit more [micromanagement].
How so?
See above. I'm such a player. If my only option is to spend the excess PP now or waste them, that's pretty cut-and-dry for me. But if I have some small IS capability on top of that, I'd start thinking and tinkering - ugh. I mean, maybe it isn't that bad, but still bad enough so I couldn't say for sure what's less micromanagy in the end, having the IS or not. Knowing me, I'm inclined to believe the latter, but that's quite possibly just me.

All that said, I believe that trying to assess which of those variant is more micromanagy and by precisely how much is moot. I expect the difference, as I already said above, to be so minimal that it isn't really relevant to keep the IS enabled for everyone right from game start because of concerns that players might spend in-game resources just to alleviate micromanagement.

I can live with that if it's just a stop-gap solution until we can revise the IS and come up with better solutions. While we are at it, you once suggested to make traditional PP resource distribution and the IS mechanic a policy card choice. I like that idea very much. Do you still want to do this? Then the above discussion is completely moot anyway.

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Re: Feedback Imperial Stockpile (Rev 4,5). Unlimited input R

#55 Post by Dilvish »

Vezzra wrote:I mean, we're talking about a player realizing that e.g. 2PP get wasted, and they decide they don't want to waste even that small amount, so they try to enqueue something to use up those excess PP. Happens, but not frequently enough to consider it a micromanagement issue.
But the IS decisions you are complaining about don't happen any more often than this-- they happen pretty much exactly at the same times. And in these situations, a decision to put PP into the IS is generally trivially easier to justify and make than trying to decide which is the least-useless thing out of a bunch of near-term-nearly-useless-and-long-term-who-knows things. Complaining about the IS option really doesn't make any sense to me.

I suspect you are just really, really not used to the IS yet, and so are WAY overthinking it. For a non-stockpiling species the most significant use-cases for putting PP into the IS is when you have some tech (for a new shippart like Lasers or some building) you'll be completing within a small number of turns, and so rather than continue to put PP into building ships that are about to be outmoded, or in order to save up some extra PP for the building you are about to start on, you let some PP go into the IS.

You can simply have a rule-of-thumb that if you have extra PP for which no particular good use immediately comes to mind, and your current IS amount is less than 10x your per-turn-max-use, then just let your excess go into the IS. That is very close to what I'd say is the rule of thumb I follow myself. Try it, you'll like it! :D
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Re: Feedback Imperial Stockpile (Rev 4,5). Unlimited input R

#56 Post by Vezzra »

Dilvish wrote:
Vezzra wrote:I mean, we're talking about a player realizing that e.g. 2PP get wasted, and they decide they don't want to waste even that small amount, so they try to enqueue something to use up those excess PP. Happens, but not frequently enough to consider it a micromanagement issue.
But the IS decisions you are complaining about don't happen any more often than this-- they happen pretty much exactly at the same times. And in these situations, a decision to put PP into the IS is generally trivially easier to justify and make than trying to decide which is the least-useless thing out of a bunch of near-term-nearly-useless-and-long-term-who-knows things. Complaining about the IS option really doesn't make any sense to me.
Um, what do you mean by "complaining about the IS"? I wasn't complaining about the IS, maybe you misunderstood me. I merely wanted to point out that the IS doesn't really help with micromanagement in these cases. Lets take a step back and rewind to the start:

I proposed to not unlock IS capabilities for all players right from the start, because it is supposed to be an optional special case mechanic, and those shouldn't be available to all players right from the start. That quite thoroughly contradicts the idea of "optional special case".

The objection to this proposal was: not a good idea, because that would give some incentive to spend in-game resources to alleviate micromanagement (assuming the IS does help reducing micromanagement on a scale that this is actually an issue, because you have to spend RP to unlock the feature).

I then tried to point out that this perceived allevation of micromanagement doesn't exist, what actually happens is a shifting of tresholds. That (IMO) things might actually get a bit more micromanagy with the IS than without was merely a sidenote, not really relevant for the point I tried to make (ok, admittedly a sidenote that grew into a probably overblown side discussion ;)). And my statement above, which you quoted, wasn't intended to compare how often the issue occurs with IS compared to without IS (because I completely agree, of course that happens with just as often than without - that's my point!), that was just to point out that the issue itself doesn't happen frequently enough to constitute a micromanagement issue (at least not one severe enough to cause concerns regarding buying micromanagement reduction with in-game resources).

Anyway, the more I mull over the issue, the less sense the "lets keep the IS unlocked for everyone from start to prevent players from spending in-game resources to reduce micromanagement" argument makes to me:

First of all, I don't see that as a micromanagement issue at all. Having to decide what to do with your PP, how and where to invest them to achieve optimal results, and confronting the player with challenging, difficult, hard decisions is a vital part of the game. One of which e.g. is the decision, when building new ships and there is some ship tech related research close to completion, if you should start building immediately with soon to be outdated designs or wait a few turns (and maybe waste some PP) and be able to build a bleeding edge design.

A tech like the IS, which gives you more flexibility in that regard, doesn't reduce micromanagement, but provides you with an option that offers actual in-game advantages. No buying micromanagement reduction at all here. You get a real, tangible in-game benefit.

But lets assume, for the sake of the argument, that the IS indeed provides a substantial reduction of micromanagement, and it is as bad as you described it. In that case unlocking the IS for everyone right from start will only address the issue for the very early game phase. With expanding empires and raising PP output the initial stockpiling capacity won't be enough to provide sufficient means to keep the micromanagement reducing effect, players would have to invest RP to research IS tech to prevent an increasing need for micromanagement.

At that point we would have to concede a major design flaw. Moreover, judging by my past playtesting experiences, the cases you cited where the IS helps reducing micromanagement rarely happen in early game, where you constantly lack PP to do all the things you want to do. It's only later in the game, once your PP output picks up that these cases start to occur more often. Which means, giving the players IS capability right from game start doesn't really change much wrt micromanagement, and when those cases start to occur, players will have to invest in-game resources to buy them some micromanagement relief anyway.

So, if Geoff and you still think that we're dealing with a potential buy-micromanagement-reduction-with-in-game-resources issue here, then we've got a serious problem, a fundamental design flaw that needs to be fixed.

But insisting that we have this kind of issue just at game start, which can be properly fixed by unlocking the IS for everyone right from start (which wouldn't be a proper fix at all anyway IMO), doesn't make any sense at all to me.
I suspect you are just really, really not used to the IS yet, and so are WAY overthinking it.
I'll give you the not being used to the IS, after all, I've admitted that already before (my lack of playtesting). But I still think that I've presented sound, logical reasons to support my position. ;)
For a non-stockpiling species the most significant use-cases for putting PP into the IS is when you have some tech (for a new shippart like Lasers or some building) you'll be completing within a small number of turns, and so rather than continue to put PP into building ships that are about to be outmoded, or in order to save up some extra PP for the building you are about to start on, you let some PP go into the IS.
That might be, but if anything, that's just an unintentional side-effect of the IS. The original idea behind the IS was to enable a different, more "distributed" expansion strategy (by being able to provide (at least limited) support to colonies beyond your normal supply range). Which conveniently also provided the means for "stealthy empires", which became the second major purpose for the IS. And, at least to my understanding, we had also reached consensus that the IS is an exception to the default supply based PP distribution, an optional special case mechanic.

IMO, the decision if IS capability should be unlocked at game start for everyone needs to be based on this context, any other effects/benefits the IS provides aside from that should be considered unintentional side effects, irrelevant to this decision. And, as I already said before, optional special case mechanics which are meant as an exception to a default mechanic should not be available for everyone all the time, for the reasons cited.
You can simply have a rule-of-thumb that if you have extra PP for which no particular good use immediately comes to mind, and your current IS amount is less than 10x your per-turn-max-use, then just let your excess go into the IS. That is very close to what I'd say is the rule of thumb I follow myself.
So basically the point where I'm confronted with the uncomfortable decision if I should pour PP into something I don't really need or want right now or let them go somewhere I won't get them back at all, or only in the distant future, shifts. Without IS, if I have excess PP I'd rather save for later use, I need to decide what to do with them. Let them go waste, or start building something I don't really need, or something soon to be outdated, or whatever. With the IS, I have a buffer, but once that buffer reaches a certain limit (whatever that limit might be), I'm confronted with basically the same decision (only difference that I might get back my "wasted" PP eventually, just not reasonably soon, so for the foreseeable future they count as lost).

I really don't perceive that as a micromanagement issue, see above. What the IS provides here, and what you apparently like very much, is the added flexibility, you've got more options/choices, but these are in-game advantages/benefits, which allow you to play a more optimal game. Exactly the kind of thing a tech is supposed to give you.
Try it, you'll like it! :D
No doubt! But there are probably a lot of other techs which provide something which would be nice to have right from start, and not have to acquire by investement of in-game resources. Having to put effort into gaining these things are an essential part of the game, and the IS, especially as long as it remains an add-on to the default supply based PP distribution, is a powerful extra feature which should be earned. :D

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Re: Feedback Imperial Stockpile (Rev 4,5). Unlimited input R

#57 Post by Ophiuchus »

Vezzra wrote:
Dilvish wrote:I suspect you are just really, really not used to the IS yet, and so are WAY overthinking it.
I'll give you the not being used to the IS, after all, I've admitted that already before (my lack of playtesting). But I still think that I've presented sound, logical reasons to support my position. ;)
I guess you both are saying actually the same here.

In "real life" without effort the stockpiling mechanism in its current form is unusable for non-stockpiling species (and invading a lot of Sly planets might be such an strategic effort).

@Vezzra if you optionally remove the stockpile, would you want to split/remove the UI? I think that is a really really bad idea.
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Re: Feedback Imperial Stockpile (Rev 4,5). Unlimited input R

#58 Post by Oberlus »

if you optionally remove the stockpile, would you want to split/remove the UI? I think that is a really really bad idea.
I think it is not a too bad idea (I think it is doable), but bad anyway, and it wouldn't be my choice.
Removing the stockpiling capabilities altogether (and focusing on a way to transport PPs between supply groups as I suggested some time ago) would solve all this problems (for starter, it wouln't need any specific UI) except the implied waste of the work invested in implementing and playtesting the IS.

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Re: Feedback Imperial Stockpile (Rev 4,5). Unlimited input R

#59 Post by Dilvish »

Vezzra wrote:Um, what do you mean by "complaining about the IS"? I wasn't complaining about the IS, maybe you misunderstood me.
Um, well, like the "ugh" in
But if I have some small IS capability on top of that, I'd start thinking and tinkering - ugh.
reminds me of things like "I just stepped in dog poo - ugh!" But perhaps you didn't mean it quite so complainy as that, at least you did not use an exclamation mark. :lol:
I proposed to not unlock IS capabilities for all players right from the start, because it is supposed to be an optional special case mechanic, and those shouldn't be available to all players right from the start. That quite thoroughly contradicts the idea of "optional special case".
Well, I would acknowledge that as a pretty strong point in your favor, if it seemed at all accurate to me. I checked to the original design discussions, a lot of which I wrote, and I can't really find any such thing there. After it was implemented it does look like some of your feedback was to state your opinion that it shouldn't be available from the start, and I disagreed back then. It kind of seems to me that you have been feeling the opinion so strongly that you have promoted your memory of it into something more significant than it was.
The objection to this proposal was: not a good idea, because that would give some incentive to spend in-game resources to alleviate micromanagement
That wasn't my first objection to it, at least, but it does seem to have been the one that resonated with you the most.
First of all, I don't see that as a micromanagement issue at all.
I guess it depends on how you define micromanagement-- I tend to think of it a bit more broadly as situations where the value of strategic decision making is very small compared to the corresponding management hassle. The most clear example is the classic 'build everywhere' building, which entails a lot of memory work and clicking but not much valuable decision making. I'd argue that having to think hard about the least crummy way among a variety of crummy ways to avoid wasting 1.2 PP is either a kind of micromanagement, or at least a similarly distasteful experience.
Having to decide what to do with your PP, how and where to invest them to achieve optimal results, and confronting the player with challenging, difficult, hard decisions is a vital part of the game. One of which e.g. is the decision, when building new ships and there is some ship tech related research close to completion, if you should start building immediately with soon to be outdated designs or wait a few turns (and maybe waste some PP) and be able to build a bleeding edge design.
The IS leaves you with the big decisions of this nature-- if you have a significant portion of your empire's PP at stake and don't have a lot of IS specialized population, then you still need to make these same strategic decisions. It's only the small magnitude decisions, with a high headache:interest_value ratio because the value is low, that the IS relieves you from (unless you have a significant pop of IS-specialized species, and then it is inarguably supposed to open up significant flexibility).
A tech like the IS, which gives you more flexibility in that regard, doesn't reduce micromanagement, but provides you with an option that offers actual in-game advantages. No buying micromanagement reduction at all here. You get a real, tangible in-game benefit.
Micromanagement always gave in game benefits also, just with a bad headache:interest_value ratio.
In that case unlocking the IS for everyone right from start will only address the issue for the very early game phase. With expanding empires and raising PP output the initial stockpiling capacity won't be enough to provide sufficient means to keep the micromanagement reducing effect, players would have to invest RP to research IS tech to prevent an increasing need for micromanagement.
That is not my experience of it at all. It has been ages since I have invested in researching the IS techs, and we stopped having the AIs do so either. The natural growth of the IS capacity due to the population growth has always been enough for me to sufficiently alleviate the small-waste-headache.
At that point we would have to concede a major design flaw.
Since your premises don't fit with my experience, the conclusion of flaw itself seems flawed to me.
Moreover, judging by my past playtesting experiences, the cases you cited where the IS helps reducing micromanagement rarely happen in early game, where you constantly lack PP to do all the things you want to do.
For me, this can often still come up in early game, especially if I don't have more than one decent colonization target in the vicinity, and depending on just how the timing of various techs & buildings works out. Sometimes I'll let a point go into the IS as early as turn 15-20, rather than use it for something I don't really want at the moment (or know yet that I definitely want it).
So, if Geoff and you still think that we're dealing with a potential buy-micromanagement-reduction-with-in-game-resources issue here, then we've got a serious problem, a fundamental design flaw that needs to be fixed.
I don't quite follow how you derived this, but near as I can tell it is based on the idea that the IS techs are critical or important to using the IS, which as I've said I think is very much not the case, I find the current IS techs boring and not worthwhile. The IS, as initially unlocked, already deals with the small-waste-headache that I would tend to call micromanagement. If the IS techs were made more valuable, i.e., making it easier for a non-stockpiling-species empire to work with substantially larger quantities then that would seem to me to no longer really be in just the alleviating-small-waste-micromangement realm, and so would be fine to make people pay RP for it.

Perhaps it is these IS techs themselves that might add a bit of micromanagement, or at least, simply be a bad choice-- having to decide about putting a whole planet into stockpile focus for some relatively small benefit. I seem to recall Geoff already kind of rejected that argument that it was micromanagement, but maybe we are getting too hung up on labels.
But insisting that we have this kind of issue just at game start, which can be properly fixed by unlocking the IS for everyone right from start (which wouldn't be a proper fix at all anyway IMO), doesn't make any sense at all to me.
"Insisting?" It sounds like you don't really believe me about what my experience is :lol:

I suspect you are just really, really not used to the IS yet, and so are WAY overthinking it.
I'll give you the not being used to the IS, after all, I've admitted that already before (my lack of playtesting). But I still think that I've presented sound, logical reasons to support my position. ;)
Your application of logical predicates to premises may be technically sound, but as noted I find your factual premises to be contrary to my experience.
that's just an unintentional side-effect of the IS. The original idea behind the IS was to enable a different, more "distributed" expansion strategy (by being able to provide (at least limited) support to colonies beyond your normal supply range).
I think you are confusing the concepts of "primary motivation" and "main/original idea", and neither is synonymous with "the sole purpose," which seems to be the concept you are trying to apply. The IS has changed so much since we first started planning it that I think it a little bit pointless to judge any aspect of it based on whether or not it was part of the original idea.
And, at least to my understanding, we had also reached consensus that the IS is an exception to the default supply based PP distribution, an optional special case mechanic.
I think you are suffering from wishful thinking my friend. The strongest support I see for your position was Oberlus saying he "didn't disagree", and his reasoning for such seems to me to have been entirely predicated on some characteristics of the IS that have changed since then and his conclusion that the default IS was essentially worthless (as then implemented) and so it would be fine if it were locked.
IMO, the decision if IS capability should be unlocked at game start for everyone needs to be based on this context, any other effects/benefits the IS provides aside from that should be considered unintentional side effects, irrelevant to this decision.
Let's test your psychic abilities and see if you can guess my reaction to reading this (and even when I reread it).
And, as I already said before, optional special case mechanics which are meant as an exception to a default mechanic should not be available for everyone all the time, for the reasons cited.
As noted above, I see false premises here.
But there are probably a lot of other techs which provide something which would be nice to have right from start, and not have to acquire by investement of in-game resources.
You seem to me to be arguing this out of both sides of your mouth-- saying on the one had that the IS makes such little difference it doesn't really help with the small-waste-headache ("only shifts thresholds"), but then arguing that it helps so much that it needs to cost RP to be unlocked.

I hope I have clarified my view that I strongly think the IS as initially unlocked for non-stockpiling species does noticeably help alleviate the small-waste-headache (which I consider to be a kind of micromanagement issue but I don't want to make too much of that label), and that if IS related techs were to add substantially to the IS use capacity then that would move that capacity past the small-waste-headache micromanagement realm and so would be fine to require payment of RP for those advanced IS techs.
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