Supply yards

Checks topic. "Supply yards"

One problem is you would need perfectly spaced stockpiles in terms of walking time. Otherwise you will always have wasted time as they are sitting around. You will also have units spread across the map that if your attacked you would have to bring in individually (separate groups), while if you have one haulage group you could just select and tell them to run.

-ninja billed

So you didn't read the OP, then? Because it suggests creating supply zones.

Yep, i agree something that tells you stock pile status would be useful. If you want to call it a zone you can, but with stockpile levels you will have to join multiple "zones". I would just think of it as linked stockpiles who add their material to give a total. I would just have you select stockpiles and add them to a group. "Zoning" makes me think of defining a ground space which i dont think is the best.

Yep, and thats why I think the lovers of stockpiles are silly. I work on a Just in Time principle, small stockpile with balanced miners to builders so i never need to carry a large resource stock. Stock comes in and goes out at the same rate. All these stockpile towers a really a major weakpoint in any network. If corruptrons attack and destroy one your at a major loss, while if your always maintaining it means practically nothing.

Complete agreement. I dont want to have to pay attention to each flight of stairs or stone because i dont want that level of management. With just in time resources you can just notice if your builders are waiting for resources, or if your miners are waiting for offloading. Easy to balance.

No, bills. Pay attention, kalric is opposed to zones. Not movement zones, zones in general. I was using movement zones and supply zones as an example, he got hung up with movement zones. The argument itself is about zones.

Read what i say Tartantyco before commenting. You said it was not off topic and i was wrong.

I said "This is off topic and will be my last movement based response." Hence, i was not going to say anything about movement based zones.

No, I do not want "Zones" for anything but mining.

kalric is simply opposed to zones because he doesn't understand how AIs work.

Yep, i have been specifically supporting grouping stockpiles just not "zoning". Reason being is zone is specifically land based
Definition of Zone: "An area or stretch of land having a particular characteristic,"

I also support larger stockpiles and mentioned before.

Hah! Good point, I got caught up in my own web, it seems You're right, this should be possible to accomplish using the other systems I've already described without needing a specific one. And you're right, those do tend to be a liability. I was thinking in terms of Settlers 2, but in that game soldiers can only attack barracks and your "roads" can only exist inside your own borders. Not applicable to Castle Story. In that case, I defer to your solution and move to a Settlers 3 model where things happen as you describe them - when resources are needed, workers just all go get them and carry them the whole way. Interestingly, Settlers 3 also uses resource stockpiles as areas on the ground, but it also allows you to pile resources just on bare Earth if you don't have anywhere to put them...

That's sort of what I mean, yes, but I still want a large "warehouse" of supplies to serve as a buffer. If you're making more material than you're using, it should have some place to go to be stored away. If you're using more material than you're producing, it should have some place to come from. That's why I want to have one large supply zone to serve as the hub where resources go when they aren't immediately needed. I envision it requestion an infinite number of all types of materials, but with the lowest possible priority, such that if you're building anything and have a supply yard next to it that's requesting a set amount for the actual construction site, resources produced will go straight there. A lower request priority would also mean material can be taken OUT of a requesting zone to feed a higher priority request. That way, the large central stockpile would serve as a buffer between production and consumption.

Now, you're not required to have just one such. You can always have multiple smaller ones to avoid having your entire cache destroyed if you lose it. You can simply set multiple small yards to request infinite resources at low priority. Then set the supply yards next to your miners and loggers to request emptying at, say, 60% at a high priority to ensure they're being kept free and set your building sites to request set amounts of resources with a high priority to ensure transported goods end up there.

Basically, it's a system that allows you to define the behaviour of your stockpiles and in so doing make large-scale orders without having to micromanage them and while still keeping at least some degree of control of where stuff comes from and where it goes.

Yeah, i dont see why earth stacking is not an option. It would make defining and moving stockpiles a complete non issue as you dont waste or require anything. Maybe if they just let you define a temporary stock linked to a specific building. This could also be your relay point from your main stockpile as a really elegant solution.

I also hope they let you reclaim building materials rather then just destroying them.

-edit

yeah, i understand the advantages of a buffer warehouse but probably would not worry. I would keep it small (i would also have a moderate sized storage but far from large) and instead juggle workers between groups to balance speeds.

Also, try not to double post where possible. Generally just go for an edit.

You can reclaim building materials already.

And what on earth do you mean zoning is "land based"? As opposed to what, air based?

I was thinking of ground stacking resources purely as linked to a building site so you could control where they are collecting resources and set aside the resources to complete the construction(only that site could use them). I can definitely see how we could get some issues to iron out though.

So, zoning?

Yes, this specific functionality would be achieved by zoning ground as a stockpile and then having bricktrons prepare it to hold the resources. It would not be zoning multiple stockpiles within a certain area into a single stockyard.

You see how, once you start thinking about it, zoning suddenly becomes a good idea?

No, when i think of a purpose for zoning i am willing to use it. When i dont think zoning is the best option i dont use it.