Player Features and Ideas Discussion

tl;dr: fantastic new way of managing blueprints that allows chaining jobs and makes the server happy.

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I keep stumbling across the idea of "chaining" or setting up multiple industry jobs at once. I think it's a fantastic idea; but can be a bit of a coder's nightmare.

I've also been noticing what happens when lots of bpcs accumulate- as I'm sure some of you have experienced. When I load my "Items" tab it takes a little while to load, probably due to my couple thousand BPCs I have divided into a dozen cans. I wonder what CCP thinks of dealing with the metric craptons of blueprints in people's hangars; they'd be better suited to track metrics than I.

So, after doing some thinking, I thought of an idea of better managing how we use blueprints: A way of stacking bpcs for easier blueprint storage, reducing server load, and setting up multiple jobs with one blueprint set.

It comes down to using what I call "Booklets." Essentially, it's a new item that lets you stack blueprints of the same ME/PE into one item that can be used like a normal blueprint, or subdivided to get the BPCs back.

It works like this:

You have thirty Raven BPCs, 1 run each, 5 ME, 5 PE. You select 2 of the BPCs, then right click on one of them and choose "Make Booklet." It removes the bpcs and creates a booklet that can be built or invented from. The booklet will keep track of the type (Raven BPC), the qty (2), the runs (1), and the ME/PE (5 ea).

Naturally, different PE/ME's wouldn't stack. You'd need to make a booklet to store those as well. Normally, different runs of the same ME/PE would be incompatible with booklets. For example, a 2 run Raven BPC 5ME/5ME wouldn't stack with a 1 run raven BPC. However, a mechanism to stack/split bpcs up to their max runs or down to 1 run could be added. So, we could split that 2 run Raven bpc to two 1 run bpcs, then throw both into the 1 run Raven booklet.

The real benefit to booklets is "chaining" the build/invention orders, as so many people have talked about. Since each booklet keeps track of the number of BPCs and their runs. When you start a job from the booklet, it tells you how many jobs the booklet can do, and how many slots the player can use.

For example: To setup 3 raven inventions in the time of one with our example booklet, we'd right click the booklet, choose invention. At he top of the invention window, it tells me how many runs the booklet has left (e.g.: 3 copies, 1 run ea), and how many remaining slots I can manage. Everything else with the invention process is the same, except that when I choose the lab/slots, every left click queues a job into a slot, and every right click removes something from queue. Ideally, the number of jobs/slots left would also be displayed in the select slot window.

Note, we can either spread the jobs across 3 invention slots, or queue them up in one slot.

Naturally, you still would only be able to have as many jobs as you have the skill to manage.

Partial builds (building 10 of 20 remaining runs in a booklet) could spit out the partial bpcs after the job is complete. Those partial bpcs could be stacked and then added back to the booklet. I think stacking bpcs up to the max runs is a fantastic idea- as is dividing them.

You misunderstand me.

What I'm talking about is the equivalent of selecting 11 blueprints, right clicking on one, and trying to build all 11 at once, spread around 11 slots (btw, this does not exist now).

Booklets would not only easily allow the same effect (setting up 11 jobs in the time of one), but it also would store bpcs, reducing hangar clutter, and be easier for CCP to implement because the game doesn't have to check 11 separate objects, just the same object 11 times.