Which parts do you people automate?

[Waervyn]

I played this a bit ago. Followed a tutorial that made you turn off ALL automation. And while it was fun getting in to the nitty gritty of things, I found for example upgrading ships every time you researched something a bit tedious.

What's the stuff that you have automated and what not? :)

[Vuyek]

None.

Full manual.

[..]

I played my first game with everything automated, since I had no idea what I was doing; I didn't follow a tutorial other than the in-game one either. Once you start getting used to certain aspects of the game, you gradually turn off the automation of each until you fully control the game.
In terms of updating ship designs, you don't necessarily have to update them each time you research something. If they're improvements, you can wait until after you have a few new improvements. If they're completely new components(e.g. going from precursors to hyperdrive) then add that one immediately. You can also save your ship designs locally, so if you don't want to edit the designs at the start of the game over and over again, you can load those ship designs you saved earlier to save time.
In the end though it's really your preference, if you simply don't want to control certain aspects then you can turn automation on, especially if you're going for the alternative gameplay that the galactopedia mentions. I go for fully manual since I always see a better way to do things than the AI does.

[Rumex]

i only automate taxes because dont want to look every time to colonies the rest is manual and i keep research speed slowest so you have lots of to do before research something and thats keep you try to specialize on some techs its more fun i think.

And when i go to war with an empire everytime i design my ships different to best counter its ships and weapons its also fun. And i dont allow tech swap.

[Vuyek]

Incidentally:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=266988099

[Waervyn]

That's exactly the tutorial I followed previously :). Thanks though!

[Xerberus86]

only ship design mostly, don't wanna upgrade every station / base, military and civilian ship after some research. luckily you can still customize the ship designs you want to change while automation stays on for the rest of them. other than that pretty much everything on manual control :).

[Ri0Rdian]

None actually. But I do not consider fleet stances a proper automation, and those I do use extensively when needed. Basically when the game gets big enough and it is not viable to control my 20+ fleets in 3 different wars manually. I also like it from a RP view, that I do not command individual fleets or ships, but send orders and how they are executed is... in the stars :D

[icedude94]

At the start, I keep everything on manual except for character locations. The game does a good job of keeping them at good locations and keeping my troop generals on my invasion fleets.

By the time I get a couple techs into the construction size line, I can build exploration ships that can cover the entire galaxy several times over so I automate them but I keep one or two on manual for investigating coordinates.

Starting at the phase of them game where you are racing to colonize worlds before the other races, I put together automated defense fleets and set them on each colony to patrol the system. The automation keeps them fueled and repaired.

I used to automate taxes but stopped when I figured out that I can tax much higher than the AI and I can often grow my colonies faster by keeping colonies at 0% tax as long as I can afford it.

For a more relaxed game, I'll automate my intelligence agents and civilian ship designs.

[Jeroenkoerts]

I uses full automation but i help the ai with building,colonization,recruiting troops

[Vuyek]

None, of course.

[Dragon]

I automise almost everything, except for research and alliances/war targets. Haven't played it enough though, but I like watching things unfold without too much thought. Just having the image of my humans destroying the bugs and refusing any peace treaty.

Then I accept peace and the enslaved bugs remove me after biding their time. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ slaves.

[Gregorovitch]

When learning the game, no automation. 100% manual, This is important IMO for understanding the systems.

Now I automate:

Private sector ship and mining base designs and retrofit
Colony tax rates
System/sector Defence fleets (sometimes)
Perhaps a bunch of solo escorts to do whatever they do protecting freighters etc
Some exploration ships after initial mapping of nearby space to map whole galaxy

That's all I think.

[X-the Unknown]

I more or less use the AI suggestion setting when I can. If you put it on full automate the ai will bankrupt you and get you into wars or break treaties you don't want. The one thing I do leave on full automate is war targets and what happens when things are captured.

Taxes I will leave on full automate until I have some problems with deficit. I'll then take over for a little bit and fix it then give it back to the ai to screw up again. It basically just doesn't tax optimimally. I take most planets down to 1 or 2 approval once they are well populated.

For god sakes don't ever turn over ship design to the AI or ship building. Leave it on suggest or manual always. The ai ship design is the worst in history of ai designed units or any game.

You can leave auto colonization on as well it does a pretty good job of colonizing the planets that it can (as long as you have colony ship designs that go futher than 4 sectors.)

[Vuyek]

Bunch of neckbeards, I see.

[Icemania]

Originally posted by Tropicalrain:

For god sakes don't ever turn over ship design to the AI or ship building. Leave it on suggest or manual always. The ai ship design is the worst in history of ai designed units or any game.

Again, I said before, you can play the AI Improvement Mod where the ship designs are much better, and you can play pretty much automated (everyone will have a few specials they want of course).