How to stop maintenance?

[caviarus]

Hello there,

I am playing in hardest location with a very tight budget -> need to monitor every building in times of disasters to turn them off before maintenance. I must be able to focus on gameplay, not manually command drone to unload another machine part and let the building deteriorate finally, to then shut it down.
Is is possible to request such feature?
Too much micro..
Regards

[caviarus]

I mean, there is a button to request maintenance, why not also have a toggle "disable maintenance"

[Mansen]

A building that has been shut down, doesn't receive maintenance (but will still degrade)

[L37]

Yeah, vaporators and moxies during dust storms are annoying. When you have like 4-5 day storm they will be serviced at least 2-3 times while they do not work anyway, and you can do absolutely nothing to prevent it short of destroying them, as "disable" button is inactive with "does not work during dust storm" tooltip.

[Mansen]

Buildings that don't function during storms are shut down during them.

[Ghostwind]

deactivate that buildings before dust storm, they dont work anyway and so they will only repaired one time.

[L37]

Originally posted by Mansen:

Buildings that don't function during storms are shut down during them.

Problem is, they are not shut down but are in special "not working" state, and they are still maintained. Or i encountered a bug.

Originally posted by Ghostwind:

deactivate that buildings before dust storm, they dont work anyway and so they will only repaired one time.

Yeah, turning them off before event works, the only issue is once/if you missed the moment there is nothing you can do.

[Mansen]

Originally posted by L37:

Originally posted by Mansen:

Buildings that don't function during storms are shut down during them.

Problem is, they are not shut down but are in special "not working" state, and they are still maintained. Or i encountered a bug.

I'd say the latter - definitely a bug.

[rightfn]

This is one of the features that the game is decidedly missing. Before the first patch, anything that is a 'workplace' like universities, factories, etc would receive maintenance even if you turned it off. Thankfully they claim to have fixed that.

However, a 'dont fix this when it breaks' command is still needed as a quality-of-life issue.

[caviarus]

Folks, it is no problem shutting down a building to stop maintenance. THE problem is - I want to shut down at the exact moment it degrades, to max out production. Hate losing value in hard mode when building still has some room for work.
When you are mid in game with OVER 50 buildings, it hurts.

[SkiRich]

Sounds like a neat and usefull feature. However that already exists in a different form.
First off you can turn off the building, and now after the patch they no longer use much maintenance after being turned off.
Second you can low priority the building. Low priority means everything else first before service to this building. team that with shutdown and the building seldom if ever gets maintained.

However your idea is valid so please go and post a bug report with a feature request. A button to turn off maintenance would be good.

[Mansen]

Originally posted by caviarus:

When you are mid in game with OVER 50 buildings, it hurts.

Hold CTRL apply to all buildings of same type.

[rightfn]

Originally posted by Mansen:

Originally posted by caviarus:

When you are mid in game with OVER 50 buildings, it hurts.

Hold CTRL apply to all buildings of same type.

This is helpful to remind people, and I am not sure if the person you replied to knew about the feature, however I think the point being made is that when you have multiple buildings that degrade at different rates, there is no practical way to shut each one down -just at the moment- where it requires maintenance.

The fact that there is a 'grace period' between 100% wear and malfunction that the player may want to take advantage of, also creates issues. There are options for deeper gameplay here, and I am not saying that the devs owe us all of them, but for example:

In the current game:
- The player may want each building to run until 100% wear, THEN shut down. There's no way to do this in the current game without checking each building manually, effectively impossible in larger colonies.
- During the 'grace period' before a malfunction, drones WILL service the building if it is turned on, but maybe the player doesn't want this.
- There is no additional penalty (besides service interruption) for running a building until malfunction, as opposed to repairing it after it reaches 100% wear. There are some buildings, e.g. power or life support, that you may never want to allow to break down. But for others, it might be fine.

Possibilities for gameplay improvement:
- An option to not repair a building once it reaches 100% wear, in other words, allow it to malfunction.
- The possibility that if a building malfunctions, it will cost more to repair than if you repair it during (or just before) the 100% wear point. Makes having supply chains and drone coverage more important....
- The possibility of a building to experience a 'catastrohpic failure' if you continue to run it for an extended period of time after 100% wear.

As it stands now, it looks like the 'grace period' is not something the player is meant to exploit, which is fine, except there is still no option to auto-shutdown the building at 100%. That would be the most obvious 'missing' feature given the current design.

[Mansen]

Those are some hardcore edge cases...

[rightfn]

Originally posted by Mansen:

Those are some hardcore edge cases...

Agreed, they are mostly not relevant on the less challenging maps. I believe they are extremely relevant for e.g. a new colony on a higher-difficulty map.

When you have something like fuel refineries or rare metal extractors that you want to turn off but it doesn't have to be 'immediate', it would be nice to have a command to allow to run to the end of the maintenance cycle, so you don't feel like you are 'wasting' maintenance parts.

[caviarus]

Originally posted by rightfn:

In the current game:
- The player may want each building to run until 100% wear, THEN shut down. There's no way to do this in the current game without checking each building manually, effectively impossible in larger colonies.
- During the 'grace period' before a malfunction, drones WILL service the building if it is turned on, but maybe the player doesn't want this.


Possibilities for gameplay improvement:
- An option to not repair a building once it reaches 100% wear, in other words, allow it to malfunction.
- The possibility that if a building malfunctions, it will cost more to repair than if you repair it during (or just before) the 100% wear point. Makes having supply chains and drone coverage more important....
- The possibility of a building to experience a 'catastrohpic failure' if you continue to run it for an extended period of time after 100% wear.

As it stands now, it looks like the 'grace period' is not something the player is meant to exploit, which is fine, except there is still no option to auto-shutdown the building at 100%. That would be the most obvious 'missing' feature given the current design.

I just love how you exlained everything elegantly and also there is a new cool thing "catastrophic failure" which is a real expansion of gameplay.

Playing Elysium Mons 26*N 148*E with 3/4/3/4 threats + Church of the New Arc + single rocket and no research points is a challenge that I am looking into. in the beginning resources are scarse and constant threats make it a real survival. That's why such feature is very welcomed.

Maybe it could be a mod, hopefully someone knowledgable steps in with mod.