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The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 12:15 pm
by Kara
The Automatic Update is now live on PC!

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8852

Please use this thread to discuss and offer feedback.

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 12:16 pm
by SupaGamaBoi
F I R S T

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 12:35 pm
by AstroWyvern
The drones are amazing at helping around the ranch but one thing about them is really disappointing. The drones are unable to interact with warp depots. I don't know how other ranchers structured their farm but I left most of my silos in Ogden's Retreat (where I store the slime plorts for when I need them) and being unable to send the plorts there cause a few problems. Also, the drones should have an "overflow" setting so they know to put excess food in silos (or where the rancher wants it). For balancing purposes those things should be locked behind upgrades for the drones. The drones are great at doing stuff around the farms but they just feel so limited.
I may be jumping the gun here as there could already be upgrades for the drones but I didn't see any in the patch notes.

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:52 pm
by Calydor
Agreed, the drones need a possible interaction with Warp Depot and Refinery. I've got my fire and puddle slimes down at the docks, and was hoping to set up a warp depot when I saw they couldn't go to the refinery - hadn't noticed the depot wasn't listed either.

Also, is there any way for the entire ranch to be loaded at the same time? There's a very awkward hang if you haven't been in a cell (eg., the grotto) for some time while the game checks what the drones did there.

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:59 pm
by Missklang
I have an issue to ask about. There is apparently a limit on how many drone flowers can be built in one single ranch expansion. In the overgrowth I was only able to put two when in the trailer itself you can clearly see three drone flowers in the overgrowth expansion. Why is it like this? why is it so limiting?
Image

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 3:46 pm
by dtchdsck
Honestly, I don't mind the limitation for the actual ranch expansions so much (though I do wish I could have at least a third in the Overgrowth) but the main ranch being limited to two is really frustrating given the size of it.

Along with drones not interacting with the refinery link or warp depot, I've been having the same problem, along with the fact that they won't pick up puddle plorts if they're in the waterfall pond. Having to use my only other drone just so I can have one pick up the other plorts is kind of frustrating. If we can pick which plorts the drones can pick up, I'd at least like to be able to set it to pick all of them up, regardless of location.

All of that aside, I do love the update because it definitely makes it easier to keep up with my ranch. I've spent so much time recently trying to just keep up with feeding them that the drones are a godsend.

Edited to add: I just found out about putting fashion pods on them and I'm gonna die from how cute it is.

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 3:47 pm
by windblade
ok, i have only 3 right now and they already make a HUGE difference, but yeah i would like them to interact with warp depots and maybe increase the limit to 3? also available upgrades, mmm, what about BEING able to travel between expansions at the cost of half the usual time they are available and neeed more water or something for them to get awake again or something if needed
also what about also they cost newbucks plus the already listed materials to make? because i dont know the others but, by the time they are needed and are available AND one has all the needed materials, one has way too many newbucks that one cant spend on anything else, well that cpuld apply to other things, heck, even make things cost a bit more or have then a newbuck price added to other gadgets after i dont know, having a daily income of ...X newbucks, pay rent or something XD also buy things like alternative designs for the drones, liek the pure bee one from the concepts, and flowerd designs, also maybe buy SPACE for drnes, like increase from 2 to 3 on a single unlocked expansion, or something, that way it would still be balanced i think, also an upgrade that allows them to hold 100 of whatever they are collecting, since they only hold 50

anyway, I LOVE THEM

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 5:04 pm
by Upsilon
Okay, there are some great things about drones, but there are some inconveniences.

1. The fact that drones can collect either fruit or vegetables made me redo almost everything on the ranch, especially since drones can't interact with warp depots. I put only fruit-eating slimes in one area and vegetable-eating ones in the other with silos in each expansion. This made possible a fully automated process of feeding slimes and collecting all of the plorts. When the silos become full you can just reprogram the drones too sell those plorts. That's my first basic program for the drones.

2. The drones are very effective (maybe too effective) and I think 2 drones per expansion is enough, since you can reprogram a drone in an instant without any expenses. The drones are very cheap to make, that's a good thing. The fact that water is required as a power source is very clever (more usage for the water, yay)!

3. There is a difference between food lying on the ground (outside the plots) and in the gardens (inside the garden plots). This makes collecting food in the Overgrowth a little inconvenient.

4. I noticed that food is dispensed a little less frequent (my slimes were hungry at certain times). My auto-feeder was set at speed 1, I have 6 Largos in a corral. I set it to speed 2 and it solved the problem, but previously speed 1 was enough.

5. I don't think that drones should be able to travel between expansions. It will be hard to make (a lot of paths), and also it would be a pain to locate individual drones (huge travel times for the drones).

That's it for my first look, pretty cool stuff in the update, very cute drones (especially when they are sleeping)!

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 5:08 pm
by McCauley1
They're very helpful, but it would be nice if they could interact with Warp Depots.

In addition, it would be nice if you could tell them to collect all of a thing in the expansion. For instance, I turned Ogden's Retreat into a free-range Quantum Slime area. It would be nice if the drones could get the plorts that are technically in the garden, since right now I have to set it as getting only plorts outside of plots

It would also be nice if you could buy an upgrade to have more than 2. Maybe a new 7Zee Reward?

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 5:10 pm
by GoldenLucky99
THIS IS AMAZING!!!!!
McCauley1 wrote:In addition, it would be nice if you could tell them to collect all of a thing in the expansion. For instance, I turned Ogden's Retreat into a free-range Quantum Slime area. It would be nice if the drones could get the plorts that are technically in the garden, since right now I have to set it as getting only plorts outside of plots

Yes, I agree. I wish that would happen too.

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 5:27 pm
by windblade
i have a weird setting where i practically have to go from place to place to get all my slimes feeded and taken care of but honestly, i lets me interact with everything in a way im satisfied with, right now i have set up my drones to "help me" ore than just automate the entire process, only 2 places that still need their drones, but so far so good,also i got a pretty good formula for my quantum largos(i laroed them with tangle) and just got them next to fire slimes and puddle slimes and 2 trees of phase lemons, all i have had a problem with is excess lemons and i think 2 of my largos dies(they kinda jumped off to the sea -_-, now with the drones, well, everything still works and now no more problems with the lemons

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 5:28 pm
by Upsilon
AstroWyvern wrote:Also, the drones should have an "overflow" setting so they know to put excess food in silos (or where the rancher wants it).

Technically you can just reprogram the drone to put food in the silos when your auto-feeders are full, it will solve this problem.
AstroWyvern wrote:The drones are great at doing stuff around the farms but they just feel so limited.

You can agree that drones shouldn't be able to do ALL the ranching stuff for you, just some actions to help you out a bit.
Missklang wrote:in the trailer itself you can clearly see three drone flowers in the overgrowth expansion

Probably it was an early build of the game (for the trailer) where the limit of drones was 3 per expansion. Final decision is 2 per expansion.
dtchdsck wrote:If we can pick which plorts the drones can pick up

Yeah, I agree. Fire plorts and puddle plorts belong in their own categories, a drone can manage only one of them.
windblade wrote:also they cost newbucks plus the already listed materials to make?

Paying more money after acquiring drones would feel weird, maybe the price for the blueprint should be higher, like 20 000 newbucks or even more.

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 5:35 pm
by windblade
Upsilon wrote:Paying more money after acquiring drones would feel weird, maybe the price for the blueprint should be higher, like 20 000 newbucks or even more.

i have by this time like 500000 or even more newbucks that are going nowhere, thats why i said that, and thats before the drones even came up, so

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 5:38 pm
by PrismSlime
aw how come drones can't pick up chickadoos? I was gonna have them take all the chicks from my coops into a separate one so I could keep them breeding without worrying about the adult cap. Can this be changed? even if they're programmed to not take all the hens and roostros out of a coop, they still take out way too many for optimal chicken production. allowing them to remove chicks would completely change this. and as many others have mentioned, not being able to interact with warp depots, or refinery links feels like a huge oversight. also no option for extractor resources to be able to take that part of your day off your to-do list- even if they can't leave the ranch.

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:47 pm
by Calydor
Just had an accident and fell into the Sand Sea in the Glass Desert. Knocked out, 12 hours rest back at the ranch ...

Turns out your drones don't work when you're knocked out. WHY NOT?!

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2018 10:47 pm
by WaffleMelon
I agree with pretty much everything Upsilon said. Having a limit of 2 drones per expansion plus only be able to use each drone in one expansion is most likely related to programming limitations.

It is indeed a bit weird that drones completely ignore warp depots and the refinery, I personally don't see why this is a limitation.

It also sucks that you can't just tell a drone to pick up every type of food, it makes you have to separate your ranch into fruit-only and veggie-only sections, but I guess that's the price to pay for having the handiness of the drones.

The worst part though is the thing that people were talking here about a drone distinguishing when a piece of food is in the garden or when it is outside a plot, which makes free ranching very hard.

The drones themselves are super cute, the fashion pods and tech colors look great on them. In general this update is really really useful, it automates almost all of your ranching process. For those who didn't enjoy the routine of grabbing food, putting food on feeders, getting plorts from collectors and putting the plorts in the market, it is definitely a lifesaver. There's some weird limitations that I described better above, but those are not nearly enough to diss the update itself, I'm very into it :)




I got a bit too excited when the update launched and bought 30 drones right away, only then did I notice that was too much haha

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2018 1:34 am
by DarkCreature97
The fact that the drones are not able to interact with the Refinery and the Wrap Depots is quite limiting. By having a limit of 2 drones per expansion and not interactive with the Wrap Depots makes the player rethink about the layout of the whole Ranch and make it very specific and similar to other Rancher's ranch.

I hope this will change in the future.

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2018 5:27 am
by akkamaddi
It looks like drones do not pick up plorts from Gardens.

I manage my Quantum slimes by letting them roam "free range" at the dock, and I have four Phase Lemon bushes in the enhanced gardens. The drone weaves between the gardens, but do not touch the plort piles in the gardens.

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2018 6:29 am
by z0mbiesrock
You are also unable to place drones anywhere outside of your ranch, so making more than 14 drones is a waste of resources.

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2018 7:12 am
by BeefyBabyQing
I loved the drones and they help so much however there's definitely somethings that bother me;

First of all, I set some of the drones to sell the plorts, but there seems to be an issue. Whenever I travel to that ranch expansion the game freezes and stops responding for a minute.

Also, like most other people this update made me redo all my layout. I would really like to choose multiple sources and destination. Also an option for "food" as a target option. I would love if drones had the ability to use refinery and refinery links. And since I use warp depots as storage (except from carrots, pogofruits, roostros, hen hens, spicy tofu and gilded ginger BTW WE NEED MORE OF THEM) so I wish they could interact with those too.

However, I understand that they didn't want us to fully automate our farms so I won't complain about the drone limit that much but the fact that the main ranch, ogden's and mochi's ranchs (which have more available plots) have the same limit for drones.

I was so excited for these drones and although it didn't meet my expectations in terms of automation, they didn't fail to make them cute just like always. Thank you, Monomi Park for always updating the game.

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2018 11:25 am
by K1dZ0r
How i can delete de effects from when i sell plorts.

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2018 12:22 pm
by Luke78776
So I have seen the great weave that is the lines the dones must follow so they don't run into things. (https://twitter.com/coinopthinktank/sta ... 7593542657) However, it would be nice if drones could interact with the refinery, refinery links, and market links. I mention the great weave because I will understand that from a technical perspective, that it may be near impossible or too CPU intensive to be practical.

Example: Taking plorts from the overgrowth and having a drone automatically place them in a refinery link.

Thanks for reading this!

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2018 12:43 pm
by WaffleMelon
BeefyBabyQing wrote:First of all, I set some of the drones to sell the plorts, but there seems to be an issue. Whenever I travel to that ranch expansion the game freezes and stops responding for a minute.


Same. It seems the game only updates the actions that the drones did when you actually enter that expansion. It is also possible that it has to calculate the current drone position every time that area loads. I understand these limitations in a programming aspect, but it does suck a bit to have these hiccups during your gameplay

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2018 11:34 pm
by Quixik
I think there should be limit of drones for 1 expansion 3 drones, because with 2 drones you cant do it too much, And i hope you will add that warp depot support because without it everybody needs to recreate entire ranch and its so limiting. Please Fix, Thanks Quixik <3

Re: The Automatic Update Discussion Thread

PostPosted: Thu Jul 19, 2018 1:03 am
by Calydor
As smart as the drones are, is there any chance they could be made to understand the favorite foods of slimes? It is rather inefficient when the Oca Oca meant for my Radioative Boom Slimes in one end of the Grotto are given to my Rock Tabbies in the other end of the grotto instead of their Heart Beets.