Factory manager mkII

[Arakash]

This idea came about after coming up with this idea.

I was going to post this in this thread but that thread is about an idea for automating factory management. This one is a way the keeps the player in control of their factories but massively simplifies the process!

In many ways this is similar to the marketing manager idea (linked above) but re-purposed for factories. Each factory would have a checkbox for adding it to the factories that were managed by this system so you could use this system but still have some of your factories independent of it if you wanted too.

The factory manager it self would look basically the same as the normal factory screen (but accessed via the telephone) but would have a method to select which regions factories you were controlling.

So, it would work by the player telling the manager they want to have x number of factory lines producing xx vehicle. The manager would then go and (as equally as possible, probably favouring the largest factories with any fractions. See the example below) distribute that work load amongst the factories that are managed in that region.

So, for example, I have two managed factories in London and I want 5 lines making my micro car. The factory manager would set 3 lines at the largest factory to make the micro car and two at the other. I then decide that I want 17 lines to make my super popular Limo, the manager detecting that I only have 7 lines available in my smaller factory only gives it 7 and then sets the larger one to use 10 of its remaining lines to make the Limo.

The difficulty here would be the fact that not all factories produce the same number of vehicle per line (because of worker skill and factory quality as well as other factors) making it hard to display how many vehicles your are going to make until factory lines are allocated and I can see two solutions for this. Either have the manager display an "estimation" based off your least efficient factory until all lines are applied and a real number could be calculated and displayed. Or, have the manager work out which lines are being used as the slider is being moved and display the exact number of vehicles to be made before the apply button is hit. Which one was used would probably depend on how the manager actually worked out which lines it was going to use but I think either one would be fine.

I don't think this would be as big of a time saver as the marketing manager but it would still be a big one and a massive sanity saver. Basically allowing the player to treat all factories in each region as one mega factory. I don't think it would diminish the value of factory location though, that would still be important for minimizing freight and wages.

Thanks for the post.
Your really on a roll today

Around the middle of your post you suggested two possible systems for knowing how many vehicles your factories are going to produce, which i consider really important information.

Personally, i think this part should be left up to Eric to figure out/calculate, as he actually knows how the existing code that figures out production numbers is worked out.
We can guess and speculate, but we wont really know if that is simple or difficult until he enters the fray.

The rest of the suggestion sounds good to me. I might make some more comments later when ive got some more time.