New Build Order Micro Trick

[armacham01]

Did you know: you can give orders to the ACU to complete a hydrocarbon power plant, BEFORE the first engineer even comes out of your first factory? And then, even before this first engineer comes out of your first factory, you can queue up further orders for the ACU to follow after the hydrocarbon (which has not even been "ordered" yet) is completed.

Replay ID is: #12190093

This technology is the "assist" order which can be placed on the ground, before you give the order to manufacture a hydrocarbon plant there.

Clearly, this is a vital technological advance that must be adopted into the meta immediately. Waiting until after the hydrocarbon is under construction to give additional orders to your ACU is suboptimal. That is the OLD way of doing things. Now you must all conform to the new meta.

Further, this technique can be used to give engineers orders to assist with another engineer's hydrocarbon plant. No longer must you wait until you have an opportunity to select 3 engineers at the same time so you can tell them all to build the same hydrocarbon plant.

In fact, you can place the "assist" order on the ground BEFORE OR AFTER you have given the order to a different engineer to manufacture a hydrocarbon plant there.

Replay ID is: #12190172

Perhaps it would be an overstatement to suggest that this is the new meta. But it should be a useful trick to keep in mind if for some reason you are experiencing difficulties or interference with the habitual synchronization of engineers to cooperate on building a hydrocarbon plant.

[ThomasHiatt]

Ya I used ground assist orders sometimes, but it is best to avoid them because they are extremely unreliable when there are more than one thing going on nearby.

[armacham01]

Sure, when I was testing it my ACU assisted a nearby factory to finish the current unit, then it assisted the hydrocarbon to completion, then he assisted a nearby factory to finish the current unit, then he ran off . . . if there were 2 factories running at the same time, it's possible he would get stuck in a loop, assisting one and then the other . . . . so it might be necessary to delete the "assist ground" order so the ACU would resume normal duties.

One way to avoid this is: instead of placing a ground assist order, place a regular assist order on your first factory, as a "placeholder" for assisting in the construction of the hydrocarbon. Then you can queue up additional orders after that. After your engineer starts construction of the hydrocarbon, pick up the assist order and move it to the hydrocarbon. Now, the ACU will assist the hydrocarbon to completion, instead of assisting the factory. (So you tell your ACU: make a factory, 4 mexes, assist the factory, then whatever other orders you want after the hydro is done. AFTER the first engineer comes out and starts building the hydrocarbon, you pick up and drag the factory-assist order onto the hydro.)

What I like about that is, the ACU isn't going to do any funny stuff assisting random nearby things. What I don't like is that you have to react within a specific window of time to move the assist order, or you're going to make a mess of things.