This idea was knocking around about 7 years ago: An ability to queue or automate production
I think it could work thus
Employ a Factory Manager from a University NPC station
Transport them to your fabrication station. (Special slot in Industry for them?)
Set up the dependency chain (precursor BP’s and then a slot for the next thing)
Create the supply chain demand as a normal manufacturing run
Ideas to make it EVE:
New Skill path for Industrial Planning. L1 gives 3 precursors to L5 where there are 20 slots
For lower tier manufacturing the NPC will demand 50k ISK per month. A Senior Factory Manager will demand 1 million. So make use of them or lose it
The NPC likes to go home and visit their family if they don’t have a shuttle available they will randomly take a ship from the hanger. If there is no ship they resign and you have to hire again. Since they don’t know how to scan, they will not agree to work in WH’s
There will be 2 days per month when they don’t work due to family (randomly)
I like the idea of queuing jobs, that are pre-requisites for a final build as long as the materials are in place or obtained in the process. This is less an automation topic, but more a user-friendly approach. If there is a penalty to do this , I would ok - similar to using autopilot.
When I started in this game, every station had a build queue. You had to wait several hours for your ‘slot’ to open up. Total amount of items for a factory was capped, no matter the player count, forcing people to expand/conquer territory for more slots.
Now the lowest teir factory can have 100 players making 10 canes each in a day.
Implement queues for sure, automated? Only if CCP adds it to the client and not lock it behind how good a coder is in your alliance to make it a 3rd party app.