An attempt to write unlockable automations for Evolve Idle, a very slow game that requires the player to be very active and rewards them with very minor boosts.
This is not supposed to become an auto-play script. Players will have to unlock, enable and configure their automations in order to make them work. They are, however, pretty dumb, so playing actively and sometimes disabling them to take over is still going to result in faster progress. This extension enables a more idle-focused, higher-level gameplay compared to the vanilla experience, that eliminates unnecessary mindless clicking. The expected game-flow with this add-on is thus: unlock a new mechanic in the game -> use the mechanic manually to understand it -> unlock automation for the mechanic, using your experience to configure it properly.
Disclaimer: this is a personal project that will evolve very slowly as I progress through the game.
Latest milestone: Finished 4-star run (31.12.2024)
Since I like playing incremental-style games with tons of automations that unlock as I make progress, I would like to see such a thing in this game, too. And I'm not seeing any signs that automations do exist within the game. Because of this, I am now attempting to step up my automation game and write them myself, basically altering my game loop completely to unlock feature -> write automation -> fix bugs -> rewrite the automation, but more smart. It's harder, but also more mentally engaging that the vanilla experience.
This extension is not available in official Firefox extension store, as it is still very early in development and it is very buggy. You can try it out by following the instructions below on how to build it and run it from local environment.
This is a TypeScript Firefox extension. As such, it must be built before installation. Project's package.json contains packages and commands required to build and also run the extension (although in a new window). In order to build it, you need the latest LTS node.js installed (currently v22.12). To build and run the extension, you need to open a commandline in extension folder (where package.json is located) (in Windows, a commandline in folder can be opened by deleting folder path and entering cmd instead), then you need to download dependency libraries by running command "npm install", then the extension can be built from the command line with command "npm run build" and ran with command "npm run start". All commands are scripts defined in package.json.
The game prefers to keep hardware load to a minimum and completely destroys elements on tabs that are not visible. However, this extension simulates user interaction and mouse clicks, and as such, it requires buttons to exist, even if they are not visible. This is achievable by accessing the game's settings and making sure option "Preload Tab Content" is on.
Purchases buildings as soon as they can be bought.
TODO: Unlock automation after using building queue to build 20 buildings with wait time of at least 10s
TODO: Unlock for each building when amount of that building reaches 10
Researches the first thing that is researchable. Will auto-research only technologies that have already been manually researched in previous resets to prevent accidentally unlocking new mechanics.
TODO: Unlock if plasmids exist (after first reset) and research queue is researched after the first reset
Distributes available workers to jobs based on user-defined ratios.
TODO: Unlock condition??? 100 total workers?
Includes Auto-Farmer (currently hardcoded), which is exempt from the standard Auto-Worker ratio-based distribution. Instead, farmers are assigned based on target food production rate, which replaces the ratio configuration on the interface. There will always be enough farmers to produce at least the configured food rate.
TODO: Unlock condition??? 1k food/s?
Purchases storage containers and distributes them evenly across all storageable resources.
TODO: Unlock condition??? 1m steel storage space?
Allows the player to select resources that can be managed by the automation. If a resource is up for sale, sell trade routes will be established when the resource is at storage cap and not needed, and they will be destroyed when the resource drops down. Auto-Buy will create buy trade routes when money is almost at cap, and removing them from resources that are at cap and no longer need to be bought, or stored money drops down.
TODO: Unlock condition??? have a total trading value over 3K for 100 consecutive days?
- Top priority are items that are preventing a fully automated reset:
- Auto-Energy - Simple priority list???
- Auto-Research path picker (Anthropology vs. Fanaticism)
- Auto-Industry - ???
- Bug: Auto-Building and Auto-Research sometimes add an item to query
- Bug: Market bugs out twice during a reset, not rendering total trade routes properly; update: it happens when new storage option unlocks (crates, containers)
- Resource refactoring - a single Resource class that can access storage/market data
- Rendering refactoring - make UI render when mutation observer observes a change, instead of on every tick
- Auto-Building unlocks after building queue is researched, each building unlocks when amount of that building reaches 10-15 (TBD)
- Auto-Research unlocks if plasmids exist (after first reset) and research queue is researched for the second time
- Auto-Evolve?
- Auto-Start?
- Auto-Building for buildings with upkeep costs
- Auto-Building for buildings with energy upkeep
- Auto-Battle - just click the battle button whenever all soldiers are ready
- Auto-Building shouldn't purchase if building queue is not empty (to allow for manual priritization)
- Auto-Research shouldn't purchase if research queue is not empty (to allow for manual priritization)
- Automation progression, to inform players what they need to do to unlock the next automation + information about how the unlocked automations work should be available within the game window
- Auto-Building advanced settings, for better management of building categories (standard, with food upkeep (civilian and military), with resource upkeep, with energy upkeep)
- Auto-Storage advanced settings, allows setting storage ratios for resources (similar to how worker ratio distribution works)
- Auto-Market - player defined priorities (what has high priority to buy, what has high priority to sell), Unlock: have a total trading value over 3K for 100 consecutive days
- more stuff to automate that i have not seen yet?