Sure, more time spent playing = more money spent, in general. But positive correlation doesn't mean that MOAR CLICKS = MOAR CASH all of the time. In fact, if you could find some way to enumerate the "fun" value accurately then I'd be willing to bet that this would have a far more profound effect upon money spent than time (though I still think time would be significant). Nobody who spends 10 minutes a day gathering resources and using androids, brackets, XCharge cells and rank points is going to spend more money than the guy who spends 10 minutes a day NPCing (I might NPC for very short periods of time like this if I'm waiting on something, such as sitting outside of a lecture).

Whilst the point that some others have made is true; you should be able to spend 5 minutes clicking on rank points and crap if you can spend 5 hours on NPCs, but clicking on one spot and watching numbers go down is boring (will get to the obvious rebuttal in a second) and also people are LAZY. Sure, for us guys who enjoy the game enough to attend the forums it probably will make almost zero impact upon the game but for the much more casual players who have no real investment in the game? Removing even this small level of tedium and allowing them to spend more time with the real meat of the game might be the difference between them staying or leaving.

So that obvious rebuttal, which probably goes something along the lines of "But bases are just clicking a button and watching numbers go down!" or "That's all NPCing really is anyway."

Well fair point, but there's the element of change involved in NPCing and even in bases. Change beyond 189... 188... 187... 186... 185... . We can watch as the enemy team buffs, compete against our friends for the top spots on the leaderboard and these's always that enjoyably tense moment as the hull approaches 50,000... 20,000... 10,000... and the enemy legion still has a full repair and all of their AP left over. That being said, long grueling base battles often become longer and even more grueling because people just... Can't be bothered sometimes. With NPCing, the dynamic element is there even more so. Every 20 seconds you're loading a new battle tab. Will there be a troop carrier on this one? A queen? "Crap, Tree just alerted a fab plant!!" and then we end up with 8 people all scrabbling for a lock at the same time. Y'know, fun stuff! Independent of the time taken because I know myself that I get BORED OUT OF MY SKULL spending even 30 rank points, despite the fact it takes me about 30 seconds.

And now for a little analogy...

"The more time you spend in school, the better your job will be. Don't bother improving lessons or making the timetable more efficient."

Why not allow "use all," but make perma-buff artis expire after sitting unspent in cargo for 72 hours (you gotta buff yer brackets, charge your androids and xCharge Cells, and water your rescued prisoners or they will die!)...

Then you'd see how many people just can't be bothered to upgrade their ship vs. those who are actually having issues clicking "so many times."

How about we just put in a use all button?

I don't really like the use all button though because it prevents people from splitting up points they want to different stats at a time.

Putting on values to confirm or cancel many stat bonuses at a time is much faster, reliable, and flexible because it allows players to have a preference on what stats they want to put on instead of using all points in to one stat and having to still click more for a fixed value. The use all button appears to still have more clicks required than my idea and is not very convenient.

Being another ship who has clicked 2 hours str8 on bases before, I don't know who all these hand cramp people are. If you have arthritis or something i truly feel for you and that's miserable.. For all other cases...if playing a fbgame is too much trouble, read a book, watch a movie...etc. You might also consider switching hands...using different fingers...seeing if you can voice command the clicks (stephen hawkins style).

The clicking is the sound of your dedication. I think many people might claim their mad clicking as a triumph. I've had people go, wow you killed me before i could hit the halc button..etc.. Gotta click fast my friends, and often.

The topic here isn't about base clicking and npcing. Click reduction for the heart and core of the game is counterproductive. A click reduction for the lesser (or more redundant) parts of GL are by all means necessary at this point (or later on in the future). We are long overdue for a use all button for artifacts and rank points. The fact that we currently don't have such a feature is ridiculous.

I actually think that is intentional as well. For one, if Dan had wanted you to do it i can't believe it would have been that hard to implement from the get go. And i am dubious that he isn't queued into the option, so its an intentional omission if you will. I also think not having a use all is game centric.

There is a lot of noise about wasting time there in the arti tab. Also points, well argued, that this takes time away from the 'main game' and 'fun' parts of GL. I think first off for low ranks, while you wait for e to replenish you have loads of time to do so. The mid rank/income ships by and large won't pull in such a ludicrous amount of arti's that a use-all is much of a gain. For high ranks this would be the big issue , if anyone were to have one. I think most of them have put in and continue to put in the time, thus they aren't as worried about spending the time. I would guess at a base instinctual level they kind of like it. Having to take longer to use everything tells you that things really are cresting. Kind of like having too much money and real life things going on, it's a good problem to have.

I personally enjoy clicking each RP, each bracket. It's like a mini fun thing. I envision my ship growing with each click. Making them all go poof at once...meh.... like spending quarters at the arcade, i like to play each one and embrace the enjoyment as it happens.

I think a lot of the issue here is people who don't have a lot of time to dedicate. People who go to school, people who have very regimented and busy work/personal life that doesn't provide flexibility to play as much as the current system embodies--or who choose not to do so. I have a life, but i like to play and accordingly set aside the corresponding amount of time to make it happen.

For the high volume players, like Space, who i respect and like, i still say it's not a huge deal. Look at it in a positive way...less about a small amount of time spent and more in the game holistic.