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[Fernest]

Some tasks (often done repeatedly in succession) need too many keystrokes, although they are important, frequent actions.
I'd like to suggest some possible improvements.
In between some random ideas, which focus around safe houses and economics.

Before I begin: I am not sure which exact version I have. It features e.g. "optional multiple city mode" and "Added option to disable autosave from init.txt" which suggests 4.07.1+, yet it prints Version 4.06.3 in the beginning.

Support Groups - Group control for support-liberals
Make a second kind of squad, which is for support-liberals. It can have more than 6 liberals in it, but can't raid. In the activity menu you don't see the individual liberals of those groups anymore, but the name you haven given to the support group (e.g. "Tailors", "Doctors", "Teachers", "Hackers", "Individuals with heat", "Clowns I don't like" etc.), which makes overview easier.
Selecting the support group and choosing an action makes every liberal in this group do this action.
Plus points for having an "goto safehouse"-activity, which lists safehouses and makes it easy to change locations for huge amounts of liberals.
How it can be used:
Oh noes, my 20 uber-hackers got the secret file, but have so much heat, the roof is on fire!!! I transfer the whole group to appartments xy and make them tailor suits until the situation is clear.
Safehouse-hopping with big groups (squads + doctors + teachers + students ) is a less annoying task.
Quick change of activities possible: Having many intellectuals, who write to the Liberal Guardian, while the active squad is on the loose, but change to tailoring, while the active squad is on pause due to death.
Bonus cookies if groups are structured as hierarchical trees (moving the whole tree from A to B, while maintaining the granularity to command the subtrees)

Squad Inventory
Items can be transfered to safehouses. What if you could transfer items to squads? The items would exist in the same safehouse as the squad. If the squad moves, the items move with them.
Cool again for safehouse hopping, because you don't have to transfer the 6xLab Coat, 6xHeavyArmor, 6xPolice Uniform, 6xDeathSquad Uniform, 6xM16, 99xAmmo, etc. with your Infiltrator/Berserk-squad.

Auto-Sell stuff
Right now you can "1. Repair Clothing" and "2. Create Clothing". How about a third option: "3. Tailor and Sell"
Everything produced this way will automatically be sold to the Pawn-Shop.
Could require a safe-house upgrade e.g. "vendors dock" or "garage" (and requires a transport car at the safe house)
Bonus-points for not showing sold items individually. Oh god do I hate all those "xy created an expensive suit"-messages at the end of the day. Better: Show a list of characters (or safehouses) and how much profit they made. The sum at the bottom. All in one screen, which can be skipped by one key press (instead of holding down a key until it is fiiiiaaanaaaaalllyyy finished)

"Last activity"-activity
Store the last activity for every liberal. (If they are structured as a support group, "last activity" will apply to every individual liberal)
Oftentimes I have many supporting liberals, who do something primary (e.g. learning First Aid) and something situational (healing the clumsy). Oftentimes the switch happens at the same time for many liberals:
New Recruits arrive: All teachers (primary: learning skills) start teaching.
Squad is hurt: All doctors (primary: learning First Aid) heal. All teachers start teaching. A tailor (primary: tailor suits) starts repairing.
Conservative visits the house: All tenderer (primary: Writing to news) start tending the conservative.
Conservative falls asleep: The gravedigger (primary: looking for trouble) starts his thing. The tenderers start writing to the news.
etc.
Having a "last action" especially in combination with groups would make it easier, faster, more fun.

Auto triggers
What if tailors would switch production automatically as their tailor-skill improves? (to the more profitable item they still can produce)
What if you could set a "passive limit" to all your enlightened drones/sleepers, making them "lay low", if their effectiveness is below xy% and start whatever you told them if they are above this threshold.
What if you could set a threshold for heat? (Indicating with some color-full letters that a safe-house is not safe anymore) So you get a warning like "Danger, 100% heat!" instead of a warning like "You are under siege."

Safe houses and Safe house upgrades
Not really a workflow-suggestion, but since the suggestions make management of many liberals,  groups and safe houses more feasible/fun. It would maybe add to the game to have more Safe Houses and Upgrades.
Maybe to add more depth to the gameplay, maybe just as a money sink or for the great feeling of achievement until a raid burns everything down.
Upgrades would be limited (e.g. 2 per Safe House) to diversify/specialize them. Stuff like:
Vendors dock - Makes "Auto sell stuff" possible.
Noise insulation - Reduces heat from kidnappings and Military Training (at least I think it should produce heat)
Cold Store - Reduces heat from bodies. Enables lame puns.
Server/Cluster - Increases hacking effectiveness by X.
Operating equipment - Increases effectiveness of "healing liberals" and ""healing" conservatives"
Laboratory - Increases profit from brownies. Maybe one could manufacture chemical- or genetic-stuff someday? (TNT, C4, L4, poison, flaming rabbits etc.)
Workshop - Increases tailor-skill. Maybe one could manufacture tools? Weapons? Drones? Tanks? Consent?
Massage Parlor - Increases effectiveness of prostitution, makes it safer. Increases heat. Makes recruitment easier.
Larger-than-life statue of LCS Founder (Pappmaché) - Costs much much money.
Suprematism portrait of LCS Founder (Macaroni) - Costs much much money.

anyway.

Rhetorics 101 OVER 9000!!!!!
Talking with people is the most effective way to train liberals' persuasion.
So I use it often for a long period of time without the intent to drop, recruit or bribe the person(s).
Basically it's just pressing B 6 times for every liberal I train.
Day-wise it is FAAAR more effective than taking classes in the university and does not cost a thing.
But it IS annoying.
Would be great to skip that grind by attending a class, which is as effective as talking with people, but skips "holding B". Even if it is not a free action, even if it costs 100 $ a day; most often I would use it, because it is less grindy.

Wait a day Skip Messages
In addition to W, it would be cool to have  a "Wait a day and skip messages", which lets you play the "Go forth"-actions, but skips stuff like "xy went raiding in Cosmetics instead of Learning Law", all the "x produced y"-messages after the raids, "Squad arrived at safehouse"-lines, etc.

Interlinked Menus
Add more linkage between menus. Like a possibility to access "liberal's details" from the activity menu.
Or the possibility to add/remove a liberal from a squad when you are in his details. Or equipping him from his details.
etc.

Less carpal tunnel - more XML keybindings
Although the "first key is the hotkey"-scheme is kinda cool for beginners, I'd love to use different keys. Just to speed up the input.
something like ESDF for movement, space for waiting. J = Fight, K = Use, L = Talk, I = Kidnap. etc. (Try it out, it's absolutely liberal! Especially because you have the F-and-J markers on your keyboards and all relevant actions lie beneath your fingers)
Since this is an efficient, but exotic config, I guess it would be cool to edit the hotkeys in an XML or the init file. At least for Raids/Fights, where the amount of actions is very limited.
Mapping those often-used keys to options (instead of A,B,C and 1,2,3, like in "Select Target, Select Liberal, Talk/Seduce/Abort/xy") would be cool as well.
Actually one could easily apply this config to all menus.
Let's say the hot-keys are:
U, I, O, P
J, K, L, ;
Space (wait)

For main-menu it maps each row (keyboard) to a column (actions). Except: Wait (Space), Quit and Vehicle (which could remain this way)
For "Activate Liberal" one could collapse some menu entries (heal + teach = Support Liberals, Go Shopping + Steal Car = Acquisition, Legal Fundraising + Illegal Fundraising = Fundraising, ...)

Economic stuff
- Driving an "Ice Cream Truck"/"Pizza Delivery"/Van enhances brownie-selling results. "Hello, Sir, I'd like two scoops of MARIJUANA, if you know what I mean."
- Gang Members not only sell weapons but "baking mixture" as well, an item which enhances brownie-selling results, but increases heat. (Other sellers: Hippies, Yoga Instructors and of course Police Gang Units (gratis bullets inclusive))
- Experimental Viagra can be found in Cosmetics. It can be equipped and raise prostitution success. So does equipping the expensive dress/suit, bondage gear or Guy Fawkes mask.

Take all my money!
So I got all those money and it keeps on piling up. Every month!
I use it to light cigars, replace my wall papers with stock certificates and drink Evian Water, but it still keeps growing. How to get rid of it?
- Maybe _building_ safehouses
- Financing those activist hacker groups in china or those ex-revolutionaries in Cuba, who will send new, trained recruits.
- Buying liberal TV commericals.
- Bribing everybody
- Manufacturing tanks
- Building the 2000ft, golden, trans-gendered John-Locke-statue-of-liberty in D.C as the non-plus-ultra of liberal iconicism

Oh god, such a wall-of-text. Sorry, if it is too long or too unstructured. Wrote it down as I played without a "big thought-out concept".

p.s. First post. Hello, fellow gang members. I am fully supportive of all those "agendas" I'd like to hear more about. Please speak _loud_ and _clear_.

[Bouchacha]

There's a lot of good stuff in this thread, but also some fluff (viagra, safe house upgrades, etc) that would have lower priority. Support group control would be a HUGE improvement.

[tyrannus007]

A lot of great ideas here, especially squad inventory. It's a pain to manage large numbers of liberals at the moment.

[Fernest]

"fluff (viagra, safe house upgrades, etc)"
Yes, I agree, it was nothing I thought long about, but I'd like to elaborate:
I'd love to see some improvements on the economic part of the game.
Right now Tailoring is OP. It has no risks, is based on only one stat, does not require resources and yields the highest income (Only outclassed by CEOs with very high efficiency)

And it is super-easy to set up: recruit 1 INT-guy with the Founder, bring him to 100 juice (@Garmets). Recruit with him 3 new INT-guys and bring them to 100 juice. Start tailoring.
4 tailors with high INT are enough for 1- or 2-squads + teachers. At the stage they can tailor "expensive suits" (2-3 month into the game) money is not an issue anymore.
Seems too easy. Especially because of the historic context:
ALL urban/guerrilla/revolution-groups struggled because they lacked money (and did some weird/risky shit to get more): RAF, SLF, IRA, ETA, Weather Underground, Earth Liberation Front etc. etc.
I think economics should stay relevant for at least the first (and maybe 2nd) year.

This OP-status can be counter-measured:
Decrease tailor revenue
or Increase profits from other sources
or Increase need for money (money-sinks)

Decreasing tailor revenue sounds good (they are awesome already, producing the best armor and all disguises. Therefore the profit margins should be low (no risk))

Increasing other profits:
Can be done static: Just +25% on profits. But I think it is too simple/boring.
Or interactive:
Intertwine economics
- with raids (certain loot can bring profit-increase to some industries. Whether this is "viagra" or more fitting loot, personally I don't care.)
- and with long-term-investment (like the warehouse upgrades, which have high investment, but static boni)
- and with risk (items you can buy, which gives a bonus, but increases heat)
- and with vehicles (right now there is not much need for different sorts of vehicles)

Moneysinks:
The proposed warehouse-upgrades. (If one is implemented in a parametric way (like boosting a stat), it can easily be applied to a whole class of similar upgrades)

All of those combined would make economics an optional part of every part of the game, instead of something which is right now separated.
A good example of intertwined concepts would be Civilization 4 with e.g. happiness.
Happiness is cool: Your cities can grow larger. Wars can be fought longer. Agitation-Espionage-Attacks are easier to survive. Super-Happiness gives an economic-bonus.
Happiness can be acquired through territorial expansion (macro-strategy), improving existing tiles (micro-strategy), trade (diplomacy), forced tribute (war), building buildings (short-term planning), building wonders (long-term planning), spreading religion (meta?-strategy), etc. etc.
Every part of intertwining increases strategic depth (giving the player reasons to want it and options to get it). Every intertwining increases adjacent game elements (happiness gives more strategic reason to war, diplomacy, etc.)

Intertwining is cool.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Just want to drop in to add to the discussion of squad inventory, because it used to be in the game, and I cut it, so I can shed some light on why the game doesn't have it anymore. It really came down to trying to avoid this:

Some tasks (often done repeatedly in succession) need too many keystrokes, although they are important, frequent actions.

Personally, I hate games where you have to bother with a lot of inventory management. Squad inventory has several cool benefits, but it exacerbates the issue of extra keystrokes needed in a lot of common situations. It introduces the complexity of juggling separate safehouse and squad inventories, and can get especially bothersome when you have multiple squads in one place, plus people who aren't in squads making clothing to sell, and other complications like that. The more inventories you have to manage, the more bookkeeping you have to engage in with making sure items are in the right inventory.

Ultimately, I made the judgment call that the game would be easier to play if all items in a given location were contained in the same logical inventory, rather than requiring you to juggle items between multiple inventories. Now the equip screen doesn't have a toggle where you choose what inventory to draw from, you never show up at the pawn shop unable to sell certain items because they aren't in the right inventory, things like that. That isn't to say everyone will (or did at the time) agree with the decision I made, but keeping the overhead of inventory management down is the reason why the game is the way it is right now.

It is true that moving items between safehouses is much more bothersome of a thing now, particularly when safehousing hopping with a single squad (previously you could just keep everything in the squad's inventory).

I am interested in thoughts on the subject.

[EuchreJack]

While discussing streamlining, I'd like to see "fix clothing" added to the "add common tasks in bulk" menu, as it's a function that I use more than any other.

It is true that moving items between safehouses is much more bothersome of a thing now, particularly when safehousing hopping with a single squad (previously you could just keep everything in the squad's inventory).

Actually, I think the current system is far better than the old system, where I had to form "transport squads" just to ferry items between safehouses.  The big problem with the item transfer system in this version is that all four homeless shelters are all just named "shelter" on the item description.

Perhaps warehouses would be an alternative to the current system.  The assumption is that the Liberal Crime Squad would hold the majority of their stuff in one location, and item transfers would be abstracted to and from that location.  It makes more sense than the LCS storing 50 Assault Rifles in the Homeless Shelter, lol.  The idea is that "warehouse" would be an upgrade that could be purchased, and designates which safehouse(s) have the supplies, and thus which safehouses the Conservatives would have to take in order to deprive the LCS of its stuff.  Since most games start with the LCS in possession of a couple abandoned warehouses/factories/industrial things, one could be given the warehouse upgrade at game start.

Should Conservative forces capture a liberal warehouse, the LCS would lose stuff randomly to the percent that warehouses were just captured.  For example: LCS has 6 guns.  If LCS has one warehouse and loses that warehouse, they lose all their guns.  If LCS has two warehouses and loses one, LCS loses half their guns, or lose 3 keep 3.  If the LCS has three warehouse and loses one, LCS loses a third of their guns, or lose 2 keep 4.

Oh, and just to keep things honest, let the player find a cache of weapons when they take the CCS's second hideout (the most likely warehouse for them), maybe some fun heavy stuff.

Dunno if this is any sort of solution, or maybe just worse than the current system.