can we get a timer on our planets so we know when they will be ready to update? they already dont update until we revisit them, but i dont always remember when i colonize them and i dont like to waste production.

also, can we get an exclamation point or something next to a planet thats ready to be updated? (i know this has been asked for before, revisiting topic)

I don't think we have to visit them for them to update.
But a timer would still be nice so +1 to that

You have to check them in order to actually get the extra resources. The development will still reach Peaked even if you don't look at it for a week after you take it, but you won't get the bonus resources until you do check it.

well if u ask me thats a bit unfair :-/ better get checking my planets ^^

Yeah, it's a known problem, the only solution right now is to check them.

Why do we have to check, it makes no sense, we should get the increase no matter what.

It's just some quirk of the programming. The problem has affected the game at least since I first started playing 7 months ago. Dan knows of the issue but hasn't come up with a workable solution yet. The only way to do it would be to get the servers to check all of the planets in the game on a regular basis, which would be both time- and power-consuming, potentially slowing the game down. And since more planets are added to the game each time a player signs up, the drain on the servers could increase exponentially.

This would only be slowing down the game at first, to fix this would be easy.
He needs to add one more column to the planet databases, just need 1 char space for it there it could contain 0/1 in.

When he selects the planets he can do a query "WHERE planetmax=0" or something similar, this would exclude all planet that already has been maxed out (peaked), he can also do this query once a minute and limit it to 100 planets at the time.

In the beginning of this type of update would be a long time for it, since all planets needs to be checked more or less, but over time, there will be only very few planet updates thru this code and it wont affect the game at all.

He could also already use the current column that shows new, peaked, emerging status and exclude all planet that is peaked.

a query draws on a database equally whether it gets results or not. The process of elimination is all conventional programs can do and it isn't very efficient. Almost a million planets would have to be constantly checked for whenever they rollover if it weren't a daily update. The closest thing to an improvement might be a universal rollover where a server might have the chance to do it automatically. With how many timers are in the game it might be as easy as a simple boolean, but it is still working with elimination and it would have to check every certain amount of time (a second?) whether it was true or false on every single planet. Really I have no idea how the thing works in the first place.

Actually, a universal rollover/update could easily function and be merely an addition. I think there is so much database behind the game that compiling is too centralized and whatnot though.

Perhaps it could somewhere separately store planets when they're colonized or invaded, store the time of capture, and what level they are; update that when a Vortex is used and every day at that time until it's peaked. I don't know that'll work, just an idea.