I'll give it a shot.
1st off, it is automatic. If you are open, unlocked, connected, and in sync, it will happen.
However you can get a better idea of when it's going to stake by looking at the little tab at the bottom (mining symbol in the prerelease, I think a green arrow now, but I'm not at the right computer) and hover over it. It will show you estimated time to stake (wildly inaccurate on EVERY PoS coin) and your stake weight vs. network weight.
As I understand it, and presstab/others feel free to correct me, difficulty can't readjust until a block is found. Given how long it's taking, it will probably adjust rather severely this time 'round. Once it does, the next few blocks eligible for stake should go fairly quickly. If they go TOO quickly, there will be more long rounds. So it's a good idea to use coin control to aggregate your blocks in a staggered fashion. I was late to the game on this coin (as in I'd already purchased a bunch of TEK when I found out about it) so I've only got one block right now of seventyish coins. But those of you with large numbers, please consider staggering your blocks over a several day period. You'll initially lose some coin maturity doing this, but that should average out fairly quickly. There are two plus sides to doing this. One, you'll have something staking every day, and two, if the majority of us do this, the blockchain will move at a much steadier and predictable pace.
I fully agree, a spread of blocks of coins, regardless of the size is great.
-gives steady reward over time
-helps the network being stable and healthy
EDIT :
Maybe a good idea to hard code "spread" for coins being staked into the wallet ?
Doing so could avoid POW...
I don't like the idea of creating code that will destroy age. But I do think if someone wants to purposefully spread out their buys and send HYP to their wallet everyday then that would be a good thing.
And yes I would really like to avoid PoW. It is a last resort. But I use it to let everyone know that there is never a reason to be worried, there are always ways out of a stuck chain.
Maybe more practical to implement it as an option in the CC (CoinControl) ?
input :amount to spread, and days to spread N (9).
output :create N (9) chunks of max 1600 and que transfers to be tx'ed.
Anysurplus ?
Create 2nd spread as above.
And repeat until surplus is 0 or below a certain amount.
Would be nice to automate the whole process, so that the user only has to sit back and relax when cc splits and spreads.
That would be a great time saver and I think many ppl would like to use that if available.