Option to Prioritize Farthest

[erdrik]

When hauling, or just doing anything in general, Colonists/Pawns will prioritize the closest destination. Whats worse is that prioritization is determined by straight line distance rather than total walking cost. I can understand the reasons for both of these things. Most of the time you will want to prioritize the closest stuff first, and it could potentially be a massive CPU cost to calculate the potential walking cost for every available task before deciding which one to do.

However, there are times(frequent times) when this prioritization will result in a task never getting done or it being days before even getting started. The only recourse in these cases is to manually prioritize the task. Which means the player has to constantly check if long distance tasks are getting done and manually re-prioritize.

Normally this isn't that big an issue. The problem is when there is numerous at distance tasks to be done. This situation requires the player to babysit the colonist/s and constantly manually prioritize the at distance tasks until they are done. This is alot of work that provides no benefit or fun for the player, to accomplish something the colonists should technically be able to handle on their own.

So my suggestion is a global toggle, similar to the "Auto expand Home Area" toggle, that will reverse the distance priorities for the colonists causing them to prioritize long distance tasks instead of short distance tasks. There should also be a filter toggle on each colonist that excludes them from the global toggle. (So players can dictate which colonists get their distance priorities switched in case some colonist don't have the movement or mood to support at distance tasks)

[bobucles]

The priority issues are because pawns will rather play inventory games inside the warehouse rather than move items into stockpiles. Once an item is in the stash there is very little reason to touch it again. A simple and effective priority system is as follows:

- Tend to important or critical stockpiles but ONLY if they have an urgent need. 72/75 potatoes is not an urgent need. 2/25 medicine is.
- Move items from outside a stockpile into any nearby viable stockpile regardless of that stockpile's priority settings. This typically means placing perishable products under a roof, any roof, just to keep it from decaying further.
- Organize items from a low priority stockpile into a higher priority stockpile. After products are inside shelter they can be moved to more convenient locations.
- Organize internal stockpiles to stack items etc. Stacking up pretty boxes isn't important until all other tasks are done.

There. That's all there is to a smart hauling system.

[erdrik]

The priority issues are because pawns will rather play inventory games inside the warehouse rather than move items into stockpiles.
...

Strongly disagree.
Stockpile re-organizing has never been an issue for me.
In fact I frequently have to manually tell them to do it more.
Stockpile re-organizing is great for ensuring that there isn't 10 stacks of 2 taking up too much space in the stockpile.

...
There. That's all there is to a smart hauling system.

Disagree. It does nothing to solve the problem of:
"Tasks at long distance never get done because your colony is always producing tasks that are close to the colony."

[bobucles]

Stockpile re-organizing is great for ensuring that there isn't 10 stacks of 2 taking up too much space in the stockpile.

A nice bonus that is completely optional. If there's nothing to go into storage, it doesn't matter how messy the storage is. Consolidating storage isn't important and it belongs at the bottom of the totem pole.

Disagree. It does nothing to solve the problem of:

Yes it does. Colonists look outside their stockpile as the second priority (with first priority going to priority tasks). Anything which isn't in storage is tasked to go into storage. That means your long distance tasks will get addressed before the much slower process of inventory sorting. It also means you can prioritize the long distance consolidation by placing a storage right next to it. Once a pawn is out there, they'll dutifully drag everything into the stockpile and (if you roof it) protect it from further damage. Once the item is protected you have all the time in the world to figure it out.

So yes. It does do what you want. It does it better than you can imagine because your pawns will actually be hauling things instead of goofing around in the same 2 storage piles.

[erdrik]

...
Yes it does. Colonists look outside their stockpile as the second priority (with first priority going to priority tasks). Anything which isn't in storage is tasked to go into storage. That means your long distance tasks will get addressed before the much slower process of inventory sorting. It also means you can prioritize the long distance consolidation by placing a storage right next to it. Once a pawn is out there, they'll dutifully drag everything into the stockpile and (if you roof it) protect it from further damage. Once the item is protected you have all the time in the world to figure it out.

So yes. It does do what you want. It does it better than you can imagine because your pawns will actually be hauling things instead of goofing around in the same 2 storage piles.

You are underestimating the intermittent nature of certain tasks that drop products on the ground.
Crops alone are going to ensure that under your system a very large chunk of a hauler pawn's time will be stuck on your second priority. To say nothing of the fact that you will need your "waypoint" stockpiles to be big enough(between them all) to hold literally everything needing to be hauled, because no one will prioritize moving the items to higher priority stockpiles until after every last un-stockpiled item on the map has been stockpiled. Which in in certain situations will never happen, because new items are constantly being dropped.

Also I don't want to be forced to throw a bunch of random "waypoint" stockpiles all over the map.

[5thHorseman]

I think age of items should be taken into account more than (or maybe even instead of) distance. If I marked it to be hauled I don't give a whip that it's across the map. You go get it and bring it back here.

I think priority should be:
Haul unstored things into storage in order of how soon they'll perish, hauling unperishable things last.
I don't care about the rest.

[bobucles]

Crops alone are going to ensure that under your system a very large chunk of a hauler pawn's time will be stuck on your second priority.

But that's good. Harvests are supposed to be grabbed up and put into storage. The current system leaves crops to rot in the field.

Also I don't want to be forced to throw a bunch of random "waypoint" stockpiles all over the map.

But that's not bad. The current system doesn't have waypoint stockpiles at all. Pawns will always move items into the highest priority storage which does EXTREMELY stupid things such as moving 2 potatoes into a hopper or running across the map instead of attending to more important tasks. The new system eliminates stupid moves almost entirely. It allows low priority storage to have a useful function which is something it does not have right now. If you don't believe me just try making a low priority stockpile and try it. Make it do something. Anything. It's absolutely awful.

Which in in certain situations will never happen, because new items are constantly being dropped.

The forbid button already exists and fixes that problem. Don't want something moved? Forbid it. It's that simple. Many items drop as forbidden by default which means your haulers won't run out into a gunfight.

It looks like all your problems get fixed and more. I'm not seeing real issues here, just a misunderstanding of why it works.

[erdrik]

But that's good. Harvests are supposed to be grabbed up and put into storage. The current system leaves crops to rot in the field.

No it it really isn't.
Crops:
-Take weeks to months rot or deteriorate
-Rot and deterioration are binary and don't affect the products made from them
-Are typically already close enough to the colony that the effort to pull each stack in is minuscule
-Are typically so numerous that the haulers can spend the entire day or more just hauling in the harvest(despite how close the fields are)

Typically the long distance tasks are less numerous, but are more impacted by delays to getting them.
I want to be able to tell the colony to ignore close tasks and prioritize far tasks.

Being stuck on the harvest that is going to survive some time in the sun anyway and not negatively impact the food made as a result rather than going out and getting that excellent assault rifle and other good gear that will slowly become less excellent as it deteriorates is not at all a good thing.

But that's not bad. The current system doesn't have waypoint stockpiles at all.

It is bad. The game is not "Stockpile Ping Pong", its "Wild West Colony Building Story Generation".
I do not in any way want to lay down a checkerboard of stockpiles all over the friggin' map. Thats not what they are for. They are for designating where you want to store stuff, not for where you want to "temporarily place shit, because the AI can't handle task and transfer organization".

The forbid button already exists and fixes that problem. Don't want something moved? Forbid it. It's that simple. Many items drop as forbidden by default which means your haulers won't run out into a gunfight.

Which I would constantly have to babysit as new items are constantly dropped.
I fail to understand how you can think sitting at the fields and forbidding everything that drops all in game day is better than just clicking a toggle that tells them to prioritize long distance tasks.

It looks like all your problems get fixed and more. I'm not seeing real issues here, just a misunderstanding of why it works.

Its not a misunderstanding. Your "solution" is a workaround. One that is flawed and and takes more work for the player to achieve a result that my suggestion will achieve with one click of the mouse button.

[bobucles]

Uh huh. Sorry, I thought I was having an intelligent conversation. My bad.

I don't know how you think that forcing your pawns to haul long distance means they will automatically grab the items you want them to grab. It sounds like they'll spend all day grabbing corpses and stupid junk while leaving all the perishables to rot. I also don't know how you assume adding proper functionality to an otherwise completely useless and broken stockpile setting somehow creates problems. Having something that can work is actually superior to something that has never worked. I also don't know how you failed to understand that your option already exists. Want to grab an assault rifle? It exists in vanilla. Right click haul. Done. It works 100% of the time and never has unintended consequences.

Hauling is a very labor intensive task and grabbing items close to home is legitimately more important than scouring the map. Great loot grabs are always an exception and the game doesn't know what items you specifically value at this point in time. Micro is inevitable.

[Ramsis]

Don't be rude Bob.