Feeling limited with priorities

[TLHeart]

Idk if anyone has said this yet, but you guys need to learn how the priorities function, from left to right, the pawns will consider a skill more important than a similar skill of the same number, for instance, a doctor with 1 will always heal first, even if his patient is at 1, this allows for the 4 numbers to spread out immensely, you SHOULD NOT need a higher priority than 3 on any colonist at any given time with how innumerous the skills are and the genius way theyre laid out in the overview.

So use your numbers to their fullest extent, you DONT need to set a skill a different number just cuz you want them to do it after another one.

I want recearch, clean, hauling, crafting, art, hunting and then cooking. How do u prioritize it?

First off no colonist would ever do all those jobs in 1 day, and the job que is reset every time they go to sleep... so no need to have that many jobs on one colonist.

Again, not understanding how the job priorities work.

[Toggle]

I'm pretty sure darknesseyes is just a troll...

[_alphaBeta_]

Yeah, but would you honestly need those priorities?  It's just a wild example really, provide an actual one to get your point across. 5 numbers? Maybe. 9 numbers? The guy has no idea what he's doing if he needs a priority number per 2 friggin priorities.  Priorities aren't meant to be changed and left to automate forever, one of the mechanics is changing it to suit your needs.

First off no colonist would ever do all those jobs in 1 day, and the job que is reset every time they go to sleep... so no need to have that many jobs on one colonist.

The common thread I see in the opposition to adding more priority numbers is two points:

• Players can change priorities accordingly and quite often once certain jobs have been done.
• Considering the issue from the perspective of a single colonist executing their own personal job queue without considering the other colonists.

In my example, perhaps I'd like my unskilled colonists to first engage in low skill work and only then help with some of the skilled work. If a massive construction project (say a large wall) is ongoing over the course of days, I'd like my unskilled labor force (which could be multiple colonists) hauling and cleaning. For a small team of such colonists, it is absolutely plausible for them to complete all the hauling and cleaning jobs available (point 2). From there, I'd like them to assist with the construction project. All the while, the high skilled construction colonists have been taking priority on those jobs, but there's still considerable work to be done that day. On point 1 above, it would seem you're suggesting that I micromanage the situation and keep turning off construction on the low skilled colonists until the cleaning and hauling is done and then switching it on. I like micromanagement in games, but not this kind of tedious micromanagement. Wouldn't it be easier to set my preferences up front and be done?

This was a single example with construction, but numbers get chewed up quickly when the player goes against the global priorities, hence the need for more. This can be extended and interwoven with other job types which can sometimes have a lot of labor such as growing. Perhaps I want all my colonists engaged in already customized prioritization, but then I want everyone to assist with growing and then construction as their last last priority (if they don't have it higher) before they go idle. With only four numbers, this may not be possible. The only real response to this has been that players shouldn't be trying to do that or just assign more jobs when colonists go idle. That's your opinion, but I can't call the system completely versatile and customizable in its current form. Colonists should never go idle in a well balanced job prioritization IMHO. The frustrating part of the priorities screen is that it's almost there.

Players engage games like this very differently, and it would do us all well to respect that. If you're opposed to this idea, why is that? Does more numbers threaten your play style? Seems to be that you just wouldn't use them. Only other issue I see is this taking away from Tynan's valuable development time, but I find it hard to believe that adding in additional numbers would be a big deal with an existing logical and coherent algorithm.

[TLHeart]

no more numbers would not change my play style, as they are not needed, when you understand how the colonist prioritize work.  And more numbers will not make your colonist anymore efficient in getting jobs done.

Again, colonist will very rarely finish two job priorities in a day, and those priorities reset every time they go to sleep. And as soon as a higher priority job appears, they will leave the lower priority job, to do the higher priority job.

[FMJ Penguin]

Accured to me just now while reading the thread that the fact that there is even a discussion about whether people know how to use priorities to their full extent pretty much says it all doesn't it... Not trying to be a smart-ass here either.

Although the current system does work and has all you need to do nearly everything, seems like it's a bit too worried about being clever about it. While creating a unique method to deal with priorities, he's gotten a little too "cheeky" with it imo. Scratch it all and give me 1-10 or 20 and be done with it. Set it once for each colonist and never look at it again.

Granted you could set the entire thing to 1 across the board and let the AI do it's thing but fiddling with priorities is a big part of the management side of the game and it's a big part of the fun for me at least. I for one could do completely without the AI's involvement as far as priorities are concerned, but then again I'm kinda nutso like that when it comes to management games 

[delraith]

In all my time playing this I have never needed more numbers, but I suppose one or two more wouldn't hurt. Maybe start with upping the count to 5? Itty bitty change, see how it goes over kind of thing.

[_alphaBeta_]

We're debating a small feature tweak that brings no negative impacts, just some enhanced features for those that would partake. Usually this community is not combative enough shoot down ideas and dictate how the game should be played, so I'm a bit surprised to be honest.

If a player wants the priorities to be essentially backwards from the global set, it cannot be done without considerable micromanagement. That is a fact of the mechanics of the current system. The only counter argument has questioned why a player would want this situation and I feel enough use cases have been offered. They're just not use cases that come up in everyone's game.

no more numbers would not change my play style, as they are not needed, when you understand how the colonist prioritize work.  And more numbers will not make your colonist anymore efficient in getting jobs done.

Respectfully, what am I not understanding? Can you please provide a method to have a colonist, or more importantly, a group of colonists execute jobs starting from the right to the left. It doesn't have to be every job, but I suspect you'll hit an issue around the fourth job. There's 20 possible jobs in the current list. That's not very flexible.

Again, colonist will very rarely finish two job priorities in a day, and those priorities reset every time they go to sleep. And as soon as a higher priority job appears, they will leave the lower priority job, to do the higher priority job.

I respectfully disagree. If my colony was routinely filthy, especially medical areas etc., I'd assign a team of low skilled colonists to clean first everyday at the start of the work shift. They will finish the job, and at that point what I really want is for them to now move on to some of the jobs to the left, some of which I may want in an order against the global priority. Without my direct intervention everyday or perhaps multiple times per day, the amount of jobs I can specify in the order I want is the issue. Why should this even be an issue if the solution is simple?

[Toggle]

The reason I'm shooting it down is because I only ever need the 4, and 5 is okayish but any more becomes a nuisance for changing priorities.

Also: You do bloody realize having any more then 6 numbers is stupid, and it would be better to just make the options slidable, to slide them left-to-right in the priorities. Therefore solving all ya bloody problems if you want to make them that specific.

[akiceabear]

We're debating a small feature tweak that brings no negative impacts, just some enhanced features for those that would partake. Usually this community is not combative enough shoot down ideas and dictate how the game should be played, so I'm a bit surprised to be honest.

This is incorrect. By adding a 20-point scale (to allow a perfect reverse priority) it makes it that much more cumbersome for everyone else to navigate through the priority list. A big problem would reseting priorities - what if I want to move a 10 (or multiple 10s) to 1? I'm not outright opposed to lengthening the priority scale, but if it is done we need at least some tools to make navigating through them easier.

A few thoughts:
A button to reset all enabled priorities to a chosen level - for example, I have all priorities jumbled now but want to keep the same enabled with different priorities. Starting over already is a pain, it'd be an nightmare with 20 levels. If we could click a single button and reset them all to 1/10/20 that would make the re-prioritizing process much easier.
Fast navigation - unnecessary currently, but with 20 levels I wouldn't want to click 10 times to get anywhere - lets make it so that Shift-RMB moves you directly to 1, Shift-LMB directly to 20, and Shift-MMB direct to 10. Combined with the reset button it would significantly ease the navigation through those priorities.

An alternative (much more intensive) fix is that each colonist has a list of priorities which you can drag and drop, top to bottom, which then are represented in the work table summary. This would actually be more intuitive and (I think) satisfy everyone's needs more readily than the system I describe above, but probably takes much more dev time.

[TLHeart]

We're debating a small feature tweak that brings no negative impacts, just some enhanced features for those that would partake. Usually this community is not combative enough shoot down ideas and dictate how the game should be played, so I'm a bit surprised to be honest.

If a player wants the priorities to be essentially backwards from the global set, it cannot be done without considerable micromanagement. That is a fact of the mechanics of the current system. The only counter argument has questioned why a player would want this situation and I feel enough use cases have been offered. They're just not use cases that come up in everyone's game.

no more numbers would not change my play style, as they are not needed, when you understand how the colonist prioritize work.  And more numbers will not make your colonist anymore efficient in getting jobs done.

Respectfully, what am I not understanding? Can you please provide a method to have a colonist, or more importantly, a group of colonists execute jobs starting from the right to the left. It doesn't have to be every job, but I suspect you'll hit an issue around the fourth job. There's 20 possible jobs in the current list. That's not very flexible.

Again, colonist will very rarely finish two job priorities in a day, and those priorities reset every time they go to sleep. And as soon as a higher priority job appears, they will leave the lower priority job, to do the higher priority job.

I respectfully disagree. If my colony was routinely filthy, especially medical areas etc., I'd assign a team of low skilled colonists to clean first everyday at the start of the work shift. They will finish the job, and at that point what I really want is for them to now move on to some of the jobs to the left, some of which I may want in an order against the global priority. Without my direct intervention everyday or perhaps multiple times per day, the amount of jobs I can specify in the order I want is the issue. Why should this even be an issue if the solution is simple?

What your not understanding is NO colonist will ever do more than 4 different job categories in a day. And more numbers will not change the idle colonist when there is no work to be done.

[FMJ Penguin]

Slidable priorities and/or a couple extra selections. Seems reasonable to me too.... so what are we debating again? Or are we just arguing now just for the sake of arguing and have nothing better to do? I know I don't, well at least for a couple hours

Or is this the new RW forum thing. Nightly trolling bouts!!! Take your bets!! 

[Drahkon]

I can't say I'm against additional priority numbers as long as it doesn't become cumbersome to use for those of us that have no use for them. I'd find them useless. Hauling and cleaning are best where they are IMO. They are short notice quick task events and placing them higher than other tasks results in colonists constantly interrupting tasks to mop up a single blood spill or dropped item on the other side of the map. Honestly I wish there were a few changes to the way crops are handled so they don't do that when growing.  If I have cleaning or hauling issues I reduce the other workload on colonists who can do so.

My typical colonist priority goes something like this:
? Emergency Jobs: fire/medical and the like I expect them to drop what they are doing to take care of, whichever works best for that colonist.
1-2 Occasional Jobs: tasks that are important but not constant, such as warden, handling
0-2 On Demand Jobs: tasks that are only active when I set them, such as construction,hunting,mining
0-1 Common Job: what they fill most of their time with, such as cooking, general crafting.
2 Maintenance Jobs: Haul and clean usually

Most colonists only have 1 to 3 jobs checked aside from emergency/maintenance. Most of the time one number takes care of this no issue. Once my colony gets fairly large I'll tune it with a little more detail, some might have cleaning/hauling instead of hauling/cleaning, or a couple with repair bumped ahead of construction to keep things maintained.

It would also be nice if items get priority for hauling if they decay or spoil in their current location. Get that harvested crop in the freezer and lumber into stores before worrying about a rock chunk or stack of steel.

[FMJ Penguin]

Funny, now that you mention it..... it does seem like they do ALOT more unnecessary switching of tasks than they used to back in alpha 8-9. Cutt all these trees, then run 100 blocks just to strip clothing off a corps, then run all the way back to clean one pile of dirt, etc.....

Yeah, not real sure when they got so ADD about tasks..... but it's pretty nutso just how much time they waste in transit now.

[Too-DAMN-Much]

my input on this is yes we could use more granularity, i always play using prepare carefully, art, farmer, chef and handy are all named for their skill set, farmer for the most part sows potatoes and crops because of her green thumb trait, chef has a standing work order to main 75 of each quality food as well as a "forever" butcher bill to process human and animal meat.

i try to limit what they do very specifically and to be honest it works, with it setup as pictured here the only thing they don't really do much of is hauling.

[Weyrling]

The issue with 'total granularity' is that if the scale went from 1-20 then I'd have to click like 100 more times to switch a moderate colony's priorities around, and that's just way too much.

Honestly by the time I worry about the priority of half the things on the list I have colonists literally dedicated to specific tasks, having more than 4 numbers would be redundant to me.

Being able to drag the columns around also seems superfluous to me, but atleast it wouldn't actively lessen my enjoyment of the game while also presumably fixing all the issues brought up so far.