Okay so tad baffled and I'm sure some others are too on the most recent postings on your update blotter.
June 1
Colonists respect allowed areas in all work and joy situations including skygazing and walks.
Colonists specifically go to allowed areas if they are outside them.
Area management dialog: Add new, delete, rename.
Colonists ignore assigned allowed areas that have zero cells.
We draw area restrictions while mousing over the option to select them.
Misc fixes and optimizations.
Heavy optimizations to verb cast position search algorithm.
May 31
Colonists respect assigned allowed areas for most situations.
Further work on allowed areas: assigning them on overview tab.
Is there any way you could take some time and explain what exactly we can expect? Preferably with some pictures if you'd be so kind.
Zzzzzooones. I think that Tynan is making zones like "cleaning zone" etc.
Yes, but how do they work? Are they zones where the colonists are allowed to be? Or are they zones where they are forbidden to go?
Quote from: Rahjital on June 02, 2015, 10:10:19 AM
Yes, but how do they work? Are they zones where the colonists are allowed to be? Or are they zones where they are forbidden to go?
Cleaning zone/Mining zone/Guard zone/Crafting zone(s) - zone where colonists are allowed to be.
Danger zone (or something like that) - zone where colonists are not allowed to be.
From the term allowed zones, I think it is just a zone you can place that specify the area that colonists can be. You mark it and they either stay in it or they go to it if they aren't already. It is the opposite of the no-go zones that everyone has been wanting for a while.
It's a system which allows you to set areas where your colonists are allowed to perform certain autonomous actions. This prevents them from deciding to stargaze on the other side of the map, or at a point that is only 6 tiles away, but due to the map layout is actually a 200 tile journey.
I've seen them do both, so it's a nice feature.
QuoteColonists respect assigned allowed areas for most situations.
Colonists respect allowed areas in all work and joy situations including skygazing and walks.
Colonists specifically go to allowed areas if they are outside them.
-> Like a homezone, colonists respect this zone and only move, work and spend time inside that zone.
QuoteFurther work on allowed areas: assigning them on overview tab.
Area management dialog: Add new, delete, rename.
We draw area restrictions while mousing over the option to select them.
-> Tools to make this allowed zone yourself like every other zone.
Any chance that we'll be able to exploit these allowed areas to essentially make them into guard posts for our colonists? Or too far off y'all think?
Sounds like a fantastic addition to me.
I hope Tynan sets up a "preferred eating" zone option... Obviously if a colonist is holding food in their inventory they will probably eat it wherever if they are a certain distance away from the eating zone but otherwise...
Well, I really hope there will be an "avoid this place" zone too. It gets tiring to see colonists constantly choose to go straight through the dead body pile outside the colony when hauling things and get the mood penalty, but creating an allowed zone over the entire map with exception of the dumping pile sounds like a hugely cumbersone solution.
Quote from: Rahjital on June 02, 2015, 12:07:21 PM
Well, I really hope there will be an "avoid this place" zone too. It gets tiring to see colonists constantly choose to go straight through the dead body pile outside the colony when hauling things and get the mood penalty, but creating an allowed zone over the entire map with exception of the dumping pile sounds like a hugely cumbersone solution.
I think you can put a "forbidden" zone around your body pile with a small corridor in for the haulers. So the colonist would never enter inside (as they can't use it as a shorter way to their target) unless they have work there to do (hauling bodies)
Quote from: Rahjital on June 02, 2015, 12:07:21 PM
Well, I really hope there will be an "avoid this place" zone too. It gets tiring to see colonists constantly choose to go straight through the dead body pile outside the colony when hauling things and get the mood penalty, but creating an allowed zone over the entire map with exception of the dumping pile sounds like a hugely cumbersone solution.
Realistically speaking, it's not advised to just throw a bunch of dead bodies in a pile, If you plan on it then your best option of doing so is to make an enclosed area with a door you can lock or unlock. Otherwise just bury them.
I throw a molotov on them from time to time, it's a nice way to get rid of the bodies without the labour required with burying or cremating the usual way. In the early stages of my colonies, I need my colonists working on more important things than graves or morgues.
They're just areas you can define and assign to colonists. Colonists treat anything outside their allowed area as forbidden.
Might be accidentally the best feature for a11. 8)
I applaud this approach, of setting zones to be in.
Quote from: TLHeart on June 02, 2015, 06:29:22 PM
I applaud this approach, of setting zones to be in.
Finally, you have seen the light ;D
Now if only we could get actual people to obey these kinds of zones in real life :P
Quote from: Boboid on June 02, 2015, 06:49:47 PM
Now if only we could get actual people to obey these kinds of zones in real life :P
you mean like bathrooms?
Quote from: Shinzy on June 02, 2015, 07:10:05 PM
Quote from: Boboid on June 02, 2015, 06:49:47 PM
Now if only we could get actual people to obey these kinds of zones in real life :P
you mean like bathrooms?
Exactly like bathrooms.
You need only be stuck in an airport for 6 hours to discover that even basic signage is often completely ignored :D
Quote from: Boboid on June 02, 2015, 08:23:33 PM
Quote from: Shinzy on June 02, 2015, 07:10:05 PM
Quote from: Boboid on June 02, 2015, 06:49:47 PM
Now if only we could get actual people to obey these kinds of zones in real life :P
you mean like bathrooms?
Exactly like bathrooms.
You need only be stuck in an airport for 6 hours to discover that even basic signage is often completely ignored :D
Reading NotAlwaysRight.com, I'd surmise that if you work in retail, you don't have to wait long until you see your first instance of basic sign ignoring.
So if I want to prevent the pawn from going to a certain area, I need to select the entire map except the area I don't want them to go in? That's pretty awful :(
Quote from: Rahjital on June 03, 2015, 06:31:34 AM
So if I want to prevent the pawn from going to a certain area, I need to select the entire map except the area I don't want them to go in? That's pretty awful :(
Nope, you only restrict them when you want. ;)
Yeah, but I usually want to restrict them from an area, not to an area. The new area system is not very useful in that regard.
Quote from: Rahjital on June 03, 2015, 07:53:40 AM
Yeah, but I usually want to restrict them from an area, not to an area.
Well, that is a bit of a logical fallacy since restricting colonists from an area is just the negative contrast to the allowed area concept.
With your idea you would have to paint the whole map and say "don't go there". With restricted area you don't have to paint much. You paint exactly where you want them to go; It has the same effect.
i hope the work schedule would also be integrated with the new user defined zones?
like for example : if you assign "patrol" or "guard" to their work schedule, then those pawns will wander around the areas that are assigned as "patrol zones" or "guard zones", for the time allotted in their schedule.
it would also be cool to have "visitor" zones and visitors will interact with the items in that zone as if they own it (ie : they can sleep in beds, eat from stockpiles, etc. as long as it is within the visitor zone), it would be cooler if you can assign different factions to different zones so they don't accidentally butcher each other if they are hostile against one another) (also, visitors that have high morale inside visitor zones might randomly drop silver on the floor or something)
hunting zones where you can specify which colonist can hunt in which zones. this way players can manage multiple hunters and keep them far away from each other so they don't do friendly fire. (animals that wander inside hunting zones will be automatically assigned for hunting for the assigned pawn, and if the animal wander out of a hunting zone, then their hunting designation will be automatically turned off)
joy zones : they will only pursue joy activities that are available in the allowed zone.
etc..
-----------------------------
but generally the main feature i'm looking forward to in a zoning system is "pawn restricted/allowed designations", which can assign which pawns can enter which areas.
since this can be used in many ways, like assigning pawns to workstations etc.
Quote from: Skissor on June 03, 2015, 08:27:51 AM
restricting colonists from an area is just the negative contrast to the allowed area concept.
Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm trying to say the entire time, haha
Quote from: Skissor on June 03, 2015, 08:27:51 AMWith your idea you would have to paint the whole map and say "don't go there". With restricted area you don't have to paint much. You paint exactly where you want them to go; It has the same effect.
With "restricted" area, you would have to paint a "wall" around where you want your colonists to go.
I would like to have
both, though. Personally I don't find the ability to restrict colonists to a certain area too useful, but I know other's will use it. I would just like to see a way to forbid an area.
I don't know, I see dozens of good reasons to restrict colonists to an area, what reason would you have to make a forbidden zone for colonists?
Quote from: Rahjital on June 03, 2015, 09:17:36 AM
I would just like to see a way to forbid an area.
Paint the whole map with an area and erase the part you want forbidden -> et voilà, forbidden zone created! You're a private tester, you can even do this right now, only takes a minute. ^^
Quote from: Skissor on June 03, 2015, 10:23:46 AM
I don't know, I see dozens of good reasons to restrict colonists to an area, what reason would you have to make a forbidden zone for colonists?
Quote from: Rahjital on June 03, 2015, 09:17:36 AM
I would just like to see a way to forbid an area.
Paint the whole map with an area and erase the part you want forbidden -> et voilà, forbidden zone created! You're a private tester, you can even do this right now, only takes a minute. ^^
The idea is if you have a siege and don't want your colonists to go near, you can throw up a quick "no-go" zone around them instead of having to zone off the whole map and then delete the area round them.
the people who wanted the zone to be a no go zone, will struggle with the zones. They were looking for a quick and easy way to prevent colonists from walking into the enemy siege camp, or into the enemy that was preparing for a while.
Regarding the forbidden zones: If there's that much interest for these, and Tynan wants to stay with a positive "allowed" model, why not just add a button that adds the entire map to the zone? From there you just need to remove the areas you don't want, which is the same as painting the forbidden zone, just with one extra initial click. Simple; keeps everyone happy.
The hunting zone idea intrigued me since I usually only have one hunter out a time unsupervised since it's incredible how much they get in one another's way. It should be very possible to do this, but at the expense of the hunters not being able to carry out non-hunter tasks outside their designated zone. That may be worth experimenting with though. Thanks for the idea.
Quote from: Matthiasagreen on June 03, 2015, 10:40:28 AM
The idea is if you have a siege and don't want your colonists to go near, you can throw up a quick "no-go" zone around them instead of having to zone off the whole map and then delete the area round them.
Well you are able to do that. First select the whole map, then paint out the forbidden zone. The new tool was aimed at the toxic fallout anyway.