Quote from: Serenity on August 06, 2016, 08:40:46 AMThat is was is actually meant, I just didn't try to explicitly include a specific "area" in hope to allow more room for a solution options. But somehow the colonist must check the area arround him to reach the minium amount of work units. Even construction can be affected in some cases, if a wall has to be constructed or you want him to finish these few conduit parts which only require one work unit each to connect the turbine that will power the heater during the night. Very annoying to have to click on each individual tile to get this work done which would actually take only a few seconds.
It would also be nice to tell people to prioritize a whole area instead of one tile. Like saying "clean all the blood in this room NOW"
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#1
Ideas / Re: Two suggestions for doing work
August 07, 2016, 11:11:44 AM #2
Ideas / Two suggestions for doing work
August 05, 2016, 03:19:59 PM
Based on this thread I want to make the followlng two suggestions that would take care of some annoying things. If implemented in the simplest approach, I'd consider these "cheap" in the required (?) meaning of beeing implementable within 4 hours.
1. Workers should take ressources with them to the storage if they go home.
Examples (hauling allowed in both cases):
A) A miner wants to go home to sleep. Metal is all arround him. He will sleep in the base and the storage for metal is close to his bed. Currently he goes back empty handed and someone else has to walk all the way there to pick up the metal stacks.
B) A construction worker has finished building something outside of the base. On his way back he directly walks over a tile that contains ressources marked for hauling back in the base. But this is ignored.
2. Whenever a work is started, a minium amount of work units should be performed and this amount should be considerably higher, if the colonists was directly ordered by player to do the work. *
Examples:
A) Colonist walked all over the map, hits a rock once and goes back to take care of a prisoner.
B) Colonist is ordered to sow on hydroponics but wants to sleep. He only does one tile and walks away instead of completing at least one pod with 4 plants.
C) A tired colonist is ordered to clean the blood in a small room because there is a bed with a sick or wounded person in it. He again only does one tile and wants to walk away. Locking the door or limiting the work zone results in the colonist just falling asleep on the ground and getting "slept on ground" etc. malus while still only completing one tile.
D) Colonist woken up to extinguish fire. Again, only one tile is done instead of taking care of the whole fire as much as possible.
*If the colonist in question is already close to getting mad because of hunger (-7 or even the -15 state), he should eat before even starting to walk out to mine that rock at the opposite side of the map.
1. Workers should take ressources with them to the storage if they go home.
Examples (hauling allowed in both cases):
A) A miner wants to go home to sleep. Metal is all arround him. He will sleep in the base and the storage for metal is close to his bed. Currently he goes back empty handed and someone else has to walk all the way there to pick up the metal stacks.
B) A construction worker has finished building something outside of the base. On his way back he directly walks over a tile that contains ressources marked for hauling back in the base. But this is ignored.
2. Whenever a work is started, a minium amount of work units should be performed and this amount should be considerably higher, if the colonists was directly ordered by player to do the work. *
Examples:
A) Colonist walked all over the map, hits a rock once and goes back to take care of a prisoner.
B) Colonist is ordered to sow on hydroponics but wants to sleep. He only does one tile and walks away instead of completing at least one pod with 4 plants.
C) A tired colonist is ordered to clean the blood in a small room because there is a bed with a sick or wounded person in it. He again only does one tile and wants to walk away. Locking the door or limiting the work zone results in the colonist just falling asleep on the ground and getting "slept on ground" etc. malus while still only completing one tile.
D) Colonist woken up to extinguish fire. Again, only one tile is done instead of taking care of the whole fire as much as possible.
*If the colonist in question is already close to getting mad because of hunger (-7 or even the -15 state), he should eat before even starting to walk out to mine that rock at the opposite side of the map.
#3
General Discussion / Re: Frustrating AI/behaviour and micro management
August 04, 2016, 07:03:05 PM
I just want to clear up some things:
First:
- The video was interessting, I also implemented A* several times but wouldn't dare to call that "AI".
And I think pathfinding works pretty good in the game.
- The range settings for producation tables are a good hint, hauling of only a few materials needed for the current task instead of a full stack is indeed another annoying thing.
Second:
I was not complaining about the priority system itself, it's actually pretty good. The problem with it is only that needs do not fit in this very well. Yes, I do use manual priorities, so usually switches and fire are priority 1 of everybody. The small issue here is, that priority 1 is green, so it would be nice to use that exclusively to mark the main task of a person instead to reserve it for emergencies. There should either be another priority level "critical" that can be used for fire or simply the option to be firefighter or not, there's no point to set priorities here. Even if there would be an action that has a higher priority like rescuing somebody this action would also be in the same "category" - emergencies.
Back to the actual problem, the needs: If the life of the colonist is endangered, be it due to fire, an attack etc., everything else should stay back. As indicated, it makes no sense if you might die and get a nervous breakdown and actually do die only because there was no dinner or the current room is too ugly. It also can't be that one is ordered to extinguish a fire, does one tile and falls asleep on ground while the room is still burning.
As for the hauling, I see it like eronaile said, there should only be minor extensions to add at least some basic optimizations, like bringing back the stuff the colonists just mined when he wants to go home anyway. There is already a region/cell system in place as the video explains, maybe it can be used for this, like when a cell is entered and it contains things to haul and the planned path includes another cell that can accept these goods, take it. The target-check could be even removed, as the storages are usually in the main base ("home" zone) and therefore automatically nearby the point where the colonists wants to go to sleep or eat.
I think I will refine my points in a compact form a post some as suggestions.
P.S. The schedule that was mentioned here seems not to have much effect, at least my colonists take that only as recommendation at best.
First:
- The video was interessting, I also implemented A* several times but wouldn't dare to call that "AI".
And I think pathfinding works pretty good in the game.- The range settings for producation tables are a good hint, hauling of only a few materials needed for the current task instead of a full stack is indeed another annoying thing.
Second:
I was not complaining about the priority system itself, it's actually pretty good. The problem with it is only that needs do not fit in this very well. Yes, I do use manual priorities, so usually switches and fire are priority 1 of everybody. The small issue here is, that priority 1 is green, so it would be nice to use that exclusively to mark the main task of a person instead to reserve it for emergencies. There should either be another priority level "critical" that can be used for fire or simply the option to be firefighter or not, there's no point to set priorities here. Even if there would be an action that has a higher priority like rescuing somebody this action would also be in the same "category" - emergencies.
Back to the actual problem, the needs: If the life of the colonist is endangered, be it due to fire, an attack etc., everything else should stay back. As indicated, it makes no sense if you might die and get a nervous breakdown and actually do die only because there was no dinner or the current room is too ugly. It also can't be that one is ordered to extinguish a fire, does one tile and falls asleep on ground while the room is still burning.
As for the hauling, I see it like eronaile said, there should only be minor extensions to add at least some basic optimizations, like bringing back the stuff the colonists just mined when he wants to go home anyway. There is already a region/cell system in place as the video explains, maybe it can be used for this, like when a cell is entered and it contains things to haul and the planned path includes another cell that can accept these goods, take it. The target-check could be even removed, as the storages are usually in the main base ("home" zone) and therefore automatically nearby the point where the colonists wants to go to sleep or eat.
I think I will refine my points in a compact form a post some as suggestions.
P.S. The schedule that was mentioned here seems not to have much effect, at least my colonists take that only as recommendation at best.
#4
General Discussion / Re: Frustrating AI/behaviour and micro management
August 01, 2016, 09:39:01 AMQuote from: Fusha on July 31, 2016, 07:28:55 PMSo apparently emergency work does indeed not have the highest priority. I will recheck this when I get my next fire.
The AI could definitely do with some improving. I had a person decide that he wants to go "cloudwatching" adjacent to a raging inferno.
Either way, it's just another outcome of needs having no priority, like not getting killed by an enemy can be less important than having no ugly sandbags arround.
#5
General Discussion / Re: Frustrating AI/behaviour and micro management
July 31, 2016, 02:07:06 PMQuote from: StormySunrise on July 31, 2016, 12:44:12 PMThat is not the problem, the problem is that they put their needs over a critical task like fire fighting. Sleeping, eating etc. are not tasks that can be given a priority.
Using the manual order features in the work tab allows you to prioritize the firefighting , another easy way to get them to work what you want is quickly enlisting and unenlisting the colonist so it prioritizes the nearest task.
QuoteSome mods also may help you with your "refusal to work" HaulT is one such mod.I already can work arround it without mods by checking this when starting a new game and new colonists. It's a flaw in the game, the people refuse to carry things right from start of the colonly. It should simply not be possible. But it would be fully accepable if that trait becomes active once a basic camp is established and there are more colonists who actually can do simple work.
QuoteHowever, whenever a disaster happens it usually takes a while for people to adjust to their situation so they stick to what they are used to (individual rooms etc etc) but as I stated before some mods can help you out, I believe there is a mod that makes colonists prefer sharing bedrooms but im currently drawing a blank.That's also not what was meant. If they don't want to share bedrooms, fine - but not as long as there is only one cave that have managed to find in the first days, it doesn't make any sense. It's also not a big issue if in some cases would have to order them to extinguish a fire, the anoying point is again that they put their needs over everything else and just stop working after doing one tile. So I've have to create a new zone, lock the doors or uncheck any other job to force them to complete the task. But even then if they want to sleep, they just fall down on ground and sleep right next to the fire. And before I can even do something that get more negative things added: "disturbed in sleep", "slept on ground" and what not. In combination with hunger due to delayed meal, tight rooms, too hot/cold and the omnipresent "ugly enviroment" you may get instantly a breakdown. And the fire is still burning. This also makes no sense. It's a mixup of needs of different priorities, tasks and behaviours.
#6
General Discussion / Frustrating AI/behaviour and micro management
July 31, 2016, 12:31:58 PM
As of now the game has several issues related to the AI and needs of the colonists. This often leads to the impression that you are actually leading people who somehow have escaped from a madhouse, with everybody having serious psychological problems. There also other problems but I will focus on AI and behaviour because this creates a lot of unncessary micromanagement and even hopeless situations.
AI problems
Ineffcient work and walking
Two hours before sleep a colonist walks all over the map, hits a rock 1 time and walks back. If there is stuff arround from previous work and which should be transported to the base, he will just leave it there. This last point is most annoying: If a miner has done his work, instead of taking the ressources back to base, he just leaves them there until next time or somebody else carries them away. If a colonist can carry items and nearby are items he could transport with little to no diversion, he should do it. Also there should be taken into account the required time of walking to destination, if it also clear that no a decent amount of work can be done or the destination can not be reached in the remaining time until sleep, it should not be performed, unless the work time has just started.
Breaking tasks
When performing a task, especially when explicitly orderd to do it by the player, the colonists should perform it for a reasonable amount of time. Currently, if the colonists is orderd to let's say clean up the blood in the hospital room, he should finish that and not go sleeping after he cleaned one tile or getting a breakdown because dinner is delayed. If he is tasked to build conduit, he should at least finish a decent amount of it and not again just one tile. The same applies to mining and seeding, bascially everything that involves a number of tiles or limited area. And in case of fire, they should continue until the fire is gone or the colonists are dead or had to leave because of compelete exhaustion. Where complete exhaustion does not mean lunch have been missed or he will come to bed 2 hours later than usual, it should be a reasonable threshold. Also as this is an emergency, all other needs are canceled out during that time. To survive the fire his the highest and only priority, so it doesn't matter if the surroundings are ugly, the clothing is bad or they hate their fellow who is also tasked to put out the fire.
One approach of this problem could be that a minium amount of work units must always be performed befor task can be interupted and this in a certain range from where the task has been started. If the colonists is orderd by player manually, the minium work units value should be higher. In case of fire, there should be no limit.
Behaviour problems
The colonists apparently have no will to survive, their needs have higher priority than survival. The is a fire right on the next room? - I don't care, because I am hungry, so I need to eat first and than I'll go play this horseshoe game!
Not that anybody would even wake up if there is a fire. Even if you wake one up and order him to extinguish the fire, he may only extinguish one tile and than go back sleep while the fire grows and grows, as mentioned in the "breaking task"-problem.
Refusal of basic work: If you end up starting with colonists who refuse "simple work" - you are proablly screwed. I mean imagine that, they've just crashlanded maybe in a very hostile environment and the people just stand there because they refuse to carry stuff to the next shelter. That's just ridiculous. Yes, you can prevent that by hand-picking colonists but the point is, it's still impossible that even one would reject to help by carrying stuff.
Unordered priorities of needs:
usually there should be a priority that will cause somebody to act accordingly. A raw order could be like that:
- response to immidiate threats (attacks, fire, earthquakes etc.)
- water
- food
- shelter
- luxury needs (own room, fresh beer, a TV whatever)
Currently, if somebody missed the lunch because waiting some hours too long on battle field, he may just drop his weapon and run into the enemy and gets killed by them or friendly fire - and all because there was no time for lunch, it was too cold, too dark, his clothings are bad, he had to sleep in the same room as everybody else or the sandbags arround were just too ugly! Not gonna happen, never! It's ridiculous and very frustrating. What would be more understandable is if somebody flees from the enemy because an opponent just throw a grenade right next to them or close friends were ripped to pieces. Fear can be a strong emotion, the cancels out everything else. But not "this room is too ugly"! So in conclusion, other than said fear nothing else should have an impact on colonists in battle mode and/or during an attack or right before that. Actually not in any emergency case. Well if they were standing arround for days without food and sleep, they would have physical break down logically.
On the other hand while beeing such a sissy in so many regards, the colonists have no problems to for example feast on a fresh human corpse. How many people that you ever knew or heard of would do that?
My suggestion: get rid of this "low expectations"-hack and throw in needs dependending on the wealth and size of the colony. If there are 20 other people, well yes, I then might refuse to do cleaning or carry things. If we have many rooms, I want my own. If we have enough food to survive and it's currently safe, well then some entertainment stuff would be nice.
AI problems
Ineffcient work and walking
Two hours before sleep a colonist walks all over the map, hits a rock 1 time and walks back. If there is stuff arround from previous work and which should be transported to the base, he will just leave it there. This last point is most annoying: If a miner has done his work, instead of taking the ressources back to base, he just leaves them there until next time or somebody else carries them away. If a colonist can carry items and nearby are items he could transport with little to no diversion, he should do it. Also there should be taken into account the required time of walking to destination, if it also clear that no a decent amount of work can be done or the destination can not be reached in the remaining time until sleep, it should not be performed, unless the work time has just started.
Breaking tasks
When performing a task, especially when explicitly orderd to do it by the player, the colonists should perform it for a reasonable amount of time. Currently, if the colonists is orderd to let's say clean up the blood in the hospital room, he should finish that and not go sleeping after he cleaned one tile or getting a breakdown because dinner is delayed. If he is tasked to build conduit, he should at least finish a decent amount of it and not again just one tile. The same applies to mining and seeding, bascially everything that involves a number of tiles or limited area. And in case of fire, they should continue until the fire is gone or the colonists are dead or had to leave because of compelete exhaustion. Where complete exhaustion does not mean lunch have been missed or he will come to bed 2 hours later than usual, it should be a reasonable threshold. Also as this is an emergency, all other needs are canceled out during that time. To survive the fire his the highest and only priority, so it doesn't matter if the surroundings are ugly, the clothing is bad or they hate their fellow who is also tasked to put out the fire.
One approach of this problem could be that a minium amount of work units must always be performed befor task can be interupted and this in a certain range from where the task has been started. If the colonists is orderd by player manually, the minium work units value should be higher. In case of fire, there should be no limit.
Behaviour problems
The colonists apparently have no will to survive, their needs have higher priority than survival. The is a fire right on the next room? - I don't care, because I am hungry, so I need to eat first and than I'll go play this horseshoe game!
Not that anybody would even wake up if there is a fire. Even if you wake one up and order him to extinguish the fire, he may only extinguish one tile and than go back sleep while the fire grows and grows, as mentioned in the "breaking task"-problem.
Refusal of basic work: If you end up starting with colonists who refuse "simple work" - you are proablly screwed. I mean imagine that, they've just crashlanded maybe in a very hostile environment and the people just stand there because they refuse to carry stuff to the next shelter. That's just ridiculous. Yes, you can prevent that by hand-picking colonists but the point is, it's still impossible that even one would reject to help by carrying stuff.
Unordered priorities of needs:
usually there should be a priority that will cause somebody to act accordingly. A raw order could be like that:
- response to immidiate threats (attacks, fire, earthquakes etc.)
- water
- food
- shelter
- luxury needs (own room, fresh beer, a TV whatever)
Currently, if somebody missed the lunch because waiting some hours too long on battle field, he may just drop his weapon and run into the enemy and gets killed by them or friendly fire - and all because there was no time for lunch, it was too cold, too dark, his clothings are bad, he had to sleep in the same room as everybody else or the sandbags arround were just too ugly! Not gonna happen, never! It's ridiculous and very frustrating. What would be more understandable is if somebody flees from the enemy because an opponent just throw a grenade right next to them or close friends were ripped to pieces. Fear can be a strong emotion, the cancels out everything else. But not "this room is too ugly"! So in conclusion, other than said fear nothing else should have an impact on colonists in battle mode and/or during an attack or right before that. Actually not in any emergency case. Well if they were standing arround for days without food and sleep, they would have physical break down logically.
On the other hand while beeing such a sissy in so many regards, the colonists have no problems to for example feast on a fresh human corpse. How many people that you ever knew or heard of would do that?
My suggestion: get rid of this "low expectations"-hack and throw in needs dependending on the wealth and size of the colony. If there are 20 other people, well yes, I then might refuse to do cleaning or carry things. If we have many rooms, I want my own. If we have enough food to survive and it's currently safe, well then some entertainment stuff would be nice.
#7
Bugs / Re: [A14]Character locking into room right after start
July 22, 2016, 03:33:01 PM
Thank you for your time, I will do what you said next time. Though I think it should generally not be possible for a char to lockup themself into the only room the has barely been finished for the reason that it is ugly, probably because I hadn't removed the rocks yet. Also if my room is too ugly, I wouldn't probably lock myself into it to even more enjoy its ugliness.
#8
Bugs / [A14]Character locking into room right after start
July 21, 2016, 09:34:56 PM
1. circumstances:
Fresh start with "Crash landed", classic, raw mode.
2. What happened.
Dug a little room into a mountain, got barely the door installed when I got the message that one of my people has locked themself into their room. The person was than wandering arround outside and was unavailable for at least the next 8 hours. She got a breakdown because "her" room was too ugly. Well yes, if it's only 6 hours after beeing crash landed first cave like shelter is proably not a palace. I wanted to play a really harsh winter world, so my current one has -70°C averrage in winter. So no matter what, if one is just in a bad mood, it makes still makes no sense to have a walk for several hours when only wearing a T-shirt and shorts while it's a -30°C night.
3. What you expected to happen.
No serious impacts on mood because of ugly shelter on the very first day. Considering that hese people just have barely surved a crash landing on an unknown world, it would also be reasonable if there where not impacts on mood due to not liking each other and arguing. These social effects should also arise gradually and proably not on the very first day.
4. Steps we can follow to make the bug appear on our machine.
Occurs randomly. I also play hardcore so I don't have this specific save anymore.
Fresh start with "Crash landed", classic, raw mode.
2. What happened.
Dug a little room into a mountain, got barely the door installed when I got the message that one of my people has locked themself into their room. The person was than wandering arround outside and was unavailable for at least the next 8 hours. She got a breakdown because "her" room was too ugly. Well yes, if it's only 6 hours after beeing crash landed first cave like shelter is proably not a palace. I wanted to play a really harsh winter world, so my current one has -70°C averrage in winter. So no matter what, if one is just in a bad mood, it makes still makes no sense to have a walk for several hours when only wearing a T-shirt and shorts while it's a -30°C night.
3. What you expected to happen.
No serious impacts on mood because of ugly shelter on the very first day. Considering that hese people just have barely surved a crash landing on an unknown world, it would also be reasonable if there where not impacts on mood due to not liking each other and arguing. These social effects should also arise gradually and proably not on the very first day.
4. Steps we can follow to make the bug appear on our machine.
Occurs randomly. I also play hardcore so I don't have this specific save anymore.
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