Hysteresis

[W0x]

Currently the "Do until you have X" jobs in the different production stations do not have a sensible upper or lower limit.

For example, I give a bill to cook simple meals until I have 10. The colonists will cook 10 meals and carry on with their day. One person comes by and eats one meal, there are still 9 meals left and thus, the 10 meal job is no longer satisfied. A cook will come to the kitchen and make another one meal.

It is not efficient for the cook to do this, it would be preferable if you could apply some "hysteresis" to the whole process, that is to say set a lower limit and an upper limit. If there are ever less than 5 meals, cook until you have 10. This way instead of the cook doing many small jobs, he will work smarter and work in batches while still maintaining a good amount of products in storage.

[Kryc8]

I think that rimworld need this because I'm tired my cook to walking across whole map to cook just 1 meal.

[FlyingGekko]

This is brilliant! Then cooks can do other things other than cooking ALL the time!
I like this suggestion a lot

[Songleaves]

I love this suggestion. This would honestly be my favorite addition to the game right now.

Edit: I'd like to add that this would be great for cleaning. Currently either you prioritize cleaning so low that it never gets done, or you prioritize it high enough that it does get done but the person can't really do anything else because every time there's a minor dirt patch that pops up the colonist gets distracted from their other jobs and moves halfway across the home area to clean it.

[hwfanatic]

I like the idea of hysteresis and I support it.

Having said that, if you set your cook to cook and clean only, he/she will never leave the base and I'd be surprised if he/she ever had time for anything else.

[b0rsuk]

Cook until you have: 10
AND, in the same bill:
Cook if less than: 5
Something like this would be golden.

While we're at it, I want something like this for stockpiles!!! I often use 1 tile stockpiles in kitchen: one for meat, one for vegetables, so the cook can focus on cooking. But a hauler is often stuck there refilling a 70 rice stockpile.
"Take from if more than X units"
"Refill if less than Y units"
This would also be very good for remote mining operations. Create a local steel stockpile with "take if more than 75/150/225", basically a multiple of 75. Also useful for mortars.

[Vaporisor]

The one I would like is this for hauling as well and when hauling just grab what they need.  I will example my prisons.  I have nutrient paste feedingwith hoppers set to a critical priority.  Darn  full time hauler picks up full stack of food and runs it to replace six there and then back to main stockpile with the surplus.  By the time he drops it off, another prisoner has grabbed food and that hauler does it all over again.  It drives me batty.

[hwfanatic]

Just had a thought how you can get sort of a similar effect with current game mechanics by dropping the meals on the floor. There will be a some overproduction depending on how busy your haulers are.

[b0rsuk]

Just had a thought how you can get sort of a similar effect with current game mechanics by dropping the meals on the floor. There will be a some overproduction depending on how busy your haulers are.

I do that and it helps, but you get the opposite effect: haulers only hauling 3 or 5 meals to fridge.

[hwfanatic]

Yes, that is true. Situational.

[The-MathMog]

+1 +1 +1!

This would be very welcome!

Something similar would be nice too, with how storage zones work. Right now I have a high priority zone for meat/vegs, right inside the door of the freezer (because I literally have almost 10000 units of food), and it is annoying that haulers, go haul foods to those stockpiles, even when there is only missing 5 pieces of food. Again making it very inefficient. Maybe this one is harder to implement though.

[milon]

+1 Yes please!!

[erdrik]

+1 Totally agree with this. Love the idea.

[Thane]

This must be a thing for A14 Tynan if you don'twant people comlaining about the game there are two things you can do: Change the art style (don't), or incorporate this system to remove some of colonist's idiocy.

[b0rsuk]

Maybe it could be imitated with manual priorities and an allowed zone ? Set hauling higher than cooking for the cook, and drastically limit his allowed zone to fridge, kitchen, and recreation room/dining room.

But then my current cook can't haul.