Colonists changing apparel before I want them to

[Forblaze]

So I have an outfit set up for my colonists that consists of a button down shirt, a jacket, and pants that are between 51-100% hp and normal-legendary quality. Something I keep noticing is damaged apparel showing up in my stock room. I watched it for a while, and noticed that colonists will come and get new clothing even when what they're wearing meets the outfit requirements. This is a problem because it means that the article of clothing doesn't get incinerated unless I set the incinerator bill to check for things as high as 75%, and then the tailoring bill won't reactivate because it still thinks I have the proper amount of clothing.

Is this behavior intended and is there a way to stop it?

[Shurp]

This is Working As Designed (WAD).  Your instructions tell a colonist what he is prohibited from wearing.  If he sees something better than what he is wearing and he is allowed to wear it then when he feels like it he will pick it up and wear it.

If you don't want your colonist who is walking around with a 55% jacket beelining to grab the fresh new 100% jacket your tailor just made you have to Forbid it.  Then when you see a colonist with no jacket unForbid it and let him wear it.

But why do you want to dispose of the worn apparel?  If it is over 50% then it won't cause any mood penalty if someone else picks it up and wears it.  Even the temp and armor penalties are minimal at 55%.

[Alenerel]

Its weird, I have the opposite problem. I want them to wear the nice recently crafted cloth apparel to make them match in nazi style, yet they choose to wear the raider random leftovers cause they are above quality.

In my case I just thought of just raising it to 90% for a moment... So problem autosolved...

[Rock5]

Ok, necroing an old post but it is on topic.

If you don't want your colonist who is walking around with a 55% jacket beelining to grab the fresh new 100% jacket your tailor just made you have to Forbid it.  Then when you see a colonist with no jacket unForbid it and let him wear it.

I don't mind a colonist changing a 55% clothing for a 100% one. What I find really annoying is when they change a 55% one for a 56% one. Then a little later they change a 54% for a 55% one. It also interferes with trying to restock another colony. If you add a 100% top to a cargo pod, someone will invariable put it on before it gets loaded onto the pod. So ok, now there is a 95% top, so I'll send that but again, someone else goes and puts it on. You basically have to wait until everyone has had a chance to switch gear before you can load the pod. Then all you have left is a 55% top. So you make another 100% top. You wait until everyone has had a chance to change gear and you are left with a 55% and 60% gear. So you send the 60% top to the other colony which doesn't last very long because it was low to start off with so you have to repeat it all over again.

Also, I like to have stockpiles with filters to keep an eye on my good gear. So for example I have a 2 square stockpile for 51-100% tops. When I see less than 2 top in it I make more. What happens with vanilla is it takes longer for that stockpile to empty but when it does, it means every colonist has lower % gear on and are about to loose their tops. So suddenly you need to make 30 tops, one for each of your 30 colonists. If the colonists waited until their tops dropped below the set % range then you would be making tops in more regular intervals which is a lot easier to manage and it would be a lot easier to send better stuff to restock other colonies.

Now, I seem to remember that a mod did something like this. I remembered reading something like "and colonists don't mind wearing lower % gear and generally will change them once below about 60%". Does anyone remember what mod it was?

[Thyme]

A problem I have with my stupid colonists: It's -70°C in winter and I don't allow parkas because wool dusters are fine (with wool tuque, min comfy is ~-65 to -70°C). My pawns prefer hyperweave over wool, which is by far not as insulating as wool, and then complain about the cold! They should pay a little more attention to outside temperatures and apparel stats when selecting what they wear.

PS: If all your pawns start to wear their gear at the same thyme, they will get rid of it simultaneously, as gear degrades at a constant rate. I had that problem in my last colony, where I had a flourishing alpaca textile industry. Crafted apparel for a living, sold excess and kept 4 each for my colonists, I always had to make 15 dusters/tuques at once. Even keeping a backup of 600 wool wasn't enough. Now I use Mending, which lets me repair damaged clothing, problem solved. (bonus points for the mod because I couldn't tame a muffalo yet, ice sheet is not very animal friendly)

[Shurp]

Well, you could try the reverse -- prohibit your colonists from wearing any clothing better than 90%.  There are *two* sliders on the apparel control, a max and a min.  So if you don't want your colonists playing musical clothes just exclude the high quality stuff you want loaded in the caravan.

As to the hyperweave problem, again, "forbid" is your friend.  X down those hyperweave dusters.  If you're planning to wear them during combat you can force your colonists to wear them even while X'd.

[Thyme]

Yes, that's what I did untill I just gave it away via Phi. However, that's only a workaround, no proper solution.
*and also a bad one, as I have to keep monitoring my colonists because a new Hyperweave duster could've dropped.

[eadras]

This is something I'd like to see optimized in the future.  There's really no need for the colonist to even be scanning for better clothing, if his current clothing meets the outfit requirements.  If the player wants a newly crafted piece of gear worn, he can order a pawn to wear it, then clear forced.  As it is now, every time a new piece of clothing comes off the assembly line, half the colony drops what they are doing to swap hand-me-downs.  It's a waste of CPU power and pawn time.

[Limdood]

There's really no need for the colonist to even be scanning for better clothing, if his current clothing meets the outfit requirements.

There may be no NEED for that, but it certainly fits the simulator aspect of the game.  colonists want any upgrade they can get.  You only told them what their "acceptable range of clothing" is...naturally they're going to seek better clothes within those guidelines.

Quite simply, if you don't want them to switch to better options when one comes available, the "force wear" option is your friend.  Now they won't take it off.  Force wear on EVERY pawn.  When you get a "tattered" notification, force wear a new item.  This will allow easy stockpile control.

Alternatively, leave it up to the pawn and understand that pawns will go for ANY upgrade they can within their parameters.

[Rock5]

I understand that there is an argument to be made for leaving it as it but I think it would be better changed.

The way it is now you have to accept pawns wasting a LOT of time continuously changing gear (with the associated extra cpu use) or do lots of micromanagement. I'd prefer less micromanagement and less pawns wasting time changing gear.

The way I understand the equipment tab is the pawn should be happy with anything that falls within the parameters and that's the way I'd like it to work.

If vanilla isn't changed I'd like to at least have a mod for it.