[A16]Colonists sometimes choose hauling instead of higher priority work

[Zhentar]

Inspired by this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/5roii6/just_leave_the_meal/

I have seen the same behavior at least twice myself while playing: Occasionally, a colonist will decide to perform hauling as a higher priority task than it is actually configured as in the work settings. The colonist can be manually ordered to perform the higher priority work (in the reddit thread, it was cooking; I don't remember if the ones I saw were also cooking), and successfully complete the work (so it isn't an issue with the higher priority work being unavailable), but then immediately resumes hauling.

Unfortunately, the behavior did not reproduce after a save & reload, and I have not noticed any correlation between the events, so I cannot provide any sort of useful reproduction steps. I'm hoping someone else has noticed this too and contribute other details.

[ison]

Thanks for reporting. My guess is that the meal is just dropped on the table because there are no other free cells and the pawn hauls it to a stockpile instead of hauling it aside for some reason. I couldn't reproduce it though.

Has anyone else experienced this issue?

[TheMeInTeam]

I have run into it too but have yet to see any pattern that allows me to consistently reproduce it.  It's one of those oddball rare annoyances that is probably even more annoying to pinpoint a cause.

[eadras]

I'm playing the extreme desert challenge and have noticed this type of behavior quite often.  When a pawn reaches "minor heat stroke", they will drop certain tasks, such as construction, in favor of lower priority tasks, such as cleaning or hauling, but not in any logical manner that would be more likely to help them cool off.  I've seen several occasions when a constructing pawn will drop what she is working on, and head off into the wilderness to haul some random piece of clothing I forgot to forbid. 

[Zhentar]

I was playing the extreme sea ice challenge when I saw my prioritization issues, so it could well have been hypothermia related.

[hcnLiDX]

I've noticed this too. I'm playing on an ice sheet map. The pawn had hypothermia before it happened, I think.

Here's a few screenshots to show restrictions/work priorities and then the results of ordering them to build something, in chronological order:

http://imgur.com/a/ZSfHF

I've attached a save file as well, which seems to reproduce it. Just get him to build a wall and then he'll say "fuck it" and start wandering around (or hauling if there is something to haul). Really annoying.

[attachment deleted by admin due to age]

[gsgabsdas]

I experienced the same behavior on an incredibly cold map (-200°F) a few games ago. I was playing the rich solo colonist scenario, and I landed pretty far away from a geyser. When going to build walls around the nearest one, she'd start to wander or haul. Those brief moments led to her death multiple times. I finally was able to get it to work after constantly pausing every second or so to make sure she built the walls and could live (even then she got frost bite and was bleeding, that map was crazy lol).

Something about extreme temperatures seem to cause odd behaviors. If I remember correctly, when I sent her to go haul things she'd sometimes wander instead. It really was weird.

[Illusion Distort]

The temperature related heddifs seems to be forcing pawns to wander for a short period of time. I ran into this behavior a few weeks ago, is the ai configured to wander when in need of warmth or cooling down? It makes extreme-temperature-survival almost impossible without heavy micro-management.

Ai cleanup? Heddif cleanup?

[ZorbaTHut]

May be fixed in A17. If you happen to find reliable reproduction steps, please post them, though!

Closing because the thread appears to have run its course.