Not Allowed Area

[calwallace]

Hey Y'all,

So,I know there's been several old aged mods that allow the user to set who works at what bench, and we all know none of them work properly.

So, how hard would it be to implement  a 'not allowed area', opposite of the allowed area zoning function, so I could, say, block Emmy from the cooking station, so that she'll concentrate on that sweet, sweet fermenting of wort. Same could go for multiple benches of one type. Three tailors, three benches. Instead of them farting about and tossing each other's unfinished work on the floor, I could block them from the other two benches, and sort the problemo forthwith.

I have no idea about modding, or coding,or whatever, but is this a good idea or what?

[FreyaMaluk]

you can... just mark the area you don't want her to be in and then go to "restrict," "manage areas" and select "invert."
Done! 

[calwallace]

Well bollocks, I look pretty stupid. Didn't know ou could invert like that. Seems our Tynan and the community have thought of most things.

[dogthinker]

I do think this part of the colony management has some room for improvement still. In particular, it'd be really nice if you could restrict colonists to the intersection of a set of layers, instead of only being able to set them to obey one restriction layer.

i.e. perhaps I want:
-  to exclude a subset of my colonists from the fields (e.g. haulers, which I don't want to start hauling until the harvest is mostly finished)
- another subset of colonists from a barn (because I don't want them to shear or train the domesticated animals, but do want them to go out taming)
- and another subset should not wander too far from the colony buildings.

I'd need potentially need to (laboriously) create 7 layers to cover all the combinations... And that's with only three restrictions.

[hwfanatic]

Mod to designate specific people to specific tasks at benches: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=27716.0
Mod to designate an area that will be avoided when choosing a path: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=29194.0
Mod to remove the limit of number of zones per type (area unlocker): https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=16120.0



All this being said, I think you are trying to solve a problem using the wrong tool (creating zones rather than adjusting your work priorities). Most of the problems in this game can be solved by adjusting the work tab more carefully.

[FreyaMaluk]

All this being said, I think you are trying to solve a problem using the wrong tool (creating zones rather than adjusting your work priorities). Most of the problems in this game can be solved by adjusting the work tab more carefully.

Agreed... BUT there are certain kind of jobs that cannot be assign via "normal" work tab (construction mixed with wall building, carpentry, and repairing; doctoring mixed with caring, etc). But Fluffy's "Work Tab" a la Dwarf Fortress solves most of these problems problem . I love that mod, I can't go back.

[Rock5]

I really wish we amalgamate allowed areas and also exclude areas.

I envision it working like this.
1. You select your colonist.
2. Click allowed area tab that will list all the current areas. Each area can be marked 1 of 3 ways. Unmarked, allowed or not allowed.
3. Mark the areas as allowed or not allowed as needed.

There are situations where the current areas feature just doesn't work or works very badly. Something like this would make it so much more usable.

[Vlad0mi3r]

One method I use is task management/priority and skill level.

Most benches have a skill level slider so if you want Emmy working on the wort issue then set the slider for the stove in the kitchen above her level of cooking. If restricted to no other tasks at priority 1 besides cooking Emmy will not work at the stove but go and make wort. Its the only option available. Less micro once setup. Yes eventually Emmy will get up those levels but that is when the player management comes into it.

Now if we only had a level slider for the electric smelter I would be happy. There must be something about working at that station always finding my high level crafters melting metal from slag while my level 2 crafters wander around with nothing to do.

[Rock5]

I have no issue (or very little issue) with making sure the right colonist does the job. I use a mod that allows me to specify who is allowed to do the job. Or I just use the skill levels to limit the easy jobs to the low skill crafters and high skill jobs to my high level crafters.

Let me explain my problem better.

When I have people with Chemical Fascination trait I set up a dedicated drug lab where I lock someone in to make the drugs. The drug lab consists of a freezer, a bedroom and a small workroom, and an interconnection hall. I found that the most efficient setup is to have a high priority stack of resources near the work bench, limit the range of the bill to minimum so it doesn't reach the freezer and make sure the worker has crafting as a higher priority than hauling. With this setup he will haul a full stack of resources to the workbench, work until there are no more resources near the workbench then haul another full load from the freezer.

This doesn't work outside of the locked drug lab because haulers will waste time keeping the high priority stack topped up.

The only way I can get it to work is to create an area that excludes the stack near the bench and assign all other colonists to it. That way only the drug crafter can top up the stack. The problem is when you try to apply this to other benches. Lets say you wanted to do the same with the tailoring bench. You would have to have a drug maker area that excludes the tailor area, a tailor area that excludes the drug maker area and a general area for everyone else that excludes the drug area and the tailor area. If you want to do the same with the Machining bench you would have to make a Machining area for your machinist that excludes the drug and tailor areas, and exclude the machinist area from the general, drug and tailor areas.

As you can see every time you want to apply this efficient strategy to another workbench it gets more and more complicated to maintain.

[Spiral Cut]

What I do is that I split storage in two, one small near the work station, the other as big as I need. When the smaller one is low on ressources, I put it at an higter priority than the bigger one. Once my people are done filling it I put them both back at the same priority.
This way I get good travel time efficiency on craft without my colonist constantly refilling stations.

[Rock5]

What I do is that I split storage in two, one small near the work station, the other as big as I need. When the smaller one is low on ressources, I put it at an higter priority than the bigger one. Once my people are done filling it I put them both back at the same priority.
This way I get good travel time efficiency on craft without my colonist constantly refilling stations.

That requires micromanagement though. You have to keep an eye on it and switch it back and forth as needed. My way is hands-off. The crafter hauls a full stack of resources only after all the resources near the bench are used up.