Merging Construction and Repair work types - should I do it?

[M]

Great poll, for me is no, since micromanaging stuff is a core part (in my opinion) of advanced colonies.
Tynan response is great

[keylocke]

i like shinzy's idea of adding subcategories for work, where players can further customize the AI :

ie :

construction -> repair
doctoring -> patient
growing -> plant cutting
cooking -> butchering
crafting -> smithing, stonecutting, sewing, cremate, machining, smelting
etc..

or better yet, just create something similar to gnomoria's job assignment menu.
so much more easier to fully customize colonist AI.

[DarknessEyes]

I voted no.

I always prioritize repairs in all units to dont lose scructures and construction is only prioritized by units with "construction" skill.

[Andy_Dandy]

I voted no.

I always prioritize repairs in all units to dont lose scructures and construction is only prioritized by units with "construction" skill.

Oh yes. Doing stuff like that are meaningfull strategical ahoices in the game. I was with you voting no, even though I understand Tynan wanted to make room for other new work orders. Anyways, I don't mind more detailed models at all.

[Eleazar]

I voted "yes".

With the understanding that prioritizing work via the contextual menu will eventually be smarter.  I.E. not just do one phase of work on one cell than then leave.

[Kegereneku]

What you mean is making the "colonist AI" smarter rather than needing us to micromanage, right ?

I would get behind that too, we aren't supposed to micro-manage, only macro-manage.
But the less lever you give the player to "correct" thing, the more likely I see a AI behave unexpectedly requiring direct order -> micro-management.
Whereas enough sub-task allow to avoid those on the long therm.

Rewording the overview (maybe to match 'Menial/intellectual/violent work' ?) seem to be necessary, but if made correctly a great number of task wouldn't pose problem as they aren't meant to be changed often (I never utilized manual priority setting).

[Cazakatari]

And/or hiding work types that aren't 'discovered' yet. E.g. no need to show Smithing if you have no smithing equipment.

Does this mean an expansion of pre-gunpowder equipment?  Craftable steel armor etc 
It's only suitable I can turn my medieval noble into a King with medieval knights

[SSS]

And/or hiding work types that aren't 'discovered' yet. E.g. no need to show Smithing if you have no smithing equipment.

Does this mean an expansion of pre-gunpowder equipment?  Craftable steel armor etc 
It's only suitable I can turn my medieval noble into a King with medieval knights

[im g]https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQV8mh_0EtK5qOxOOr_JbtfSGMt5_AG9WwRg85iX9Bet1DeVy21[/img]

The smithing table is used to craft melee weapons and one ranged weapon (pila).

[deslona]

Quick thing to add if options will be added or hidden by whether a player has a 'smithing table (example) or not.
I have one smithing (whatever) table and it gets destroyed/deconstructed somehow. Will that reset the priorities? Will they become open by research?

Just food for thought.

[Shinzy]

Quick thing to add if options will be added or hidden by whether a player has a 'smithing table (example) or not.
I have one smithing (whatever) table and it gets destroyed/deconstructed somehow. Will that reset the priorities? Will they become open by research?

Just food for thought.

Think they're just hidden, like the dragon in that movie
or like the cat in the box quantum mechanics
it's both there and isn't dead and alive
like a falling tree in a forest where there's no-one listening
your priorities will both be and not, reset and set
*mindblow*

[_alphaBeta_]

Absolutely not is my position. If I had my way, the priorities screen would have double the amount of items on it than it does now allowing total customization. I'd prefer development time be spent on scaling this screen so it can accommodate more entries. Comments were also made along the lines of allowing more customization if a player wants to. Options in simulation games are the key, and the ideal solution here would still allow for very granular control, but still be functional for those that don't want to dive so deep.

With respect to this particular issue, I always have the construction and repairing at different manual priorities based on the situation and skill levels etc. Repairing costs no resources, so in many cases I prioritize repairing higher for almost all colonists to protect my investment.

I think the necessity of lots of options on the priority screen could be alleviated somewhat if the player had more control over the order in which some of the tasks are carried out. Currently the only way to override the order is to manually assign colonists via right-clicking. This is fine for a job or two, but if I want to repair an entire wall, and fast, I'd have to keep my colonists from wandering off and building some unimportant structure on the other side of the base. Two ways to address this, which doesn't only apply to construction / repairing:

• There should be a way to forbid a construction or repair job. While not as elegant as the current system we have that has granularity between the two tasks, it would at least help the player have some control.
• There should be a drag-able box that prioritizes anything that it touches with respect to the kind of job it is. I think this option should be there regardless of this debate. If we had this functionality, I'd more amenable with combining the jobs on the priority list so long as I could flag that crucial wall for repair first. Same could be said of a crucial construction job. More details in the quote below (taken somewhat out of context). I will say, however, that the quote at the bottom of my posts is really the issue - more options up front actually reduce micromanagement down the road. If I spell out my intent, I don't need to be dragging boxes around objects at all.

I'll suggest an idea from another indie game called Banished where the player has the ability to drag out a selection box that bumps everything that selection box touches to the top of the queue (actually it bumps it up one step every time you drag, but I wish it just went to the top of the queue).

-snip-

It's quite the opposite - more sophisticated automation lets you to do away with micromanaging.

I think Crafting category could be split into more stuff. Things currently falling into crafting:
- smithing
- tailoring
- stonecutting
- smelting
- machining

Smithing and tailoring is creating new items for colonists to use. Stonecutting is making construction materials, just like smelting and machining. How about this split:
Crafting: smithing+tailoring
Processing/Recycling: stonecutting+smelting+machining

There are other similarities.
Smithing and tailoring benefit from skill level, and train Crafting skill. They often make things for sale. Smithing and tailoring is mostly sitting at the table and using tools.
Stonecutting, smelting, machining don't increase Crafting skill (in alpha9), and I think they don't benefit from it. These actions tend to involve a lot of fetching materials and hauling produce to a stockpile.

I actually strongly support this point. It has been really bothering me that my craftspeople need to be micromanaged so that my massively skilled clothes-maker isn't sitting around smelting slag while some derp with 2 crafting on priority 4 is wasting my devilstrand on shoddy gear. A separation of these activities into distinct categories (or at very least a skill lock) would make crafting a much less frustrating microfest in the long term.

I agree with everything in these posts. Keeping my more advanced crafters away from the skill-less labor is a major annoyance to me. The "You can now set a minimum skill level on bills" (from the changelog) doesn't correct this issue, and setting a maximum level may lead to jobs not being done at all if the player isn't careful as the colonists become better at their jobs.

[milon]

Based on this I think I have to leave more work types separate and instead work on improving the overview interface to allow collapsing and expanding groups of work types (collapsed groups being manipulable as one).

And/or hiding work types that aren't 'discovered' yet. E.g. no need to show Smithing if you have no smithing equipment.

YES!!!

[nottma]

I voted "yes" and also agree with the sub-category idea. 

My only issue with repair(and construction) is it is too simplistic.  I would prefer having different qualities of construction. Be it weaker walls to well-built solar panels that end up working better.  As things ages you can select things for constructors to "improve","repair",and/or "tinker" with.  Depending their skills things happen. 

[PetWolverine]

I'm fairly new to the game and created a forum account in order to vote "No". Like others have mentioned, I like to prioritize Repair before Construction because it's free and frequently urgent.

I like the subcategory idea. I think as the number of job types grows, we'll also need more than four levels of priority (five if you count "disabled"). Arbitrary priorities ("type a number, any number") would obviously give the most flexibility.

I also think the job priorities overview screen is trying to show two somewhat different things:

(a) Which colonist is most likely to perform a job. Read down a column for this one. Subcategories and more prioritization levels make this easier to read and control. Sorting would also help.

(b) Which job a colonist is most likely to perform. Read across a row for this one. Subcategories and more prioritization levels, especially taken together, could make this vastly more difficult to read, even while providing more fine-grained control.

It would help to have a screen that would list an individual colonist's enabled jobs in order of priority, and preferably allow dragging instead of using numeric priority levels to rearrange them. It would be accessible either by clicking on a colonist's name in the overview screen or by selecting the colonist and clicking their "info" button (or something like that). This would reduce dependence on the numeric priority levels, and the overview screen would then be, as its name suggests, more of a global view and not the only or even necessarily the main way of setting job preferences.

Another idea that would reduce the use of priority levels is to allow the default ordering to be altered, say, by dragging and dropping the column headers in the overview. That way, I could set Repair to be globally higher priority than Construction and use the individual priority levels to reverse the order for maybe one colonist.

Either of those suggestions could make things crazy when subcategories are added, unless we're not allowed to interleave categories in a colonist's priority order, for example Repair > Butcher > Harvest > Cook > Build. Setting the priorities with numbers, while hard to read, offers greater flexibility on this point; visually, the jobs could always be grouped by category, while the numbers could cause their priority order to be interleaved.

A compromise would be to allow interleaving for individual colonists but not for the global default order. Then the colonist's jobs screen would show them ungrouped by category, or at least allow a specific job type to be moved out of its group, while the overview screen would always group the categories together, and show individual priorities numerically.