[0.11.834] Colonists can path outside of allowed areas

[Jorlem]

In the colony screenshot below, I've set up an allowed area for use during warg attacks and raids.  However, during a warg attack, I noticed that my colonists kept trying to path through the inside of the L-bend hallway that leads from one of my mined out areas to another (where my fields are), as that was presumably the shortest path, even after drafting and undrafting them to force them to recalculate their path.  Fortunately, the wargs were on the other side of the hallway and couldn't get to them before they got back inside, but I'm fairly certain this is not WaI.  In the screenshot below, I recreated this by setting one of my colonists to be restricted to the allowed only zone, then prioritizing a job in the other mined out zone.  As you can see, the path took him outside the allowed area.

[TLHeart]

yes colonist can path outside of assigned zone. that way your zones do not have to be connected. They can not perform any kind of activity outside of the zone though, except to walk to their destination.  It is by design that way.

in your screen shot you would need to forbid your doors to force them to stay inside the walls.

[Jimyoda]

Well then! That is NOT how I thought restriction zones would work. I expected they would avoid leaving their zone. So despite a restriction zone you *still* have to micro your colonists making sure to not miss even one wanderer, when danger is about. Bummer.

[TLHeart]

when wandering, nothing else to do, they can NOT leave the zone. When doing a task, they may path outside the zone, and then back into the zone to complete the task. Allows broken up zones, which are very handy during the toxic fallout event.

zones are not to protect your colonist from every danger.

[ciditi]

I get the idea that zones are really to make sure that colonists do not perform work actions outside of their permitted zones, but can path outside of zones in order to get to a different zone when the zones are broken up.  Especially useful during toxic fallout events, cold snaps, etc.  I think that it's arguably the expected behavior that colonist pathing should prefer a route that stays within an allowed zone if it is unobstructed.

[RickyMartini]

Hmm well that wasn't how I understood it.

If you have an area that has clearly no path in between. For example the same area which is interrupted in between. Then the colonists are pretty much forced to go out of the area because the area leaves no possible path to go without stepping outside of the area.

In this example, the colonist is definitely not forced to leave the area.
The zone is complete and continuous and shouldn't generate a problem like this imo.

[TLHeart]

it would be nice if tynan would clarify, as zones have worked as I described them during all the testing... zones do not affect pathing, only activities.

[slamo]

This really didn't behave as expect for me. When I think of a restricted zone I think of all access as limited, including movement, not just work tasks.

If colonists can path outside of a zone it makes the zone pretty useless. Colonists will still wander outside or through killboxes during a firefight even one there's only one continuous zone. It doesn't stop colonists from wandering through a warg wave or firefight in a kill box.

It would make more sense to have zones restrict pathing as well. If a player needs to connect two zones they could manually draw an approved zone path between them, so they still have the option of two boxes connected by a path. This would be more in line of what a "restricted zone" meant to most players.

[TLHeart]

well here is what the change log says about it,

Colonists respect assigned allowed areas for most situations.

    Colonists respect allowed areas in all work and joy situations including skygazing and walks.
    Colonists specifically go to allowed areas if they are outside them.

No where does it say they will not path outside the allowed zone. They must be able to path outside the zone to be able to reach the zone, and to move between broken up zones.

[akiceabear]

In the A11 overview video Tynan says that the will cross unallowed areas to enter allowed areas - e.g. if you have two islands of "Allowed" they will move between them.

[slamo]

Even if you have one allowed area, units will still cross a disallowed area if it's the shortest path to a new destination in the same allowed area. In other words if the allowed area is shaped like a "L" units will happily move diagonally from one tip to the other rather than follow the shape of the "L."

When I set the restricted area I expected units to be restricted to that area, not restricted unless they found a shortcut. I was quite surprised to see units exit the restrict area and enter a pack of wargs.

[RickyMartini]

In the A11 overview video Tynan says that the will cross unallowed areas to enter allowed areas - e.g. if you have two islands of "Allowed" they will move between them.

Yep that is also what I understood. If there are two islands of the same area, obviously your colonists HAVE to step outside of it to reach the other place... But In a situation like OP explained, it's just really unnecessary.

Might even be that the job pathfinding is bugged, but the rest isn't? Maybe he goes outside when searching an item to haul, but doesn't go outside when hauling it back? That would indicate a bug,

[Tynan]

Fixed now. They can still path outside allowed areas, but they'll try hard not to.