Benefits of restrictions, work day length, joy vs anything?

nuschler22 · March 23, 2016, 06:51:15 PM

Right now, the only thing I schedule is sleep for my colonists. I have a few questions for anyone that might know the answer.

1) What are the best times for everything? For example, I have eight hours scheduled for sleep, but is more or less better?

2) How long should work be scheduled for, and do I need to schedule joy, or will they do their joy filled activities during the "anything."

3) Does someone have an ideal schedule that works?

Thanks for any help.

Coenmcj · March 23, 2016, 06:59:58 PM

1) I haven't tried personally, I keep around 8 cause that's what us humans are supposed to have

2) During Anything, they'll do anything, this includes sleep and work, so they may not do their joy activities.

3) Personally, I have 8 hours of sleep, with a single block of anything either side, and 2 blocks of joy just before the "end of their shift" anything block. The rest of the day is work and it works pretty well for me, joy amounts get altered if the colonist is special needs, due to mood issues.
The anythings are for incase they need to finish work, or get some sleep, or eat. etc.

Limdood · March 23, 2016, 07:34:40 PM

People CAN do joy during anything time, but they'll only do it to fix a joy shortage. Which means MOST of the time, you have joy neutral, or a joy debuff. Scheduling a 2 hour chunk of joy time for each colonist on the beginning or end of sleep time will generally keep "joy deprived" from happening. Scheduling 2 2hr joy sessions each day, will generally keep people with a constant joy mood buff.

Pawns will treat joy time as anything time if they're capped on joy (same thing with sleep actually)

Lastly, you can make use of work time to keep colonists from "giving up" a partially finished job...usefull for long hauls or the first day of the colony (to finish the bedrooms or heater in an ice sheet).

nuschler22 · March 23, 2016, 07:45:21 PM

Thank you both. I'll give all that a try.

SwiftShadow · March 23, 2016, 08:11:14 PM

I tryed a lot of different options but i found it is best to leave it 8 hours of sleep and rest anything.

If you force work and joy then more often then not my guys will get joy starved. Because i sometimes take more direct control of my colonists, "go to the comm", "go heal him NOW", drafting, "build this NOW".

Sometimes i even do it when their scheduled to sleep or when it would be their joy time, and after that if their schedule says work they will go back to work even though i used up their sleep or joy time, which makes problems. If i keep it on anything they will do as their needs require and go sleep or do joy things after i release them from whatever i need done NOW.

SwiftShadow · March 23, 2016, 08:13:32 PM

Quote from: Limdood on March 23, 2016, 07:34:40 PM
People CAN do joy during anything time, but they'll only do it to fix a joy shortage. Which means MOST of the time, you have joy neutral, or a joy debuff. Scheduling a 2 hour chunk of joy time for each colonist on the beginning or end of sleep time will generally keep "joy deprived" from happening. Scheduling 2 2hr joy sessions each day, will generally keep people with a constant joy mood buff.

Pawns will treat joy time as anything time if they're capped on joy (same thing with sleep actually)

Lastly, you can make use of work time to keep colonists from "giving up" a partially finished job...usefull for long hauls or the first day of the colony (to finish the bedrooms or heater in an ice sheet).

Sometimes they get their joy to positive with anything, but even if they dont spending their time on forced joy is to much of a time waste, i would rather have them dirnk a beer or 2 and back to work. Time is money applies very much in this game.

Shurp · March 23, 2016, 09:12:43 PM

I have gotten pretty good results just setting them to 24 hours of "anything". They sleep when they're tired, play horseshoes when their mood gets too low, and work otherwise. Although they do seem to let their mood get a little too low too often -- but as long as my beer stockpile is large enough it's not a serious problem.

Don't forget: beer -- essential medication for every infected colonist!

Pickle · March 24, 2016, 10:29:25 AM

I give 8 hours of sleep, 5 hours of work and 2 hours of joy to all my colonists, with the night owl working at night and the abrasive working when others have joy. I think it helps them to speak together a bit more.

I can have some colonists exhausted or joy-deprived when they are working far from the base but they have enough free time to change it alone. If they really don't because they are obsessed by the meals some nice raiders left for them or so, I keep them in the home area till the next day.

humblebundle · March 24, 2016, 02:23:37 PM

Oh wow, i don't know you can edit the time they are allowed to spend!

Coenmcj · March 24, 2016, 07:24:46 PM

Quote from: humblebundle on March 24, 2016, 02:23:37 PM
Oh wow, i don't know you can edit the time they are allowed to spend!

mumblemumble · March 25, 2016, 02:35:07 AM

Keeping in mind placement is a huge thing. For instance , having joy activities in the center of the base and joy set as right before and after sleep pretty much guarantees a time for joy when waking, and even if the person is on the other end of the map, the time before bed joy acts to bring people home before bed, so sleep isn't lost walking around, since assigning a person to sleep at 6 doesn't mean they are in bed by 6, just that they start HEADING to bed at 6, so if it takes them 2 hours to get back, that is 2 hours of sleep lost. This is particularly bad if someone has mobility issues, i had one guy with bad issues constantly bringing a gun out and shooting because it took him forever to sleep /eat, so he was stressed. Eventually put him down.

As for structure, having multiple shifts is good , but overlapping joy time is great for socializing bonuses. Unless someone is abrasive.

Klitri · March 31, 2016, 12:17:51 PM

Playing prisoner architect may increase the knowledge you'll get on this kind of system.

The best setup I've found is 9-5 workdays. Schedule joy after 5 and anything before 9, that way they can start early but have to stop and do joy after work. You can also add an "anything" after 5 for an hour to work as an "overtime" mechanic.

Limdood · March 31, 2016, 12:57:08 PM

I don't use beer...so my above comments are keeping that in mind.

To the person saying time is money - i also say efficiency plays into that...travelling and drinking a beer for an hour (because travel and sitting time should still easily take up that amount of time) PLUS the lowered consciousness and slower everything for a little while seems a poor tradeoff for even, say, 3 hours forced joy time.

humblebundle · March 31, 2016, 02:04:47 PM

Quote from: Klitri on March 31, 2016, 12:17:51 PM
Playing prisoner architect may increase the knowledge you'll get on this kind of system.

The best setup I've found is 9-5 workdays. Schedule joy after 5 and anything before 9, that way they can start early but have to stop and do joy after work. You can also add an "anything" after 5 for an hour to work as an "overtime" mechanic.

Hmm, i never have to edit the time, because everyone of my colonists got a BTL-Chip

Quote from: Coenmcj on March 24, 2016, 07:24:46 PM

endders2 · March 31, 2016, 10:57:31 PM

I actually have a night and day shift for keeping things basically going all around so I use the system to make a pawn sleep during the day, and work during the night. It also helps with defense since you can have people who are already accustomed to this at ready during a night raid and hopefully fend them off until your day workers are awake, or rally the day workers if things get hairy. It keeps people happy at least for me.