Micromanagement in 14.1241 and other random thoughts

[Darth Fool]

Here is a brief summary of items that I find myself having to micromanage that I would prefer not to:

Colonists working while standing in an open door in the middle of winter.

Colonists seeking warm temperatures do not wait until they are no longer shivering to go back to work.  Thus, as soon as their hypothermia is no longer serious, they run outside and two seconds later have a hypothermia warning again, which they pay no attention to until they finish their next task.

In harsh environments one generally needs to hunt immediately at the beginning of the game, as larger prey will often leave very soon and it is rare for them to come back.

Opportunistic Hauling.

After combat in freezing environments where corpses won't decay having colonists hauling high valued weapons before corpses.

Post Victory Insanity Spiral.  It would be nice if there was a boost to moral for repulsing invaders, but instead one ends up with half your colonists being depressed about witnessing the death of the people that just attacked them.  All while dealing with seeing corpses lying around.  Victory should feel good.  Even if just for a short while.

Deconstructing items before constructing new items.  It would be nice if this was reversed.  Or if they were separate prioritizable tasks.

Preventing several haulers from all running to pick up three different piles near each other of something that can be carried by one.  Especially at the start of the game.

Beginning of game unforbidding of resources.  Hunting through the whole map to make sure that I have unforbidden all of the survival packages and steel is quite cumbersome.

Hunting with the survival rifle when animal is moving to edge of map and the hunter keeps running forward, stopping to shoot, and having the animal run out of range.

Controlling what food gets fed to prisoners.

In low food situations colonists choosing to eat raw corpses as opposed to butchering and cooking them.  Especially irritating when the perpetrator is the colony chef who after eating the corpse starts butchering and cooking meals for others, but then goes insane in part because he ate a raw corpse.

Dazed discarding of gear that then must be unforbidden.  Dazed discards should be unforbidden by default.

Other random suggestions:

It would be "nice" if there was a psycho hard break mode where the colonist destroys stuff instead of attacking people. 

Similar, it would be interesting if there was a berserk mode where the perpetrator would actually fire ranged weapons.

It would also be nice if mood boni and bogi gradually ended instead of suddenly ending.  If someone is sad because of the death of their pet, it usually doesn't just end, it gradually diminishes.  The mechanism could be similar to the health mechanism but for mental health.  Thus, annoyances would slowly go away (unless the irritant is still present).  It might be possible to even have a social interaction that would sooth peoples mental mood debuffs.  Thus a skilled social worker could help mend mental health the way a surgeon bandages wounds thus speeding up the recovery process.  Some  mood problems might even require counseling the way frostbite requires treatment.

[Pax_Empyrean]

People going crazy in the aftermath of a huge victory makes no sense. I can see people having negative reactions to killing innocents, or losing their friends in combat, but gunning down raiders should not give a penalty unless you leave the bodies to rot in plain sight.

I love the idea of a counselor/therapist task to deal with people who are having mental problems. Putting it under the Social skill would fit well.

[Scaphismus]

People going crazy in the aftermath of a huge victory makes no sense. I can see people having negative reactions to killing innocents, or losing their friends in combat, but gunning down raiders should not give a penalty unless you leave the bodies to rot in plain sight.

I love the idea of a counselor/therapist task to deal with people who are having mental problems. Putting it under the Social skill would fit well.

To be fair, most of the times that I've seen people go crazy after a battle, it was because some of the raiders that just got killed were their friends.

But I totally agree that your colonists should get a good-sized mood buff for surviving a raid--enough to offset most of the negatives from people they know dying. However, I think that the debuffs should last longer than the buff; as the rush of victory wears off, the harsh reality starts to take over.

I also think that certain debuffs should be able to overwhelm the victory buff. For instance, if a raid contains a colonist's wife and son, and both are killed in the battle (perhaps even by his own hand), I can see that colonist going mad with grief, despite repelling the raiders.

[ToXeye]

Among these micromanagement issues, there's something which recurs for me - reserving something which is supposed to be shared with the character.

Just now I tried to make a colonist join the horseshoe playing with one of the other colonists. It said that the horseshoes were occupied by the other colonist.

*addition* and sharing beds is the same.

*addition* there is no force joy activity in the game... oh well

[ToXeye]

The big problem I have is that people colonists often get uncurable infections. There is no way of choosing which disease is being treated. There could be a much more interesting micromanagement in the game if you'd be able to restrict which health issues get what treatment, or if there is just a way to not waste good medicine on meaningless things like scratches. Different kinds of medicine would make the game more cluttery, so it's better to consider things like using cloth for making bandages, or just disallowing using medicine on things like scratches or bruises.

[SpaceDorf]

Beginning of game unforbidding of resources.  Hunting through the whole map to make sure that I have unforbidden all of the survival packages and steel is quite cumbersome.

This is easy fixed when you hit pause before your guys land, you then can mass select the whole map.
The you only have to unforbid the stuff that lands with your guys.

Does not work with tribals

Mass selection priorities are  Pawns -> Stuff -> Animals

[b0rsuk]

Colonists dropping items in doorways forcing them open.

Animals not smart enough to use sleeping spots in safe temperature. If you make a sleeping spot outside in ice sheet, your yorkie may go there instead of your polar bears. Then the yorkie won't wake up and run away, you will get a warning when he's already missing two paws. Animals should even ignore sleeping spots if they're in unsafe areas, and sleep on floor.

Three people walk across the map to haul 25 agave each (drop pods).

When people go to build, they prioritize constructions with delivered materials instead of blueprints. This makes building walls very tedious. First a colonist will go and haul materials for several wall sections. Then he will go to have some fun, eat or sleep. Then next time he will try to resume building, but he won't haul more materials to the construction site. Unless I micromanage him, he will make more trips.

Manually drafting a doctor in hospital, waiting until the blood or dirt becomes cleanable, and making him resume healing. RAAAH, RAAAH, RRRAAH!!!

When I deconstruct a wall to replace it with a better wall (for example steel becomes stone wall) that will leave a line of leftover steel. Then the colonist will

1. Find a construction segment with steel on it
2. Haul the steel away
3. Haul resources to the wall section and start constructing it
4. Go to 1

So if your wall is 10 tiles long and no one comes to help and haul the steel away, the loop will iterate 10 times! Instead, he should haul all steel from close constructions to the side, then build.

Colonists should get a positive mood from recuperating from an ilness or when a long bad event ends (toxic fallout, volcanic winter, manhunter pack leaves, eclipse... or even plain winter ends!).

[winddbourne]

To be fair, most of the times that I've seen people go crazy after a battle, it was because some of the raiders that just got killed were their friends.

I think something as to be done about this too. I don't care what faction I've joined if we are going off to raid some random village and I see my WIFE there, or my SON . . . I'm not going to just gun them down. I may actually gun down my friends if they try to touch either of them. Loyalty to my family is going to out weigh any loyalty I've gained to the people who took me in.

Sure, if possible, I'm going to transform this "raid" into a friendly meeting. Perhaps I'm going to try to take my wife/son home with me; or maybe i'll stay with them. I'm certainly not going to just say "Hmmm . . . there is my WIFE . . . think I'll just shoot her."

Of course if it was an ex girlfriend or someone I hold a grudge against I'd react entirely differently. Shooting your ex-wife might even give you a nice boost to morale so long as your son isn't there too. lol

If it's just a buddy you might want to roll the dice for. Some of my best friends . . . they might as well be family.

[Darth Fool]

Beginning of game unforbidding of resources.  Hunting through the whole map to make sure that I have unforbidden all of the survival packages and steel is quite cumbersome.

This is easy fixed when you hit pause before your guys land, you then can mass select the whole map.
The you only have to unforbid the stuff that lands with your guys.

Does not work with tribals

Mass selection priorities are  Pawns -> Stuff -> Animals

Does not work on larger maps where you have to scroll around to see all the map...

[cultist]

Of course if it was an ex girlfriend or someone I hold a grudge against I'd react entirely differently. Shooting your ex-wife might even give you a nice boost to morale so long as your son isn't there too. lol

This is actually in the game. If we take the example above, the ex-husband will get a small mood bonus (works with unrelated pawns they heavily dislike too) and the son would get a large negative modifier. Not sure if the husband dealing the killing blow will have any mood effect apart from the usual one ("I killed someone" thought).