Colonists leave items unfinished but start new ones?

[Draconicrose]

Hello! I'm sure this is intended and not actually a bug but colonists will leave items unfinished and start new ones. Is there any mod that forces them to finish an unfinished item before they start on a new bill? I'm kinda sick of having 4-8 unfinished items all started by the same person.

[Wex]

Yes, it happens when tailoring, smithing and crafting have the same priority for a pawn.
Have them specialize.
One is a tailor, one a smith one a stone cutter.
No more unfinished stuff.

[ArguedPiano]

I find this happens with me when I set up the "Do until you have X items" bill. What will happen is they start to build say a parka, then a raid comes by and within the spoils I haul back 3 parkas. Suddenly there are more Parkas in my stockpiles then the X items I have it set to so they abandon it until I sell some off.

Usually to fix this I set up a "do once" bill just so they finish it.

[Draconicrose]

The pawn was just a tailor but I was in fact using the 'do until' bills. However, there was no more apparel in my stockrooms, just the bunch of unfinished items.

[SpaceDorf]

Did you change the order of the bills in between ?

It can happen that a pawn starts a new job when it has higher priority then the allready started one.
Otherwise I only know the problem when different pawns work the same workbench and each start their own job.

[CannibarRechter]

I feel like this system could be improved with allowing one pawn to finish another pawn's work. As it is, I end up with increasing amounts of clutter, some of which never really goes away for whatever reason.

[SpaceDorf]

It feels a bit wrong to me, but I can't really argue against your Idea

[Wex]

No, no, no.
You don't want your 6 tailor, to finish the coat of your 16 tailor.
That's a major no.

[Shabazza]

I find this happens with me when I set up the "Do until you have X items" bill. What will happen is they start to build say a parka, then a raid comes by and within the spoils I haul back 3 parkas. Suddenly there are more Parkas in my stockpiles then the X items I have it set to so they abandon it until I sell some off.

To solve something like this, I guess you can reduce the radius in the "Details" menu of the bill, to for example not cover the general stock area, but only a stock area in the room where the crafting happens. So events like this will not affect the bills completion Didn't test it. But I guess this is one thing the radius option is for. (another is for supply with raw materials for completing the job)
If the radius setting is only used for the latter, it would be something that should be improved.

[SpaceDorf]

No, no, no.
You don't want your 6 tailor, to finish the coat of your 16 tailor.
That's a major no.

He can't. The skill requirements from the Bill will stop him

[CannibarRechter]

> He can't. The skill requirements from the Bill will stop him

Indeed. It should be fulfillable by any pawn that has the minimum required skill.

[Mikhail Reign]

Sadly it counts all apparel on the map in the 'Do until X' count (I think - this may have been addresses recently). The way I have found to get this working is to make sure that whatever appeal I'm making I have a Stockpile able to hold it with a high priority near the bench so I can monitor if and new version arrive, and to also have a similar setup next to a crem to burn any low quality/damaged versions. The idea is to make sure that the production que is clear.

Another thing that causes this is a colonist dropping a, for example, a parka to change it for something else and then another colonist coming along and hauling/wearing the parka, removing all evidence. When the colonist drops it, once it's on the ground its included in the count and the tailor stops and moves onto the next job. The second colonist hauls/wears the item removing it from the count, so when the tailor stops they return to the orginal job, leaving the second unfinished with no request for it. Items being hauled aren't included in the 'Do until X' count.

So if I have parkas as 'Do Until 3' I have a x3 space stockpile for parkas as high priority (with quality set as whatever my standard for my colonist at the time is - or higher and damage to 50% or greater) in my storeroom. Then I place a stockpile near a crematorium to high priority to accept parkas of lower quality then my standard (with any damage) AND a stockpile to accept parkas of my standard or higher with damage 50% or lower. Then I tell my crem to burn any apparel (for safety I normally fine tune it but it's not needed) withing a radius that includes only the garbage stockpiles so that ANY parka that's not the 3 that I'm keeping gets burnt. This also means that sub bar tailor products gets promptly incinerated meaning that they stay busy and gaining XP.

Another 'failsafe' that I use is to make unused floor of work areas stockpiles that accept nothing with critical priory, and then hide them. This means that I KNOW that dropped items are being counted, but that won't stay their since it isn't their stockpile.

[SpaceDorf]

Sadly it counts all apparel on the map in the 'Do until X' count (I think - this may have been addresses recently). The way I have found to get this working is to make sure that whatever appeal I'm making I have a Stockpile able to hold it with a high priority near the bench so I can monitor if and new version arrive, and to also have a similar setup next to a crem to burn any low quality/damaged versions. The idea is to make sure that the production que is clear.

Another thing that causes this is a colonist dropping a, for example, a parka to change it for something else and then another colonist coming along and hauling/wearing the parka, removing all evidence. When the colonist drops it, once it's on the ground its included in the count and the tailor stops and moves onto the next job. The second colonist hauls/wears the item removing it from the count, so when the tailor stops they return to the orginal job, leaving the second unfinished with no request for it. Items being hauled aren't included in the 'Do until X' count.

So if I have parkas as 'Do Until 3' I have a x3 space stockpile for parkas as high priority (with quality set as whatever my standard for my colonist at the time is - or higher and damage to 50% or greater) in my storeroom. Then I place a stockpile near a crematorium to high priority to accept parkas of lower quality then my standard (with any damage) AND a stockpile to accept parkas of my standard or higher with damage 50% or lower. Then I tell my crem to burn any apparel (for safety I normally fine tune it but it's not needed) withing a radius that includes only the garbage stockpiles so that ANY parka that's not the 3 that I'm keeping gets burnt. This also means that sub bar tailor products gets promptly incinerated meaning that they stay busy and gaining XP.

Another 'failsafe' that I use is to make unused floor of work areas stockpiles that accept nothing with critical priory, and then hide them. This means that I KNOW that dropped items are being counted, but that won't stay their since it isn't their stockpile.

It is easier to set the bill to drop-item on the ground and put an empty ( everything disabled ) stockpile around the workshop .. this way the item gets accounted as soon as its finished, and then hauled away.

[cultist]

This usually happens because you have more pawns assigned to a job than you have workbenches. If two colonists are tailors but you only have one tailoring bench, they will both craft the item because they both see an unfinished job (until one finishes).

The best solution is to assign only one tailor, smith etc. at a time. You can also set skill limits for each job.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

> He can't. The skill requirements from the Bill will stop him

Indeed. It should be fulfillable by any pawn that has the minimum required skill.

That would be fine, if that item quality was only determined by whatever was set as the minimum skill for that bill. So if you set the minimum level at 10, then any item made by that bill would be as if a level 10 crafter had made it.

Honestly, that sounds messy. Messy, but fair. I actually prefer letting whoever started something (with quality factor) be the only person to finish it. I typically only have one smith and one tailor these days, so don't ever see that anymore.