"Work zones"

[caba111]

A (relatively simple) approach to keep your colonists inside during a siege.

It would be nice to be able to be able to assign colonists to a area, and have them ONLY do tasks within that space.
The area could be drawn out with the zone tool.

One could set the zone's number with the little menu that decides what goes into a stockpile.

In the overview menu, next to a colonist's name, there'd be a little box to input a number.
Colonists would only do tasks in zones of their number.
Be default, all colonists are assigned to "zero" or "no zone,"

I think this would be an elegant solution to a simple problem, keeping with the style and feel of the game.
This would also allow one to create functional, individual bases much more easily, among many other things.

I don't know if this has been brought up before, but I think it would be a great idea!

*edit1 It would make a lot of sense to have an add all option to use as an emergency evacuation notice.

[caba111]

Reserved

[TimMartland]

+1, could be integrated into the home zone system

[caba111]

+1, could be integrated into the home zone system

Yeah, that's probably the best way to do it.

[Armorat]

Seen it suggested before that there be a toggle to have your colonists only work in the home zone. Seems like that would achieve the same goal of keeping your people in-base, but require a lot less micro-management than work zones everywhere. For example...when supplies drop down across the map, currently we just mark them for hauling and we're good. With a work zone system, you'd have to mark them for hauling, create a work zone, find your haulers one by one and mark them for that zone, and then delete the zone when the resources have all been picked up.

[caba111]

Seen it suggested before that there be a toggle to have your colonists only work in the home zone. Seems like that would achieve the same goal of keeping your people in-base, but require a lot less micro-management than work zones everywhere. For example...when supplies drop down across the map, currently we just mark them for hauling and we're good. With a work zone system, you'd have to mark them for hauling, create a work zone, find your haulers one by one and mark them for that zone, and then delete the zone when the resources have all been picked up.

Well, most of the time I'd think that you'd have everyone assigned to group zero, doing anything anywhere.

I'd only use zones if I had dedicated resource miners, farmers, or if I needed to keep everyone inside some walls.
You shouldn't really need to micromanage like that.

[Monkfish]

You shouldn't really need to micromanage like that.

That's pretty much how you've described it working though. When Raiders arrive, you'd have to assign each Colonist a zone that's not outside your compound. A far better solution as suggested by TimMartland and Armorat is to tie it to the Home zone with a simple "work exclusively in zone" checkbox option. Done.