Tiny suggestions pile (interface, stockpile, work and drugs managing)

[Bradley_]

    Hi, Rimworld!
    I'v been playing the game since alpha 8, but never really joined the community, mostly because the developer somehow was implementing every usefull feature i was thinking about.  Still, now when i loaded my alpha12 six ingame years old colony, i came up with more suggestions, and when i saw that teaser in the blog, i thought that it's the best time to share them.
    I'm going to talk about things, wich are obvious only when playing with a lot of colonists  and a large colony/colonies, because on smaller colonies you usually can easilly workarond such things, and it only get's hard in a larger scale.

    1. Working areas instead of allowed areas.
    I was very happy, when i saw allowed areas for the first time. Unfortunately, they turned out to be only usefull to contain colonists inside a building when there's a manhunting pack of tortoises or something like that. Colonists inside these areas can't go outside, even if they are starving near a pile of meals. This thing is usefull to tell them not to go in some dangerous place, but totally useless in telling them, where to go.
    In addition to them it would be nice to have working areas, wich don't restrict a colonist, instead they prioritise all possible work in the area before outside of it. So when colonist starts working, he's doing everything he can do in his working area, though, he can still go to sleep, or have a meal outside of it. That way you can prioritise building that building, or hauling those crops in a few clicks, but it wold be most usefull in large colonies.
    Imagine having a large secure underground base with lots of storage and crafting, but no soil nearby, because it's desert. If there's some soil on the other side of the map, you may whant to build and outpost for three or four colonists, so they would grow food for the rest of the colony. But it's not working too good because you those colonists, who are living in the outpost, will often go to the main base just to haul one piece of wood or clean one tile of dirt, and then go back because it's evening. Instead you could make a working area to prioritise outpost's jobs first, and unlike allowedareas it wouldn't prevent them from hauling food to the main base, or bringing some resources incase they need to build something.
    I also whant to specify, that workers should only look for jobs with 1-2-3 priorities, because i usually set 4 only for jubs i whant to prioritise manually, so they should still ignore it, unless they have done their job everywhere on the map.  Also, haulers should only carry things out of their working zone to any place on the map, not vice versa.
    Anyway, this feature would put things in order, so it's possible to see everyone doing their job, instead of that usuall chaotic ant-heap.
    2. Force current activity.
    This  thing:

    Sometimes a colonist has bed time, but you really need him to build those wires. You rightclick to force him, he builds one tile and goes to bed. And you have to do that tile by tile, as he tries to run away - ridicilous. Or even better, colonist somehow got totally joydeprived, but it's his working hours. So he's working... until he berserks.  To deal with, you have to go to the restrictions panel, change current hours to what you whant and then back how it was, wich is iritating.
    Instead, would be nice to just click here:

and then chose between "work", "joy", "sleep" or just unforcing to get back to usual schedule. So easy, so usefull. Forced activity can automatically unforce after 3-5 hours.
    3. Work swap
    I often see colonists reserving some work from the other side of the map, so those, who are closer, can't do it. It wastes a lot of time in case of hauling/building, but very dangerous in case of fires or turret repairs. It wold be just amazing, if they'd be able to swap automatically, and do what's already close to them, instead going somewhere and wasting lots of time.
    4. Snacks
    Sometimes colonists go to do some work, and then they suddenly become hungry, so they sit on the floor, and eat a meal out of their inventory. Bad thing is that they have "ate on ground", wich isn't that bad, but still. How about a SNACK, wich they can quickly eat with no penalties, and have no urge to eat until the end of the day, when they can finally have a proper meal. Just a funny little feature.

    Of course it may seem that these features are useles in a normal game with less then ten colonists, and that having more is just incompatible with fun, storygenerating part of the game. But such gameplay becomes chaotic pain in the bottom only because the game doesn't support it, and with these simple features you can organize a colony of any size so it would make sense.
    Anyway, it's just the first part, i dont whant to throw everything at the same time, because it's quite a lot to read already, and it's much easier to discuss things part by part.

[Havan_IronOak]

++Good

Great suggestions!

I love the snacks idea. Or even a "packed lunch" food item that has a mood benefit that exactly counteracts the "ate on ground" penalty.  I'd settle for being able to right click on a food item and have the colonist "equip" it rather than leaving their food selection choice up to them. I know that I can have them consume something immediately but it'd be nice to also be able to tell them what to pack for lunch.

Love the force current activity. It's bizarre how when I assign a crafting job via right clicking the poor colonist works till he drops but assign a construction job and it's one tile and go. Both of these should have a time component. Perhaps a right click task should last for an hour or two?

Love the work swap idea.  I'm continually drafting colonists so that I can reassign a closer colonist to a reserved task. This aspect could use some tuning.