Why walls repairs has priority over re-building?

[Yoshida Keiji]

So, in every raid attack it's very common that the outer walls suffer damage and segments get blown off while other areas sustain damage. Battle is over and time for you to fill in all the open gaps on your walls starts.

However, the colonist AI is set to repair walls left at 80% while still leaving the wall incomplete, which can be very inconvenient with successive raids (mad animals, manhunter, etc), as an incomplete wall is useless.

I would pretty much prefer pawns to finish construction on the new filler gaps first and then to set to repair tiles that already block passage of intruders.

Why is it that the game was designed to go the other way around?

[skullywag]

construction and repair used to be split on the work tab, this is no longer the case, there are mods that bring this back, or mods that allow you to prioritise the granular jobs inside the main jobs (cleaning and clearing snow for example).

[Yoshida Keiji]

Which was the Alpha version update that removed "repairs" from the work tab? Do you remember what was Tynan's argument?

[Calahan]

Which was the Alpha version update that removed "repairs" from the work tab? Do you remember what was Tynan's argument?

The jobs were merged for A16

And I've never seen a confirmed reason as to why it was done. Although I'd love to know why since it was a terrible decision IMO, and one of the worst since... maybe it is the worst actually? (or at least I can't think of a worse one OTTOMH, or one that has annoyed me anywhere near as much. Although the change to the zoning colours was pretty annoying too). Best theory I read was that it was done to keep the game friendly for new players. As in trying to keep a limit on the number of jobs types and tick-boxes to prevent them being overwhelmed. Not sure if that makes sense to me given the type of game RimWorld is, but it does at least seem plausible (and in lieu of an official reason).

[Bozobub]

Yeah, that change has been driving me crazy for a while, along with the broken meds.

[Yoshida Keiji]

Ah, I see, thanks for the replies. I started playing Rim World with A16 at the beginning of this year, so I missed it, I guess...

Developers will go for the basic level players over the challenge takers as the first ones are larger crowd than us..., when money comes to mind...pitty...so RW is already falling?

[cultist]

And I've never seen a confirmed reason as to why it was done. Although I'd love to know why since it was a terrible decision IMO, and one of the worst since... maybe it is the worst actually? (or at least I can't think of a worse one OTTOMH, or one that has annoyed me anywhere near as much. Although the change to the zoning colours was pretty annoying too). Best theory I read was that it was done to keep the game friendly for new players. As in trying to keep a limit on the number of jobs types and tick-boxes to prevent them being overwhelmed. Not sure if that makes sense to me given the type of game RimWorld is, but it does at least seem plausible (and in lieu of an official reason).

I argued against the repair job when it was first introduced. Mostly because it's a weirdly specific sub-type for a job. A lot of the jobs need more sub-type control, but the way to do it is not to introduce 15 new job types that all need their own tick boxes. The idea is good, but it needs to be implemented in a way that doesn't make the UI a complete mess.

[Wanderer_joins]

When you start looking into the sub-jobs, it's time you go for a mod letting you prioritize them. Maybe it should be an advanced option in vanilla.

[Bozobub]

It's a major, essential task that takes up a lot of time for pawns doing it, that must be done a LOT.  I can take the argument about "sub-jobs" (subtasks) to the next level, and ask why "Construction" is split from "Artistic"; they're both about building something, no?

If you look at how society works, very often (if not most often) those who do the repairs are not directly associated with building the initial item.  Had your car repaired lately?  How about your computer?  If either, did you send it to the factory?  If not, then you used the services of someone who was NOT directly associated with constructing the device, that simple.

As for "not making the UI a complete mess", fine, then tell us how to do so, while keeping the "Repair" job title.  Until then, Repair badly needs to come back.  One extra "Repair" box does not a "messy" UI make .  You can easily keep subtasks from propagating by not adding more;  that doesn't mean you need to remove "Repair".  Hypothetical "improvements" that make the game unnecessarily harder or less enjoyable to play aren't improvements, that simple.

That's the entire point of a series of open Alphas:  Determining what does and does not work.  Removing Repair as a separate task was very obviously a step back in the UI and gameplay overall.  Nor have I seen ANYONE defending it, except on relatively abstract terms, as above:

I argued against the repair job when it was first introduced. Mostly because it's a weirdly specific sub-type for a job. A lot of the jobs need more sub-type control, but the way to do it is not to introduce 15 new job types that all need their own tick boxes. The idea is good, but it needs to be implemented in a way that doesn't make the UI a complete mess.

Again, the UI was not "a complete mess" before the change, and removal of Repair did just about nothing to "clean it up", while removing an important distinction in pawn tasks.  NOT a win.

[Yoshida Keiji]

Awesome feedback guys, I appreciate your comments.

I'm very interested to hear about sub-job suggestions and also agree with different degrees of the job tab, for now we have two: the basic with ticks and the advanced with numbers. We could have a third version with sub-jobs for advanced players so that the game caters to all levels of gamers.

For me basically, instead of another tick which would still be awesome, I would really like to see the AI default behavior to change so that the priority goes to re-build first and then once all fillers have been constructed, to go secondary construction task degree to "repairs". Just the other way around.

It doesn't pain me much if a filler segment needs three consecutive tiles, as forcing a pawn to rebuild that will make it easily gather enough material for the three segments...but it really kills my nerves when the portions that need to be filled immediately are not connected...

Again thanks everybody for the interaction, very appreciated. This has been bugging me for some time now.

[Calahan]

Another incredibly annoying problem I had in A16* due to the job merger was preserving my supply of components, as I found myself always having to babysit and micromanage every build job, along with GPS tracking every component I had because all my components had to be permanently forbidden to avoid them being wasted on (non essential) repair jobs.

Which was never an issue before because I never had any Pawns set to repair, and I just micromanaged repairs if and when I needed them. And the micromanagement of the former is about fifty times more than the latter, and that's probably not an exaggeration either. As I can't recall having to do much if any micromanagement of components before the change, but after it I can't recall having to do anything else but micromanage my components.

And yes I know there are mods that can help with / reverse all the above, as I did start using one for a while. But speaking as someone who has only ever played the vanilla game, and never once used a single mod ever, I was more than a bit pissed with this change that pretty much forced me to start using a mod because of what I feel is an incredibly detrimental change to the vanilla game. Or at least vey detrimental to my own enjoyment of the vanilla game, which was after all, the only game I ever knew. It actually makes me sad to think that I had to start using mods not because I wanted to, but because I had to in order to undo a detrimental change to the vanilla game. That was NOT how or when I envisaged myself starting to use RimWorld mods

I held out some hope Tynan might have reversed the merger for A17, as at one point he said he'd consider reversing the beauty tool and room stat merger after some complaints on reddit (which was another bad merger IMO), so I  thought the repair merger might have been a candidate for the same reversal. But given neither was reversed in A17, my guess is that this ship has sailed now. Sadly (although I'd love nothing more for the ship to come back and prove me wrong).


* I haven't played A17 at all, but don't see why my repair frustrations from A16 wouldn't carryover to A17.

[erdrik]

... I would really like to see the AI default behavior to change so that the priority goes to re-build first and then once all fillers have been constructed, to go secondary construction task degree to "repairs". Just the other way around.
...

This just makes the problem worse, passes it off to a different task, and hides it.
If Construction is prioritized, Repairs won't get done until everything has been built. But if you forget that repairs need to be done and just keep adding Construction jobs, or had a long list of Construction tasks queued up before the raid, then Repairs won't EVER get done. It may be annoying to prioritize Repairs first, but at least that way there is a definitive end point to when they will be completed.

I would hate to have a Raid breach a wall unexpectedly quicker because it was at left at half health, because I forgot about Repairs during the previous Raid.

I agree with Repairs being prioritized first.

[Yoshida Keiji]

Nah, since we both have imminent priority to fix the outer wall, you just need to put the Red Cross forbid so that nothing else gets built until the wall has been completed. As time is the essential factor, its best if pawns don't need the player's guidance and go automatically, then once rebuilding is done, we should be able to see them idle with the clock on their icons that would signal the time to unforced and proceed constructions.

[Quazimojojojo]

That's the Crux of my complaint for repair not existing: you can't forbid repair jobs. You can forbid construction to control what gets built in what order with some micro, but you can't do the same for repairing. As much as I love the repair job and want it back (the fluffy work tabs mod does more than I want it to, so I'd love to not have that mod be more or less mandatory for me), it would be much much less painful of a loss if we could forbid repairs on walls and such.

[Yoshida Keiji]

BUMPING UP this topic... You just can't release Version 1.0...without this.