Pawns do not follow priorities like they should.

[Jibbles]

In b18. I've noticed pawns doing jobs out of order.  I've noticed pawns quit mid-job to do a different one with lower priority.  While setting up manual priorities and schedules certainly helps, they still don't follow them like I've planned.  I've even right clicked to prioritize rest until healed on a pawn before, and they went off to do stonecutting even though that's set to 4, and cooking (yes, meals needed to be made at the time) is set to 1. Yet, they repeatedly got up to make stones when they should've rest in bed all along. This doesn't only happen with bed rest by the way. I see this kind of thing quite often in b18.  I'm wondering if others experience this, or devs even aware, before I start making all kinds of examples to post under bugs, as that will take a good amount of time if I get the time. I've already done test in plain vanilla before and it's not because of a mod.

[Dashthechinchilla]

Oh yeah. Lots of people noticed. There is an old thread around about it that was started because drs need their beauty sleep more than patients need care. You can really see it with high work construction jobs. Pawns set to 1 will randomly wander off and do lower priority work.

One issue is that walking through the construction work will interupt them. Watching them do tile in high traffic areas is maddening.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Never noticed the priorities not working where it didn't end up being my fault (or a mod.) Usually took pausing and a little investigation to see what I messed up, usually zone restrictions.

One other thing to keep in mind is that sleeping and eating are not part of the work tab screen. That is determined by a combination of the appropriate bar in their needs tab, and their sleep schedule. There will be different, but very predictable results depending on those two items.

Also in case the name throws you, "Bed Rest" you see on the work tab has nothing to do with regular rest, it is for lower priority medical resting, as opposed to the more important "Patient." Hover over each and you'll see to what they pertain.

[Jibbles]

As long as there's awareness, I'm cool. I forgot about that bit where they stop construction if a pawn passes through it.  That's probably what was going on when I saw them quit back to back.  Pawns shouldn't be interrupted by anything if you right click to prioritize regardless if they need to eat.  I've had to micromanage just about every injury in this update. Not due to sleeping, but doctors will play horseshoes or haul etc when pawns are in bed waiting for treatment. They waited there before I wake up the doctor, so he checks and thinks hauling some meat would be more important. Jobs are still thrown off though, as I do not normally have them under any kind of zone restrictions and I do check up on that when I see these kinds of instances. However, it has been harder to track down who's about to do what. Maybe that has added to the confusion.  I brought up my example with the chef because I knew there were ingredients for the bill, there were meals that need to be made/the bill was active, and he was my only chef. Everything was set up correctly for him to rest until healed, then cook, but he interrupted and went to go make stones. I'm not about to restrict my pawns to do one job.

[Bozobub]

I'm not about to restrict my pawns to do one job.

Then you'll keep having the same problem.  You need to be flexible, when (re)assigning priorities, that simple.  If you want a pawn to not toddle off to do some other job, zero-out that job for a while.  This has *always* been the case for RimWorld.

[corestandeven]

Jibbles, I havent really noticed the specific issue you raise i must admit, but i do have a similar issue that i still think is on-topic.

When you order a pawn to prioritize a job the results vary. If you request a pawn prioritizes cooking he/she will cook until either there is no ingredients or fuel available,  he/she collapses from exhaustion or breaks, or the player cancels the prioritize job. The same i notice is true for stone cutting, where they will continously cut stone blocks until one of the three things happens. However other priority jobs they will often stop what they are doing against the will of the player. For example I wanted to focus to build a sniper rifle.  My pawn was at set at 1 priority for crafting and i set him to prioritize the job at the work bench. I had to micromanage him as he kept leaving the job after doing some work. I had to order him about 3 times in order to complete the job as I asked. Similarly, if you set a pawn to a prioritize a mining job i often go elsewhere  on the screen and they have left the job. Deconstruct and removal of floor is worse, pawns always leave the area after have done one action when you order to prioritize (unless you make construction a number 1 priority and remove every other job). It is very frustrating to fight the game. IMO, pawns that have job prioritized should not leave that job (just like in cooking and stone cutting). If that means players run the risk of mental breaks or pawns collapsing for exhaustion i think that is something for players to manage.

[Jibbles]

This has *always* been the case for RimWorld.

They weren't this bad in A17 as far as I know.  I was always able to assign multiple jobs to a pawn without much problem. They would normally only focus on lower priorities if their job was not available to do which is what I'd expect. 

I agree with your post corestandeven. They should work on the job until they exhaust themselves if you order to prioritize it.  Reminds me of auto-undraft which has done more harm than good in my colonies. It's just another area I've lost some control in. I don't think right click to prioritize to install/remove floors/walls will be much of an issue when construction itself gets sorted out.  You could have power conduits that need to be installed on the east side of the map, walls that need to be constructed up north, and floors that need to be removed south, yet they want to work in groups in the same area most of the time. It's inefficient and leaves more unfinished projects.

[Yoshida Keiji]

[...]
For example I wanted to focus to build a sniper rifle.  My pawn was at set at 1 priority for crafting and i set him to prioritize the job at the work bench. I had to micromanage him as he kept leaving the job after doing some work. I had to order him about 3 times in order to complete the job as I asked.

"Making" a sniper rifle belongs to "Smithing". So if your Smithing is lower than priority 1, of course your pawn will do something else associated to Crafting priority 1.

[corestandeven]

[...]
For example I wanted to focus to build a sniper rifle.  My pawn was at set at 1 priority for crafting and i set him to prioritize the job at the work bench. I had to micromanage him as he kept leaving the job after doing some work. I had to order him about 3 times in order to complete the job as I asked.

"Making" a sniper rifle belongs to "Smithing". So if your Smithing is lower than priority 1, of course your pawn will do something else associated to Crafting priority 1.

Sorry, i meant smithing. I probably had crafting set at 1 though as well, as the pawn in question is the best smithy, crafter and tailor in my colony. However my point still stands that if the player clicks 'prioritize job' then you kind of expect the pawn to do only that task. As said certainly for some jobs (e.g. cooking, stone cutting, smelting and corpse ceremation) pawns do this until collapsing, breaking, a lack of ingredients or the player cancels the command, but other tasks (mining, deep drilling, desconstruct, smithing, tailoring, etc) pawns will frustratingly break away from the job. 

[Canute]

Don't forget how a crafting project works.
When you order your pawn to work on the project, he will do this.
But after a while he look again if there are some important things.
You notice this when you select the unfinished item and it become unselected.
Your priority only count toward this switch.
But when you set smithing/crafting to 1 he should normaly stay at that project, except for food/rest/hygnie.

[Harry_Dicks]

One issue is that walking through the construction work will interupt them. Watching them do tile in high traffic areas is maddening.

Definitely recommend the mod "Don't Mind Me Passing" to fix this. Gonna go ahead and say right now, please don't want to hear, "this shouldn't be a mod it should be vanilla!" Yeah yeah, I don't disagree but I am only pointing to a solution for those that don't know.

Anyway, isn't there modifier in job's defs that makes it so that a pawn has the ability to break away from a job if something that is deemed "more important" in the job tree presents itself as an available job? I want to say I've seen that, although it might have been a mod, but it only existed for "long jobs" so maybe it's an issue of being able to customize what "order of importance" jobs fall in for specific pawns. How I am trying to visualize this in my head is like this: it is sort of like a hidden work/priority tab. If we could customize this as well maybe this could solve some of these issues. For example, allowing a player to make his doctors have any required jobs to sustain life of other pawns take full precedent over any other jobs, no interruptions, no matter what. However, for this doctor, he is also a researcher and artist. So maybe I want him to be allowed to interrupt work in the middle of research, but not the middle of an art sculpture. I would want to be able to tinker with all of these systems on a pawn by pawn basis, and not have a generic tree that they all follow.

Is any of my understanding correct on any of this, that anyone can tell me?

[Toast]

Jibbles, IIRC the issue with sick bed-resting pawns getting up to do jobs is caused by the scheduling of "work time" in the schedule. If you right-click prioritize bed rest, they will obediently rest *until* "work time" rolls around, at which point they will jump up to start cutting stone or whatever instead of resting. So you can ensure their compliance by removing work from their schedule, at least temporarily. It does seem to solve the problem, in my experience.

The issue with doctors playing horseshoes instead of treating bleeding out patients has been raised many times in the bugs section and the response was that doctors will always prioritize their own physical well-being (food, sleep, and yes, joy) over doctoring work. I don't know if there are plans to change that. I believe there is already a mod to change doctoring to an "emergency" priority, like firefighting, but I don't use it so I can't say how well it works.