Wandering over prioritized jobs?

[Dogorath]

I've had this issue come up in quite a few save files, using different mods in each, and some with no mods at all. At a certain point in the save, usually a couple of hours in, my colonists will refuse to do their prioritized tasks instead choosing to relax and wander. A character assigned to priority 1 cooking, will refuse to butcher or cook meals unless told to do so specifically. There are bills for them, and there is materials for it. along with that, there are orders for mining, and orders for harvesting plants. For the mining, some places are done immediately, and others have just been left. None of the harvesting occurs at all. If I tell a colonist to go mine something or harvest something, they will harvest the single plant and leave, or mine for about 25% then leave. Is this an issue with the game, or is this something I'm doing wrong?

[Serina]

Do you have restrictions set? If you don't, I suggest you set up some restrictions.
Here's an example of mine: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1423545172

Also, click on your colonist's Needs tab and hover over your Recreation. That will show you that colonist's recreation type tolerance.
In 1.0, they need a variety of sources (solitary, social, dexterity play, etc) to meet their recreation demands. I'm not really sure what issue you may be having which is why I asked if you had restrictions set, as well as to check your colonist's recreation need.

Edit: I don't have any mods installed, I'm just playing on the latest unstable version and I haven't had any issues. You said you have some saves with no mods at all, so that can't be the problem.

[Golden]

Yes, the pawns require recreation.  Wandering and cloudwatching and similar activities fulfill the solitary needs.  As far as I can tell there are 4 types of recreation that they need to switch between in order to not get maxed out on them: solitary, social, dexterity, and cerebral.

I do suggest that you make sure that they can do all 4.  Solitary they just need to be alone.  Social they need a table with chairs, for example.  Dexterity they need a horseshoe pin or a pool table.  Cerebral they need a chess table.

By the way, using the dexterity recreation gives xp to shooting and the cerebral recreation gives xp to intelligence.