Wot do i haul?

[Smasher5523]

Dont ya hate it when you get a new colonist, set him/her to haul things as you got a bunch of bodies and weapons to get to 1 place and then the colonist goes and hauls some metal... my suggestion is to have a tab on every colonist to CONFIGURE what they do in certain jobs, such as in hauling people haul only weapons and berries? and in miners colonists can only mine silver ore?? and in builders the colonist only builds walls and doors??? and the  can- you get the idea...

[Tynan]

I'm just too afraid of the interface ending up looking like this...

http://wiki.dwarftherapist.googlecode.com/hg/img/DT_0.5.0.PNG

[Johnny Masters]

yeah, it's not like it ain't already cluttered.

Just a few quick ideas on how to tackle this, I'm aware some might have already been suggested, by lets give it a go:

A) Force Action: by selecting a pawn, right clicking a doable job (such as constructing a wall or mining ore) you'd have an override/force button. It would override all jobs (but not eating or sleeping) and/or sub-jobs, for a certain amount of time, say, half a day.

B) work stations: Assigning a pawn to a stationable function. i.e.:
1) you can assign a hauler to a specific stockpile and he would haul things to that stockpile only, until there's no more things to haul (kinda like override). It would be even better if you could set what stuff you want for said stockpile, not unlike the trader in banished, so he'd would work his ass off to fill the quota and do other stuff if the stockpile is full. Stockpile and hauling system needs improvement ASAP, priority system is chaotic to say the least.

2) a builder/fixer/cleaner/whatever shack. Just a small station to control who would specialize/be fixed in such and such job, it tools should be implemented (and it should) it would serve as pick and drop  points for tools.

3) basically anything for any job could have a station, could be anything as small as a 1 square thingie. Think of workstations like the ones in space colony.

C) Work hours: Besides work stations and job overriding, stations could control how many hours assigned workers would dedicate to that job. As expected, out of his working hours means he's off to work on anything else.

D) Characters screen has a Sub-jobs sub-menu, with check-able boxes on all possible jobs and possibly actions. Perhaps its more useful for haulers, but other jobs can see its uses, like growing.

E) Drag-able items: All items become drag-able, i.e.: you can click on one or more on-the-ground items, then you left-click drag it to whatever you want (or a similar mechanic). 100's of corpses on the ground? drag'em all to make them go to a dumper or crematorium. Need those weapons to orbital pile to sell it NOW? drag'em n drop'em and hauler's would prioritize that.

F)  A simple priority zone(not unlike banished, again). Drag a box on whatever you want your guys focused on and let them do their magic.

[skullywag]

I would expand on the region system already in place and have colonists assisgnable to a region and they just do their set jobs in that region, only being allowed out to get resources eat sleep no job to do etc...theres some other stuff in there to handle doctoring hauling and that but a couple of rules and workarea definitions could go a long way i reckon. Another option is the billgiver. Have the worktable define who can work at it, however this onky addresses worktable jobs.

[bullwinkle]

Even if you just added a right click option on the overview screen. ( like Johnny said). You go to the overview screen, right click the "number" for the colonists job ie. Hauling, and a list appears where you can de select or select specific things for them to haul. Don't want them hauling food, de select it. Want them only hauling metal, select metal and de select everything else.

Same could work for cooking, hunting, construction. Really anything in the overview menu. Then each colonist can be specialized to do very specific things.
Doesn't add anything to the main overview screen, just creates more depth to it.

[TrashMan]

A "emergency haul" bottun.
Sets ALL colonists to haul stuff. Clicking again reverts to previous setting

[FridayBiology]

Could add a only "home zone" force colonists. Meaning that they only move with in home zone. This would correct patching as well as prevent haulers getting shot by hunters and stuff.