Add more options in Job List

[Dkong]

TL;DR Add a busy work option in the Job List so your specialists never go idle.

With skill points and a wide variety of work to be done, you want specialists who have a main job, plus backup jobs to do when not doing their main.

Currently backup jobs can only go in one direction.

Let say I want an athlete's main job to be power, and backup job to be digging. And I have a miner who's main job is digging, but I want their backup job to be power. Currently these two job sets are mutually exclusive. By default, power takes priority over digging for everyone. If you lower the priority on the hamster wheels, then digging takes priority for everyone.

What comes to mind is the Rimworld system of having priorities in the actual check boxes themselves. However, with the current priority tool, you would now have two powerful priority tools competing against each other. I think it would be confusing to work with and unclear which priority overrides which and the behavior would be quite different depending on how it was implemented.

Instead I think the best solution would be the simplest. In addition to the green check mark, add a symbol that stands for busy work. The dup will behave as if they aren't assigned to the job unless they have no other tasks to complete. This way, nothing would really change about how priorities and jobs currently work, the only difference is now you could have a dedicated digger that wouldn't go idle when all digging is complete. You could also add other symbols like red alert, only assigned to this job during red alerts. I'm sure people could come up with others.

[Vayne Duskwood]

I briefly nodded towards the priorities of jobs, it's been bothering me too that if you set the priorities of said hamster wheel lower, no one works it, and etc. I think the idea of it would make it much easier to understand and make the game function much better. 

[robsin11]

I would say that the devs could change the job board from a check an uncheck to a priority system like everything else in the game. With that in mind it would also be nice if a page opens when you get a new dupe that lets you choose the job priorities prior to the game unpausing after you choose a new dupe.

For this you would click the box and a scroll wheel would appear that you can ether use mouse button 3 scrolls to increase and decrease the priority. Alternately using the arrow or number keys to choose the priority.

[Kaleb Jander Greek]

On 13/4/2017 at 2:49 PM, Dkong said:

Instead I think the best solution would be the simplest. In addition to the green check mark, add a symbol that stands for busy work. The dup will behave as if they aren't assigned to the job unless they have no other tasks to complete. This way, nothing would really change about how priorities and jobs currently work, the only difference is now you could have a dedicated digger that wouldn't go idle when all digging is complete. You could also add other symbols like red alert, only assigned to this job during red alerts. I'm sure people could come up with others.

Something like the image could tackle the task order problem while also setting default priorities for each dupe (sorry for the crude artwork)
Also, using Shift+Click with the Prioritizer tool could override these values in realtime, allowing for flexible priorities under unforeseen consequences *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*

[scientas]

This is too complex once you get past a handful of dupes. Think just having one priority dropdown/input would suffice. Maybe Red Alert could have it's own checkbox menu so that you could decide what jobs are required.

53 minutes ago, Kaleb Jander Greek said:

 

 

[EmDash]

Why not just have the dupes themselves prioritize things they're best at?

 

If dupe has 12 in science and 4 in digging, when you start a dig if there is research to be done the dupe prioritizes science and whatnot.

 

Same with power and other jobs that require a skill or at least are increased in efficiency with said skill. The dupe personally prioritizes what they're best at as if they "like" doing it more.

[Kaleb Jander Greek]

I like that approach. Also if you were to make the Dupe things that he/she doesn't like, it would increase stress at +50% rate as a penalty

[Generico300]

I think you could just change the dupe job checkbox to a triple state checkbox instead of a dual state.  So instead of "Do this job" or "Do not do this job", you would have "Prefer this job", "Do this job if no preferred job is available", and "Never do this job". 

This is simple to understand and interacts easily with the existing priority system while still preventing unwanted idling.

[malocarne]

this has been my biggest issue, i would love to change the priority screen all together simply allow us to move skills around on individual dupes so that we can choose what they prioritize individually. 

for example, allow me to move the dig job on my "miner" from the last slot to the first slot and push everything else to the right by one, making him mine over all else.

[Masterpintsman]

On 24.4.2017 at 8:25 PM, Generico300 said:

I think you could just change the dupe job checkbox to a triple state checkbox instead of a dual state.  So instead of "Do this job" or "Do not do this job", you would have "Prefer this job", "Do this job if no preferred job is available", and "Never do this job". 

This, maybe in terms of 'Prefer this' as being a +2 (or similar) to that kind of job priority wise. So I could still paint a pri-9 to have someone disregard his preference for a pri-5 job...

The ability to reorder the columns in the job list to form the priority chain I would like to have is something to think about, IMHO.