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How to avoid Priority 9


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We've all been there, we spend more time setting things to Priority 9 than we do setting the tasks in the first place. However here is a simple and effective solution. Set all of your machines to Priority 3 so that when you request something at the default Priority 5, it is now the highest priority action.

What are you going to do with all your spare time now? :p

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Good little tip. :) Just make sure you don't set *all* of your buildings to Priority 3. Certain ones are necessary for the survival of the colony, such as early game algae terrariums, water purifiers, manual generators (in certain situations), or coal generators. Setting these to low priority could mean they run out of resources at inopportune times if you have large dig/similar projects going, which can put an unexpected kink into your well-oiled colony.

Definitely a time saver in a lot of situations, though. :)

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If a Dupe is stressed I pretty much want them on the table right away.  I don't want them puking all over the base or wasting their time destroying something.  So, I give the massage tables an 8.

 

Typically anything power related and various buildings I'll give 7 or 6.  Like the water purifier and the bio distiller can wait for the batteries to get recharged, for example.  Digging and construction I usually leave on 5 so I don't have to change the priority on those and sometimes use 6 if I want them to do one particular thing first over the others.

 

Storage boxes I set to 4, usually.  If there's no other task then they can put things away and tidy up.  The exceptions to this are slime boxes and air deodorizers.  No reason to have them hauling around literal  grams of slime and clay when there's when there's better things to store away.  Once the update comes out, I think I'll have one specific Dupe that doesn't dig or build things whom will strictly cook and harvest with harvesting at higher priority.

 

Priority 9 I only really use for 'OMG, that Dupe is stuck!  I need you guys to fix this right NAOW!' 

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9 for coal gens

8 for all essential stuff (massage tables/terrariums/deoxydizers/etc)

4 for all compactors - depending on if I want something shifted quickly (i.e. slime to outside storage)

9 for compost heaps - avoid the polluted dirt at all costs :D

Everything else is 7's as a rule...

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13 hours ago, Lifegrow said:

9 for coal gens

8 for all essential stuff (massage tables/terrariums/deoxydizers/etc)

4 for all compactors - depending on if I want something shifted quickly (i.e. slime to outside storage)

9 for compost heaps - avoid the polluted dirt at all costs :D

Everything else is 7's as a rule...

But then you have to Priority 9 everything. Why not scale down from 3-7?

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Over time I converged to using priority 5 for everything I build and rather lowering priority of maintenance tasks I don't want them to be doing while I build. There's not that many of them since I want them e.g. to care about their food or power. It's easier to switch a few tasks to low priority than to build everything at high priority.

I also experimented with compactors at priority 4 but then I found out it's better to set them to sweep only. Exceptions are compactors for polluted dirt, slime, bleach stone and other volatile substances I want dupes to get out of the way but I set up their priorities as needed - for instance while digging a bleach stone vein I don't want them to carry it to the compactor immediately, but when I'm done I raise the priority so they do it at once. Every once in a while I enable one specific container without "sweep only" checked and let dupes clean up. Then I dump the container and sweep the pile into normal sweep only containers.

Compost and air refreshers are priority 7 or 8, manual power generation (while needed) priority 7. 9 is mostly unused, left for emergencies but when building something complex, I may set up priorities for individual parts higher than 5 to enforce certain order or if something needs to be done urgently, such as enforcing a wall breaking up under water pressure.

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But then you have to Priority 9 everything. Why not scale down from 3-7?

No you don't - 7 is fine, they'll just do the essential stuff first, which is what you want....

9 is only used for "do this immediately you lazy slackers" or "QUICK, dig him out!" :D 

 

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This is my rule:

If you have important building that you want to be priorities, set it to 6-7.
the same for your task like dig, harvest, build.

If you have something urgent that you want to finish asap, set it to 8.
If you have something really super important and should be done like "now!", set it to 9.

Example:
Cooking, Oxygen stuff: 7.
Food & oxygen is essential, so you need dupe to always take care of them. (oxygen soon become obsolete once you use electrolizer).
Why not set it to 8 or 9?
Because both of them are for urgent & emergency use. setting the machine to 8 or 9 will beat the purpose of having emergency, because everything is emergency.

This is a matter of preference but other machines can be 6 or 7, depends how important they are to your colony.

Sometime I switch food or generator to 8 too to make sure someone always tend to it.

Storage (ore & food): can be between 4-6 or 7.
for example: storage for unimportant stuff like material & metal can be set to 4, so dupe only store it when you told them too. because there is almost no way they can do job priority below 5 except they are idling.

If you set every other machine/building to 6, 5 is alright, no need to set it to 4.
6 to storage that contain important stuff for you machine/building, such as coal, sands, slime, fertilizer, etc.. so dupe will constantly fill them when there got no other thing to do.

Set it to 7 so they always try to fill it in, this is best to use for your refrigerated food storage.
every time food lying on the ground, they will immidietly sweep and store it.

 

And depends how large is your base and how many dupes you take in, setting their job list also important.

Like I usually take min 8 dupes and go to 12 then stay there quite some time before i took another one in or never add more dupes.

I usually get min 2 with super str attribute and let them only sweep & deliver.

I remove most of other dupe from the sweep job, and only allow several builder with str attribute to delivery job

 

I almost never set something to 9, except if it's emergency like dupe getting trap or something like that.

i rarely use 8, several case i use 8 are when i already have a lot of 7 job queue, and i want to priorities some area first

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This is my organization too. I have typically 0-10% stress unless there is a dig going on in a very hot or polluted area. In that case I set the massage tables to an 8 or 9 and rotate the 3-5 most stressed people. If you can get them to put them on the snazzy suits are a really good stress reduction. I can't get them to use the other clothes much though so I gave up. The dupes actually will do things in a pretty good order if you let them run things on their own in this build.

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Some of you are missing the point. Setting anything above 5 should be avoided. You only do that if you want them to do that task before the ones you set yourself like digging, building, sweeping and so on. Even on the dev stream you see them Priority 9 new tasks and select all because they're not managing their other priorities properly.

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1 hour ago, Xuhybrid said:

Setting anything above 5 should be avoided

it depends really. you avoid 5 because you set all of your machine under 5. it's like you are making the default priority is 3-4 manually, instead of using the game default (and you have to wait till the building is finished). This just makes your colony have an extra emergency priority.

some of us don't do that, so instead of having to set everything below 5 after being build. we just have to manage how we use 6-9.

 

there is no right and wrong here, except if you set everything to 9.

and the dev did it on the streams are for entertainment purposes + they have limited time to play and a lot of distraction from having to explain things and reading/answering comments.

 

but how priorities value being used are highly depend on the player.

you might think 7 or 8 is high, some of us perhaps think "7 is like meeh.. it's my default priority bruh"

having a low default value just mean you have more priority number to set up to.

but currently this require you to set every other machine to below 5 for it to works.

it will be nice if they allow us to set the default priority number in the option menu.

 

by how I do things in my colony, it also allow me to plan dig and building without pausing the game. because they won't immediately do the 5 priority job.

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2 hours ago, Xuhybrid said:

Some of you are missing the point. Setting anything above 5 should be avoided. You only do that if you want them to do that task before the ones you set yourself like digging, building, sweeping and so on. Even on the dev stream you see them Priority 9 new tasks and select all because they're not managing their other priorities properly.

...Yes, I want them do those tasks like maintaining the base before they randomly go off digging, building, and sweeping.  Generally, once I have the basic infrastructure in place, I no longer need things be done 'right this very absolute moment'.  Once there's proper air in the base and enough food for all the Dupes, any new parts of the base can wait until the next cycle.  And, next cycle will come as long as the base is properly maintained.

 

I have no problem getting Dupes to do things like digging, etc at level 5.  If my setup doesn't quite work the same after tomorrow, then I'll adjust it as needed.  *Shrug*

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On 5/16/2017 at 8:20 AM, Lifegrow said:

No you don't - 7 is fine, they'll just do the essential stuff first, which is what you want....

9 is only used for "do this immediately you lazy slackers" or "QUICK, dig him out!" :D 

 

You mean like, "Steve got his head stuck in a tile and is suffocating, get that tile deconstructed NOW!"

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22 minutes ago, The Flying Fox said:

...Yes, I want them do those tasks like maintaining the base before they randomly go off digging, building, and sweeping.  Generally, once I have the basic infrastructure in place, I no longer need things be done 'right this very absolute moment'.  Once there's proper air in the base and enough food for all the Dupes, any new parts of the base can wait until the next cycle.  And, next cycle will come as long as the base is properly maintained.

 

I have no problem getting Dupes to do things like digging, etc at level 5.  If my setup doesn't quite work the same after tomorrow, then I'll adjust it as needed.  *Shrug*

For me the most frustrating thing is when i set them to do a job like build a pipe and i come back minutes later and it's not done. When will they have free time to do it if everything else is equal priority? The base maintains itself as long as you have dedicated runners, and they're not the ones i want to command.

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16 minutes ago, Xuhybrid said:

For me the most frustrating thing is when i set them to do a job like build a pipe and i come back minutes later and it's not done. When will they have free time to do it if everything else is equal priority?

umm.. by setting it to higher priority?

Even if you have all of your building in 5 or 6, you can still set the dig & build in 6-7. they'll do it without much distraction.

there are still 8 and 9 for your emergency stuff if sh!t happen during that time of construction.

and you can assign spesific job to certain dupe, like ticked off other things except build & dig. once the delivery dupe bring the material needed for the building, this construction dupe will build all of it.

 

another info: how dupe work on priorities between each job is following the job list from left to right.

which means, they will do combat first before any other job, another example, they'll do harvest first before dig.

sweep first before delivery, art first before mop, etc..

 

so if you have 2 queue job for dig and sweep (same priority). they'll do the sweep first

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Interesting use of the priority system. Could have multiple low priorities (like 3 and 4) to prioritize buildings while keeping your requests at a high priority.

By the way: I think some people confuse priority with percentage of time spent on a task. As far as I know, the priority system is not some sort of time slicing system where higher priorities dedicate a higher amount of time spent on a task. Instead - it's just a way to tell the game which task to assign duplicants to next after the current task is finished.

This is why it is important (in my opinion) to reserve priority 9 for straight up emergencies. Either a duplicant's life is in danger or the colony is in danger. If you set merely urgent tasks to 9, you won't have a way to force the colony to respond to an emergency.

I should note that the game does have a "red alert" button as well. Oddly, I don't see it being used very often in streams or YouTube videos, even in an emergency (even though that is why it exists). Pressing the button means duplicants will do whatever it takes to get jobs done. It's a bit of a risk since activating it makes duplicants ignore basic needs - but during an emergency, it will make sure things get done. Combined with saving priority 9 for emergencies, you should have a pretty foolproof method of responding to an emergency.

One thing I'm unclear of is whether a red alert will interrupt in-progress lower priority tasks? Might be something that needs testing.

Urgent (but not emergency) tasks I'd set to an 8, maximum. An 8 will still make the tasks a priority over everything else, but leaves priority 9 for the emergency case.

By the way - one thing I'd like to see in the game is being able to set the default priority. I'd personally set it lower than 5, freeing up more higher-than-default priorities.

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11 hours ago, Zervo said:

umm.. by setting it to higher priority?

Even if you have all of your building in 5 or 6, you can still set the dig & build in 6-7. they'll do it without much distraction.

there are still 8 and 9 for your emergency stuff if sh!t happen during that time of construction.

and you can assign spesific job to certain dupe, like ticked off other things except build & dig. once the delivery dupe bring the material needed for the building, this construction dupe will build all of it.

 

another info: how dupe work on priorities between each job is following the job list from left to right.

which means, they will do combat first before any other job, another example, they'll do harvest first before dig.

sweep first before delivery, art first before mop, etc..

 

so if you have 2 queue job for dig and sweep (same priority). they'll do the sweep first

Setting your dig and build to 9 is exactly the problem i am trying to avoid. It's a waste of time doing it every single time. Over and over. In contrast i can set my buildings to 3 one time and never worry about priority ever again.

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10 hours ago, CobraA1 said:

One thing I'm unclear of is whether a red alert will interrupt in-progress lower priority tasks? Might be something that needs testing.

Red alert will interrupt all duplicants from whatever they were doing, (including using the bathroom?) and will make them do any task with a higher priority if they find any.

Contraindications and side effects:

  • Using the red alert button while they are all idle will only stress them for free.
  • Using the red alert button while they are performing a single task and there's nothing else to do will only make them resume what they were doing, possibly making them swap positions.
  • Using the red alert button while some duplicants are eating will make them drop whatever they were holding in their mouth, in conjunction with a high priority container without sweep only marked will make another (if not the same) duplicant store the gooey partially eaten ball of food in the previously mentioned container; also giving you odd values in the calorie counter:
Spoiler

Y2sdKkC.png

Something worth of mentioning is the interaction between containers with and without sweep only: If you set a couple of containers containing, let's say dirt (tinny word... dirt) if the sweep only container has got a lower priority all available duplicant will empty it and fill the non-sweep only container. (only if your colony is clean enough to not having any dirt laying in the ground)

Something I would like is that lower priorities (1-3) would count as "idle work" so that any duplicant performing any action with said priority would easily interrupted to do a higher priority task (as if they were idle)
Let's consider the following scenario: 3 duplicant, all of them charging batteries in manual generators set to priority 3, then you want to build/dig something and... nothing happens, they keep running, until you manually interrupt them with the red alert button or ordering them to move (one at a time)

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39 minutes ago, Octyabr said:

Red alert will interrupt all duplicants from whatever they were doing, (including using the bathroom?) and will make them do any task with a higher priority if they find any.

Thanks for the info :).

So setting emergency actions to priority 9 and activating red alert will in fact immediately get duplicants over to help, so red alert is useful. But as you have noted, there are some caveats so only really use red alert if absolutely necessary.

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