Should there be a "Force Task" button?

[Lennard]

It always kinda annoyed me that dupes refuse to do important stuff even if you set the priority to 9 because of their personal priorities. Sure you can just pause and configure their priorities for a sec but I feel like it's a bit waste of time. So what about having a "Force task" option. Where you give a task like sweeping or building or whatever. then you mark that tasks again with the "force task" option. This will cause the dupes to instantly stop what they are doing and get that job done asap. 

[Nitroturtle]

7 minutes ago, Bothead said:

It always kinda annoyed me that dupes refuse to do important stuff even if you set the priority to 9 because of their personal priorities. Sure you can just pause and configure their priorities for a sec but I feel like it's a bit waste of time. So what about having a "Force task" option. Where you give a task like sweeping or building or whatever. then you mark that tasks again with the "force task" option. This will cause the dupes to instantly stop what they are doing and get that job done asap. 

With experience, this situation can be completely overcome with proper priority setup.  My dupes never refuse to do anything, unless I have something setup wrong or there's a problem that I haven't seen yet (for example, dupes can't reach material or build location).

[Sasza22]

An emergency priority usable only during red alert would be welcome. Other than that i agree you can prevent most of that by proper priority setup and smart construction preventing dupes frome getting stuck.

[Gurgel]

43 minutes ago, Sasza22 said:

An emergency priority usable only during red alert would be welcome. Other than that i agree you can prevent most of that by proper priority setup and smart construction preventing dupes frome getting stuck.

Same here.

[KittenIsAGeek]

I've had decent success with two different methods.  

1. All of the dupe's personal priorities are set to 'standard' with life support and toggle set higher.  For the most part, dupes will prioritize based on what priorities you've chosen in game.
2. Dupes have priorities centered around their skills such that at least one dupe covers every possible task, with multiple dupes covering essential tasks.  For example, lets say that you have three dupes, all trained in all tier 1 skills and research assistant.  Devon is best at building, Bubbles is good at digging, and all Rowan wants to do is sit at the computer.  So you prioritize them appropriately and things are going great.  But.. now the latrine needs to be emptied.  Who takes care of it?  In this case, nobody -- until all dig, build, and research jobs are completed.  So lets revise our priorities slightly.  Since Devon and Bubbles are building the base, we can call it a non-critical job.  Cleaning the latrine and keeping your oxygen going would definitely qualify as critical.  So we set their 'supply' and 'tidy' priorities higher than their job priorities.  Now, when a deoxidizer needs algae or a latrine needs cleaning, they'll stop after completing their current digging or building job and take care of the problem while Rowan continues plugging away on the computer.

 

[Craigjw]

yes.

I've often had issue where something needs doing now, but due to other tasks getting in the way, it takes forever for the important task to get done, so I put them into red alert, which only makes them run a little faster and ignore break time, yet the task still doesn't get done and after 2 days of GRRRR, Meep dies due to suffocation.  I reload and change lots of priorities, so that everyone is only doing that one job and it finally gets done, but in doing this, I have to spend a bunch of time re-scheduling everything.

[Xuhybrid]

12 minutes ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

I've had decent success with two different methods.  

1. All of the dupe's personal priorities are set to 'standard' with life support and toggle set higher.  For the most part, dupes will prioritize based on what priorities you've chosen in game.
2. Dupes have priorities centered around their skills such that at least one dupe covers every possible task, with multiple dupes covering essential tasks.  For example, lets say that you have three dupes, all trained in all tier 1 skills and research assistant.  Devon is best at building, Bubbles is good at digging, and all Rowan wants to do is sit at the computer.  So you prioritize them appropriately and things are going great.  But.. now the latrine needs to be emptied.  Who takes care of it?  In this case, nobody -- until all dig, build, and research jobs are completed.  So lets revise our priorities slightly.  Since Devon and Bubbles are building the base, we can call it a non-critical job.  Cleaning the latrine and keeping your oxygen going would definitely qualify as critical.  So we set their 'supply' and 'tidy' priorities higher than their job priorities.  Now, when a deoxidizer needs algae or a latrine needs cleaning, they'll stop after completing their current digging or building job and take care of the problem while Rowan continues plugging away on the computer.

 

So make life support and tidy a higher priority than their job role. I'm pretty sure tidy is the one with clean outhouse.

[KittenIsAGeek]

3 minutes ago, Xuhybrid said:

So make life support and tidy a higher priority than their job role. I'm pretty sure tidy is the one with clean outhouse.

If you don't have a dupe that already performs that task (say, a plumber), then yes, make sure some dupe has tidy and life support set above their job role.

[Nitroturtle]

I leave all the priorities pretty flat for the first few hundred cycles while I'm establishing by base and getting all the basic training and research done.  Once I decide I'm ready, I split everyone into their role and I actually make a spreadsheet to keep track of everything.  Then I have six primary categories (7 once I'm ready to have astronauts, but they are kinda special case) that I group my dupes into, after determining how many of each I want based on current dupe population.  The categories I use are as follows:

Builder
Cook
Farmer
Rancher
Cleaner
Operator
Astronaut
 

I then apply a template I have for each role.  There's always fewer cooks, farmers and ranchers obviously, with the builder category making up usually 1/2 of my dupes.  I then tweak specific dupes to have secondary roles as needed depending on skills and job experience.  I also split them into 3 shifts and try to ensure the best distribution, so at any time I have at least 1 person on each role, where possible.

Now, I know not everyone is going to bother with all of this.  I'm a min/max gamer, so I can't help myself.  I will say though, it works very well once it's all setup.  My BIGGEST complaint with the priority system is the supply category and I wish it would go away.  IMO it should just be folded into the appropriate roles, so tending crops would fall under farm, supplying building materials would fall under build, etc.  Personally I've NEVER wanted different dupes to supply material than I've wanted doing the actual job, and if I did, I would just setup a nearby storage and have my cleaners keep it stocked up near where the material will be used.

[Lawnmower Man]

5 hours ago, Nitroturtle said:

[...]

I then apply a template I have for each role.  There's always fewer cooks, farmers and ranchers obviously, with the builder category making up usually 1/2 of my dupes.  I then tweak specific dupes to have secondary roles as needed depending on skills and job experience.  I also split them into 3 shifts and try to ensure the best distribution, so at any time I have at least 1 person on each role, where possible.

Now, I know not everyone is going to bother with all of this.  I'm a min/max gamer, so I can't help myself.  I will say though, it works very well once it's all setup.  My BIGGEST complaint with the priority system is the supply category and I wish it would go away.  IMO it should just be folded into the appropriate roles, so tending crops would fall under farm, supplying building materials would fall under build, etc.  Personally I've NEVER wanted different dupes to supply material than I've wanted doing the actual job, and if I did, I would just setup a nearby storage and have my cleaners keep it stocked up near where the material will be used.

This is great, but should be built into the game, IMO.  Roles FTW.

[Nitroturtle]

3 minutes ago, Lawnmower Man said:

This is great, but should be built into the game, IMO.  Roles FTW.

I completely agree.  The fact that it's easier to do outside the game in a spreadsheet than in game should be a real indication that we need a better way to manage it in game.  Not to go too OT, but the same goes for rocket distance calculations.  Thankfully @TunderLock saved us from that. 

[Gurgel]

5 hours ago, Nitroturtle said:

I completely agree.  The fact that it's easier to do outside the game in a spreadsheet than in game should be a real indication that we need a better way to manage it in game.  Not to go too OT, but the same goes for rocket distance calculations.  Thankfully @TunderLock saved us from that. 

Well, for roles I would be fine to have it as an option only. I usually do not do roles or only for part of the dupes (cook, e.g.). 

Completely agree on the rockets, doing it trial & error is just annoying. The web-rocket thing is pretty nice though.

[Yunru]

13 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

An emergency priority usable only during red alert would be welcome. Other than that i agree you can prevent most of that by proper priority setup and smart construction preventing dupes frome getting stuck.

Any priority usable during red alert would be welcome, as it is currently, all priorities are ignored.

[MorsDux]

The rimworld like force task button wouldnt hurt anyone, for some new players it would be very nice. Currently you need to perfectly understand the system (be a senior player) to make stuff happen in the order you want. Force option would bridge the gap for that. 

[Craigjw]

The supply task is very ambiguous and sometimes anti-productive.  When you have a build task in space, the supply of materials can be assigned to the dupe assigned to the supply task, instead of the builder.  At the time of assignment, the supply dupe is supplying that deoderizer in the oil biome with regolith from space, so the build task takes 2-3 days to complete because the supply dupe has to traverse the entire length of the map several times as opposed to less than a day if the builder dupe had just supplied the materials in the first place...  And due to that 2-3 day delay, Meep has already died of suffocation because he has no materials at hand to build himself out of the hole he just dug.

A force dupe to Jump button would also be nice.

[greggbert]

This is really not an issue if you don't queue up too many jobs.   If you actually get your dupes to idle at least once every cycle or two for about 2 seconds, you will be AMAZED on how much control the priority system gives you.  It literally becomes a whole different game.  You will also realize letting task chains unwind until they resolve, allows you to quickly identify any issues with priority and general inefficiency, such as a repeated unnecessary long walk to a fridge, or spending too much time hauling polluted dirt, something you might not notice right away in a full queue.   And you will realize that you can do more with fewer dupes by setting smarter tasks.   

TLDR:  Queuing up so many tasks that completing a 9 becomes a problem means you've got way too many queued tasks in general and should let them resolve before you give new ones.

[Craigjw]

It's not the number of tasks I give my dupes, it's the pathfinding.  Until the jobs are supplied with mats, then every build job takes 2-3 cycles to get started, even if there is just a single job.  Once the build tasks are supplied, everything then gets built really quickly.  The problem generally in my situation is that the dupes are doing trivial backup jobs in the centre of the map, when I build something, they then go to the oil biome to pickup the mats, then go to the space zone to supply those mats at the build site.  Of course, running up and down so many ladders takes a long time.

It's also nearly always the case that the build job that takes the longest is the one task that is being supplied by the dupe on supply.

[MorsDux]

3 hours ago, Craigjw said:

The supply task is very ambiguous and sometimes anti-productive.  When you have a build task in space, the supply of materials can be assigned to the dupe assigned to the supply task, instead of the builder.  At the time of assignment, the supply dupe is supplying that deoderizer in the oil biome with regolith from space, so the build task takes 2-3 days to complete because the supply dupe has to traverse the entire length of the map several times as opposed to less than a day if the builder dupe had just supplied the materials in the first place...  And due to that 2-3 day delay, Meep has already died of suffocation because he has no materials at hand to build himself out of the hole he just dug.

A force dupe to Jump button would also be nice.

I overcome this by having most (but not all...) of my dupes assigned to supply at a lower priority as build so whoever supplies a material will take the build task right after. 

[KittenIsAGeek]

4 hours ago, Craigjw said:

The supply task is very ambiguous and sometimes anti-productive.  When you have a build task in space, the supply of materials can be assigned to the dupe assigned to the supply task, instead of the builder.  At the time of assignment, the supply dupe is supplying that deoderizer in the oil biome with regolith from space, so the build task takes 2-3 days to complete because the supply dupe has to traverse the entire length of the map several times as opposed to less than a day if the builder dupe had just supplied the materials in the first place...  And due to that 2-3 day delay, Meep has already died of suffocation because he has no materials at hand to build himself out of the hole he just dug.

A force dupe to Jump button would also be nice.

Some of that is solved by using the "Enable Proximity" check box in the priorities window.  However, I agree that it is still a problem.  A way to solve the "dupe stuck until" some task is completed problem is to set the task at a very low priority.  Your other dupes, down in your base, will be busy doing their own thing, but the stuck dupe will be idle and so will start the task immediately.  Say, for example, building a ladder or digging down from a ledge.

I also think that some of the algorithms could be optimized to better pick tasks, but I'm not sure how to solve the problem.  Even with proximity enabled, I routinely have dupes on opposite ends of the base getting tasks that reverse their positions.  Such as:

• A hallway needs to be dug out, height two.  Dupes 1 and 2 run up and start digging.  
• While they're digging dupe 3 finishes his task and becomes idle, waiting for a task. 
• Dupe 1 finishes digging and the pathfinding algorithm determines that two more blocks are now available for digging.
• These get assigned to Dupe 1 and Dupe 3, since Dupe 2 is still digging.
• Dupe 3 is way down in the base and will spend half the cycle running out to where the digging needs to be done. 
• While Dupe 3 is still running from inside the base and before Dupe 1 finishes his next digging assignment, mealwood at the bottom of the base becomes ready to harvest.  This gets assigned to Dupe 2, since he's just standing around twiddling his thumbs.
• Since multiple plants are ready at once, the mealwood harvest ALSO gets assigned to Dupe 1.  He's finished digging his plot, but he can't get to the next until Dupe 3 gets his dug out.  
• So, now Dupes 1 and 2 are heading down into the base and Dupe 3 is still running up to dig the hallway.  They all reach their destinations RIGHT at the end of the shift, so without actually completing any tasks, they drop what they're doing and go to eat and sleep.

I'm not sure how to solve the problem. Ideally, the task assignment algorithm would know that dupes 1 and 2 are very close to the digging that needs to be done, and that only two blocks are open at a time, and would avoid giving a third dupe the task as long as dupes 1 and 2 were either digging or waiting to dig.  Realistically the overhead of such checks may further reduce game performance and they could get quite cumbersome when dealing with large task assignments.  Especially if it changed the big-O from log(n) to (n) or, worse, (n^2).

[Stressed Dupe]

why isn't priority 9 the force task button anyway? every new player uses it as one, so why not have priority 9 be the "Brown alert" button? It's simple, and fits organically in the messchanics fo the game (see what I did there?)

 

[MorsDux]

1 hour ago, Stressed Dupe said:

why isn't priority 9 the force task button anyway? every new player uses it as one, so why not have priority 9 be the "Brown alert" button? It's simple, and fits organically in the messchanics fo the game (see what I did there?)

 

prio 9 is the priority of the task, it doesnt mean the dupe you want will handle it (it can happen tho)

[Stressed Dupe]

But if I'm tagging it 9 is cuz I want it done and don't really care about who does it

Mostly, if I do tag something 9 it's an emergency, so making every dupe respond to it would just help me

[Lilalaunekuh]

On 23.1.2019 at 4:37 PM, greggbert said:

This is really not an issue if you don't queue up too many jobs.   If you actually get your dupes to idle at least once every cycle or two for about 2 seconds, you will be AMAZED on how much control the priority system gives you.  It literally becomes a whole different game.

Hmm if my dupes go idle every couple cycles it means I don´t use all the possibly available workforce

=> Even with random priorities everything would be done in this case.

(In my bases I try to never have a duplicant go idle, even if I fall asleep and my base runs 200+ cycles unsupervised^^)

 

So for me the only tasks that made me wish for a force taks button is equipping clothes.

(I solve it by locking my duplicant inside the room with the suit for a short time^^)

 

7 minutes ago, Stressed Dupe said:

if I do tag something 9 it's an emergency

That´s the only reason I set something on 9, even 8 is just for "critical" tasks like cleaning my outhouse early or sweeping off-gassing resources

 

But I like the idea of a force task button to ensure a specific duplicant does a job (like the move to command).

(Not sure if there is any real benefit except an easier learning curve for new players dealing with the priority system. Would be more like a red alert for just one duplicant^^)

 

[avc15]

18 minutes ago, Stressed Dupe said:

But if I'm tagging it 9 is cuz I want it done and don't really care about who does it

Mostly, if I do tag something 9 it's an emergency, so making every dupe respond to it would just help me

You have to understand the mechanics, square peg round hole etc. (you're missing a step)

What you are referring to as "priority" is actually not priority.

This screen is priority:

 

This overlay is something called "specific errand priority" (used to be called "sub-priority" which I thought was actually more descriptive)

:

There is also a detailed explanation of how the two interact with one another in that tooltip there.

Type Priority is first, Specific Priority is second.

So if you want a specific mopping command done immediately and you want Burt to do it, first you must set Tidy to the highest priority for Burt, then set sub-priority to 9 for that mop command. Viola, Burt will immediately run to mop the thing.

-----

If you want the sub priorities to behave the way you're describing, you have to set at least a couple dupes to have all dashes on the priority screen. (a few dupes that are not specialized)

 

[Stressed Dupe]

7 minutes ago, avc15 said:

If you want the sub priorities to behave the way you're describing, you have to set at least a couple dupes to have all dashes on the priority screen. (a few dupes that are not specialized)

 

yeah, I know, what do you think I disagree with? I think having no-specialty dupes is wasteful (they don't gather exp as much) and that by tagging a task's "specific priority" as 9, dupes, all dupes, should do that task

many of the priority types involve Deliver tasks, right? what I want is tasks on 9 be considered THE most important tasks, and ignore all priority types assigned, except for disallowances maybe.

I tag it 9, everyone rushes to do it if they're allowed to. Simple.