preview branch Enable "stronger" proximity - resolve long commutes

[yoakenashi]

The "Long Commutes" notification has really caused me to look at my duplicants travel time, and one thing I have noticed is that the duplicants are not very good at following proximity. This is also clearly evident in the new "To Do" List, which I'm loving by the way!

The biggest issue is that when a high priority task becomes available, the first duplicant that is available will take that task regardless of their location. For example: Ruby is off near the edge of the colony blasting through slime tiles with her 20 Digging attribute, when the high priority (due to Life Support being set to high priority) Water Sieve needs sand. She stops mining and heads back to the center of the colony where the Water Sieve is located and 5 other duplicants that just became available (and some may even walk passed the Water Sieve) before Ruby even gets there.

The point is, proximity should play a factor in determining if a duplicant should accept a task. If the task is high priority but is very far away; the total priority should be reduced based on the distance.

Granted, I could set all my errand type priorities and specific errand priorities (ie, subpriorities) to 5 and rely entirely on proximity, but I do not feel I should have to do that. Let me know what you think!

 

[Yunru]

At first I was like "No!"

But it's growing on me.

[Sasza22]

Is it possible to do though? A dupe takes the high priority task when it`s available. Making the proximity stronger would make that dupe do a lower priority task first if it`s closer. That would be inconsistent. The game can`t "wait" for a dupe closer to take the task as it doesn`t track task times jsut free dupes.

Maybe it could use the same logic the research stations use (where the better researcher can kick off the weaker) and kick the far away dupe when a closer one is free. This would make the task done faster but might make another dupe walk back and fourth with no reason.

[Gwido]

Yep, if a closer duplicant became available for the task, it should take the job, even if someone else is on his way to do this specific errand.

On the other hand, the first duplicant assigned to the task will already have travel a certain distance and leave his previous task. So ... The best way would be to wait for the closer duplicant to end his task.

 

Maybe there's no perfect solution for this issue.

[Azunai333]

5 hours ago, Gwido said:

if a closer duplicant became available for the task, it should take the job, even if someone else is on his way to do this specific errand.

This happens already for building and digging jobs.

They could implement that behavior for transporting things, too. But only as long as the first assigned dupe didn't picked up the item yet. If Klei wouldn't do this the dupes would drop stuff everywhere.

[Lilalaunekuh]

On 5.2.2019 at 1:51 PM, yoakenashi said:

For example: Ruby is off near the edge of the colony blasting through slime tiles with her 20 Digging attribute, when the high priority (due to Life Support being set to high priority) Water Sieve needs sand. She stops mining and heads back to the center of the colony where the Water Sieve is located

But if you wanted ruby to be your miner she should have a higher priority on mining than life support.

=> I see no issue here

 

On 5.2.2019 at 1:51 PM, yoakenashi said:

and 5 other duplicants that just became available (and some may even walk passed the Water Sieve)

I know it´s painful to see duplicants walking past tasks that could be easily done on when they were standing next to it.

But do you really want that tasks will get interrupted (more often) ? (Not even talking about the scheduling performance ... )

Or duplicant should idle between tasks to leave room for a selection of the best duplicant to perform a tasks ?

If there is an other way to solve this that I missed, please point me out on my mistake.

 

15 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

Making the proximity stronger would make that dupe do a lower priority task first if it`s closer. That would be inconsistent.

Everything that should be said about it

(PS: The proximity option serves an important purpose right now:

It´s about deciding which tasks with the same (sub) priority should be performed. So if everything would be set to the same priority your miner would still run back to you base if any life support taks becomes available and not continue to mine.)

[yoakenashi]

Spoiler

18 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

Is it possible to do though? A dupe takes the high priority task when it`s available. Making the proximity stronger would make that dupe do a lower priority task first if it`s closer. That would be inconsistent. The game can`t "wait" for a dupe closer to take the task as it doesn't track task times just free dupes.

My suggestion is to have a duplicant do a lower errand type priority or specific errand priority task first, but only because the Total Priority is reduced.

Referring back to my example, let's assume the errand is 123 tiles away:

Life Support Priority: 40
Water Sieve Priority: 7
All Life Support Errands: 0.5
Distance: -12.3
============
Total Priority = 35.2

@Gwido, @Azunai333, @Lilalaunekuh

Yeah, my suggestion is not to have a second duplicant interrupt the first duplicant when the second becomes available. This may actually increase commute times since the first will be reassigned to tasks and be chasing tasks as they become available - not to mention the increase in dropped items. I like that they finish a task when they take it; my idea is that they do not take it in the first place because the total priority is too low - since it's been reduced by the distance.

The problem / inconsistency, is that the priority system is very ordered. High priority errand types are done first - period. If all priority errand types are the same, then do the highest specific errand priority - period. If the priorities are all then same, then do the closest task .

What I suggest is that these factors were considered more concurrently, as the summing of the priority values suggests. Then the system would simply add up all the contributions and the duplicant would take the highest total priority task rather than following the strict ordered rules.

 

[Lilalaunekuh]

16 minutes ago, yoakenashi said:

If all priority errand types are the same, then do the highest specific errand priority - period.

But they are not and a distance factor could harm bigger bases and would make setting clear priorities a pain ...

(So if there wouln´t be something to adjust the distance scaling I am strongly against it.)

 

[Yunru]

26 minutes ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

But they are not and a distance factor could harm bigger bases and would make setting clear priorities a pain ...

(So if there wouln´t be something to adjust the distance scaling I am strongly against it.)

 

You... do realise it'd be optional?

Just like the current proximity setting.

[Tuhljin]

Effective priority could also be increased the longer a task has been waiting for a duplicant. This increase could be set up to only cancel out any distance penalty, so it's not really increasing priority so much as making sure things eventually get assigned as if distance wasn't a factor.

[Sasuga]

Without reading the entire first post, I can say I manage the issue of long distances with doors.  I tried with the dupe-checkpoint, but unfortunately the dupes will stand at the checkpoint waiting all day. I haven't done it yet, but I'm fairly certain it could be done with a checkpoint and doors.

By not allowing, say, my cook to go through certain doors, they will not travel across the map to get supplies to cook with and will instead tidy up while they wait for the supplies to arrive.

The ability to set how much range plays on a duplicate could be handy, but doors work fine for me so far.

[The Plum Gate]

Speaking from prior experience in other priority related updates. Proximity priority is supposed to be a thing already. Maybe they nerfed it?

That being said, you can always dramatically increase the priority of things beyond special access checkpoints to compensate for their distance ( and thus the proximity ).

This is much easier to accomplish and manage when you have a limited access system in place and you have a few duplicants tending to normal functions on the normal access side.

Do remember, we have 1 - 9 to at our disposal along with + !!. Perhaps defaulting to 5 isn't the best system.

[Sasza22]

4 hours ago, The Plum Gate said:

Speaking from prior experience in other priority related updates. Proximity priority is supposed to be a thing already. Maybe they nerfed it?

Proximity is the third layer of priorities dupes use. First layer is the personal priority. A dupe having high personal priority in dig and normal in build will prefer a priority 1 dig vs a priority 9 build. Global is second. Proximity is lowest. Affects only errands that have the same personal and global priority.

At least that is how it worked up until now. Now we have some sort of summary priority comming from adding different types. I`m not sure if that changes anything or howit actually works.