Share your dupe management tips!

[LucidFugue]

I'm curious to learn some of the ways people keep their colonies running smoothly, particularly as they get larger. I'm using the term "duplicant management" because I think there are some creative things that go beyond just the dupe priority and task priority system. I've seen some posts talking about the use of a proximity preference setting for example, which weights the jobs dupes will go for differently. 

I'm currently trying to deal with an issue that comes up for me around the mid-game. I want my digger/builder/suit wearer dupes to tackle a wide range of projects outside the base. But while that is happening, I have a bunch of stuff to do in the interior of my base, which anyone can handle. Because these are all construction jobs the dupe and job priorities won't cut it. If I preference them equally, everyone jumps on the closer tasks first. If I use task priorities, everyone preferences the exterior jobs, and I'm not putting dozens of atmo suits at every exit, so sometimes my best builders are twiddling their thumbs.

I'm starting to experiment with disallowing my artists, farmers, ranchers, doctors and chefs from using the atmo suit checkpoints or doors headed to those exterior  projects so that they will focus on construction tasks inside the base, even if they are set to a lower priority. That way my skilled dupes will ignore the in-base projects in favour of the geyser builds and space or oil biome work. 

I thought I'd ask if there are other specific issues people have encountered and devised clever tricks to overcome, or if there are tips and tricks that may not be immediately obvious to players. 

[ruhrohraggy]

Best method I've come up with for managing 30 dupes. They each get sent a frost burger every 5 days.

 

Spoiler

 

[mickaux]

1 hour ago, LucidFugue said:

I'm starting to experiment with disallowing my artists, farmers, ranchers, doctors and chefs from using the atmo suit checkpoints or doors headed to those exterior  projects so that they will focus on construction tasks inside the base, even if they are set to a lower priority. That way my skilled dupes will ignore the in-base projects in favour of the geyser builds and space or oil biome work. 

I think this is the best solution - setting outside priorities higher and selecting qualified dupes to do their job is much simplier then calculating priorities for everything.

I can recommend this mod though: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1722760223. It resets build priorities back to 5 so you won't end up with 10 projects all set to 9.

[DemainaNyx]

Preventing dupes from leaving helps a lot.  A cook might wander off to the dangerous uncovered space area during a meteor shower and become trapped because he was trying to gather that last bit of meat he needed.  Or your farmer dupe goes to help build something for the volcano and becomes trapped in the vacuum room because your dedicated builders were able to finish their level 7, 6, and 5 tasks while he was only able to finish the one level 8 task in that build.

This also helps reduce late game lag because it reduces the amount of choices of paths a dupe can go.  It's the same reason people cram critters into small rooms to help speed up ranching tasks and because each critter has less pathing options.

 

I haven't done this myself but I've seen people build bases specific to certain tasks.  Having an eletrical engineer run their power plant in the oil biome or having all their astronauts sleep in a base up near the rockets with research done up there as well.  Certain people are needed in all these places like builders, tidiers, and an artist at least once to set up the space, but limiting these other dupes to their little area of the asteroid really speeds up their ability to accomplish tasks quicker.  You can also have a central chef that cooks meals and ship the end product to each mini base.  Little bit complicated to set up but it can change the way you play.

[ONIfreak]

I use doors for that. Build door at the entrance to new project and allow just some dups to enter. Set higher priority there so allowed dups will go there first. Rest on lower priority so rest dups will take care of other tasks. Also i tend to give dups just 1 or 2 roles ( build and dig, research and cook, farm and ranch, supply and tidy, doctor and decor, operate) after few cycles you can see which dups ypu need so look for another one. 

[Lafara]

1. generally apply DISABLE (X) priority regard Cook/Doctor/Research/Tidy/Farm/Ranch/Art to all dupe. allow each dupe to work just 1-2 special priority task 

2. in each special priority task , assigning just 1 Dupe : Highest Priority ,other 1-2 helpers just Normal.

3. assign newbie dupe (6th ,7th ,...) Operate : Highest Priority. with a Hamster wheels room. (of course allow only newbie inside)

4. assign Operate : Highest Priority and Dig/Build : DISABLE priority to 1 Electrical Engineer. for fastest Generator tune up with no stutter. (generator tune up will restart its progress bar once difference engineer working on it)

5. assign 3 Dupes whom have NO cooking skill Cooking : Normal priority as Tofu/Mush bar helpers. if needed.

6. use Weight Plate to prohibit dupe with less than 1000 kg cargo going to storage cluster.

7. encourage every dupe to wear Atmo suit all the time. of course rest/meal time is exception.

[Sigma Cypher]

An idea from @Nativel (which I never tried but seems brilliant) is to put a clock timer control on the exit doors so that the "out-of-base" (miner) dupes can't run back to base for any reason until their shift is over.  It seemed to be quite effective in keeping the miners and off-base builders on task in his "How to Make a Cruiser" videos.  I'm guessing he discussed this in part 3 but I'm not sure: 

  

 

[LucidFugue]

17 hours ago, Lafara said:

1. generally apply DISABLE (X) priority regard Cook/Doctor/Research/Tidy/Farm/Ranch/Art to all dupe. allow each dupe to work just 1-2 special priority task 

Does this cause a lot of idling? I usually dont' disable tasks altogether but either double increase or double decrease priorities so it is only if they are going to idle, they will go and do other things like harvest food or tidy. 

17 hours ago, Lafara said:

3. assign newbie dupe (6th ,7th ,...) Operate : Highest Priority. with a Hamster wheels room. (of course allow only newbie inside)

How long do you spend training a dupe like this? I know it's good if you give them high athletics but I have never bothered to create an exercise gym like this, lol. 

[Ketmol]

I find all colonies run a LOT smoother with the correct stuff getting done to a much larger degree and duplicants keeping a much lower stress level if you keep all stuff at a 5 priority instead of, like I have seen some people do, spam different priorities on everything from machinery to planned builds. And only set higher priority in case of emergency.

What you do instead is use the priority system for duplicant job priority, the one on top right menus in combination with the skill menu. Preventing some duplicants from leaving the base by simply specialize them in tasks that they do inside the base, operation, farming and alike, and preventing them entirely from other jobs (using the X priority) Then you have other duplicants specialized in building and digging that will leave the safety of the base to a much larger degree.

You can govern where duplicants go, how many of them do what type of jobs and a lot of their behavior using that priority system well. And it is also a lot less hassle in the long run than micromanaging all jobs and machines by spamming priority numbers depending on what you consider most urgent at the moment.

[Lafara]

10 hours ago, LucidFugue said:

Does this cause a lot of idling? I usually dont' disable tasks altogether but either double increase or double decrease priorities so it is only if they are going to idle, they will go and do other things like harvest food or tidy. 

How long do you spend training a dupe like this? I know it's good if you give them high athletics but I have never bothered to create an exercise gym like this, lol. 

Duplicant idling when all lump of debris cleanly swept into storage /or full storage 

Duplicant hamster wheel training time take around 20-30 cycle to reach 10 Athlete. I never count it. those newby occationally operate Rock crusher/ Metal refinery/ Oil refinery instead of running wheel.

wellllllllll .... refining power came from hamster wheels themself.

[Gus Smedstad]

On 8/22/2019 at 5:11 AM, Lafara said:

1. generally apply DISABLE (X) priority regard Cook/Doctor/Research/Tidy/Farm/Ranch/Art to all dupe. allow each dupe to work just 1-2 special priority task 

I should do this. I already have Dupes prioritize the tasks which they do well, but low-skill Dupes end up grabbing specialist tasks just because they've got nothing better to do. 

However, I wouldn't suggest disabling Tidy. Tidy's not really a specialist task, and more importantly it's something you sometimes want a lot of Dupes working in parallel to do. As far as I know Tidy tasks are mop water, empty pipes, and sweep marked debris. Mop and Sweep are both specific tasks I have to mark, and I usually mark them because they're important for some reason. Like cleaning the interior of a steam chamber, for example, or cleaning up slime.

8 hours ago, Ketmol said:

You can govern where duplicants go

That's my problem. I've yet to find a way to reliably govern where Duplicants go. The neither of the priority systems have helped in that regard.

 

[Lutzkhie]

I divide them into two, alpha team consist of builders, diggers, suppliers and bravo team consists farmer,ranchers,operators. doctors. decorators, cooks, are also part of bravo team, while tidying are a mix of both, the idea is to maximize crops output and ranching by instantly harvesting them but still have other dupes manage building/digging,

[Lafara]

btw, Sweep categorize as errand : Storing , not Tidying

 

and Strength 15 Plumber dude still mopping floor few 160 g liquid each tick , as same as strength 1 dude.

the deciding factor is how fast nearby liquid flowing to block where Plumber dude crouch down /sponging floor.

if there're continuously flowing liquid drip down to that block , Plumber may crouch there sponging all whole cycle.

 

it is very inefficient to just mass-mop task liquid on floor. whether I let 1 specialized Plumber do the job or have every dude in colony storm the floor.

the efficient method is to order 1 mop task at the center of liquid splatter. wait until liquid no longer flow. then mass-mop task.

this way 1 touch of sponge will delete 3 blocks of liquid splatter. and you can forcefully haste the process manually by canceling current mop task ,just after sponge touch the floor.

[Gurgel]

Keep them in the dark and feed them with sh**!

[Derringer]

10 hours ago, Gurgel said:

Keep them in the dark and feed them with sh**!

Works for dusk caps, should work for duplicants, right?