Free time management

[Technoincubus]

I noticed that with standart setting my dupes can, at best, eat and go to toilet, and usually they barely manage to do it. So, how many free time blocks dupes require to attend at least one recreation station?

[OxCD]

1 hour ago, Technoincubus said:

I noticed that with standart setting my dupes can, at best, eat and go to toilet, and usually they barely manage to do it. So, how many free time blocks dupes require to attend at least one recreation station?

It depends a lot on travel time. Put your toilets on one side of the map, and mess tables on the other side, and they will not even have time to sleep.

Set showers, toilets, food storage, mess tables, beds, etc... as close as possible if you want to minimize travel time.

Then same for recreation rooms. Too far = too much travel time.

Test, and just make free time longer if needed.

There's no strict rules about this. Another parameter that can make it even "harder" to set, is the use-time of the recreative building. Some are shorts, some are "averages", and some are veeeeeeeery long (nearly 1/4 cycle. Yeah, it's excessive, and awkward, even looking like a bug, but Klei doesn't seem to change it so far). And because you cannot allow a dup to begin the use at the beginning only of their free time, it could make it even harder.

[Steve8]

The travel time between work and the living area also matters. So at the beginning one block is fine. But as you expand they need more

[Meltdown]

You also may want to use Bathtime schedule blocks in order to reduce the fraction of downtime used on toilets. 

[sheaker]

Here is my example. 12 Duplicants and 4 schedules.

Many players are setting downtime between sleep and bathtime to get additional traits during workday. Keep in mind that Dupliants can work during bathtime when they performed all required hygiene jobs.

.

In fact the only change from default was to set three ours downtime and use 3 Duplicants per schedule. Its fair enough to eat and play before sleep. They are always reaching 100% stamina before their wake time.

[TheMule]

47 minutes ago, sheaker said:

Here is my example. 12 Duplicants and 4 schedules.

Many players are setting downtime between sleep and bathtime to get additional traits during workday. Keep in mind that Dupliants can work during bathtime when they performed all required hygiene jobs.

.

In fact the only change from default was to set three ours downtime and use 3 Duplicants per schedule. Its fair enough to eat and play before sleep. They are always reaching 100% stamina before their wake time.

One sleeptime slot is enough. They only need to be able to reach their beds and start sleeping. Since everything is close by in your base it's impossible for dups not to be able to move from the recreation areas to the beds in time.

They way you've set up slots, they only have 3 downtime slots to:

- reach the base, go to the bathroom, grab food, eat it. It might not be enough.

Some of them may be skipping heating entirely, because they can't eat duting sleeptime. At the same time, some of them are oversleeping, since they can't wake up during sleeptime even if at 100% stamina.

If 3 downtime slots are enough for all dups, then you can do with only one sleeptime slot. Otherwise, just increase downtime slots.

Having more that one sleeptime is useful only in some rare corner cases.

[sheaker]

29 minutes ago, TheMule said:

One sleeptime slot is enough. They only need to be able to reach their beds and start sleeping. Since everything is close by in your base it's impossible for dups not to be able to move from the recreation areas to the beds in time.

They way you've set up slots, they only have 3 downtime slots to:

- reach the base, go to the bathroom, grab food, eat it. It might not be enough.

Some of them may be skipping heating entirely, because they can't eat duting sleeptime. At the same time, some of them are oversleeping, since they can't wake up during sleeptime even if at 100% stamina.

If 3 downtime slots are enough for all dups, then you can do with only one sleeptime slot. Otherwise, just increase downtime slots.

Having more that one sleeptime is useful only in some rare corner cases.

Thank for that info. It good to know. I will review my schedule soon.

[Gurgel]

I usually run with [bathroom][3 free time][2 sleep]

As long as they make it to sleep, they will sleep longer if needed. When I have the advanced morale buildings (sun-chair, etc.), I change that to

[bathroom][3 sleep][3 free time]

The ones that go for longer relaxation activity will continue to use them when free time is over.

[nakomaru]

It hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet: you don't need to schedule any Bathtime.

For example, if you schedule 3-4xDowntime→2xBedtime, they will shower and use the toilet during Downtime if their bladder is over 60% (iirc, reported from other players, perhaps @OxCD)

This makes them gain more morale from the time you would otherwise give to Bathtime, as well as force them to travel home before bed during Downtime.

[psusi]

3 hours ago, nakomaru said:

It hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet: you don't need to schedule any Bathtime.

For example, if you schedule 3-4xDowntime→2xBedtime, they will shower and use the toilet during Downtime if their bladder is over 60% (iirc, reported from other players, perhaps @OxCD)

This makes them gain more morale from the time you would otherwise give to Bathtime, as well as force them to travel home before bed during Downtime.

Yes, but then they spend time twiddling their thumbs.  I prefer to send them back to work with one block of bathroom time in the morning so that if they didn't get time to do that before bed, they can in the morning, and otherwise it's off to work asap!

[Kderosa]

5 hours ago, Gurgel said:

[bathroom][3 sleep][3 free time]

The ones that go for longer relaxation activity will continue to use them when free time is over.

Yes.  This is a little known solution to the problems created by the new recreation buildings like the beach chair which takes something like 4 squares to finish.

If you provide multiple recreation stations after finishing work, traveling back to the base, hitting the bathroom, eating (two blocks on ravenous, an eternity) then your dupes will start visiting the recreation furniture in turn for as long as you have recreation time left.  If they jump on the beach chair - the most notorious example - right before you have their sleep time scheduled, they often blow right by their sleep time, go directly to work, and proceed to pass out from exhaustion right then and there, taking an eternity to recover since they aren't in their beds or cots and missing a huge chunk of the work day.  Scheduling rec time after sleep time just loses you some work time when they lounge in the beach chair sipping mai tais after work time has begun - but it's far less wasted time than having them fall asleep on a ladder.  

[rico0]

hm, light really helps for doing things like 15% faster? 
edits: now looks like i posted on the wrong topic sorry xD

[Meltdown]

41 minutes ago, coheru said:

looks like i posted on the wrong topic sorry xD

Fun fact: it is still relevant as lit workplace buff seems to speed up toilet usage and hand washing.

[psusi]

3 hours ago, Meltdown said:

Fun fact: it is still relevant as lit workplace buff seems to speed up toilet usage and hand washing.

And eating!

[rico0]

4 hours ago, psusi said:

And eating!

and sleepi-.. no

[Gurgel]

3 hours ago, coheru said:

and sleepi-.. no

Apparently, loud sleepers can sleep while the light is on. Maybe it works on them?

[Meltdown]

5 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

Apparently, loud sleepers can sleep while the light is on. Maybe it works on them?

I already tested that - it doesn't.

[psusi]

2 hours ago, Gurgel said:

Apparently, loud sleepers can sleep while the light is on. Maybe it works on them?

Nice theory!

2 hours ago, Meltdown said:

I already tested that - it doesn't.

Damn.

[Gurgel]

13 hours ago, Meltdown said:

I already tested that - it doesn't.

Pity. Thanks anyways.

[TheMule]

On 5/12/2020 at 4:44 PM, nakomaru said:

It hasn't been mentioned in this thread yet: you don't need to schedule any Bathtime.

Well you don't have to but also you don't really have any reason not to. The bathtime slot is just a worktime one with different setting on the bladder threshold. If they don't need to go to the bathroom (which is the normal behaviour) it's just another worktime slot. In the very rare case they need to, it makes sure then they don't have to go later in the middle of the day.
 

This is very rare tho... since the bathroom it's they very first thing they visit during downtime. If they missed it, they missed the entire donwtime period and they went directly to bed w/o peeing or eating. Possibly because they were so late that all lavatories were occupied by dups of the following shift or they were not operational for what ever reason.

In my current playthrough I'm testing the limits of a setup in which the washroom is the only room w/o suits. Basicly the whole base is reduced to the washroom as far as suits are concerned. Everything else is "outside". I'm also trying to use the least number of docks.

I do see some irregular behaviours, due mostly to suits not available because they're recharging... dups would start eating if they can't enter the washroom. As soon as the washroom becomes available, they stop eating go to the bathroom and then resume eating.
I've seen them also go straight to bed and then go to the washroom as soon as they wake up.

This is somewhat relavant to what I wrote before, because if you have only one sleeptime slot, they're most likely going to sleep through the following bathtime slot too, since one slot is not enough to recover full stamina. So there's a very small window when they wake up. But it might be enough because I've seen that happen. My guess is that they acquire the bathroom "errand" and even if the slot expires they are going to complete it anyway.

But corner cases aside, replacing the first worktime slot with a bathtime slot has barely any effect, since usually they don't need to go to the bathroom when they wake up. If everything is working correctly, they should have done that before going to sleep.

BTW I never use shawers so everything I wrote assumes no shawering.

On 5/12/2020 at 4:44 PM, nakomaru said:

This makes them gain more morale from the time you would otherwise give to Bathtime

I don't get this. Bathtime is worktime essentially.
Say I have 3 downtime 2 bedtime (which I don't but let's ignore that for now) 1 bathtime 18 worktime slots.
You have 3 downtime 2 bedtime 19 worktime slots.

Sure I could have 4 downtime 2 bedtime 18 worktime slots, and I'd get +1 morale. But so do you.

 

[wachunga]

6 hours ago, TheMule said:

Well you don't have to but also you don't really have any reason not to

Bathtime after 2 or more bedtime is bad because the bedtime blocks waste productivity every cycle.

Bathtime after 1 bedtime is bad because the dupe is forced awake before they are completely rested if their bladder is full from missing downtime. The dupe will pee after they wake up anyhow so the bathtime just makes a rare situation worse. Dupes don't piss the bed, so no reason not to let them sleep fully.

Bathtime directly before or after downtime is bad because you could have just made them all downtime and gotten a bigger morale bonus.

6 hours ago, TheMule said:

I don't get this.

Presumably he is speaking to the people who put bathtime and downtime next to each other in one contiguous block. There is an example in this very thread. Or perhaps bathtime after bedtime for the purpose of showering. Or perhaps something else, people do all kinds of nonsensical things.

[TheMule]

1 hour ago, wachunga said:

Bathtime after 2 or more bedtime is bad because the bedtime blocks waste productivity every cycle.

I'm the one who defends 1 bedtime only. But how does having a bathtime slot changes anything? Bathtime is worktime for all intents and purposes unless the dups has somehow managed to miss the washroom before going to bed. Which doesn't usually happen. And if the dup has to pee, it's still better doing that before going to work.

 

1 hour ago, wachunga said:

Bathtime after 1 bedtime is bad because the dupe is forced awake before they are completely rested if their bladder is full from missing downtime.

Schedule does not interrupt sleep. Once they start sleeping they don't wake up only because they enter a different slot. They wake up when stamina is 100% if not in sleeptime, or if disturbed. If they have a 100% full bladder, dups may wake up to pee but that's has nothing to do with the schedule slot. It counts as a disturbance during sleep.

 

1 hour ago, wachunga said:

Bathtime directly before or after downtime is bad because you could have just made them all downtime and gotten a bigger morale bonus.

I've never proposed that. Bathtime makes sense only as replacement for the first worktime of the day. And it works exactly the same if the dup's bladder is empty.

Bathtime before downtime just makes the dup go to the bathroom, but w/o the morale bonus.
Bathtime after downtime is very bad, because the dup would move away from the base to resume work but only for one slot.

[wachunga]

Please read what I wrote.

Bathtime does indeed wake a sleeping dupe when bladder is 40% or greater.

Bathtime after sleep is bad when that is the case.

 

In the grand scheme of things it's a minor optimization. My point is that there is a reason not to use bathtime. Bathtime is either bad or does nothing. So don't use it. The other scenarios were examples to cover all the bases.

 

Edited post to be less annoyed. Apologies if offense taken, etc. But please read what I say and verify that it is not true before saying it is not true.

[Gurgel]

Bathtime actually can have a use. For example, my bathroom-loop is timed for easy sterilization. Hence I need dupes to mostly go at scheduled times. I also have several shifts to cut down on lavatories needed. Sure, this is a minor thing, but it works nicely.  

 

[Kderosa]

16 hours ago, Gurgel said:

Bathtime actually can have a use. For example, my bathroom-loop is timed for easy sterilization. Hence I need dupes to mostly go at scheduled times. I also have several shifts to cut down on lavatories needed. Sure, this is a minor thing, but it works nicely.  

 

If only my dupes would abide by the bathroom schedule I've provided for them, but they seem to go to the bathroom and shower as the mood strikes them.  I now mostly use the bathroom slot at the end of the recreation blocks to go back to work earlier and occasionally use the bathroom.  Not sure if this is smart or not yet however.