Construction Dig Errand

[Tuode]

So, when I'm playing Spaced Out! I run into something like this:

There is a Construction Dig Errand which needs to dig up a block of Abyssalite. Checking the errand table I find that no dupe is available.

So the thing is, I have a dupe for Superhard Digging:

but at the same time he has the Unconstructive trait, so he can't do construction errand by default.

And here's the question: a Construction Dig Errand it says "Building OR Digging", but a dupe that can dig and can't build CANNOT do this Errand. The problem has popped up multiple times, and every time I have to cancel the construction blueprint and replace them with digging errand first, and not until the blocks are dug up am I able to send other dupes to do the construction part. It's painful to have to micromanage like that. So I'm wondering if this is an intended feature or some bug I've come across. Any reply will be appreciated

[Yobbo]

That sounds like a bug to me. Other "OR" errands still work if the other labour is disabled. For example the "cook supply" errand works perfectly fine with either cooking or supplying completely disabled.

[Gurgel]

Interesting. Well, this is at the very least an inconsistency in the skill model. It should at least say clearly that this is not going to be worked on and paint that ladder red. Preferably, it should split this into construction and dig.

For now, I would recommend to just do 3 tiles of digging, then 3 tiles of ladders. That is a lot faster anyways.

[Tuode]

52 minutes ago, Yobbo said:

That sounds like a bug to me. Other "OR" errands still work if the other labour is disabled. For example the "cook supply" errand works perfectly fine with either cooking or supplying completely disabled.

Thanks for the infomation!

16 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

For now, I would recommend to just do 3 tiles of digging, then 3 tiles of ladders. That is a lot faster anyways.

Thanks for advice! In fact that's what I've been doing. But it needs micromanagement anyway, and it's somewhat annoying, especially when you don't get any notification about it. The problem happened again 2 hours ago, and it was not immediately noticeable, because it's, like, 1 tile of abyssalite with sandstone around It, and under the blueprint it's really hard to tell. It was when I set the errand at priority 9 and I can't get dupes coming that I realized' Ahh here we go again'.

[Gurgel]

4 hours ago, Tuode said:

Thanks for advice! In fact that's what I've been doing. But it needs micromanagement anyway, and it's somewhat annoying, especially when you don't get any notification about it. The problem happened again 2 hours ago, and it was not immediately noticeable, because it's, like, 1 tile of abyssalite with sandstone around It, and under the blueprint it's really hard to tell. It was when I set the errand at priority 9 and I can't get dupes coming that I realized' Ahh here we go again'.

Well, the whole queuing is difficult on the software side. One solution is to always have a combined digger/builder. All in all, this thing is annoying but not that hard to work around.

[Tuode]

2 hours ago, Gurgel said:

Well, the whole queuing is difficult on the software side. One solution is to always have a combined digger/builder. All in all, this thing is annoying but not that hard to work around.

Thanks for the reply. In fact, throughout my 250-hour ONI playing, this is the first time that I've printed a dupe with Unconstructive trait, and I'm really surprised to find that a seemingly "OR" errand turns out to be something like an "AND". This is fairly strange especially when you consider that other "OR" errands (as discussed above) work perfectly well. The solution, when a) creating a new world, or b) lategame when you have lots of dupes, is as straight forward as you've said. But for someone (like me) that do get himself in trouble (and also having difficulty getting another Tier 2 miner in a short term), this problem is somewhat frustrating.

I won't mind if Klei tells me that this is an intended feature, as another downside for Unconstructive trait, and next time I'll be more careful. But the whole thing conflicts with the saying "Building OR Digging". This is what troubles me most.

[Coolthulhu]

47 minutes ago, Tuode said:

I won't mind if Klei tells me that this is an intended feature, as another downside for Unconstructive trait

It really doesn't sound like a conscious decision, seeing as it's almost entirely a UI limitation.

[Solon64]

That exact situation happens all the time in my playthroughs, and I've learned to work around it, but it's obnoxious.

What I believe is happening is that, when you order a construction (like a ladder) that goes through "higher-tier" digging spaces, those tiles aren't marked for digging, they're marked for construction only, even though you need a digger to dig them out. AFAIK, every task can only have one job/skill designation.

So the builder AI looks at the tile, says he can't dig it out, and moves on. The digger AI never even looks at it because it's a build task, not a dig one. So you get stuck unless you mark it for dig first.

The simplest fix would be to just allow two or more skills to be assigned to the same task, but that might not be easy to program, you'd have to go back into the code for every possible task and put in more code for "which skill is a priority? Which skill is used to determine job speed? Do we allow an alternative skill to be used?" And then you get confusing logic choices where tasks that are combined build/dig skill would have your diggers running to build things and your builders wasting time digging out stuff when they are painfully slow at doing so.

No, the route they chose is simple, but has its own quirks, as you've found here in this thread.

[Gurgel]

52 minutes ago, Solon64 said:

No, the route they chose is simple, but has its own quirks, as you've found here in this thread.

It is one of the cases where things seem simple to humans, but providing an algorithmic solution is complex and comes with several trade-offs where you have to accept some sub-optimal aspects to make it work.

[Hayate108]

Construction vs digging is a issue

 

Which make builder dig really slow and the digger run long way just for only one hard soild

So this time I reach up and down I order dig

That build ladder

 

Target will dig first and after the ladder is build

 

Construction-dig is really slowly setting witch we always separate the digger (300%) and builder (300%)

 

And it conflict skill only dig...Err.  wait

I was forbid the work and it works fine for digger get the Hardone

 

so where the issue anyway?

[Yobbo]

12 hours ago, Solon64 said:

AFAIK, every task can only have one job/skill designation.

This is simply untrue. As shown in the original post, the errand is clearly marked as "building or digging". Many other errands also work this way, that they can be performed using either of two skills, as i also mentioned earlier in this topic.

IIRC it was originally as you say, with each task being exclusively handled by a single skill. The development effort to allow multiple skills to be used for a single task has already been spent quite some time ago, and it is now possible in the game. This one not working as such is most likely a bug relating to the specific interaction of construction jobs creating digging jobs.

I've also noticed some strangeness with changing the digging priority of construction digs. It tends to reset itself to the construction priority of the associated construction job. There are however definitely two separate errands, a construction one and a digging one, as can be seen using the job type filters when using the priority setting tool. There may be some custom code causing a failure of the interaction in this specific case.

In any case i recommend @Tuode file a bug report, if they haven't done so already.