Dupes Stuck on Ladders?

[skiviz]

For some reason my dupes won't move down vertical ladders, even under manual commands. It doesn't seem like anything is blocking the path, since the movement cursor is white. Although I can see the dupes movement route line, none of them actually move beyond a certain point around the vertical ladders, as if there is an invisible wall.  The only direction they can go is sideways, but away from the vertical ladders. 

I tried destroying one of the ladders that the dupes were on to see if they fall, but they didn't, and now they are floating in mid air.

I have no idea how this happened, so neither do I know how to reproduce this situation. 

Is there anything that can be done? More than half of my dupes are on those ladders, so it will be catastrophic to lose them. 

[Zarquan]

Have you tried saving and reloading?

[Knurek]

On 6/23/2023 at 6:11 PM, skiviz said:

For some reason my dupes won't move down vertical ladders, even under manual commands. It doesn't seem like anything is blocking the path, since the movement cursor is white. Although I can see the dupes movement route line, none of them actually move beyond a certain point around the vertical ladders, as if there is an invisible wall.  The only direction they can go is sideways, but away from the vertical ladders. 

I tried destroying one of the ladders that the dupes were on to see if they fall, but they didn't, and now they are floating in mid air.

I have no idea how this happened, so neither do I know how to reproduce this situation. 

Is there anything that can be done? More than half of my dupes are on those ladders, so it will be catastrophic to lose them. 

You need to increase the gap between the horizontal ladder and bunker doors by 1 tile. Duplicants are waiting for bunker doors to open, so they can run on top of the ladder, that's why they don't move.

[LadenSwallow]

Looks to me that their fastest route seems to be running through or above the bunker doors, so they are waiting for them to open, which will take a long time without power.

Does asking them to move to the adjacent ladder 1 cell at a time help?

[skiviz]

Thanks for the replies. I got around the issue by destroying bunker doors and the uppermost ladder. Seems unintuitive why they insist on climbing the uppermost ladder when other routes are equally accessible. I guess it's one of those strange mechanics. 

Although this does not quite explain why dupes float in mid-air, I reloaded a saved file where dupes were still clinging onto the ladder so they could leave without getting stuck. 

[Gurgel]

The issue here is that the bunker doors are in motion. This blocks dupes above and below (because they would like run on top of the ladders) from moving. This is something that can kill a dupe, but it has worked like this forever.