Dispenser Priority Bug [still a bug, but avoidable now]

[BLACKBERREST3]

Cleaning up the OP.

See posts further down for a more accurate description and video.

Edited June 16 by BLACKBERREST3

[MinhPham]

It's been around since the dispenser is around, mean as long as the game was around ...

Since Klei seems to okay with it, maybe you should too

[BLACKBERREST3]

I give up, I'm using the mod.

edit; I in fact did not give up and it paid off

Edited June 16 by BLACKBERREST3

[KittenIsAGeek]

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to show as a problem.  Is it the 'delivering from a priority 6 storage to priority 2 dispenser' the problem, or the 'not delivering from a priority 9 storage to a priority 1 dispenser?'  FWIW I think there's something special about both priority 9 and priority 1.  9 is "drop everything and do this first," and 1 is "if there isn't anything at all that needs to otherwise be done, do this."  I've sometimes found dupes idling instead of taking care of priority 1 tasks.  Does the same behavior happen if the storage bin and the dispenser are set at 2 and 6 like in the first example?

[BLACKBERREST3]

edited; keep scrolling down

Edited June 16 by BLACKBERREST3

[KittenIsAGeek]

OK, so, I think the issue is that dispensers and storage bins are different types of task.  If I'm understanding things correctly, storage bins are "storage" and dispensers are "supplying."  Because of the higher priority, the material gets stored first.  Then, once it is stored, there's a lower-priority "supplying" task that still needs to be filled. Conveniently there's a storage bin RIGHT HERE that has the item the dispenser is looking for.

As for why the second scenario didn't do the delivery? I have no idea other than the specifics of 1/9 priorities. 

Oh, hey.. um..  I just now noticed while playing it yet AGAIN to see if I could figure this out.  In the very first video, the first dispenser has a power line plugged in while the other does not.  Yes, there is no power being supplied (hence the low battery icon), but sometimes behavior changes if things are plugged in regardless of whether or not they actually have the power to function.  In all of your later screenshots the dispensers have no power lines connected to them.  

[KittenIsAGeek]

I've never really tried what your'e doing before.  My solution was a screen door on a timer that dupes can't walk through:

Spoiler

The dupes can reach to toss eggs in the dispenser, but they can't reach the eggs that fall back out.  The doors on the left are for airflow, not dupe-flow.

The door shuts a little bit before dark, to make sure almost all of the adult hatches are in the grooming room.  Then, a little after daylight after all the adults have buried themselves, the door opens and lets any new hatches out.  Sometimes a hatch or two gets trapped for a bit, but.. all these hatches are gonna end up on the grill at some point so who cares if a couple are trapped for a bit now and then... =^.^=

[BLACKBERREST3]

I FIGURED IT OUT!!!

It's the critter pickup station

I'm gonna do some more tests

But now the sweeper is acting weird with or without the critter pickup XD. I just can't catch a break with this. Maybe the sweepers always deliver to dispensers regardless 🤷‍♂️

So why does the critter pickup do this? Also why do sweepers not respect priority either when in the same vicinity. I'm pretty sure these are considered bugs. Shouldn't dispensers act like storage and not building supply tasks to sweepers; dupes treat them like storage, sweepers treat them like buildings. And then the critter pickup changes dupe behavior to treat them like buildings again XD. At least I found out what caused it, but this breaks a lot of setups I had and I need to go back and check my builds now to make sure they don't have a critter pickup in the same room set to >1. I can play without the mod now so...success!

 

 

Edited June 16 by BLACKBERREST3

[BLACKBERREST3]

Just tested this bug with the same setup and can confirm they fixed that behavior already.

However this bug is still relevant. I tested it further and the guy said that when "extra" resources are selected, but what this really means is that unless they are identical in what items they store, any difference at all will cause dupes to deliver to a lower priority dispenser.

And finally here is the link to the mod that fixes some of these issues.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1889255373

@KittenIsAGeek Thanks for not letting me give up 😁