Zoning

[Darkarma]

Love the new update but they've also necessitated this post.

We need the ability set up area zones with five attributes:

Priority: This allows us to designate what areas have the most work going on. Given two blocks with equal priority of nine, the block within a zone of a higher priority will receive higher consideration.

Assignment: Dupes can be assigned specific zones and will not perform jobs outside it unless currently idle. When a work is available in that zone, a dupe will abandon any outside job in favor of their specified zone. The user can toggle idle searching for work outside a zone..

Positioning: Zones can be separate, or they can overlap, this allows us to maintain a purposeful separation of dupes when performing particular jobs, like wise management but also allows for multiple dupes to touch the same objects in another zone when they overlap even when not idle.

Jobs: You can use zone to prohibit certain jobs in specified areas. Such as preventing dupes from trying to disinfect your sewers or bathrooms, or prevent them from repairing things that you need to dismantle.

PS: The ability to ban dupes from certain locations would be a plus but that can be handled by doors.

[deathskill]

The great part of this game is a microcontrol(priority and job managment) and suggested zones will make ONI much easier.

[GrindThisGame]

Zones! Like rimworld! You can sort of do that in a primitive way with the powered airlocks right now. It is not fun to manage at that granular a level though.

[brummbar7]

13 hours ago, GrindThisGame said:

Zones! Like rimworld! You can sort of do that in a primitive way with the powered airlocks right now. It is not fun to manage at that granular a level though.

Actually I probably prefer the door way as far as who-works-where, so that I don't have to select jagged zones in certain areas.  Always kind of tedious.   With doors it's just one point of control, which I like.   The problem lies in controlling for changing conditions, like sickness, which is not allowed for.  I think after a certain point zones may be a bit intimidating for the casual player.  I definitely don't think it would be a good idea to design the game such that zone management was basically required to function.

On the other hand, zones would allow you to have dupes do jobs *beyond* a zone you don't want them doing jobs in.  Which doors don't allow.

What I *would* like to see zone-wise is the ability to set zones that auto-generate sweep jobs at a certain priority.  So I could keep my dining and sleeping areas and really the main base in general clean, without having to go around and scan for debris every so often.

[Darkarma]

Also be handy so that every time someone produces new food in the kitchen, its immediately put in the fridge.

To a point this system wouldn't be totally needed. People have gone thousands of cycles without bothering, but it would be help for specific points of interest if not the entire base.

[brummbar7]

18 minutes ago, Darkarma said:

Also be handy so that every time someone produces new food in the kitchen, its immediately put in the fridge.

You can accomplish that with just a high-priority container specific to the food types in question.

[Darkarma]

Just now, brummbar7 said:

You can accomplish that with just a high-priority container specific to the food types in question.

Doesn't always work in my experience until a sweeper comes by. I typically have my cooks spend all their time cooking and don't need them distracted with sweeping the rest of the base. I'll have to play around with it.

[Michi01]

4 hours ago, brummbar7 said:

On the other hand, zones would allow you to have dupes do jobs *beyond* a zone you don't want them doing jobs in.  Which doors don't allow.

It's not as convenient as zones would be but you can build separate tunnels to other zones in some cases

4 hours ago, brummbar7 said:

What I *would* like to see zone-wise is the ability to set zones that auto-generate sweep jobs at a certain priority.  So I could keep my dining and sleeping areas and really the main base in general clean, without having to go around and scan for debris every so often.

And mop jobs

[brummbar7]

1 minute ago, Michi01 said:

It's not as convenient as zones would be but you can build separate tunnels to other zones in some cases

Yes, yes I know how tunnels work, but thanks.  That's twice the work, and doesn't do you much good when you're tunneling through abyssalite veins to get around slime biomes.

[Darkarma]

Another avenue for this has me thinking it will allow us to better plan out the construction of bases as a whole and shift focus of construction crews so they don't randomly run off to other areas of the map, just to construct 1 tile.

 

[Sasuga]

You can set priorities of buildings, digging, etc.

 

You can use doors to setup zones where dups are allowed to go or not.

[Michi01]

2 hours ago, Sasuga said:

You can set priorities of buildings, digging, etc.

 

You can use doors to setup zones where dups are allowed to go or not.

That doesn't solve everything though. For example if you want dupes to work in a zone that's behind a zone that you don't want them to work in you need to build a tunnel which isn't always convenient or even possible. There is also no way to tell them to always sweep or mop in specific areas.

[Aatch]

Something related is being able to control the flow of resources through your base. For example: setting up a decontamination area for stuff coming from a slime biome. Doors can handle that, directing returning Dupes past some Ore Scrubbers, but only once everything is set up. Meanwhile, in setting this system up you've mined some Slimelung-infected algae and some "helpful" Dupe grabs it puts in a deoxidizer, spreading Slimelung around your base. If I could ban ("Forbid" in games like Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress) interaction with some items, it would help a lot on that front.

 

[brummbar7]

8 hours ago, Aatch said:

Something related is being able to control the flow of resources through your base. For example: setting up a decontamination area for stuff coming from a slime biome. Doors can handle that, directing returning Dupes past some Ore Scrubbers, but only once everything is set up.

I mean, it's very possible to have the scrubbers set up *before* you even enter the slimelung area. 

[Sasuga]

23 hours ago, Michi01 said:

That doesn't solve everything though. For example if you want dupes to work in a zone that's behind a zone that you don't want them to work in you need to build a tunnel which isn't always convenient or even possible. There is also no way to tell them to always sweep or mop in specific areas.

An AutoMop would be nice.

[Botaxalim]

The problem with AI dupe is ,if we make a far digging project, they need run back to base for a simple material for ladder where is there so much material nearby dig site lying around. Same like other stuff ,

seems the AI dont want overlap the queue task assigned by other dupe

Like Nikola the nearest one to the object waiting for the Mi-ma finishing the task even he was on the edge of map

They need improved the AI , or most base design will be same for everyone, because pathway finding is clunky

more optimization , less dupe require to maintain base, less cpu usage , more smooth gameplay, no need zoning area

zoning area will make more micro management willl not appeal newer younger player

[The Plum Gate]

I think combining the powered airlocks with some sort of extensive access restrictions list via the supercomputer might be a viable thing - the doors would need to be powered and connected to the same grid as the airlocks. This might make for unseen zones - just using the doors and door names while giving you one place to you need to look at to control access restrictions for any named door in the base.

Basically, just look at your supercomputer control terminal and set who can go into and out of those doors you have named.

Zones or at least zone naming solved, access restriction complications or impracticalities also solved.  ..it would need another spreadsheet like interactive menu - probably not too difficult to create.

Please give me a reason to plug those doors in, keep one of those research stations, etc. - all this above ties in very well with my 'bean counter' airlocks idea.