Really liking this game, except for one rather large thing

[ChronaTrigger]

Like the title says, I'm liking this game, but now that I'm in a decent ways (14 cycles), I'm having a huge problem with one specific system: job proritization.  Especially how duplicants will completely ignore it, and their needs, to fulfill....some kind of hierarchy...?

Example: Half of my duplicants have a full bladder, and I have one toilet.  One toilet that is completely full.  They filled it the day before, and didn't touch it.  I put it to proritization 2, so it should beat out EVERYTHING (minus one algae oxygen machine they weren't filling), and they have completely ignored it for over half of this cycle. 

Oh, make that the full cycle.  I decided to let it run for a few more seconds while making this post, and night fell.  One guy woke up to piss himself, and went right back to sleep.

[Exa]

priorities work that way : do 9 first and 1 last

[Kasuha]

Priorities go from 1 (lowest) through 9 (highest assignable) up to 10 (highest, internal). Anything below priority 5 is usually "do this if I don't give you any orders". If you want something to be done sooner, give it higher numbers, not lower.

Within priority level, different jobs have also different priorities, approximately matching the job order in the Jobs window (highest on the left, lowest on the right).

[The Plum Gate]

When you set your outhouse to priority 2, anything within that priority will get looked at or serviced along side the other twos. Setting the priority on the outhouse has nothing what so ever to do with them using the bathroom - they do this when their bladder gets full. Prioritizing the toilet on 2, means that they won't clean it or disinfect it if there are priority threes, etc.

In other words, if you want them to service it as soon as it goes out of order, then you should give it some priority higher than 5.

[ChronaTrigger]

I feel mildly bad for misreading it, though I do feel like It should be the more normal "#1 prority," If you know what I mean.

Thank you, and sorry.  This explains my frustration, and my previous issues

[The Plum Gate]

On the topic of priority, you can set something you don't want done or needs special attention to priority 1 and it will usually get left alone until the dupes go idle or you have a chance to handle it manually. (sweeping in out of the way places for instance)

[Chris_Hoefler]

There is normally no need to set a priority lower than 5, I'll take 5 for everthing which isn't urgent. Just don't make the mistake to set too high priorities on too many objects since u'll get in trouble once your base is getting bigger. The only exception for me are the massage tables and the med beds which I always set to 9 because they're pretty essential for surviving (well stress causes trouble too) 

[Kasuha]

7 minutes ago, Chris_Hoefler said:

There is normally no need to set a priority lower than 5

Priorities below 5 are good for collecting idle duplicants in high decor areas, and for prioritizing your storage containers - such as so they sweep into dedicated containers before sweeping into general containers.

[Exa]

About priority, I use to have at least one massage table with priority 9, higher limit stress to 90% and lower limit stress to 80%

It basically says : "if you reach 90% stress, stop everything and go relax for a little bit"

This way I never reach 100% and my dupes don't stay too long on the massage table when they have work to do (very often...)

[Oozinator]

24 minutes ago, Exa said:

It basically says : "if you reach 90% stress, stop everything and go relax for a little bit"

 

^^ 90%!?
I try to stay below 20%

[Exa]

I try to expand as fast as possible, so yeah, my dupes are on edge sometimes

[0xygen]

in a long run, I think, acceptable stress limit has not much difference unless too high or too low. so I just set 50% and priority 9.

too high causes stress action, too low causes extra "back and forth"

[SusanMcO]

One trick I learned though - if you have stress criers, they put out a very usable amount of water, which can be nice when you're still working on getting your water recycling up to par.   

[goboking]

8 hours ago, Chris_Hoefler said:

There is normally no need to set a priority lower than 5, I'll take 5 for everthing which isn't urgent.

The developers gave us 9 priority levels to work with, I suggest using each and every one of them to make your colony run smoother.

[Saturnus]

3 hours ago, SusanMcO said:

One trick I learned though - if you have stress criers, they put out a very usable amount of water, which can be nice when you're still working on getting your water recycling up to par.   

Yup. And I for one like the twisted cruelty of colonies sustained by ugly crier tears.  Especially now that we can't even kill dupes to spawn morbs anymore so murdering dupes becomes a sadistic bend without the thin veil of necessity we had before.

[rafker]

I would rather think about FOOD priority.
These damn scrubs eat food while other ones die off starving

[Kasuha]

4 hours ago, Saturnus said:

And I for one like the twisted cruelty of colonies sustained by ugly crier tears.

I think duplicants should drink just like they eat, just perhaps at separate times, once or twice a cycle under normal conditions. And the water they drank should be used to produce their liquid outputs - vomit, tears, and the extra lavatory waste. It would both make them feel more realistic, and put a stop to some of their abuse. With about 5 kg of water consumed per duplicant per cycle I don't think it would cause a problem with water availability.

[WanderingKid]

6 minutes ago, Kasuha said:

I think duplicants should drink just like they eat, just perhaps at separate times, once or twice a cycle under normal conditions.

While for realism and anti-abuse mechanics this would work, I have a hard enough time getting my dupes to get out of the can and shower as it is, I really don't desire them to have another 'upkeep' task that each of them would have to do constantly... at least not until I can install water fountains everywhere or something.