My first impressions on occupation

[Ricordis]

I put some hours on the preview version and while I have never been to the real late game I think I might give some feedback.

- If there is a job for healthcare I can't find it.

- Jobs seem to be primarily skill-based but I think they should be more thematically: Farmers should take care of the compost, a Doctor would treat Dupes and create medicine, Gofers may use the manual generator while the "engineers" do the repairs.

- Compost should also fulfill the use of a farm station.

- I love the idea of the recreation room because it takes off the pressure to put decor on every free tile we have...even on weird places.

There should be more features:

A low tech 2-tile sand-garden for low stress-relief without the usage of power, the massage table as mid-tech solution. As alternative a "manual" massage table (like the med-table) where a "doctor-job" would treat someone else with the use of algae and a late-tech solution is some kind of chamber which reliefs the stress nearly instantly but needs a lot of power and space.

- Dupes tend to take other Dupes workplaces: My cook had no energy for his Musher so he went to the manual generator. Then my scientist took over the musher while my engineer started some researchs. Or the cook goes grabbing some water, delivers it to the musher and the courier then starts "cooking". There has to be a mechanic to take over workplaces at machines if there's a free specialist. "Free" means he does nothing that belongs to his profession. So whoever is cooking leaves the workplace if there is a cook whoch does not cook, mush or do private stuff like relaxing, eating, ...

- Currently I am not sure what falls into the tinkering errand. Maybe the workplaces should have a tooltip which describes which job is responsible for it.

- Architects and Miners run randomly from one workspace to another instead of taking care of everything around them. I had a long wire and she started to build tile 15, then 3, then 9, 1, 20 and so on instead of starting at tile 1 and finishing with tile 20.

- Groundkeepers and Gofers tend to ignore their jobs. My outhouses need cleaning and oxygen generators algae delivery but instead I find the responsible dupes cooking or generating power. Prioritizing their own errands doesn't always work (nothing set on strict except massage table and med-bay)

edit: I just found out Dupes in the med-bay don't use the bathrooms there but move to latrines (room). [bug]

[goboking]

1 hour ago, Ricordis said:

- Dupes tend to take other Dupes workplaces: My cook had no energy for his Musher so he went to the manual generator. Then my scientist took over the musher while my engineer started some researchs. Or the cook goes grabbing some water, delivers it to the musher and the courier then starts "cooking". There has to be a mechanic to take over workplaces at machines if there's a free specialist. "Free" means he does nothing that belongs to his profession. So whoever is cooking leaves the workplace if there is a cook whoch does not cook, mush or do private stuff like relaxing, eating, ...

I believe you can still disable jobs, so you can deny your cook permission to research, your researcher permission to farm, etc.  Couple that with door permissions when and where you can and you should be able to divide tasks on at least some level.  Otherwise solid comments.

[BlueLance]

50 minutes ago, goboking said:

I believe you can still disable jobs, so you can deny your cook permission to research, your researcher permission to farm, etc.  Couple that with door permissions when and where you can and you should be able to divide tasks on at least some level.  Otherwise solid comments.

What he is meaning is lets say You are making Burgers, but I am the better chef, instead of letting you continue making burgers when I am free, I will kick you away and make the burgers instead.

The problem with this is the game would have to constantly check every single tick to see if the better person is busy or free. Which would probably drag down performance. But yes you can disable the jobs people do at the bottom of the job specialisation list.

[Ricordis]

If the workstation is setting a pull-attempt for a worker then yeah, it would need constant checks. But I think the game checks on a worker base and goes by highest priority downwards. But instead of skipping busy workstations it should attempt a second layer check if the worker, which seeks work, has a higher proficiency. If yes then consider the workstation as free. On arrival there could be a last check of proficiency between workers combined with a new animation in which the better Dupe butt bumps the other one way away immediately taking over the work or something more polite with shoulder tipping and pointing away or the Dupe shoos the other one way. Maybe randomly one of these.

Fitting Higher Level Job > Fitting Job > Foreign Worker

So a lvl3 researcher would push away any lvl2 researcher and lower even if the lower one had better stats. For some reason you made him the boss