Game Mechanics

[ReWaX]

First of, Thank You Klei so much for your work that you put in ONI.

I love this game a lot, but I have a major concern about game mechanics.

For instance, a Dupe is running around the base and doing his job. Lets say that he is delivering Slime from point A to point B. While he is delivering Slime, he suddenly wants to go eat. What does he do? He drops the Slime on the ground, and runs to eat. Then, when he is finished eating, he may or may not return to whatever he was doing before (in this case - delivering Slime). Suddenly stopping whatever any Dupe is doing when he wants to take care of his basic needs is VERY unproductive.

 

Another example.

An architect starts to build something on the very far end of the map (far away from the base). The progress bar gets filled up, and then the night comes, and the architect suddenly goes to sleep leaving this building not finished. Then, after the night has passed, he needs to waste time getting all the way back to this corner of a map to finish this building that would take like 2 seconds to finish. Very time consuming and unproductive.

 

Solutions to the problem:

1. If any Dupe started digging (not abstractly, but this one tile of soil that he is digging right now), building (again, this one tile or one building that has a progress bar), delivering, harvesting, and soon.., let this dupe finish doing that no matter what! He can go to eat/sleep/take shower/anything-else-that-is-related-to-self-care AFTER he finishes.

2. There should be some exceptions like: go to eat if starving, go to bathroom if bladder is *insert_percentage* full, maybe some others that I could not think of.

 

I hope you get the idea. I would not write that all, but I see that you (Klei) care about your community, so might as well try.

Sorry for grammar, English is my 2nd language.

[Kasuha]

These things have been asked multiple times so far but so far nothing changed on the behavior. 

Note, however, that:

Eating happens once a cycle unless the dupe is Binge Eater acting.

Toilet visit happens once a cycle unless the dupe is sick.

Sleep happens once a cycle unless the dupe is narcoleptic.

That's only up to three interrupts a cycle. It's not all that much. Running out of breath is much more of a problem since if you don't care about your dupes having fresh oxygen available, it may happen many times a cycle. That's where the real waste of time occurs.

[Ambaire]

4 hours ago, ReWaX said:

1. If any Dupe started digging (not abstractly, but this one tile of soil that he is digging right now), building (again, this one tile or one building that has a progress bar), delivering, harvesting, and soon.., let this dupe finish doing that no matter what! He can go to eat/sleep/take shower/anything-else-that-is-related-to-self-care AFTER he finishes.

2. There should be some exceptions like: go to eat if starving, go to bathroom if bladder is *insert_percentage* full, maybe some others that I could not think of.

100% agreed. The way it should work is:

If calories below 2000: Finish current tile task, then go eat. If bathroom need arises while eating, finish eating then go to the bathroom.

If bathroom need: Finish current tile task IF the task will take less than ~20 seconds, then go to the bathroom.

If sleep need: Finish current tile task, then go sleep.

If oxygen need: Finish current tile task UNLESS oxygen drops below 50%, then seek oxygen. The reason I put that exception is if you're trying to build a generator in a co2 area, in which case the dupe will need a few goes at it to avoid suffocation.

[ReWaX]

17 hours ago, Kasuha said:

Eating happens once a cycle unless the dupe is Binge Eater acting.

Toilet visit happens once a cycle unless the dupe is sick.

Sleep happens once a cycle unless the dupe is narcoleptic.

That's only up to three interrupts a cycle.

You forgot about showering, which adds up to 4 interrupts.

17 hours ago, Kasuha said:

It's not all that much.

I have to disagree with you on this one. Unfortunately, a cycle is not long enough to make 4 interrupts not a big deal. If it was twice as long, I would not complain. However, if you played a large base (cycle 150+), you should notice that suddenly dropping the current tile task results in additional and, indeed, unnecessary travel time.

 

I want to share another funny situation considering this topic.

On the cycle 160+, with relatively large base and 50% (approx.) map explored, I had one job for dupes that was like half the way between base and the neutronium ceiling of the map. In order to climb there, dupes had to make it through two long stairs. A couple of cycles back, I brought the new dupe to my base (which, of course, had no learned skills and was very slow in running). This dupe started to work on that thing above the base, the night came, and he went to bed, climbing those two long stairs. Guess what? The night had passed, and he was still climbing those stairs down in order to go to sleep! Well, when the night ended, he changed his mind and started climbing back up to finish this one tile that he had not finished. He almost made it to the top, but then he changed his mind again, and started to climb back down to take a shower. When he stared taking a shower, it was already 50% of the cycle had passed.

Conclusions? Well, the new dupe wasted the whole night and half a day time of a cycle to accomplish nothing. If he did not put his shower need in front of the tile job, he would have finished this tile and went to shower. Oh well.

 

20 hours ago, ReWaX said:

2. There should be some exceptions like: go to eat if starving, go to bathroom if bladder is *insert_percentage* full, maybe some others that I could not think of.

I also remembered that geyser analysis takes a bit of a time, so maybe dupes should prioritize their needs in this case.

[Kasuha]

11 minutes ago, ReWaX said:

You forgot about showering, which adds up to 4 interrupts

Showering is optional. You don't have to build showers at all with no negative consequences. And if you keep your duplicants clean, showers generate no interrupts because dupes will go shower once a day right after they wake up.

 

[ReWaX]

2 hours ago, Kasuha said:

And if you keep your duplicants clean, showers generate no interrupts because dupes will go shower once a day

Did not know about that. Clean in terms of germs, I suppose?

[augustinoi]

this happened to me as before, its  because you not have enough food or good quality food, they not progress either in exploration and build if are not oxygen included on habitat .so they will ever prefer back on safe place like game says. and i guess that logic of that they ever choose the easiest option so they will prefer build thing there were  are resources closest, about showers i guess they can take more baths if they walk or pass thought dirt places or there something of floor, so try to make your habitat clean.

[Kasuha]

8 hours ago, ReWaX said:

Did not know about that. Clean in terms of germs, I suppose?

Clean in terms of no soggy feet or sopping wet status. Keeping puddles of water out of the way helps, though probably best at it is just equipping your duplicants with exosuits every time they go work.

[Denisetwin]

On 3/28/2018 at 12:38 PM, Kasuha said:

Showering is optional. You don't have to build showers at all with no negative consequences. And if you keep your duplicants clean, showers generate no interrupts because dupes will go shower once a day right after they wake up.

 

wait what?  I thought only showering got rid of the "grimy" buff?  I guess I should ask what is it that gives the "grimy" buff?

 

[Kazumiya]

I like how Kasuha is just trying to defend the game mechanics.... But the truth is , everyone else is right , cycles are too short ! If you add everything you said together even with ONCE PER CYCLE (eating, toilettes, keeping your breath, showers (even though they are useless right now, later I hope they will not...)...) , then it's still half of the CYCLE time just for that...

That's why mid-game is boring, it takes way too many time to upgrade your base  and every cycles looks the same boring routine... 

[Kasuha]

45 minutes ago, Denisetwin said:

wait what?  I thought only showering got rid of the "grimy" buff?  I guess I should ask what is it that gives the "grimy" buff?

At present, the Grimy status has no effect. Yes, showers are the only way to get rid of it and duplicants will go shower when they get grimy but it's perfectly fine to leave them grimy all the way until you have all your other problems solved and have surplus water to give your dupes the comfort of shower.

33 minutes ago, Kazumiya said:

I like how Kasuha is just trying to defend the game mechanics.... But the truth is , everyone else is right

I would be the last one to complain if dupes stopped dropping stuff all around the map. I myself have posted numerous suggestions about it. But it's either not the top priority of devs, or it's even intentionally left in the game (initially, dupes were not dropping stuff at random places, this was introduced into the game at some point).

It's not about who's right and who's wrong. We may either complain or we may face reality and look for ways to survive through that.