[Expression Upgrade] Schedules should be for duplicant groups, sleeping hours should be changeable, and it should start with minimal leisure time

[Hexicube]

Not sure how it's planned to be done, but this is my 2c on the matter.

Currently I see the following problems with the schedule:

• A lot of early-game time is wasted on leisure, when you really need the starting 3 dupes to work to survive
• A lot of time is spent sleeping, when really it should be tuneable to try and push duplicants to sleep as little as possible (makes better beds and barracks buff useful)
• It should be possible to stagger duplicant leisure time, to reduce infrastructure requirements (namely toilets)

Going through these points one at a time:

• A lot of early-game time is wasted on leisure

Disclaimer: I don't know if the schedule will be changeable at the start of a new game when the systems are in place, and if it will start with that allocation of leisure time. I've assumed it will be locked at this until a building is placed, like jobs.

There's now a chunk of time per cycle that duplicants will not work in (I'll ignore red alert for sake of argument), on top of time they expect to be able to sleep. This chunk of time is about 20% of the old work length, meaning that duplicants are effectively worse at all tasks. This isn't so bad later on, but at the start of the game you are under time pressure to set up food, oxygen, and toilets, making it particularly bad to have early on...not to mention the fact you will not have relevant leisure items at that state to begin with and the new hope buff provides +1 to quality of life.

Hopefully when the system gets fleshed out the leisure time starts out with having none, with the player being encouraged to add some if they want to use jobs.

• A lot of time is spent sleeping

This is honestly a small gripe I have with the live version. Duplicants sleep a ton, way past what they actually need to restore stamina. This effectively makes the improved bed and barracks useless, since they already fully restore stamina 99% of the time with sleep-ins only when returning from very far work sites. Since they'll spend some of the leisure time returning, one can expect no sleep-ins which means there's literally no reason to upgrade your beds.

Ideally it should be possible to push down sleep times, maybe with some debuffs at low stamina (<10%) that would typically happen in leisure time to discourage going too far.

• It should be possible to stagger duplicant leisure time

The idea here is to be able to create multiple schedules, and make groups of duplicants with differing schedules. This would open up a ton of possibilities, such as having a day and night shift with dupes eventually being able to share beds if their schedules allow it, being able to service 10 duplicants on a single toilet, stuff like that. Maybe this sort of flexibility isn't what is desired, though.

Alternatively, a simpler "fix" for one of the underlying issues (toilets) could be to have duplicants "give way" when another duplicant has a higher bladder fill amount.

Just two schedules would suffice for interesting gameplay though, by having a day and night shift with set times for when leisure ends and sleeping starts (half cycle offset for second schedule), and letting the player tweak how long those phases are. Combine this with double-assigned buildings (one day and one night), and you have an interesting mechanic that encourages larger work-forces since you can effective work around the clock. This even opens up the possibility of duplicants with high expectations wanting long leisure times, so that it truly is half and half.

[Ambaire]

I want to see the dedicated sleep time removed and dupes only sleep when they're tired.

[Mariilyn]

On 7/12/2018 at 8:04 PM, Hexicube said:

Hopefully when the system gets fleshed out the leisure time starts out with having none, with the player being encouraged to add some if they want to use jobs.

On 7/12/2018 at 8:04 PM, Hexicube said:

having a day and night shift with set times for when leisure ends and sleeping starts (half cycle offset for second schedule), and letting the player tweak how long those phases are. Combine this with double-assigned buildings (one day and one night), and you have an interesting mechanic that encourages larger work-forces since you can effective work around the clock.

+1

On 7/12/2018 at 8:04 PM, Hexicube said:

Ideally it should be possible to push down sleep times, maybe with some debuffs at low stamina (<10%) that would typically happen in leisure time to discourage going too far.

Duplicants could go to sleep at a predetermined time like it is now but get up as soon as their stamina is fully restored, before the end of the dedicated sleep time. 

[DyingCrow]

Youre basically describing a gulag

I dont think youve noticed, but even with expressive implemented in a very basic way, everything is running MUCH more efficiently. I started a new run to see how early game would be, and its really good.

Thumbs down for gulag complaints. Dupes are cute, they deserve respect, they do disgusting things. And they deserve QoL, time to talk crap about their boss and a really good night's sleep.

[goboking]

On 7/12/2018 at 7:04 PM, Hexicube said:

A lot of early-game time is wasted on leisure

A fix for this (and sleeping, to a degree) is to give us the freedom to set exactly how much leisure time we want our dupes to have while tying a stress penalty for too little leisure time as determined by a dupe's job training.  So a dupe in the first few cycles of the game could be set to zero leisure time, but because he or she hasn't leveled up a job he or she won't be stressed out too much from the lack of rest and relaxation.

 

On 7/12/2018 at 7:04 PM, Hexicube said:

A lot of time is spent sleeping

Again, I'd rather they just let us adjust how long we allow the dupes to sleep.  If we force our dupes to work late and get up early the next day, reflect this in the QOL penalty and let us decide if the longer working day is worth the added stress.

 

On 7/12/2018 at 7:04 PM, Hexicube said:

It should be possible to stagger duplicant leisure time

I'm with you all the way on this.  I'd rather be able to set an individual schedule for every dupe than be limited to just a day and night shift, but being free to have some dupes rise early and shower before preparing breakfast for the rest of the still-sleeping colony is just the kind of fine-tuned control that will really improve colony efficiency.

[Oozinator]

1 hour ago, goboking said:

A fix for this (and sleeping, to a degree) is to give us the freedom to set exactly how much leisure time we want our dupes to have while tying a stress penalty for too little leisure time as determined by a dupe's job training.  So a dupe in the first few cycles of the game could be set to zero leisure time, but because he or she hasn't leveled up a job he or she won't be stressed out too much from the lack of rest and relaxation.

 

I am interested, how Klei is implementing expressions, to give it some power/influence and how far dupes can go (fight eachother / hate / sabotage).
 

[Ellilea]

9 hours ago, DyingCrow said:

Youre basically describing a gulag

I dont think youve noticed, but even with expressive implemented in a very basic way, everything is running MUCH more efficiently. I started a new run to see how early game would be, and its really good.

Thumbs down for gulag complaints. Dupes are cute, they deserve respect, they do disgusting things. And they deserve QoL, time to talk crap about their boss and a really good night's sleep.

If players are given freedom of scheduling, you can set your colony to function the way that pleases you and your dupes, while others may go for the route of efficiency Watching dupes be cute gets old after a while and base-building is the interesting and engaging part of the game

[Smuch]

Disclaimer: I don't know if the schedule will be changeable at the start of a new game when the systems are in place, and if it will start with that allocation of leisure time. I've assumed it will be locked at this until a building is placed, like jobs.

 

Well there is a 'implement persoalized schedule' button near the cycle counter. Irt does nthig if you pres it excepttell you 'notimplemente yet' bu that does seem to indicate that is a planed thing (although to whih depth and in which form remains to be seen)

[Hexicube]

3 hours ago, Smuch said:

Well there is a 'implement persoalized schedule' button near the cycle counter. Irt does nthig if you pres it excepttell you 'notimplemente yet' bu that does seem to indicate that is a planed thing (although to whih depth and in which form remains to be seen)

I'm aware of that, the first point is explicitly regarding how it will be before you gain the ability to click that. I've made the assumption that you need a building in order for it to function, and if anything it should use the jobs board since they basically go hand in hand.

[heckubis]

honestly if in a survival situation like this if any body tried scuffing off duties to hang out at the risk of lives of the group id eject them immediately for the safety of the group. survival comes first happiness isnt all that usefull when your staving out of o2 and or dead

[Hexicube]

1 hour ago, heckubis said:

honestly if in a survival situation like this if any body tried scuffing off duties to hang out at the risk of lives of the group id eject them immediately for the safety of the group. survival comes first happiness isnt all that usefull when your staving out of o2 and or dead

Those are red alert situations, if anything.

[heckubis]

no the trying to gather air and food to survive on a limited and dwindling supply of resources that the game is. should make the entire thing a red alert with stoppages for sleep in the first place leisure time is afforded when survival is assured. should be a latter game upgrade at most not a further restriction on the ability to do those things in the first place