[Tip] Forced Labor!

[Megouski]

Hey all, Megouski here. This is mainly for newer people. I'm sure most of the veterans use this. 

Forced labor! 

Sick of dups going off and goofing around? Have a super cool project and dupes just wont get to it? Feel'n miffed about reconfigurating priorities every-time you want something done in a certain space NOW? Try this one simple trick!

1. Build a door right before the space you want to work in, so its the only entry and exit

2. Click where you see my mouse in the screenshot below depending if you want to restrict them going in out out. Now they will be forced to do *only* tasks you've delegated in this area. The best part about this is its instant. No dupe toggling!

 

Thats it. I've been using it for ages but I thought maybe im taking it and other small tricks I do for granted and others could benefit. 

Just be careful you keep an eye on their bladder and hunger and this can be useful. Seeya!

 

[heckubis]

you could allways build them a bathroom and food box with a small portion size to fit 1-2 cycles of food for the dupes in that area and it should still work as long as that stuff isnt in a break room

[Slvrsrfr]

I am persistently in startvation. lol. I micromanage every single step if I have too. But, there are three it can be easy to get distracted. The door trick will get used at some point. better than vocally threatening them will head entombment. The pathing updating is an issue, I can watch them building a vertical ladder, want to leave because they've completed the piece in front of them. Then proceed to run to the other side of the base to make one cut only to turn right around and head back to where they were. Had they updated the pathing that happens as soon as they decide to leave. You can watch the next ladder piece turn white indicating it's a reachable build. But, yet this nitwit now thinks that one tile across the base is most important.

I digress, game in progress.

And need I mention the jobs board, so mushy, so fraught with scripting errors. You cannot decisively un-assign dupes from jobs. Not, in my experience. I know people will say it works great no issues. That is not my experience. The jobs board menu is a nightmare. It's so 'mushy', I can press a button, nothing, for a minute, then maybe a menu. It's bad. So bad. I avoid trying to use it at all.Only for what I need. But, it's a pretty big part of my chosen path, I need to be able to access it, easily, and effectively. Which is impossible at the moment, in it's current state. I depend heavily upon the ability to unassign them to avoid the stress trap, and to prevent certification, until I am ready. I train them through all to 90%, and then move on. I've not made it yet to the point that I can allow someone to become fully accredited. It's not worth the hassle. Keep them stupid and keep them digging.

[heckubis]

your ending up with too many dupes assigned to find any task at all. having them assigned to tasks and leaving them on them especially for operators and and cooks and not assigning them to all the other tasks will prevent them from side tracking. having dupes dedicated to their job not everything will make them do only the jobs they are supposed to do. and having too many building projects on the go without doors assigning what dupes for what job your creating the problem of diggers and builders running back and forth between different job sites

[martosss]

I just setup proper priorities.

1. Toggle is "//\\", everything else is "/\" or lower(no wrenches). That way if I want something toggled, results are almost instant.
2. Set farm, ranch, research,combat, care on "X" for everyone except dedicated people(actually for harvest you might want to forbid also supply, as I think it also has the "harvest" command)
3. For each dupe you have to decide what he should MAINLY do and set it to "/\", e.g.:
   • farmers and ranchers should have "/\" on farming and/or ranching
   • builders and diggers => "/\" on build/dig and everything else on low priority
   • gofers/engineers => "/\" on supply / operate ( + Life support on "/\" for dedicated suppliers)
4. Operate on dedicated engineers, others should still have it but with "- or  \/ or \\//"
5. Care on dedicated people with high care skill, others on X
6. combat on X(possibly except 1-2 ppl that have high dig skill), or just change it to "//\\" for someone when you want something killed).
7. Maybe set plants to subpriority "4", so that other people except farmers don't go harvesting/supplying Water/Dirt(only farmers will go, since they have high priority farming tasks, regardless of subpriority)
8. I usually don't forbid building, digging, supplying and operating, because sometimes if a dupe is trapped that's the only thing he can do, so if it's forbidden he'll just stay idle and potentially die/suffocate - bad. Just set those on low priority for people that shouldn't be doing it, as it's supposed to be.

From here on, just use subpriorities for things you want to get done sooner/later or are more/less important, e.g. dig that area now => set to 8/9, containers set to 8/9, build that SPOM over there - set priority 8/9 and you see a flood of running towards it.

And that generally works well, except when someone goes to eat/pee, but you don't want starving/peeing dupes anyways, so you need to take care of that.

I have 50-60 dupes(C160) and managing each dupe separately is out of the question. However, with those priorities set, I really do get stuff done.

If you want to further have good efficiency, you might set door permissions to keep things compartmentalized, but careful. Locking dupes like that might not be the best thing to do. If you want something built in that area and there aren't any(enough) materials, you'll have just the plans sitting there and the dupes farting Nat. Gas and doing nothing or suffocating(if you don't have an atmo suit for each of your 60 dupes like me).

Another thing that helps(for me at least, as I have many dupes with different priorities) is having many different types of tasks. For example Dig that area and build another area - that way everyone is doing their highest priority task at which they're good. In general you don't want gofers building or builders digging, just because there's no proper work for them.

[Nativel]

Eh, I post this tip like week ago in my video, and I do have post on forum about that. Look I stop video on that moment and it was maded at jule 7. :/

 

[Megouski]

 

1 hour ago, martosss said:

I just setup proper priorities.

This is more aimed at sub 10 dupe newer play. Setting up proper priorities goes without saying. But when I want a certain job done, and want EVERYONE to stop what they are doing, ignore their tasks and get this new project done within the next 2 cycles, this works like a charm. After its done, a simple change and everyone is back to their normal priorities that I also maliciously set up. 

With a dozen dupes small to medium size builds, you're kinda out of the realm of newb (who the tip is for). To add to that at that point youve also reached a threshold that allows dupes to become much more specialized without it becoming an issue when expanding. I wouldn't do this with 12 dupes let alone 60.

Thanks for the great post though, very good tips as well for more advanced play.

[martosss]

1 minute ago, Megouski said:

But when I want a certain job done, and want EVERYONE to stop what they are doing, ignore their tasks and get this new project done within the next 2 cycles

You shouldn't want EVERYONE to stop, since some dupes are not useful to you, e.g. farmers and ranchers, or diggers if you're not digging anything.

 

So if you want to dig => supply => build something new(as this is the new job broken down into tasks), you would have

1) everyone digging (even the builders and suppliers, who are slow at digging)

2) everyone supplying

3) everyone building(even the diggers, who are slow at building)

I'd say that's a bad idea, since dupes that are good only at 1 task will be awfully slow at the others, hence wasting time doing them instead of doing what they're good at. But, of course, it depends on how many dupes you're using. As you can see, you have inefficiency in at least 2 of the steps(1 and 3).

[Craigjw]

I'm having trouble managing the priorities, at C100+, I'm finding that when 1 dupe gets stranded and needs help, I have to reset priorities and deny everything except build/dig/supply with red alert, otherwise that dupes going to die.

It might help if there was an option to direct the red alert to a particular building task. ie, red alert to build this ladder, dig this tile etc.

Generally, I'm training all my dupes to be at least Lvl 2 digging before moving on to any other job, so that if someone is stranded in an abysalite hole, they can dig themselves out of the grave they just dug.

[Barisel]

I don't like to use custom settings on doors and containers, well sometimes you have to do but I try to avoid it where I can because it contributes hugely to the lag towards mid and the end game so I like to keep my game as less laggy as possible if that makes any sense.

 

[SamLogan]

On 22/07/2018 at 6:17 PM, Megouski said:

Just be careful you keep an eye on their bladder and hunger and this can be useful. Seeya!

Or you can build restroom and fridge close this location.