Better handle "breathing breaks"

[Morse]

1. I have something that needs picking which lies a long way through the unbreathable atmosphere. The duplicant assigns himself the task and goes there. Halfway through he decides that it was a long time since he last breathed and changed his task. But when he finishes breathing, he doesn't resume the task, since someone else already taken it. The problem is, this somebody else will also need to pass through the unbreathable area. This way, the task will never be completed. Maybe the duplicant that just became available should be able to take over the tasks if he fits better/is closer, provided this task doesn't require additional resources.

2. Sometimes, when dupe finds himself in the unbreathable area, and decides to find the closest patch of air, he will start going back and force unable to decide which exactly place is most fitting for him to breath. Eventually, he can even die of suffocation.

[Gwido]

For the first problem, it's the purpose of the atmo suit to allow duplicants to go far in an unbreathable area to fulfill an errand.

 

The second one is only du to the cellular flow of the gases. And sometimes, a "panel" of oxygen blink between to position. One is reachable, the other not. So the duplicant can't decide until the bubble of oxygen goes far enough for him to decide to go somewhere else.

To solve this problem, maybe duplicants should target a bubble of oxygen surronded by another panels with breathable oxygen.

[Sasza22]

5 hours ago, Morse said:

Halfway through he decides that it was a long time since he last breathed and changed his task.

It gets worse when it`s a ladder. He will drop whatever he`s carrying down the ladder. It can create an infinite pickup and drop cycle that accomplishes nothing. One game i had 5 dupes stuck infinetly picking up gold amalgam form the bottom of the ladder and dropping it half way for multiple cycles.

 

5 hours ago, Morse said:

Sometimes, when dupe finds himself in the unbreathable area, and decides to find the closest patch of air, he will start going back and force unable to decide which exactly place is most fitting for him to breath. Eventually, he can even die of suffocation.

It`s a general pathing bug. it can also happen if he has 2 paths to take to do his job and can`t decide which one to take. Usually the suffocation warning is early enough to save the dumb dupe though.

[D.L.S.]

Yes both annoying, second case not often happens but i lost one dupe because of this weird behavior. And first case happens on regular basis under ladders on the bottom of base, very annoying.

[Morse]

On ‎23‎.‎09‎.‎2018 at 12:13 AM, Sasza22 said:

It gets worse when it`s a ladder. He will drop whatever he`s carrying down the ladder. It can create an infinite pickup and drop cycle that accomplishes nothing.

I would suggest that when a dupe already acquired resources needed for the task, he shouldn't release himself from the task to take a breather. He already did half the job, and it will be in vain if he drops everything. He should go and breath without dropping whatever he's carrying and without releasing the task. This almost always should be more effective than for some other dupe to start from the beginning.

[Gwido]

Or simply continue their task without trying to breath until He reach another threashold.

For now, the dupes want to breath when they still have 2/3 of time. So they can continue until 1/3 if they carry something.

And after that, it will be our responsability to take care of the long unbreathable area.