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Priority system changes


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The priority system as present in the game is a bit of a hot mess.  You can work with it, if you know exactly how it works and what you're doing, but getting to that point constitutes way too much of the learning curve, and even then it constantly contributes to mid to late-game inefficiencies every time task categories interfere.  Here's some suggestions that might alleviate things, ordered roughly by how much they'd change the game.

Clearly label tasks by category: [Dig], [Storage], etc.

I have an algae terrarium that needs emptying.  It's been sitting for a cycle or two.  Is it a supply task? Storage? Tidy? I really don't know, but whatever it is no one is doing it no matter what priority I give it.  It says "Requires emptying," when it *ought* to say "[Supply] Requires emptying."  Or [Operate]?  Again, I really don't know and I've been playing this game for years.

Oh, here comes Bahni toward it... and there goes Bahni past it.  What's she doing? "Going to harvest," her profile says, but there aren't plants ready right now.  She's taking something to the farm.  Shouldn't that be "[Farm] Delivering?"

Add a Priority 0: "never do this"

The flip side of ignoring high-priority, low preference tasks is a fetishistic focus on low-priority, high-preference tasks.  I don't know about the rest of you, but I tend to accrue builders who will readily dive into the bowels of hell for building material to finish that low-priority job while ignoring the base burning down around them, and have had to cancel and later reapply large build requests because there's no other way to get them to knock it off and deal with some other emergency first.  An "ignore" priority setting would help a lot with planning.  I could lay out a base and reprioritize elements when I want them built.

The first job after a "Move To" command ignores personal priorities

Stinky, do you see the disable task on this overheating machinery?  Do you see how it's priority 9?  Ignore the debris, you don't need to sweep right now.  Flip the switch.  No, get back there.  Yes, it's hot, do you know why?  Because flip the switch, that's why.  No don't sweep.  Don't sweep.  Flip. The. Switch.

[Build] Deliver past first solid tile

One highly specific and frustrating situation is ladder construction through rock.  A ladder built in air accrues the usual horde of dupes all taking materials to different tiles, building it right there, and getting it done.  A ladder built in rock is done one laborious tile at a time, because they can't build it until it's dug, and they won't dig it without delivered materials, so everyone waits on a dupe to deliver materials and leave, then a dupe comes over to dig and leaves, then a dupe comes to build and leaves, then a new dupe brings one tile's worth of materials over again.  If they could deliver through a tile or two of rock, the materials will be in place for the builder dupe to keep going for another tile or two, speeding up the process considerably.

Merge the two priority systems already, jeez

All of the above happen because there are two completely different priority systems in game, you need to use both of them, but one trumps the other and it isn't the one the player has easy access to or information about.  Could we get a checkbox or something in the options menu that will just add them together instead?  So that dupe preferences become -2 to +2 modifiers to job priority.  A dupe seeing their job's 5 tasks as 7 would lead them to do those most of the time, but they'd still react to priority 9 tasks, and effectively ignore priority 1 tasks.

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At first I thought that priority 0 would be useless and dismissed this idea as stupid. Then it hit me let's see what others think.

Hmm planning mode, yes!

But my pitch is 0 would also be AUTOMATION ONLY!

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