Dups prefer to take materials from the ground

In general this is good behavior, because its dupe-work time to deliver to compactors. If something lies on the ground, there is no work "wasted", and the dupe can simply get it and put it to use.

I dont know, if there is a range limit for this. 

Thank you for ut opinion, but i have different view. 

It's better when i make stock of materials where they are needed. For instance, when i build something from iron, it is generally better when haulers will bring large quantities of materials, and only then workers start to build structures. Its much more time efficient. 

 

Also, my colony was starving because farmers do not want to use this container with dirt. 

If i would not notice this bug, they will starve to death. Farmers was trying to get dirt from long distance and wasted a lot of time. 

I play on maximum difficulty settings.

 

so it's generally better when haulers bring large quantities, and only then workers take what they need from near containers. 

Sure its a matter of perspective. Thats why it would interesting, if there is a range-order determing what to pick from ground, and when use stored mats. 

10 hours ago, Anton L said:

Also, my colony was starving because farmers do not want to use this container with dirt. 

If i would not notice this bug, they will starve to death. Farmers was trying to get dirt from long distance and wasted a lot of time. 

...

so it's generally better when haulers bring large quantities, and only then workers take what they need from near containers.

And you can do that! Make your haulers and your farmers work together - with door premissions or such.

I noticed a similar thing, and wasn't very happy. I realized it was ... slowly killing me but still the intended behaviour for better or for worse.

So what worked for me was... put your farms behind a door, and your compactor outside. Assign some dupes to be "in-base" suppliers (or, just having farmers do this bit) and some "out-of-base" haulers (I have in-base ranchers, 1 farmer, 1 supplier and cook, rest are out-of-base: several suppliers, miners/architects and engineers). The ones in the base - can't leave the base, thus will not have any "far" resources within range, and so will use the storage compactor. The ones that are out-of-base haulers are not allowed inside the farms/any other delivery destinations (or, you can just prevent them until situation stabilizes - the in-base ones will take those tasks anyway eventually because they can't do many other tasks), and so will only ever fill the compactors. You can even take this a bit further and put the priority one level higher on the "closest" compactor than in your bulk-build compactors... Sure, the in-base dupes might refill it quite often, but if you play with priorities right, they won't do that unless they'd be otherwise idling.

Yeah, I don't think this is a bug as much as a game mechanic.

There are mechanisms in the game to let you force the dumb dupes to do things in smart ways...  Which is the whole game!

I suppose dups should take mats from the shortest distance 

I have just found really weird dups behavior:

sometimes while construction delivering, they prefer to take mats from the container located far away, even if there are same mats on the ground just next to building location. 

about 1 year ago there were no such issues with dups logic. One of patches totally broke it. 

Edited October 3, 2018 by Anton L

On 9/30/2018 at 12:41 AM, Chuckh said:

Yeah, I don't think this is a bug as much as a game mechanic.

... you think it's a mechanic for a dupe assigned to "cook" frost buns at a grill to ignore the fridge next to it with 100's of units of wheat slowly going off, and spend the entire work day travelling to pick up 1 unit of sleet wheat from the far reaches of the map... really? low production and rotten food in the fridges is how it's meant to be? 

It's not even limited to that, I've had dupes rather travel great distances to pick up raw meat from the ground when they're in the "going to eat" state totally ignoring the bbq, pepper bread and frost buns in the fridges next to the food hall they were standing near to when entering that state ("I'm starving!!!" alert drew my attention given the 100k+ kcal on hand and watched him do the "let me just spend 1/4 of the day running to pick up food I don't like, then run all the way back to the food hall to eat it and complain, get stressed and cause problems" ).

 

Storage devices seem to be being ignored in favour of whatever is on the ground anywhere in the map at any range. 

 

4 hours ago, Anton L said:

about 1 year ago there were no such issues with dups logic. One of patches totally broke it. 

Its more recent than that. I've used the same basic setup for mushroom farming for a long time, only getting issues quite recently, not sure entirely when since I push through to autosweepers and conveyors fairly quick to remove the dupes from most of the tasks in question.

On 9/30/2018 at 12:41 AM, Chuckh said:

Yeah, I don't think this is a bug as much as a game mechanic.

... you think it's a mechanic for a dupe assigned to "cook" frost buns at a grill to ignore the fridge next to it with 100's of units of wheat slowly going off, and spend the entire work day travelling to pick up 1 unit of sleet wheat from the far reaches of the map... really? low production and rotten food in the fridges is how it's meant to be? 

It's not even limited to that, I've had dupes rather travel great distances to pick up raw meat from the ground when they're in the "going to eat" state totally ignoring the bbq, pepper bread and frost buns in the fridges next to the food hall they were standing near to when entering that state ("I'm starving!!!" alert drew my attention given the 100k+ kcal on hand and watched him do the "let me just spend 1/4 of the day running to pick up food I don't like, then run all the way back to the food hall to eat it and complain, get stressed and cause problems" ).

 

Storage devices seem to be being ignored in favour of whatever is on the ground anywhere in the map at any range. 

 

5 hours ago, Anton L said:

about 1 year ago there were no such issues with dups logic. One of patches totally broke it. 

Its more recent than that. I've used the same basic setup for mushroom farming for a long time, only getting issues quite recently, not sure entirely when since I push through to autosweepers and conveyors fairly quick to remove the dupes from most of the tasks in question.

 

edit: image to add context to the farm setup

There is a compactor with 20t of slime in it in the middle of the farm, according to the in game reports the 1 dupe set to farming spent 592 s alive, of which 453 s were spent travelling, 17 block work period in the schedule... 3 mushrooms fertilized with slime (3rd, 4th and 5th from the left) in that cycle. The 3 unfertilized mushrooms have been unfertilized for a few cycles... as have other in the second farm below this one.

Even if the farmer was somewhere else in the map when they receive the first "deliver slime" job, they'll be standing in the farm within 13 tiles of 20t of slime in a compactor for the second "deliver slime" job... and yet they disappear off to collect slime from the ground.

 

So next cycle after collecting the above time reports, Marie our plucky farmer sleeps past morning bath time (she was late to bed because she was all the way across the map when the shift ended, took time to run back to the latrine, then ignored the food in the food box and had to trek to pick up raw meat from the ground, then back to the hall then to bed...), wakes up, stretches and heads out to "harvest", she runs all the way to the left most edge of the map, picks up some slime and runs back to the farms.

1t of slime in the lower farm compactor, 20t in the upper farm compactor...

Edited October 4, 2018 by LeftyRighty
more in the life of marie the plucky farmer...

On 10/3/2018 at 4:28 PM, LeftyRighty said:

... you think it's a mechanic for a dupe assigned to "cook" frost buns at a grill to ignore the fridge next to it with 100's of units of wheat slowly going off, and spend the entire work day travelling to pick up 1 unit of sleet wheat from the far reaches of the map... really? low production and rotten food in the fridges is how it's meant to be? 

Not saying it's not dumb, but dupes being dumb is what gives the player opportunities to be clever - if the dupes were smart, the only task in the game would be building and deciding where they dig, which would be boring. You control the environment, so just don't "allow" for the possibility that they'll be dumb!

For a mid-game solution I use, have a room with high-priority sleet wheat storage (fridge, Cl/CO2 gas, whatever) with multiple entrances. "At least" Chef Camille and Retriever Ren both need to access it: Chef to cook the ingredients, Retriever to resupply it. 

Set door permissions and positions so that you have a door that Retriever can use (but Chef can't), and a door that Chef can use (but Retriever can't).

When the Sleet Wheat supply is full enough, automate locking the Retriever door (set an automated delay so that Retriever doesn't get locked in as soon as he fills it). Use a memory toggle or time delay so that it doesn't switch the moment Chef pulls out one Sleet Wheat.

Now Retriever will only go get wheat from across the map or wherever when it's actually needed, and will otherwise go retrieve other things. The Sleet Wheat will be left in the original cold biomes (environmentally refrigerated) until needed.

Or something else that works, I dunno.