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Slicksters sometimes don't use critter condos: Condo use is starved out of priority queue?


Zarquan
  • Branch: Live Branch Version: Windows Pending

I like the new critter condo for most critters.  I was able to use them to pack in more dreckos than I otherwise could, so I thought I should do the same thing with my slicksters.  When I tried the same thing on slicksters it worked...intermittently.  I suspect that the slicksters are prioritizing eating over using the critter condo, and they are programmed to eat at a high level of kcal.  When I watched them, they would sometimes cycle between eating and expelling waste at high speeds when there are a lot of critters on the map, never getting to use the critter condo. 

It is to the point that I get almost twice as much egg-productivity from simply ignoring critter condo and having fewer critters.  I do not appear to have this problem with my dreckos, as they require a lower number of kcals to eat.

With the fix to slickter eating (allowing slicksters to eat large amounts of CO2 to fill their kcal), I think their internal priorities are sub-optimal.  With their new tendency to eat their fill, I feel that this issue would be solved with one of the two following fixes:

  1. A priority shift, prioritizing things like the critter condo and critter fountain over eating, especially if they are nowhere near starving.
  2. Make the slicksters not eat unless they are at a lower kcal count.

I think the first one would lead to more consistent results.


Steps to Reproduce
  1. Build a ranch with a critter condo with slicksters in it.
  2. Add a large number of slicksters to the map somewhere (2000 slicksters should be more than enough for any computer to exhibit the problem.  My computer is exhibiting it at around 500 slicksters and less than a hundred other critters.)
  3. Play the game at high speed.
  4. Observe the critters.  Note they are:
    1. Not starving
    2. Not using the critter condo.



User Feedback


I'm getting the same thing as you, but with different critters too. Slicksters definitely are the worse, but sometimes my Dreckos will go through phases of a few cycles without using the condo at all. It seems to work best with my Floxes, but still occasionally there will be periods where a bunch of them are glum and the condo is free but none of them head there.

It also seems strongly related to game speed. If I slow it down and play on the slowest speed, most of the critters will head to the condo shortly after.

It might not seem like the worst bug but it's completely messing with my supply chain! Hard to calculate how many drecko ranches I need per X plants that requires phosphorite, or how many slickster ranches I need per petroleum generator, or how many flox ranches I need to get Y kg wood per cycle, if I don't know whether their metabolism is going to drop to 20% for extended periods (unlike you, instead of using it to fit more critters in I'm instead using it so that I don't have to groom my critters in order to keep their happiness at 0 and therefore their metabolism at 100%).

 

 

 

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