AI Tasking -- automation issues

[Boudicca]

Basically I keep running into this problem and it seems related directly to the following example:

1) I set up shop in The Hub, repair several buildings
2) In one building I add a "building materials", "iron plates" and "weapons cabinet" storage
3) On top of one of the buildings is a weapons forge
4) Automation works -- the person I assign to forge will retrieve iron plates from the nearby container, offload weapons to the nearby cabinet

Then I screw things up:
1) I set up an iron mining op just on the outskirts (closest place I was allowed to build)
2) I set up ore and iron plate storage near the iron refinery (all of it clustered around the ore deposit in question
3) I set up automation and things kick right off characters loading ore, offloading plates, etc., using the nearest containers (I set up two ore and iron plate storage containers)
4) I build a small shack so I can stash some food for the workers
...
Now I want to just haul all the plates I churned out back to town so the forge girl can get busy making swords again
...
1) Nobody follows their automation now -- except for medic assignment
2) So the following become true:
2.A) The forge gal first runs out to the mining op area to retrieve plates (but there are none there); after that she just stalls when it's time to reload the forge; she won't auto-haul the swords from the forge to the adjacent cabinet
2.B) Other automation fails -- I can assign a character to build something but now they may quit mid-build... further, none of the other characters who are assigned as engineers will run to help
2.C) Food retrieval may be affected as well

I suppose this is because I build as close as possible to my town infrastructure... but not sure.

[Hatsune_Neko]

can you zipup and upload the save folder affected.

[Boudicca]

I apologize -- by the time I got around to checking I'd moved to a new game keeping up with Experimental release! I'll post something if I find anything seeming to interfere with AI jobs.

~B~

[ghorlist]

I've run into this problem. Most of the time their inventory is too full of other things they can't hold weapons or building materials so they stop working.

[Growbag]

I am having issues with Jobs too.
It seems mostly like pathfinding issues interrrupting the queue somehow
The stone processor is a continual pita for me. Perhaps because stone mines often placed where there is also inaccessible terrain? The character then seems unable to move onto another Job and becomes aimless
Moving large weapons from forge to cabinet can also be a problem so inventory can cause an issue also.
I have seen a character stuck at iron plates unloading and loading into inventory when trying to upgrade a stone processor which is causing same problems mentioned above.

[erioshi]

I have also run into a few snags with automation.

Like mentioned above, sometimes it seems related to pathing, or possibly food/eating. If I manually move the character they will then return to their usual jobs.

Sometimes I can get the problems fixed by changing the order of the tasks in the list. In some cases it makes sense, but in other cases I have not been able to sort out why they will not revert from a lower priority task to a higher priority one. Tasks do seem to be prioritized in the order they are added, and the jobs can be moved around by dragging and dropping.

There are also a few odd things like shift-click "use" on a field will have the farmer add water to it one barrel at a time as needed, but shift-click "inventory" will have the farmer add 10 barrels of water to that farm plot and keep the level at 10 barrels. However the "inventory" job will not have them harvest the field, so I end up needing to assign both jobs. This become particularly important when a farmer is managing multiple fields. Four XL fields sees to be about the maximum number of fields one farmer can effectively water, harvest and haul. Even then with 12 fields and 3 main farmers, I still have a fourth farmer just helping with one field and auto-hauling just to make sure everything gets collected before rotting. Also having multiple storage containers of any type seems to require that each container have a shift-click "auto-haul" job assigned.

One other oddity I keep seeing is that characters who at any point in the past had an "auto-haul" job seem to have some random need to place different things in containers, even if they no longer have a hauling job. Disabling jobs usually seems to stop the random delivery behavior on that character. It has been inconsistent enough that I have not found a way to predict the behavior or make it repeatable.

I do want to say "Great Job" to the development team! I am really enjoying the game. It seems to have a good mix of challenge, base building, and exploration. I play without mods and have been able to build fully functional, automated, arid base that can support the local workers and provide all the food, clothing, armor, weapons, and cats my base support and expedition squads need.

I am having issues with Jobs too.
It seems mostly like pathfinding issues interrrupting the queue somehow
The stone processor is a continual pita for me. Perhaps because stone mines often placed where there is also inaccessible terrain? The character then seems unable to move onto another Job and becomes aimless
Moving large weapons from forge to cabinet can also be a problem so inventory can cause an issue also.
I have seen a character stuck at iron plates unloading and loading into inventory when trying to upgrade a stone processor which is causing same problems mentioned above.

[Vankoska]

Same problem.

Made a small Village, then plaed a few farms, stone processing setup, cooking, baking setup and same with iron refinment.
So! Stone processing was the first thing i've placed, and it worked perfectly, then same with everything else. But shortly after some minor events(Bandit raids) everyone got... Freaking stupid and it pissed me off, since i thought it was fixed (I had that issue on the old map, and i was thinking that was a bug). Everything was perfect, then BAM, everyone standing like puppets, only eating food.
Fun and also REALLY FREAKING annoying part is that EVERY TIME i give an order to the engineer, he... Runs to the gate to... Just. Open. It. And then continues to just stand there.

That thing really ruined everything, since it was really hard to keep everyone alive and well to that moment after the update.
(Sry if my eng is so bad, that i can't understand what i just said)

[Remairem]

I have seen strange behavior related to the gates. What I mean is that services around the gate such as a corpse furnace or build jobs in semi-close proximity to a gate may end up not being able to be completed until I open the gate. For this reason alone I often keep my gate open in my production outposts.

For the most part building storage close to the resources generally works well. The biggest issues I see is loading and unloading finished products. I try to put trader backpacks on any toon working with stackable items and larger backpacks(ones that can hold large weapons) on my heavy armor and weapons smiths. This has seemed to help.

I also have another issue as I need fabric next to my smiths but the fabirc production is at the other end of my outpost. I created additional storage for this though what happens is the character I set to automatically haul to fabric storage, runs to the storage next to the smiths and takes it to the storage next to the looms. I found two work arounds for this I don't like. 1st stop having a toon haul to storage. 2 produce so much fabric that they have to use the storage on the other side.

something else to note.

I have been using and I am slowly removing a storage mod that uses the small buildings as multi-thousand storage hubs. I found that this is a problem, take the above fabric example. I am never going to fill up a 6000 fabric storage building, though while it is still active I will also never start filling up the distance regular fabric storage crates.

I moved to a new location a while ago and I did so to slowly and more carefully try to plan out pathing for the outpost. For the most part it has been a success. Things run generally smoothly, there are a few things I don't like but they are slight convience issues.