Aimless sitting

[swillo]

Yes it sounds like a waste of time but I would like it if aimless characters would use the chairs and sitting pillows that we can now build. Just like they will go to bed if injured it would be great if when they are not injured and not occupied, they would take a seat if one is available.
This would have two effects. One It would add a great amount of atmosphere to the game. I'm already thinking that a "dinner table" food storage item would allow you to have all your characters sit around a table and eat instead of standing around a barrel.

Two It would allow you to see who is idle. Now aimless characters just stand around or move to someplace random and you never notice them. Having them come to a sitting object would tell you right away that there is something wrong with them.

Then we need a Sargent at Arms job to run around yelling "get off yer A$$ recruit"

[Rambler]

I like this idea. It's like adding the carpets and the bookshelves, it adds atmosphere.

[rincarsarff]

Be cool to add a feature to that dinner table (food storage container) that people below 200 hunger sit down and eat until they are back to 200 at least instead of picking up a piece of charred meat and eating it and running back to work right away.
- It would give a sense of hunger instead of a number. People above 200 can snack on the job, but not below it.
- At that rate it would also make sense to me that some of the more prepared food could only be eaten at the table and not taken to-go. The character can eat it faster (increase the hunger faster) at the table so as to increase a sense of eating, and not just numbers.
--- If you put the prepared food in their inventory, when they are hunger they will go sit down to eat part of that food or whole thing before going back to work.
- If willing, just like combat has good abundant animations, eating could have 1 little animation that they are actually eating.

[Chinsei]

Be cool to add a feature to that dinner table (food storage container) that people below 200 hunger sit down and eat until they are back to 200 at least instead of picking up a piece of charred meat and eating it and running back to work right away.
- It would give a sense of hunger instead of a number. People above 200 can snack on the job, but not below it.
- At that rate it would also make sense to me that some of the more prepared food could only be eaten at the table and not taken to-go. The character can eat it faster (increase the hunger faster) at the table so as to increase a sense of eating, and not just numbers.
--- If you put the prepared food in their inventory, when they are hunger they will go sit down to eat part of that food or whole thing before going back to work.
- If willing, just like combat has good abundant animations, eating could have 1 little animation that they are actually eating.

in Kenshi 200 is on the border line of starving. 250, or was it changed to 240? is the point of "i'm hungry time to eat" above 250 is 'i'm not really hungry'

below 200 is starving , 100 i believe the point of, or should be the point at which you just collapse and can't function anymore due to lack of nutrients.

with that said..

while it would add some atmosphere to have characters take breaks and sit at tables eat and 'socialize'. it needs to be done in a way that would allow the player to remain entertained but not become a tedious aspect. not everyone is into role playing. or wants to spend time messing with things that have no actual benefit.


and while having one little animation sounds simple.

that requires a ton of work.

because you have to create the entire model, and make sure each part of the drawn arm moves in a "realistic" manner.

for all the species. and if you're trying to make it realistic you have to make sure that its down to the most minu(insert accent line)te detail. to avoid hands going through the table the bowl, and the utensil also have to be made part of the animation , the characters mouth opening and closing to take in food at the right moments . the chewing animation of the lips and the teeth moving as the food is "chewed"

you get the idea. if the detail and the atmosphere generated in those moments worked well. then it would add to the game but it would be quite costly in time and effort to add that one little detail.

[rincarsarff]

Understood on risk versus reward to adding all of that filler in.
The table idea could still stand without animations, just like the guys aimlessly on the pillows in the gambling halls in shark, adds a little atmosphere without doing much. I imagine picnic table, but then the devs would have to figure out how you can seat mutliple people on 'one' object (the picnic bench is one thing, not multiple seats).
- if you built bar stools around a table and people sat in them automatically to eat at 'less than 200 hunger' stage it'd be cool too, but that seems like more of a manual thing than automatic.
---- The effort to get what i imagine to work would be too much risk for a minute reward. So yeah, I understand.

[Sol Lignum]

Yes it sounds like a waste of time but I would like it if aimless characters would use the chairs and sitting pillows that we can now build. (...)

You can already kind of do this by assigning characters to "perma-work" on a certain sitting spot. And by putting this order to the end of the line, you're made sure that they will only sit down when other jobs are done.

[lucidmadness]

Make sure to add all the awkward dinner table conversations I'm sure we've all encountered

[swillo]

you get the idea. if the detail and the atmosphere generated in those moments worked well. then it would add to the game but it would be quite costly in time and effort to add that one little detail.

Actually everything for this Idea and the food table is in the game. The animations are all there and they are currently in use in all the towns. The only thing that is not there is for PC's to use that same background AI to sit down when there is a seat available. Just like they rest when a bad is available and they are hurt.

So minimal coding is all that is needed.

[swillo]

You can already kind of do this by assigning characters to "perma-work" on a certain sitting spot. And by putting this order to the end of the line, you're made sure that they will only sit down when other jobs are done.

I didn't think of that I'm going to try that out.

[Sol Lignum]

I didn't think of that I'm going to try that out.

Be sure to share your thoughts afterwards I've been doing this for several versions now, just wanted to have that "community has accomplished their chores and resting in a bar at the evening" feeling in my group, pretty much like you do. So I organized a kitchen\bar thing, added some furniture with the ingame editor (that was before furniture built has been made legit), and thought that maybe if I'd shift+click, then sitting would become a permanent "job", and it worked for me. That seemed like a really cool addition to me.

The only question that remains still is "facing" of the chairs. Right now you doesn't seem to have control over which direction character will sit on a built chair. Yet, I've somehow managed to put them more or less "face to the table" way. Guessed the correct rotation, I think. I doubt that chars can detect tables and sit towards them. Some field testing might be needed there. Or pointer arrows.

[Roger the Architect]

With the last experimental version, one can build a sitting box outside the buildings, not only inside. (At least I tried it before and i wasn't able to do that)

And i found another way to use that;

If you have a character with several works, it tends to finish "aimless" at the last job position. I use the sitting box (adding it as a last instance) to make him go back to the first job, so when it activates again, the caracter is already witing there.

Is way to earn some time, and also, is a "known place" to look for him and check if he's working or not.

As an exmaple, i got a character with the following job scheme;


Haul water to several farms; (not working on them)
Haul water to water tank (in case farms are full and let wells keep working and not stopping the production)
Haul weat straw to wheat straw container;
Sit down in a sitting box near the wells;

Each time it hauls water to a place, it goes back to the sitting box ready do for the next water unit to "appear" and the same after finishing to haul the wheat straw.

Any one has more tips?

PD: Seems that also, charatcer sitting in stools/sitting box faces the nearest table, so puting them around a table (and not die trying to rotate it in the correct direction is possible!

[swillo]

Actually ran into an issue off the bat. I have too many characters. I would need 150 seats and to assign them to everyone.
Works well in my small games though. I now have a robot sitting by my door.

[GameProfessor]

To the original post, I think making it clearer someone is "aimless" would be appreciated. Since the animations for working at tables and crafting stations are pretty similar to standing, it is easy to miss. My first instinct was to assign every character the "squat" posture in character creation or plastic surgery so that I get a stronger visual feedback.

To appeal to everyone, applying the civilian pathing to your aimless characters would not only give you visual feedback, but make your settlement seem more lively. People wandering from building to building also fits the "aimless" description. I could see this being frustrating in towns though, if your character just disappears to walk the streets. Perhaps this could be a toggle option if implemented.

There's a mod on the steam workshop which adds civilians to your outposts and they follow this behavior. They don't do anything at all, but are there just for atmosphere. (Mine are all hungry bandits who occasionally turn into enemies and have become a major nuisance. So obviously it's not perfect...)