Job assignment questions

[Hyomoto]

I assumed that if a) a job for a specialist were available and b) a service was being met that colonists would just naturally assume the duties of the jobs they should be doing. I understand if people work somewhere else to fill a shift. It's not ideal, but I understand it. Things clearly do not work that way though. I started digging into it when I found I had someone who was unemployed. I was like, how is that possible? There are plenty of open shifts. So I started looking around and seeing some bizarre stuff. I have someone with no specialty working in the infirmary, but a medic working in the metal extractor. I mean, I can micro this, but given a couple minutes everyone seems to shuffle their jobs around and undo whatever I thought I was fixing.

So, what's the deal? What are the rules for how jobs are assigned? I can wholly understand the computer might not always do a fantastic job, but it seems to do both do some counter-intuitive assignments AND actively prevent me from changing it. Does anyone have any tips or is this just how the game is played?

EDIT: Turns out there's a mod to enable the behavior I described, but I'm still interested in any information.

 

[MylilPwny]

Yes, i wonder about the same questions too. I have tried my best to micro manage these things, and its killing me. It got abit better after i got several universities, my engineers now work where they are supposed to work, however, its not how it looks all over my colony. Why are the colonist not moving from domes where they are not allowed to be, and not come to the dome that allows them specifically to come? Its very hard to make sure all specialists work where they are supposed to.

 

[Promethian]

They do shift jobs around. Its just really slow. If you don't try to micromanage it you'll be happier and it'll get done eventually.

 

[Hyomoto]

That's not my experience, mostly because the colonists do shuffle around so much. Make a change and within 30 seconds you'll see it undone. It's possible over time it corrects, but again: I have medics working in the grocery and unskilled workers in the infirmary. This is after never touching anything and the colony being stable for an hour or more.

The Smart Workers mod does seem to fix this, and people more logically end up where you think they'd go. Poking around inside it seems to only edit the function that returns a place for a colonist to work, so it seems the flaw is not time, but the logic used.

Given the severe penalties to having the wrong workers assigned, waiting and hoping the game will get it right isn't an awesome option. Especially since it's apparently not even possible to micromanage it yourself. I was hoping I'm just missing a mechanic, or there's another option than hope the AI accidentally does a good job.

 

[Voeille]

The least you can do with in-game tools is restrict buildings such as infirmary or factories to accept specialists only. However, it doesn’t prevent things like engineers working in grocers even if there are free slots in factories (and enough living space for them to move), so I also use the Smart Workers mod.

 

[rittstar]

Prior to Space Race i used the mod Smarter work AI, worked very well switching Specialists to specialist jobs and non out of it. For the moment it seems not to work properly and i hope for an update. So keep that mod in mind, worked great with Smart migration AI mod, where they also move to the dome where the Job is if room is available

 

[Meliandah]

The mod "Better AI" look like to work well for me but i noticed another thing IMPORTANT now !
It look like that depending of the priority you set on building they go fill it 1st !!! And i am not sure it's from the Mod. Example if i put a polymer factory @ 3 and Mechanic Part factory @ 2 the engineers will full fill the polymer 1st before going to the mechanic part ! With same priority they'll split in 2 nicely if you have enough people.
The MOD "Better AI" make a great job for filling specialist 1st in their proper building, then now depending of priority it fill them. Another MOD was nice but look like to don't work anymore "Lock WorkPlace", it add a button to lock workers so they wont change but for now it's not working anymore for me :/

But even without the LockWorplace the easiest way to micro-manage is to Turn Off unused place, and use "Better AI" MoD then take care of priority you set It work nice like that.

 

[WaldschratMX]

Since there is an option to limit buildings to eiter everyone or only workers with the right specialty (only engineers in an engineering building) i would like to see a third option: first only the right specialty workers and then fill it up with only unskilled workers (no other specialties allowed). So for a engineering building with 8 slots, and i have 4 engineers, i want the first 4 slots go to the engineers and the other 4 slots filled up with unskilled, no medics, botanists, etc.

 

[Reflection]

Colonist management is my biggest issue with the game and I don't really understand why it's like this. The UI is terrible and the micromanagement doesn't even work. So frustrating.

 

[Meliandah]

Use the 2 mods "Better AI" and "Lock Workplace" , look my other post about "score contest", i'm doing a game with 600% difficulty challenge & russia and i'm nicely started thanks to this Better AI will fill specialist in their workplace 1st without "locking" the building with the game option, so if you have unspecialized unemployed > they ll go fill it.
Then the lock make them to never move until they're old or dead

Mods : Better AI , Lock Workplace + Choggi Library

You can use mods ? you re on PC with Steam ? (i'm not sure you can use them on console or GoG :/)

 

[SillySMS]

Colonist management is my biggest issue with the game and I don't really understand why it's like this. The UI is terrible and the micromanagement doesn't even work. So frustrating.

To be perfectly fair to Haemimont games, writing good game AI can be difficult, and sometimes people have different priorities. Being overly aggressive with moving colonists around, for example, could stress your shuttles.

I still really would prefer it if Haemimont took a patch to just clear out some of the remaining issues with colonist & shuttle management; getting colonists to move to where their specialty* is needed (even if it means kicking a non-specialist out of job and home), forcing shuttles to always pick up at least X resource units (so they don't waste flight time moving 1 polymer, then 1 polymer, then 1 polymer as each unit comes out of the factory), and fixing the bug where occasionally, especially for very large colonies, colonists will suffocate trying to move between domes**.

*Or non-specialty for buildings like the Martian University, Sanitorium, etc.
**Two solutions that might be relatively quick. First, double the oxygen supply... but if they hit 50%, they immediately go to the nearest dome to recharge, regardless of where they were trying to go. Second, a colonist low on oxygen gets immobilized until a shuttle picks them up, though they may still have a shelf life while waiting.

 

[Meliandah]

Errr are you sure that Shuttles take ressources from factories ?? I was thinking they just move them between depots depending if you accept shuttle or not and the amount fixed.

But also for this you have the MoD "Shuttle Reservation AI" (i use it too) you can lock shuttle on ressource or colonist only

 

[Meliandah]

Here the links :

Shuttle Reservation System AI

Better AI

Lock Workplace (the required Choggi Library is linked in the page)

 

[SillySMS]

Errr are you sure that Shuttles take ressources from factories ?? I was thinking they just move them between depots depending if you accept shuttle or not and the amount fixed.

But also for this you have the MoD "Shuttle Reservation AI" (i use it too) you can lock shuttle on ressource or colonist only

Okay, technically it's 1-by-1 from the depot right next to the factory, not straight from the factory. Still, in the case where you are still producing the resources needed to build something, shuttles will waste time and fuel on penny packets rather than just waiting for the production facility to make 3/6 units.

Shuttle Reservation AI is deprecated in favor of the "Space Race" patch letting you do exactly that.

I use a mod similar to Better AI, Smarter Migration AI, to handle colonist shuffling. As I said, I'd prefer if that sort of improvement got into the base game.

I haven't needed Lock Workplace, but it would be neat if Haemimont added a button for that.

 

[Meliandah]

There are 2 mods Smarter migration & worker :O i never tried but Better AI work very nice too and do same as multiple of his mod (migration+worker + nursery limit). I'll try theses later but for now he need to update they look like to dont work anymore for now (Martian economy & Smarter Migration need update, they re not gagarin compatible)

 

[m.stitek]

The colonists changing jobs like socks is driving me crazy. And what's driving me even more crazy is that this issue was reported several months ago, there is a mod that fixes it, but devs are too lazy to do anything.

 

[Hyomoto]

I wouldn't go with "lazy", it's a question of priorities some times. However, it is true that the current logic doesn't reflect player expectation and it would be nice to hear an official word on what they think about it.

With Prison Architect, Introversion was very adamantly against providing micromanagement tools to the players because they felt the players should not have to micromanage their prisons. Ultimately they did relent, realizing AI just couldn't perfectly account for player intentions in all cases, but still worked very hard to ensure the AI would do fine in 90% or more of all situations.

The key change here is Introversion fans knew that because the developers were willing to state their case behind what would have seemed like ignoring the problem otherwise. I assume the developers are working on the next expansion, and may consider the game "good enough" right now. Not ideal, but it's a bit like Stellaris holding all their bug fixes until the next patch despite many of them from relevant to the current version of the game. They did work on fixes, we just had to wait longer than we'd like for them.

 

[wutsdis]

We have discovered a very obscure edge case bug which triggers a wave of workplace hopping by the colonists in the whole colony multiple times during a Sol. It may not be the described one you are experiencing because it requires a delicate balance where there are a few empty workplaces which trigger the wave and someone goes to fill them, then someone goes in the new empty workplaces, etc. We are working on a fix for that.

Edit: But sounds like you may have the exact same one happening to you.

 

[Eternus_IV]

Just ran into this for the first couple runs. Luckily, for my goals, the apparent inefficiencies caused by the job hopping, won't bother me enough to micromanage through that UI.

 

[randallz]

They do shift jobs around. Its just really slow. If you don't try to micromanage it you'll be happier and it'll get done eventually.

(Note...I got a positive review of this post long before I edited it. I fully understand if that "endorsement" is no longer relevant. I do believe my Jan 3 2019 version is the definitive edit.)

This isn't really true. I set up restricted domes half a map apart from one another and colonists would take shuttles to work in domes they CAN'T live in, even when there were plenty of jobs in the dome they did live in. Sometimes they would stubbornly remain homeless to work in the "wrong" dome. I even had children only domes set up half a map apart, and not only did the children swap homes at the drop of a hat, but adults would roam around in those domes even if nothing was there for them to do...adults that didn't even live or work nearby. I had to shut off life support to those domes, and even though there were plenty of shuttles to transport them to the "right" domes, they'd (at best) walk to a "wrong" dome and try to work there. That's a programming bug, and it's annoying at best and gamebreaking at worst, especially if you bothered to go to the trouble of setting priorities in domes in the first place.

The only way it "gets done eventually" is if your map is really simple, "eventually" is a ridiculous amount of Sol (10 or more***, in which case it is useless to even bother with setting up specialized domes...on the easier game setups* specializing domes is over kill even when they do work), or you (general you, not specific you) as a player don't really care about allocation (again, on the easier game setups* allocation by specialization isn't necessary anyway). This last option I really have no problem with...except...the game implies (nay, explicitly encourages) that specialization is the intended method of play. Because of this, until the game is properly patched (and mods don't count, even if I did have the PC version...in fact, I'm 99% sure if the game is properly patched it will break mods anyway), I'll ignore both specialization and dome restrictions. This means universities will have, at best, a minimal effect in my games. In other words, one university, one shift. Even when I use amateur only one ship only applicants.

Note...some of my domes were clustered and connected by passages. I am aware that passages are a comparatively new addition to the game, and I wonder if it is possible the AI is not fully optimized to use these properly. However, as I said it even happens when domes are half a map apart so passages can't be entirely to blame.

*and unless you are a newbie, or extremely competitive over meaningless (ie, no monetary or gameplay advantage; ego or dopamine boosts are not "meaningful"...and EVERY SINGLE DEVELOPER since MS and Sony decided to add achievements circa 2005 to exploit this phenomena, though developed from "scores" from arcade games 1970s and earlier) statistics, easy game setups = no achievements is a negligible penalty...achievements are meaningless gameplay-wise except for about 5 games released in the last 15 years

***and even if less...come on...it's implied in-game specialization takes less time than this. Yeah, if you are patient, it evens out in the end. But that's not the way the game implies it works. And the implication, as well as the explication, does not work right...ie, the game needs to be patched.