Medic/colonist/filter bug?

[cermac]

Ok I'm a lurker and I read a lot of old posts about filters and how to manage them. Typically I don't have a problem with setting filters but right now all my medics, and just the medics are behaving very strangely.

Every dome is set with neither thumbs up or down selected for medics. Before I noticed the bug all my domes were set with medic thumbs up. Their behavior doesn't seem to be different between these two settings. In the beginning the medics filled the domes that needed medics when they graduated from the university dome. But now my medics are piling into only 2 domes and ignoring all the others.

So I've got domes with available living space and available work slots for the medics, but they refuse to move in. If i switch the thumbs up on those domes, then all the medics will pour into them even though the dome only needs 4 medics each, they will fill all the empty living spots.

It's like the medics are refusing to split up right now, they won't divide evenly like they used to.

 

[Promethian]

Your first mistake: Trying to micromanage people into jobs. Don't. Its a Sisyphean task in every meaning of the word. Especially since they will filter around gradually for you all on their own if you don't try to manage it. Well mostly. There needs to be a bit of open housing in all your domes or they won't try.

Second: The thumbs up functions as a hard draw. If there is open housing it will draw every pop that fits the filter to that dome. It doesn't matter if there is an important reason for them to be in their home dome. Thumbs up will override. That is why using it to push medics around is getting them all. Because its supposed to.

 

[Foefaller]

I've actually found thumbs up can draw colonists even if there is no housing, especially if there are still free job slots, even though supposedly this should only happen when there is already a homelessness or unemployment problem.

This has lead me to essentially stop using thumbs up at all, except for school and retirement domes, and instead just thumbs down any specialization that doesn't have a job in said dome.

 

[cermac]

Yea I stopped using "thumbs up" and that seems to help spread every one more evenly. The only place I'm using "thumbs up" now is in the senior and education domes. It seems the "thumbs up" can supersede all other variables, resulting in a dome with 12+ medics. So for instance if you have 3 domes and they all have "thumbs up" to medic, it's possible for all the medics to move into only 1 of the 3 domes if there's living space available.

Guess I didn't understand the filter behaviors as well as I thought and I think it's better to take a exclusionary approach or "thumbs down" only rule.

 

[Promethian]

Yea I stopped using "thumbs up" and that seems to help spread every one more evenly. The only place I'm using "thumbs up" now is in the senior and education domes. It seems the "thumbs up" can supersede all other variables, resulting in a dome with 12+ medics. So for instance if you have 3 domes and they all have "thumbs up" to medic, it's possible for all the medics to move into only 1 of the 3 domes if there's living space available.

Guess I didn't understand the filter behaviors as well as I thought and I think it's better to take a exclusionary approach or "thumbs down" only rule.

Pretty much. Its also valuable to make a dome that draws in tourists and thumbs down every other dome for them. They are a steady and reliable source of income if you can spare a rocket and absolutely worth dedicating a dome to.