Why dwarves always go to the nearest bed, even if a better one is just a tile away?

[Teodosio7]

A question for developers: why dwarves always go to the nearest bed, even if a better one is just a tile away?

I am noticing it every time in my game. It seems to me dwarves always go to the nearest bed, even if there is a better one (both happyness and rest statistics) just a tile away.

Do you have any plan to change this?

BTW, thanks for the great game

 

[Ferizo]

Why would you place two different beds close to each other anyway unless it is for decorative purposes.

Sure IRL you would pick the king size bed over the prison bed if they were right next to each other. But it kinda makes sense they would go for the nearest bed in the game I think.
Unless it's possible to put a limited range on the betters beds so they won't cross over two rooms just to sleep more comfortably. But otherwise I'd say to just replace the lesser bed.
If they use the better bed they probably need to rest less frequent anyway.

 

[Illanair]

A calculation to see if a better bed is within a reasonably short distance further away than the nearest bed would be nice - or the ability to bind beds to certain dwarves (Hey I'm a DF player after all )

 

[Xerkis]

"just a tile away" suggest to me that it might be too close and unable to be got in to. Are you sure there is room (one square) of space for the Dwarves to get in to the bed?

Also, need to remember that taking those extra steps to the better bed might be life or death. If the Dwarves are too far down on the energy, they will die. So the closer bed might be the better choice.

 

[SirRight]

Actually, you are thinking of hunger (where they can die), but the worst that can happen if too tired is that they sleep on the floor.

Agree, it would be nice for dwarves to use the better bed. This also goes for chairs, why use a chair that gives a 1 sleep when they could just go over to the good bed that gives 14?

 

[Xerkis]

Actually, you are thinking of hunger (where they can die), but the worst that can happen if too tired is that they sleep on the floor.

Agree, it would be nice for dwarves to use the better bed. This also goes for chairs, why use a chair that gives a 1 sleep when they could just go over to the good bed that gives 14?

yeah , sorry . . . . .I'm at work right now and am suposed to be working on a system issue from last night and only half read this post.
Obviously aGoD is musch more fun the work right now

 

[Teodosio7]

A calculation to see if a better bed is within a reasonably short distance further away than the nearest bed would be nice

THIS

"just a tile away" suggest to me that it might be too close and unable to be got in to. Are you sure there is room (one square) of space for the Dwarves to get in to the bed?

I was wondering that too but no, there is space to get into the bed and the bed gets used from time to time.

 

[Teodosio7]

What about this?

 

[Xerkis]

Nice set up there. Certainly nothing wrong with any of those beds being used.

But you might also ask why do Dwarves choice to sleep in a chair when there is a bed right there too? Perhaps you and others (and maybe even the Devs) will disagree, but I think of it as just Dwarves being Dwarves. Gives it personality. If it is a “bug” – I say keep this one in the game. Obviously just my opinion.

 

[Grombeard]

Nice set up there. Certainly nothing wrong with any of those beds being used.

But you might also ask why do Dwarves choice to sleep in a chair when there is a bed right there too? Perhaps you and others (and maybe even the Devs) will disagree, but I think of it as just Dwarves being Dwarves. Gives it personality. If it is a “bug” – I say keep this one in the game. Obviously just my opinion.

Yes! They're dwarves! They can do whatever they want and sleep wherever they want! Khazâd ai mênu!

 

[City Builder]

Nice set up there. Certainly nothing wrong with any of those beds being used.

But you might also ask why do Dwarves choice to sleep in a chair when there is a bed right there too? Perhaps you and others (and maybe even the Devs) will disagree, but I think of it as just Dwarves being Dwarves. Gives it personality. If it is a “bug” – I say keep this one in the game. Obviously just my opinion.

I agree. Quite honestly I'd much rather have my dwarfs sitting in chairs from time to time to actually give those chairs a purpose beyond just a prop and there should probably be more of this type of dwarven attitude put into the game IMO.

However in that screen shot above it does seem odd that dwarfs chose the worse of the beds rather than the nice one, but I'd just guess that they check for the closest available bed and that's it, maybe they don't (from the screen shot and info provided) take the comfort of the bed into consideration when looking for a bed to sleep in, which is probably something they should look into to see if it's really a problem/bug. Seems they should first check for the best beds, then check to see if any of them are in the range that they can use, then lock it to that dwarf so that he can go and use it. If all the best beds are in use, then check for the next best bed, if available, then lock it for that dwarfs use, on and on until they find a bed they can go and use. Could be that was the plan but a bug managed to slide in there. Will have to wait for a dev to respond.

 

[Deleted member 471407]

In the beta I had a worker dwarf that always slept in a chair. I got angry at him because he took too long sleeping in there so that food supplies started dropping, so I sold his chair. He protested this decision by refusing to sleep at all and eventually dying I really felt that guy had personality

 

[Illanair]

It's the little things ^_^

Dwarf Fortress used to have lots of moments like that. Lots of quirky behaviour giving the dorfs personality. I remember one dorf who avenged his battle brother by splitting a dragon into bits using his bare hands. Upon his death years later he received a stone tomb worthy of a king. Lots of engraved items around the royal palace tells epic tales of UristMcHero. o

 

[unmerged(261635)]

I agree. Quite honestly I'd much rather have my dwarfs sitting in chairs from time to time to actually give those chairs a purpose beyond just a prop and there should probably be more of this type of dwarven attitude put into the game IMO.

However in that screen shot above it does seem odd that dwarfs chose the worse of the beds rather than the nice one, but I'd just guess that they check for the closest available bed and that's it, maybe they don't (from the screen shot and info provided) take the comfort of the bed into consideration when looking for a bed to sleep in, which is probably something they should look into to see if it's really a problem/bug. Seems they should first check for the best beds, then check to see if any of them are in the range that they can use, then lock it to that dwarf so that he can go and use it. If all the best beds are in use, then check for the next best bed, if available, then lock it for that dwarfs use, on and on until they find a bed they can go and use. Could be that was the plan but a bug managed to slide in there. Will have to wait for a dev to respond.

I've noticed that dwarves 'resting' don't always rest until their full bar - this is noticeable if you place 'bad' beds. In that case it sort of makes sense that they'd prefer a chair in the 'food room' because they have nothing else going on, just to get their Energy up a bit. I would like to see some sort of condition that where if their Energy is below a certain percentage, they start to prefer actual beds over chairs/stools and only settle for a chair if there's no beds in a certain radius.

 

[City Builder]

Yeah I just noticed in one of my "no enemy" games that there is a bed made by goblins and I have a couple of dwarves that go to it on a regular basis, as well as one chair in the room to take their sleep. It seems very strange to me considering that I have a barracks that seems to me to be closer to where these dwarves were working at than where this goblin bed is located many layers deep and having to traverse many different hall ways and rooms and stairs to get to the goblin bed when my barracks is full of empty beds available for them to sleep in. Only possibility I could see is that maybe I need to actually count the blocks to travel to the dormitory/barracks compared to traveling to the goblin bed to see if the goblin bed IS actually closer to where a dwarf is when they go to use it. But trying to catch a dwarf on his way to the goblin bed is near impossible for me to do.

Could the goblin bed provide substantially more comfort to the dwarves than a dwarven bed I have to wonder.