Workers need to stop leaving assigned workplaces

[Lycrist Katkiller]

This is could a bug. A colonist should stay in an assigned job for 5 sols. Of course, it looks like you're doing this while paused, so I don't know how this would affect job assignments. I rarely micromanage colonists, and when I do, I'll do one at a time while unpaused to give them time to react to the changes I've made. In fact, based on the screen shots provided, I'm thinking that this might be the case the service comfort of both builds doesn't change, regardless of who's working where. Try repeating this action unpaused, and see if it provides different results.

Mh. So the service comfort shouldn't change when rearranging the workers in the inactive shift. This part is correct.
However I don't think pausing/unpausing the game would change anything since they all live in the same dome and orders are executed immediatly.

While closing and reopening the slots is forcing this (probably) bug to happen, it also happens when the night worker would leave their work place due to becoming a senior or dying.

Micromanaging colonists in this game is a bit like trying to push string while expecting it to remain straight. The game's rules actively works against this approach. An assigned colonist will only stay in role for five Sols even if it was working correctly, so you'll spend most of your time reassigning colonists. You're much better off using the tools provided to build a self-regulating colony. If you set everything up properly, you can trust your colonists to go into the right jobs to maximize your results.

This goes double for service buildings. I double checked one of my older "won" games, and service buildings don't receive much benefit from highly productive workers. A productive worker in a service building seems to provide a flat 20% boost of their productivity to service comfort, as opposed to boosting comfort fully. Here's three examples:


In the first one, a worker with a productivity of 150 raises the quality of the grocer from 50 to 60, rather than the expected 75. In the second, the two workers (with an averaged productivity of 120) raises the productivity of their diner from 60 to 64, rather than the expected 72. In the last, the worker (with 118 productivity) raised the electronics store from a service comfort of 100 to 103! That worker your trying to micromanage will only provide you with six more comfort if she’s in the diner as opposed to the space bar. Unless you have six trained botanists, you’re much better off assigning them to the farm, where she’ll be as productive as a trained botanist, and letting the service buildings sort themselves out.

Nah, it's not a 20% boost. The calculation is
[service comfort] - 20 + 20 * ([building performance]/100)
with service comfort being the number the build menu would show.

Example: For a dinner the comfort is 60. The performance of your cafeteria is 121. The math be like:
60 - 20 + 20 * (121/100) = 40 + 20*1,21 = 64,2
and that's rounded down to 64.

Electronics store would be 80 * 20*1,18 = 103,6
and that's rounded down (for whatever reason) to 103.

So those numbers all add up.

Here's the thing why I micro my colonists (and please be aware I am talking about the early stage of the game, not some 100+ people colony):
I honestly don't know how to raise my colonists comfort to a point where they keep reproducing at a high enough rate to keep the colony running WITHOUT using a lot of advanced materials. Yes, I could build an electronics or an art store and use those but they have an very high upkeep.
Using a spacebar with high performance workers basically allows for a staple colony at very little cost (mainly concrete and micromanagement)
In the screenshot I attached some posts ago the space bar has a performance rating of 72 (with a worker performance of 160).
This means that every colonist that visit a space bar (Relaxation, Social, Drinking) who has a comfort rating of lower to 72 will have their comfort raised by 15 points.
Only very few people will not visit the space bar - namely workaholics and loner unless they are alcoholics or geologists.
Sooner or later the colony will have a average comfort rating of at least 86 which is insanely high looking at the intial costs.
Heck, if a colonist is a party animal they could end up with a comfort rating of 100.

So I really don't understand who this is not meta.

And yeah, you are right, they would do a fine job in the farm - but I obviously micro workers in the farms, too, which is namely having (at least) 3 workaholics working the farms on heavy duty.

Rather than micromanaging everything, try setting up your dome filters to get the results you want. For example, I want my engineering university dome to train young adults who are composed, enthusiastic, or workaholics preferentially, and never train those with the idiot and loner traits. That’s because my production dome(s) will also prefer those traits, while turning away youths. This lets me run that particular dome optimally.

of course filters are fun and games, but only if you have more than one dome that has housing ;-)

 

[Jon_Smith]

I honestly don't know how to raise my colonists comfort to a point where they keep reproducing at a high enough rate to keep the colony running WITHOUT using a lot of advanced materials. Yes, I could build an electronics or an art store and use those but they have an very high upkeep.
Using a spacebar with high performance workers basically allows for a staple colony at very little cost (mainly concrete and micromanagement)
In the screenshot I attached some posts ago the space bar has a performance rating of 72 (with a worker performance of 160).
This means that every colonist that visit a space bar (Relaxation, Social, Drinking) who has a comfort rating of lower to 72 will have their comfort raised by 15 points.
Only very few people will not visit the space bar - namely workaholics and loner unless they are alcoholics or geologists.
Sooner or later the colony will have a average comfort rating of at least 86 which is insanely high looking at the intial costs.
Heck, if a colonist is a party animal they could end up with a comfort rating of 100.

So I'm still subscribed and I cannot resist the chance for an 'I told ya so' because if this is why you are microing your colonists so much then oof.
You should have said something earlier and maybe we could have avoided all this mess and you crying foul of bugs that aren't there aswell as other dubious claims.

Here is your problem, you aren't looking after your children.
The kids will have low comfort when they mature into youths and then will need to rely on the service buildings the slowly, painfully raise their comfort up (those boosts do next to nothing to speed this up and are not worth it, like I said). All that time they won't breed and slowly your colony will die from population attrition once the founders all start dying.

There is a really really simple fix. Build a single playground.....
These provide massive boosts to kids comfort, seriously massive and it means when a kid grows up their comfort level is already, most of the time, in the green and high enough to breed, this means the service buildings only need to maintain the level, rather than improve it, and they'll make more babies across their lifespan in the colony.
You'll get a net growth and your colony won't collapse.

This is how you win on a game with Last Ark, Rebel Yell, Amateurs and all the other hard rules.
You then only need to micro low sanity workers off of nightshifts or outside, this is much, much easier and provided you are not messing with the shifts now or turning things on or off, the dome remains stable and they'll stay where you put them.

Look forward to you telling me how stupid and wrong and I am and refusing to consider this is the answer because I said it.
Shame you'll miss out on actually playing the game an enjoyable way and getting it to work......

Playgrounds, playgrounds, playgrounds. Just learn to use playgrounds man.

 

[Lycrist Katkiller]

So I'm still subscribed and I cannot resist the chance for an 'I told ya so' because if this is why you are microing your colonists so much then oof.
You should have said something earlier and maybe we could have avoided all this mess and you crying foul of bugs that aren't there aswell as other dubious claims.

Here is your problem, you aren't looking after your children.
The kids will have low comfort when they mature into youths and then will need to rely on the service buildings the slowly, painfully raise their comfort up (those boosts do next to nothing to speed this up and are not worth it, like I said). All that time they won't breed and slowly your colony will die from population attrition once the founders all start dying.

There is a really really simple fix. Build a single playground.....
These provide massive boosts to kids comfort, seriously massive and it means when a kid grows up their comfort level is already, most of the time, in the green and high enough to breed, this means the service buildings only need to maintain the level, rather than improve it, and they'll make more babies across their lifespan in the colony.
You'll get a net growth and your colony won't collapse.

This is how you win on a game with Last Ark, Rebel Yell, Amateurs and all the other hard rules.
You then only need to micro low sanity workers off of nightshifts or outside, this is much, much easier and provided you are not messing with the shifts now or turning things on or off, the dome remains stable and they'll stay where you put them.

Look forward to you telling me how stupid and wrong and I am and refusing to consider this is the answer because I said it.
Shame you'll miss out on actually playing the game an enjoyable way and getting it to work......

Playgrounds, playgrounds, playgrounds. Just learn to use playgrounds man.

Yeah. You totally took a look at the screenshots I provided.
You are really a 11/10 gamer... such skillz

Your arrogant behaviour is only exceeded by your obivious inability to carefully examine a god damn screenshot. There 4 screenshots and EVERY screenshot shows a playground. But sure... I have to build playgrounds.

Also... your advice once more shows that you have basically zero understand of how comfort works. Yeah. Children have high comfort if provided with a playground. But what happens when they develop perk and flaws which lead to interests a colony can not fulfill? Like Gamer and Gambler? What happens when you train your colonists and they develop interests like Botanists get luxery and Scientiests get gaming? What happens when you send your martianborns to expeditions and they comfort resets to the housing comfort?
Yeah. You get it? You have to raise it again.

please unsubscripe and get lost

 

[Jon_Smith]

Are all your kids in that nursery then? Because I think that also isn't optimal early game.....?
Try putting them in your main dome, you can skip a nursery until you make a dedicated nursery dome, which you don't need until your population grows enough, I have done this and it fixed any issues I had growing a population with the hardest rules on.

And yeah, don't send them on expeditions so early then, as for flaws and perks, I think you overexaggerate how much these drag your colony down, as you are also overexaggerating the need to boost a buildings service comfort from 60-63.

I can send you a save of the last game I played on the hardest settings? Show you how its done if you like? You are the one struggling, not me. I don't really care about your 'gamer skillz' insults btw, I don't care about trying to be better than you. I care about having fun with my game, and understanding the mechanics to make it work.

As for being arrogant, you are the one who refuses to try out my advice cause you demand you know better (yet are failing to maintain a stable population apparently unless you micro an insane amount and still struggle......)

I think I'll keep my subscription and see how long it takes for the penny to drop for you that you are the issue, not a bug in the game.

 

[Lycrist Katkiller]

Are all your kids in that nursery then? Because I think that also isn't optimal early game.....?
Try putting them in your main dome, you can skip a nursery until you make a dedicated nursery dome, which you don't need until your population grows enough, I have done this and it fixed any issues I had growing a population with the hardest rules on.

And yeah, don't send them on expeditions so early then, as for flaws and perks, I think you overexaggerate how much these drag your colony down, as you are also overexaggerating the need to boost a buildings service comfort from 60-63.

I can send you a save of the last game I played on the hardest settings? Show you how its done if you like? You are the one struggling, not me. I don't really care about your 'gamer skillz' insults btw, I don't care about trying to be better than you. I care about having fun with my game, and understanding the mechanics to make it work.

As for being arrogant, you are the one who refuses to try out my advice cause you demand you know better (yet are failing to maintain a stable population apparently unless you micro an insane amount and still struggle......)

I think I'll keep my subscription and see how long it takes for the penny to drop for you that you are the issue, not a bug in the game.

Yeah. Have rival colonies scan those expeditions. Who wants free resources, research progress, tech and those useless breakthroughs...

It's really not worth microing 3 workers to 1 building. So much hassle

It's quite funny that you still think the difference would be between 60 and 63 when in reality its between 50 and 70...

Also... If i happen to have 3 workaholic scientists you really expect me to not move them into the same workshift so I can click heavy workload? If you really think micro is useless, it's not me who should check for pennies...

 

[Darkfyre99]

Here's the thing why I micro my colonists (and please be aware I am talking about the early stage of the game, not some 100+ people colony):
I honestly don't know how to raise my colonists comfort to a point where they keep reproducing at a high enough rate to keep the colony running WITHOUT using a lot of advanced materials. Yes, I could build an electronics or an art store and use those but they have an very high upkeep.
Using a spacebar with high performance workers basically allows for a staple colony at very little cost (mainly concrete and micromanagement)
In the screenshot I attached some posts ago the space bar has a performance rating of 72 (with a worker performance of 160).
This means that every colonist that visit a space bar (Relaxation, Social, Drinking) who has a comfort rating of lower to 72 will have their comfort raised by 15 points.
Only very few people will not visit the space bar - namely workaholics and loner unless they are alcoholics or geologists.
Sooner or later the colony will have a average comfort rating of at least 86 which is insanely high looking at the intial costs.
Heck, if a colonist is a party animal they could end up with a comfort rating of 100.

Hmm... I guess I've never really had a problem getting a steadily growing population when my comfort's in the low seventies. Which was certainly doable even before the small space bar became an option. I just focused on making my initial housing as comfortable as possible. Avoided apartments, and made sure I researched Biome Engineering and Dome Bioscaping as soon as they become available.

It probably also helps that when I'm looking for my first wave of colonists (or only wave, in the case of the last ark), my focus is on fertility first. Equal numbers of men and women, and I'll take anyone with the sexy trait that aren't middle aged. Any remaining slots will be taken by whatever specialists my starting area dictates. IMO, the Founders' primary job is to get to Mars, and start having babies. In one of my games, I had so many colonists with the sexy trait, one of the women must've gotten pregnant on the ride over, because she gave birth soon after the rocket landed.

 

[Promethian]

This stopped being funny 20 posts ago. Guys this is either a troll that is being deliberately wrong because they are a sick person that gets some kind of joy from wasting your time or its a person dead set on not being helped. You can't help people who refuse to be helped so stop trying.

 

[Lycrist Katkiller]

Hmm... I guess I've never really had a problem getting a steadily growing population when my comfort's in the low seventies. Which was certainly doable even before the small space bar became an option. I just focused on making my initial housing as comfortable as possible. Avoided apartments, and made sure I researched Biome Engineering and Dome Bioscaping as soon as they become available.

It probably also helps that when I'm looking for my first wave of colonists (or only wave, in the case of the last ark), my focus is on fertility first. Equal numbers of men and women, and I'll take anyone with the sexy trait that aren't middle aged. Any remaining slots will be taken by whatever specialists my starting area dictates. IMO, the Founders' primary job is to get to Mars, and start having babies. In one of my games, I had so many colonists with the sexy trait, one of the women must've gotten pregnant on the ride over, because she gave birth soon after the rocket landed.

Yeah, sexy is probably the trait I focus on most after celebrity and genius. I also try to take 3 workaholics for the farm but besides that I more than happy to trade minor flaws for sexy colonists like glutton or chronic conditions.

This stopped being funny 20 posts ago. Guys this is either a troll that is being deliberately wrong because they are a sick person that gets some kind of joy from wasting your time or its a person dead set on not being helped. You can't help people who refuse to be helped so stop trying.

Yes, yes. I am doing it "wrong" because I do something the game give me the option but you think is not correct. Very convincing.
I might also like to add that I am not asking for help or advice how to run a colony - I simply pointed out that colonists leaving their assigned workplace during their assignment can not be considered working as intented - it's either a bug or poor design.

 

[Darkfyre99]

I simply pointed out that colonists leaving their assigned workplace during their assignment can not be considered working as intented - it's either a bug or poor design.

Well... I tried to replicate what you're seeing, both while paused and while unpaused. and I wasn't able to replicate it. Every single time, the worker with the highest productivity that was assigned to a job stayed at their assigned when a new work slot opened, and an unemployed colonist took the newly opened one. Most likely, you have one of those annoying bugs that are specific to that particular save. Fill out a bug report, and submit that save along with it.

 

[Jon_Smith]

Yes, yes. I am doing it "wrong" because I do something the game give me the option but you think is not correct. Very convincing.
I might also like to add that I am not asking for help or advice how to run a colony - I simply pointed out that colonists leaving their assigned workplace during their assignment can not be considered working as intented - it's either a bug or poor design.

You can also turn off a drone hub and issue commands to all of the drones manually instead of letting them assign tasks to themselves and manage the workload in the zone of control.
The game also gives you the option to build a bunch of buildings with dust zones overlapping so they need a ton of maintenance, or to turn off the oxygen to the domes.

Just because you CAN play in that way where you are in micro hell with the drones doesn't mean its the intended way to play, nor bad design, nor a bug.
You are using a game mechanic in an excessive way compared to most gamers, you've been told by me, you've been told by others, that you do not need to do this and you refuse to attempt the solution to what you claim is a 'bug', which is to not micro your colonists to this extreme.

The chance of you having a bug where colonists are randomly jumping around work assignments, which no-body else encounters, its occams razor that you are the problem, not everyone else including the game design.

As for not asking for advice on how to run a colony. Well tell me what your goal is here? I assumed it was to stop your frustration with microing workers, since thats not a bug to be fixed I offered solutions to that via changes to your gameplay styles, that is solving the problem isn't it.

If you are so adamant its bad design then go make a mod for it, as Darkfyre pointed out apparently a workplace assignment is fixed for 5 sols. Without inspecting the global constants this sounds reasonable. You can easily change this so its 100 sols by modding this function to use a different value.
Obviously it will still wipe a colonists assigned workplace if you close the shift or building as that fires them, but maybe you can chill out and do your micro hell if thats really how you wish to play, even though its not intended or required. I'm not sure it will help you however because I'm not convinced you aren't closing buildings and shifts since you explicitly said it. Either way there is the function I believe you need to change, based on your rude attitude I won't do it for you.

function Colonist:CheckForcedWorkplace()
  if not self.user_forced_workplace then
    return
  end
  local workplace, shift, time = table.unpack(self.user_forced_workplace)
  local remaining_time = g_Consts.ForcedByUserLockTimeout - (GameTime() - time)
  if 0 < remaining_time and ValidateBuilding(workplace) then
    local dome = self:CheckForcedDome() or self.dome
    local service_dome = (workplace:CheckServicedDome(dome))
    if AreDomesConnected(service_dome, dome) then
      return workplace, shift, remaining_time
    end
  end
  self.user_forced_workplace = nil
end

 

[Lycrist Katkiller]

You can also turn off a drone hub and issue commands to all of the drones manually instead of letting them assign tasks to themselves and manage the workload in the zone of control.
The game also gives you the option to build a bunch of buildings with dust zones overlapping so they need a ton of maintenance, or to turn off the oxygen to the domes.

Just because you CAN play in that way where you are in micro hell with the drones doesn't mean its the intended way to play, nor bad design, nor a bug.
You are using a game mechanic in an excessive way compared to most gamers, you've been told by me, you've been told by others, that you do not need to do this and you refuse to attempt the solution to what you claim is a 'bug', which is to not micro your colonists to this extreme.

The chance of you having a bug where colonists are randomly jumping around work assignments, which no-body else encounters, its occams razor that you are the problem, not everyone else including the game design.

As for not asking for advice on how to run a colony. Well tell me what your goal is here? I assumed it was to stop your frustration with microing workers, since thats not a bug to be fixed I offered solutions to that via changes to your gameplay styles, that is solving the problem isn't it.

If you are so adamant its bad design then go make a mod for it, as Darkfyre pointed out apparently a workplace assignment is fixed for 5 sols. Without inspecting the global constants this sounds reasonable. You can easily change this so its 100 sols by modding this function to use a different value.
Obviously it will still wipe a colonists assigned workplace if you close the shift or building as that fires them, but maybe you can chill out and do your micro hell if thats really how you wish to play, even though its not intended or required. I'm not sure it will help you however because I'm not convinced you aren't closing buildings and shifts since you explicitly said it. Either way there is the function I believe you need to change, based on your rude attitude I won't do it for you.

function Colonist:CheckForcedWorkplace()
  if not self.user_forced_workplace then
    return
  end
  local workplace, shift, time = table.unpack(self.user_forced_workplace)
  local remaining_time = g_Consts.ForcedByUserLockTimeout - (GameTime() - time)
  if 0 < remaining_time and ValidateBuilding(workplace) then
    local dome = self:CheckForcedDome() or self.dome
    local service_dome = (workplace:CheckServicedDome(dome))
    if AreDomesConnected(service_dome, dome) then
      return workplace, shift, remaining_time
    end
  end
  self.user_forced_workplace = nil
end

please explain to me what changing the constant to 100 days would change if the remaining assignment is 4 sols and 23 hours...

and of course I micro drones... how else do you prevent drones maintaining stuctures 3 hours before the next dust storm... geez. Yeah. I get it, you play on lower difficulties, so it probably doesn't matter if you drones waste machine parts and electronics
If am not judging your for that but spare me your obivious nonsense that does not apply to anyone playing seriously..
Not managing your workforce is like having your drones maintain structures during a dust storm. It's wasteful. Don't expect me to play in a wasteful way just because you think it's hell to do manage 30 colonists.

Well. To some extend I was asking for opinion - on the matter, not on microing workers in general. Why is this so hard for you to understand?

Just one more troll screenshot... how can I be so dumb and manage my workforce...

 

[Jon_Smith]

please explain to me what changing the constant to 100 days would change if the remaining assignment is 4 sols and 23 hours...

and of course I micro drones... how else do you prevent drones maintaining stuctures 3 hours before the next dust storm... geez. Yeah. I get it, you play on lower difficulties, so it probably doesn't matter if you drones waste machine parts and electronics
If am not judging your for that but spare me your obivious nonsense that does not apply to anyone playing seriously..
Not managing your workforce is like having your drones maintain structures during a dust storm. It's wasteful. Don't expect me to play in a wasteful way just because you think it's hell to do manage 30 colonists.

Well. To some extend I was asking for opinion - on the matter, not on microing workers in general. Why is this so hard for you to understand?

Just one more troll screenshot... how can I be so dumb and manage my workforce...

I give you a real tangible answer make workers stay in workplaces longer or fix the 'poor design' you claim there is and you still have such a sour attitude. Figure out how to modify that code yourself, if you don't understand how changing a workplace assignment from it being 5 days to 100 days would stop workers moving about you are hopeless. They do not move out of assigned jobs otherwise unless you mess with the shifts, which is what you must be doing as its far more likely than a bug you only experience where workers move despite being assigned and still having time on the clock.

As for thinking I play of easy settings and you're a more serious player than me, I'm happy to prove you wrong. I am pretty sure I will have smashed every time you have gotten on the challenge maps and as I said before, I have runs on the max possible difficulty percentages. I know how to play the game, and from what you can see, not only from a player perspective but I know various stuff around the code under the hood aswell. Its sheer arrogance of your part to condescend the way you are.

 

[Lycrist Katkiller]

I give you a real tangible answer make workers stay in workplaces longer or fix the 'poor design' you claim there is and you still have such a sour attitude. Figure out how to modify that code yourself, if you don't understand how changing a workplace assignment from it being 5 days to 100 days would stop workers moving about you are hopeless. They do not move out of assigned jobs otherwise unless you mess with the shifts, which is what you must be doing as its far more likely than a bug you only experience where workers move despite being assigned and still having time on the clock.

As for thinking I play of easy settings and you're a more serious player than me, I'm happy to prove you wrong. I am pretty sure I will have smashed every time you have gotten on the challenge maps and as I said before, I have runs on the max possible difficulty percentages. I know how to play the game, and from what you can see, not only from a player perspective but I know various stuff around the code under the hood aswell. Its sheer arrogance of your part to condescend the way you are.

Yeah, i still don't get it. Please explain to me how having a longer assingment period would change anything when the assignment period is not over in the first place...
I am far from surprised that you apparently still do not understand the underlying issue. Not surprised at all

Sure you have. I mean... You took a look at my screenshot, didn't yo... Oh, wait, you claimed you did and couldn't even tell if i build playgrounds or not

 

[Jon_Smith]

Ok, I'll explain this in painstaking detail and reference your screenshots so you can follow. Jeez, its like I keep saying, you micro too much and mess up the assignments. There is no fix because you are assigning too many people.

In screenshot 1, you have Starkiller assigned a shift in the Spacebar.
In screenshot 2, you show the diner with Houston assigned for 5 sols.
In screenshot 3, you show Starkiller working in the diner, but she is working in a slot previous assigned to Houston, there is another job slot that was disabled now open. Starkiller wasn't assigned and found this job herself.
In screenshot 4, you show someone working the shift Starkiller was previously, the person WAS assigned.


So, heres what happens. At some point you messed with the diner and changed the shifts. I know this for sure because at least one slot that was closed is now open. Because Houston got 'fired' she lost her assignment and now works anywhere. Logically you turned the night shift off then on. You say this in your post '2. I close and open the jobs in the diner.' So you fired Houston, game is working as intended.

But the question is why did Starkiller find herself a job there since she was assigned to the spacebar. Well the answer is in screenshot 4, her job is a now assigned to Jupiter, Now what is interesting here is that Jupiter's assignment shows 3 sols left on it.
The reason is because, once a colonist gets fired they don't actually lose that assignment immediately. They retain it for a while until they get a new job.
If you re-open a job slot they will be the first person to fill that role and the timer set for them will not reset to 5.

So, 2 sols earlier you assigned Jupiter to the space bar, at some point in your constant shuffling around you caused her to join the pool of unemployed colonists, likely by closing the shift she works on and you assigned starkiller instead. Jupiter was left unemployed but was still considered assigned to the spacebar, with no open jobs (as I assume the other shifts had workers assigned) she stayed unemployed however. (This is the status in screenshot 1).

You continue to mess around with shifts and assignments. The night shift in the space bar must have been closed and re-opened and because there were 2 colonists in the unemployed job pool that were assigned to it, Jupiter took priority and got her old assigned job back. Then the Diner had some shifts closed and opened again, although Starkiller had a job assigned, because she was unemployed and available she still qualified to work she found herself a job there (as otherwise assigned colonists who lose their jobs wouldn't rejoin the workforce on their own), this wipes her 'assigned' status and why she shows up normally there.


Its all entirely logically explained if you understand the game mechanics. Honestly I hadn't dived into the full detail until now as I knew this was caused by you microing too much, assigning loads of workers and toggle shifts on and off to reshuffle them.
I imagine you'll still deny this and claim you weren't opening and closing shifts or something. I don't believe you if so, the chance of it being your actions done in a manner similar to what I say above is much much much more likely than a bug that only occurs on your machine. If not, make a video of your issue because it is not repeatable.

Perhaps instead of having a longer work assignment like I suggested, modify instead the code that allows workers to find a job if they are unemployed but have previously been assigned a job. You'll need to micro your unemployed workers nearly constantly as, once assigned, you'll need to keep reassigning them after you toggle their shifts and they won't find a job themselves, but it seems you want to unnecessarily torture yourself and micro alot alot more than needed. (Don't believe me, just check out Youtube, I bet there are a bunch of hardest difficulty runs where they don't do what you claim needs to be done and it might give you tips to fix the other holes in your strategies that makes you feel you need to do this in the first place.

 

[Lycrist Katkiller]

The night shift in the space bar must have been closed and re-opened

nope.
I did not interact with the space bar night shift AT ALL. I only interacted with the dinner night shift.
So try again explaining how Starkiller leaving an assignment she had for 1 minute is logical

You are apparently assuming I am some kind of idiot closing a work shift and then wondering why a person who was assigend to said work shift would leave said work shift but here's the thing and this might shock you: I am not.

Also... little defense here? What's the issue? Do you not like being patronized? It sucks, doesn't it?

 

[Darkfyre99]

and of course I micro drones... how else do you prevent drones maintaining stuctures 3 hours before the next dust storm... geez.

By turning the building off before the sandstorm hits?

Here's an ancient bit of wisdom... "Running's not a plan. Running's what you do when a plan fails." If losing three hours of production on an outside building will kill your colony, you have bigger problems than “wasting” a single machine part. If a difference of five comfort can make or break your colony, you have bigger problems than where that enthusiastic colonist is working...and they’re being underutilized in a service role as it is..

If these screenshots you provided are both combined Last Ark and Rebel Yell games, your strategy should’ve reflected that fact from Sol Zero. These aren’t random events. They’re rules you select. From what I’m seeing in your screen shots, this doesn’t seem to be the case. But that could be because I can’t see the entire colony, and because I consider solar panel spam to be rather wasteful, especially on maps with frequent dust storms.

Please explain to me how having a longer assingment period would change anything when the assignment period is not over in the first place...

As I wrote above, I tried to replicate your bug, but everything worked as expected. It’s very likely that this bug of yours is unique to your save. Submit it, along with the corrupted save, and hope the new team can fix it.... at least, that was what I thought at first.

But having seen what @Jon_Smith wrote above, I find his explanation for what happened in this case to be much more likely than an extremely rare bug unique to your save.

 

[Lycrist Katkiller]

By turning the building off before the sandstorm hits?

Here's an ancient bit of wisdom... "Running's not a plan. Running's what you do when a plan fails." If losing three hours of production on an outside building will kill your colony, you have bigger problems than “wasting” a single machine part. If a difference of five comfort can make or break your colony, you have bigger problems than where that enthusiastic colonist is working...and they’re being underutilized in a service role as it is..

If these screenshots you provided are both combined Last Ark and Rebel Yell games, your strategy should’ve reflected that fact from Sol Zero. These aren’t random events. They’re rules you select. From what I’m seeing in your screen shots, this doesn’t seem to be the case. But that could be because I can’t see the entire colony, and because I consider solar panel spam to be rather wasteful, especially on maps with frequent dust storms.


As I wrote above, I tried to replicate your bug, but everything worked as expected. It’s very likely that this bug of yours is unique to your save. Submit it, along with the corrupted save, and hope the new team can fix it.... at least, that was what I thought at first.

But having seen what @Jon_Smith wrote above, I find his explanation for what happened in this case to be much more likely than an extremely rare bug unique to your save.

Structures can run for roughly 1 sol after the maintainance bar hit 100%
It's not about a struggling colonly that can hardly manage to surivive. It's about efficiency. I consider some minor changes in my work force much more statisfying than wasting any bit of income/outcome/potential.
And yes, that's totally my personal playstyle. But here's the thing: I didn't come here to talk about how anyone plays the game. I came here to see if anyone else ever encounted a simliar possible bug. And you probably have without noticing because whenever a colonists turns into a renegade, a senior or simply dies an assigned worker would leave their position. This is usually not a big deal, but you utilize your options and actually use heavy workload it makes a difference because some people can not handle it and other are workaholics.

Look at the two screenshots I attach to this post and tell me again, that managing workforce is a pointless effort...

And yeah... Little Jonny explaination sounds reasonable, but only if you assume as he does, that I interfered with the spacebar's night shift - which I can ensure you, I did not.

 

[Jon_Smith]

nope.
I did not interact with the space bar night shift AT ALL. I only interacted with the dinner night shift.
So try again explaining how Starkiller leaving an assignment she had for 1 minute is logical

You are apparently assuming I am some kind of idiot closing a work shift and then wondering why a person who was assigend to said work shift would leave said work shift but here's the thing and this might shock you: I am not.

Fine, perhaps then because you have only 3 possible job slots in the bar, but in the past 5 sols have assigned more than 4 or more workers assigned in the job pool that during a general reshuffle of workers to fill the roles in the space bar it moved Starkiller out and Jupiter in, since they are both assigned to the space bar they have a claim to that job. Who really cares the nitty gritty specifics, you cause it by doing too much micro and having too many workers with assigned jobs that there are more in the pool than actual jobs. If its something you can repeat, then upload a save, with the steps you take and I'll use a debugger and explain it even more.


Regardless I've laid out an incredibly more likely scenario, which demonstrates the game mechanics, than you claiming there is a bug or bad design.

As keeps getting repeated to you. You are microing workers too much, its been said by myself and others including @Darkfyre99 in their most recent post that the level of workplace assignment you are doing is over the top and NOT required on the highest difficulties and if you are failing then the problem lies elsewhere in your strategy.
There is NO BUG. You are just not letting workers manage themselves, you are intended to use dome filters etc to manage workers, not move around every single one to min/max production, the same as you don't issues every new task to your drones in order to make sure they do a more sensible plan when giving themselves orders.

The game is not intended to be overly micro'd like that. Its NOT bad design and its NOT a bug.

Besides, if you are so obsessed with efficiency like you say then why on Earth are you building basic and micro domes when you can build barrel domes and why are you not using drone hubs, a drone workforce of 9 at sol 70 says alot about how inefficiently your colony must be running, I order more than that on my initial rocket. You will have been hugely bottlenecked for so much of the game because the drones had too many tasks to do. Having your drones always on a high workload isn't efficient, quite the opposite. You have bigger problems than moving around workers.


So to sumarise, if you wanted to see if other people encountered this bug, no little Lycrist Katkiller, because the only bug is in your head. The game is working correctly, as intended and is solid game design for 99.9% of players.

 

[Lycrist Katkiller]

Fine, perhaps then because you have only 3 possible job slots in the bar, but in the past 5 sols have assigned more than 4 or more workers assigned in the job pool that during a general reshuffle of workers to fill the roles in the space bar it moved Starkiller out and Jupiter in, since they are both assigned to the space bar they have a claim to that job. Who really cares the nitty gritty specifics, you cause it by doing too much micro and having too many workers with assigned jobs that there are more in the pool than actual jobs. If its something you can repeat, then upload a save, with the steps you take and I'll use a debugger and explain it even more.


Regardless I've laid out an incredibly more likely scenario, which demonstrates the game mechanics, than you claiming there is a bug or bad design.

As keeps getting repeated to you. You are microing workers too much, its been said by myself and others including @Darkfyre99 in their most recent post that the level of workplace assignment you are doing is over the top and NOT required on the highest difficulties and if you are failing then the problem lies elsewhere in your strategy.
There is NO BUG. You are just not letting workers manage themselves, you are intended to use dome filters etc to manage workers, not move around every single one to min/max production, the same as you don't issues every new task to your drones in order to make sure they do a more sensible plan when giving themselves orders.

The game is not intended to be overly micro'd like that. Its NOT bad design and its NOT a bug.

Besides, if you are so obsessed with efficiency like you say then why on Earth are you building basic and micro domes when you can build barrel domes and why are you not using drone hubs, a drone workforce of 9 at sol 70 says alot about how inefficiently your colony must be running, I order more than that on my initial rocket. You will have been hugely bottlenecked for so much of the game because the drones had too many tasks to do. Having your drones always on a high workload isn't efficient, quite the opposite. You have bigger problems than moving around workers.


So to sumarise, if you wanted to see if other people encountered this bug, no little Lycrist Katkiller, because the only bug is in your head. The game is working correctly, as intended and is solid game design for 99.9% of players.

So... little defensive here? What's the issue? Do you not like being patronized? It sucks, doesn't it?
Also... you are taking more than 9 drones with your first rocket. Wow. I hope my attached screenshot doesn't give you a stroke because that's how I loadout my first rocket. And no. I am still not asking for your opinion on how I play the game. If I cared for that, I would ask reddit. Which I did [here].

Now...
Well...
Since... you know... I am not going to change the way how I play the game, I - suprise - managed to encounted the bug again. At this point I have to admit that you were somewhat correct in pointing out that there was an assignment left, but you was absolutly wrong about his assumption on me doing something "wrong" to trigger it.
See video linked here as soon as it's online. For now have the save file.

 

[Jon_Smith]

Thank you, your video and save was useful and I examined the status of various things under the hood as the game was playing and your issues are pretty unique as I think they only really occur because of how few workslots are present in the small spacebar, aswell as no unemployed in general. I can now see your issue more clearly as I have seen an assigned worker, replaced with another assigned worker who was fired and can recreate this. I don't think your descriptions so far explained the issue clearly as it wasn't random colonists taking the jobs, it was ones who had been previously assigned there and fired.


As I said a colonist has an assigned workplace. This remains until they find a new job, so firing them doesn't actually remove this value. Them getting a new job does. This means they can rejoin that job if the worker pool is recalculated. Now various things can trigger a recalculation of the workforce, and when this happens, because more than one colonists is still set as assigned, sometimes the fired worker (if still unemployed) is taking priority and getting their job back. Usually I think another, normal worker would be displaced however I am abit surprised at some of the behaviour and looking at the code I do think I can see some mistakes.

This leads me to concede that I think there might be a bug here, but its more about the fired workers behaviour and it just occurs under such extremely narrow circumstances its gone completely unnoticed as it requires a work shift with a very low number of workers and multiple workers assigned to it trying to fill the slot. Usually this doesn't happen as most people only micro a couple of workers in each building, usually to move a low sanity worker away for example.

The issue is two fold, a colonist not losing their assigned workplace when fired, and functionality to 'avoid' a workplace seemingly not functioning.

function Colonist:GetFired()
    if not self.workplace then
        return
    end
    self:SetWorkplace(false)
    self.avoid_workplace = self.workplace
    self.avoid_workplace_start = self.city.day
    self:ChangeWorkplacePerformance()
end

The following code here doesn't make much sense, the code will always exit. If a colonist is fired then self.workplace cannot return nothing or false as you cannot fire a worker not in a workplace.
Even if you do get to the rest of the code its still wrong. Self:SetWorkplace(false) will clear the assigned workplace so the value in self.avoidworkplace will always be false.
Again this doesn't make sense.

If you are willing to put our arguments here aside, I believe I can fix it if you are willing to test it and see if there are weird behaviours elsewhere. You will need a mod to correct it, I can upload on Paradox or on Steam?
I'm going to just check with some more experienced modders too, to see if they have ever seen this.

Edit: oh, an assigning renegades definitely looks like a bug. I didn't look into that yet.