Tom Sawyer.
ThePapayaIs it just me, or do they idle a lot more in this version than before? It seems like tasks take forever to complete because they’ll do one thing and then idle for ages. It took two workers the better part of a whole year to build the gatherer’s hut. I just watched a hunter kill one deer and then go right back to idling; meanwhile, the herd has moved off.
I assign laborers to gather some wild food as soon as it appears in June, and by December they still haven’t done it, so I watch the food disappear. And then “food supply is low.” What were they doing all that time??
I understand (I think?) that education will help them be more productive, but since that requires much later-game materials like glass, that doesn’t help me right now. I’m assigning them tasks to keep them alive in the early game and they’re apparently too lazy to do them. It’s frustrating. Is there anything else I can do to encourage them??
ThePapayaI have had a thingstead stuck at the same progress level for months now. It’s the only building site in progress, except for some road, but I had prioritized the thingstead, so I figured the builder would focus on that instead of the road.
Nope.
I clicked the thing to select the person assigned to builder. I forget their name, let’s say it was John. John was “picking up resources.” He chopped down a tree in the path of the road, had mutton in his inventory instead of logs, and then went to get something to eat. When he returned to working, it was on the road instead of the thingstead. He built three patches of road and then went to back to idling. And then, suddenly, he was a fisherman. Do people just switch professions like that and I never noticed??
Anyway, so I clicked “select and cycle” for builder again, to see who the new builder was. Let’s call her Lisa. I’ve watched Lisa for several minutes now and I want to wring her useless pixel neck! Even though I have repeated the “prioritize” tool on the thingstead, she continued to focus on the damn road. And even that work is only about a quarter of the time she spends. The vast majority is spent getting food, idling, or “picking up resources” (whatever that actually means, not sure why it’s necessary to build a road). No wonder the thingstead has had zero progress for several months!
I had wondered if it was just my imagination that things weren’t getting done, but now I see it’s definitely a real problem. Why aren’t they doing the ONE task assigned to them??
ThePapayaUpdate: I’ve just realized, the first part of building something — bringing the resources to the site — is the job of a laborer, not a builder. So with my laborers tasked with gathering wild food and firewood, they were too busy to work on the thingstead. And with that first step being delayed, my builder was twiddling her thumbs.
It makes sense now, but I gotta say that is not very intuitive. The Professions tab says a builder is required when it’s really not yet. I don’t know if this is something in the base game or something you can adjust in the mod… Even if it’s not something that can be fixed, could you maybe add it in the wiki here, so it’s clearer how it works and we can use our workforce more efficiently? Because this was super frustrating to figure out. >_<
Thank you!
Tom SawyerCarrying materials to a building site is the job of laborers, yes. A builder without a building job will do it as well because workers do laborer tasks if nothing else to do. That’s a core game mechanic and can’t be modded. In general, I would say it is good to always have a bunch of laborers and to not overwhelm them with a long to-do list.
This switching of workers to things like gathering food, warming up or idling is also core game. The more unhappy, the more lazy your people are and then pause their work more often. They then idle around nice location like a campfire or a chapel or in the woods if nothing else is available. Idling makes a big difference in this mod where unlike to vanilla, people are not happy by default. Without a home or clothes they can be so desperate that they hardly finish something but later if provided with all the good things they are unstoppable workers. To understand happiness better, you can read further here. :)
