Settlers ignoring job priorities

[RoyHaggerty]

I've just returned to play after a few months and many small patches, and I have an issue. My settlers are largely ignoring the job priority list. They garden when their top priority is hunting. They hunt when their top priority is constructing. And they stand idle while identified mining zones sit untouched.

I've been using the job priority lists on my previous playthroughs with no problem, but this time, it's almost random, and certainly not working as it should. Has anyone else had this problem, and is there a fix for it?

[Tempered]

Have had this problem since I started playing a couple weeks ago. Saving and restarting seems to straighten it out a little bit, but not completely. Really ticks me off since I keep having low level scrubs trying to train my animals instead of my high level animal trainer, even though they are all set to priority 4 or 5 when the high level one is set to priority 1.

[bortas]

Originally posted by Tempered:

Have had this problem since I started playing a couple weeks ago. Saving and restarting seems to straighten it out a little bit, but not completely. Really ticks me off since I keep having low level scrubs trying to train my animals instead of my high level animal trainer, even though they are all set to priority 4 or 5 when the high level one is set to priority 1.

Priority 5 doesn't mean, they will let the prio 1 guy do it... it just means, they will do the job, when all settlers with higher prio are occupied with other stuff. So if your prio 1 tamer is busy i.e. smithing a new armor, someone else will do the taming, even with prio 5, if he doesn't have anything else to do.

If you want to make sure, certain tasks are done by a specific expert, you have to completely disable it for all others.

[Kaelroth]

That's not what proiority 5 means. The priority settings are specific to each settler for their tasks. A settler should be prioritizing any task set to 1-4 before they'd do the priority 5 task, regardless of what other settlers are doing at the time.

If in your scenario where the priority 1 tamer is busy crafting armor, the priority 5 taming settler should only be doing taming if there are no other tasks set to priority 1-4 for them to perform, not just because the priority 1 tamer settler is busy doing something else.

[Didz]

Settlers will give priority to the highest priority job scheduled on their work schedule from left to right. So, if there are is more than one job with the same priority on their schedule they will focus on the leftmost one first and only move onto the next to the right if their is nothing to do on the first.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3158054391
So, taking Greggor as an example above. Greggor has six Priority 1 Jobs on his schedule,

1. Convalescence
2. Urgent Haul
3. Grow
4. Craft
5. Steward
6. Haul

So, assuming he is not hurt and nothing needs Urgent Hauling, Greggor will focus on the Spring Planting of the crops. If nothing needs planting he will get on with any crafting that needs doing and if nothing needs crafting he will restock the torches or deal with any windows that need opening or closing and if nothing needs doing around the settlement he will help the dogs and asses carry items back and forth to storage.

If you want a settler to focus on only one job then make sure it is the only job with a Priority 1 on their schedule,

[Tempered]

My animal handler with priority 1 will start her day by feeding and harvesting from the animals. Since you can only train an animal once a day, that time of day gets later and later with each passing day. Chances of my animal handler doing a priority 4 or 5 job instead of her priority 1 jobs increases with every day. The chances of a settler with a priority 5 in animal handling has a far greater chance of being on their 5th priority job than my animal handler has of being on her 1st priority job. See the problem? It also seems that the tasks are carrying over to the next day, so 1st thing in the morning, your settler could be doing a priority 5 task. I've found that restarting the game seems to reorder the task list back to something a little more sane.