Groups - Use and Methodology Discussion

[Exsilium Games]

I recently learned that Groups can really streamline your gameplay, making it easier to keep things like Recreation taken care of automatically as well as dealing with the one-offs, like people that need learning solo, or people that need to eat specific foods.

I am trying to figure out the current scenario of using Groups with Allowed Meals (Advanced) to make it so any students with the Bitter Gruel trial will eat only Bitter Gruel, but no one else will..... UNTIL no one with the ACTIVE Bitter Gruel trial exists, then anyone can eat that crap.

There is no traditional IF/THEN functionality so I am having issues putting this together. Any ideas?

Here is what im working with right now.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3433252916

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3433253794

[Jaggid Edje]

You're not talking about an if/then condition here, you're talking about an if/elseif condition. You can accomplish the same thing just by using multiple groups for some things.

What's missing that you need though is a way to look at "other people" when defining a group. That's not possible. There's no exclusionary rules based on whether some other group has members or not. Essentially, you cannot do what you want to do fully automated.

That said, there's no reason to do what you want to do. Grow more bitterrice.

I do what you are talking about for all of the meal trials, btw, it's a great way to handle it automatically. I just don't see any value in worrying about what someone else is eating when defining what any other individual is eating.

My meal plans are defined by groups that check for all the trials, and those are followed by the more general rules. People with low conviction get better meals, people with high conviction get whatever I've decided to make my staple food (usually bitter gruel for students and stir fry for staff).

One note, don't forget to exclude Vivified from any group set up for decent food, they get no benefit from it. Also it's worth excluding wolfkin from any meal group that is for a food with less than a 0 conviction bonus, seeing as they can just eat rats and croa.

Meal plans are handled from top to bottom, with each person eating from whichever meal plan they qualify for first, even if they qualify for any lower in the list too. What that means is you should put all of your Trial-specific meal plans at the top, followed by all the rest (with whatever ordering you want for precedence. Having Vivified eats gutberries right under trials makes the most sense to me, for example.

One other thing I do is set the very top meal plan as one for anyone that hits the nearly starving or famished status; I have it set to allow them to eat any of the meals they want. I use this as a failsafe, in case I run out of some meal or another when I'm not paying attention.

Right below that I have a meal plan for anyone (other than Vivified) who is a potential break risk. It is set to only the very highest conviction foods. So that bonus can help pull them out of a break risk.

Below that I have all of the trials, and then below that the basics.

[Jaggid Edje]

Here's a screenshot of all the meal plans that i use in my schools.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3433277339

The group definitions are all pretty straight forward, with the most complex being the ones that check for higher conviction, and that's just a threshhold where anyone over x conviction eats the most basic meal which after early game is bitter gruel for students and stir-fry for staff.

Even that group is super simple. Checks for membership in staff/student, faction not vivified/wolfkin, and conviction higher than whatever thresshold I set. I use 75 for students unless they have a trial that requires higher conviction, and 80 for staff. No real reason for those values other than it being the values I chose to determine if they get the most basic food or one step higher.

The only plans missing in my meal plans that I eventually use is the one that checks for conviction higher than break status but below a much lower threshold than the 75/80. Those groups will get the +20 conviction meals, but I don't set those up until i have a surplus of rock candy, jumping nuts and crabbage and a 2nd fire mage staff member. I have the latter atm, but not yet the surplus.

[Exsilium Games]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

You're not talking about an if/then condition here, you're talking about an if/elseif condition. You can accomplish the same thing just by using multiple groups for some things.

What's missing that you need though is a way to look at "other people" when defining a group. That's not possible. There's no exclusionary rules based on whether some other group has members or not. Essentially, you cannot do what you want to do fully automated.

That said, there's no reason to do what you want to do. Grow more bitterrice.

I do what you are talking about for all of the meal trials, btw, it's a great way to handle it automatically. I just don't see any value in worrying about what someone else is eating when defining what any other individual is eating.

My meal plans are defined by groups that check for all the trials, and those are followed by the more general rules. People with low conviction get better meals, people with high conviction get whatever I've decided to make my staple food (usually bitter gruel for students and stir fry for staff).

One note, don't forget to exclude Vivified from any group set up for decent food, they get no benefit from it. Also it's worth excluding wolfkin from any meal group that is for a food with less than a 0 conviction bonus, seeing as they can just eat rats and croa.

Meal plans are handled from top to bottom, with each person eating from whichever meal plan they qualify for first, even if they qualify for any lower in the list too. What that means is you should put all of your Trial-specific meal plans at the top, followed by all the rest (with whatever ordering you want for precedence. Having Vivified eats gutberries right under trials makes the most sense to me, for example.

One other thing I do is set the very top meal plan as one for anyone that hits the nearly starving or famished status; I have it set to allow them to eat any of the meals they want. I use this as a failsafe, in case I run out of some meal or another when I'm not paying attention.

Right below that I have a meal plan for anyone (other than Vivified) who is a potential break risk. It is set to only the very highest conviction foods. So that bonus can help pull them out of a break risk.

Below that I have all of the trials, and then below that the basics.

I did forget about the Vivified but i did add Wolf specific variations of food rules to have them eat rats if their target trial food wasnt available.

Yes, i need to be better at farming... im to stuck on the puzzle of making a neat looking tower without any of the gimmicks like 1 grid spacing between rooms to make one a tower or some such. Right now Im looking for better ways to do Skewed instead of just using a sloped roof.. if im reading it right I can have another room above it partially overlap its room making the target room more of an L shape or something.

I like your fail-safe idea.

[Exsilium Games]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Here's a screenshot of all the meal plans that i use in my schools.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3433277339

The group definitions are all pretty straight forward, with the most complex being the ones that check for higher conviction, and that's just a threshhold where anyone over x conviction eats the most basic meal which after early game is bitter gruel for students and stir-fry for staff.

Even that group is super simple. Checks for membership in staff/student, faction not vivified/wolfkin, and conviction higher than whatever thresshold I set. I use 75 for students unless they have a trial that requires higher conviction, and 80 for staff. No real reason for those values other than it being the values I chose to determine if they get the most basic food or one step higher.

The only plans missing in my meal plans that I eventually use is the one that checks for conviction higher than break status but below a much lower threshold than the 75/80. Those groups will get the +20 conviction meals, but I don't set those up until i have a surplus of rock candy, jumping nuts and crabbage and a 2nd fire mage staff member. I have the latter atm, but not yet the surplus.

If im looking at your setup which is twice what ive done so far, am I right at assuming the trial check parts ... if they fail because the food is not available for whatever reason, that they will go down the list until another condition is met and try to eat that food?

[Philtre]

Originally posted by Exsilium Games:

am I right at assuming the trial check parts ... if they fail because the food is not available for whatever reason, that they will go down the list until another condition is met and try to eat that food?

I don't think it's possible to do that: group membership is controlled mainly by the person's status, and can't be conditioned on the availability of a food. In this setup, if the food required by their trial is not available, they can't eat anything, and will eventually become caught by the very first group, which is for people who need food urgently. So it's not a good idea to set up trial-specific food groups for foods you don't have a reliable supply of yet.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by Exsilium Games:

If im looking at your setup which is twice what ive done so far, am I right at assuming the trial check parts ... if they fail because the food is not available for whatever reason, that they will go down the list until another condition is met and try to eat that food?

No, people will always use the highest food assignment group they are in, so if they are in a higher group they will NOT fall down to the next one below it. That means you have to make sure that you do not run out of any meals someone might require. Or rely on the "starving/near starving" group at the very top. If you're out of the meal they need, they will enter that group...eventually.

Edit:

Originally posted by Philtre:

So it's not a good idea to set up trial-specific food groups for foods you don't have a reliable supply of yet.

What he said.

Though I do have a few groups defined that are not yet at the reliable supply point, I just set them up shortly before posting in this thread and I currently have 12 apprentices, none of whom have those trials.

I know the food supply for those groups will be stable before those apprentices cycle through. i.e. I set the groups up ahead of time because I know that no one will be in those groups for a while at which point the meal supply will be sufficient.