Issues with Pals Assigned to Base

[RasaNova]

I keep running into a number of frustrating behaviors...

1. Pals will get stuck on top of objects, such as metal nodes.

2. If I build something over where there used to be something else, such as a tree, pals will focus on trying to chop down the tree that does not exist.

3. Pals sometimes won't feed themselves, even with a centrally located feed box stocked with berries.

4. Occasionally a pal will become incapacitated for no apparent reason. Possibly for not feeding themselves?

5. I found a perfect spot for a metal mining base, and assigned several mining pals but they ALL focus on the stone pit and ignore the actual metal nodes.

I know it's early access and there are going to be glitches, plus I may not be understandong some of these mechanics... Are there any tips or tricks for dealing with pals assigned to the base to keep things running smoothly?

[Annethema]

yeh, have had all the above issues , usually 4 is caused if the pal hasnt been eating and has gone un-noticed for a while. I find building base in an open area with no fences stops a lot of the bugs but allows wilds and raids to wander in easier.

[K~0tic]

#4 happens all the time for me. so annoying.

[GiantJoe202]

All these bugs will be adressed in future updates, as they mentionned in their roadmap.

But first they will adress some of the most critical issues (and the pathing in the base is one of them issues).

For now, you can fix the pal's illness issues with some chest farming sessions, so you can sell and make a lotta gold. That way you can buy meds for your pals and feed them what they need. For the pathing the best thing to do is to build a pal box in the center of a flat area and put all the buildings on the edge of the base area (the big blue circle) and facing the palbox, that way your pals will never have to walk crossed ways.
For the getting stuck issue, just reassign the pals, it's the fastest fix.

[Alluboy]

Yeah, there seems to be quite a few issues with Pals working at the base... I don't know is it an elevation issue for me since the base I have isn't completely on even land, but on top of your issues, my Pals sometimes tend to stand still doing absolutely nothing, yet when I hover over to them, it shows that they are currently assigned to duty X. Or they try to walk through walls and other structures to get to their assigned job with no success, forcing me to either pick them up or remove/add them to base again. Hell, sometimes there's NOTHING on their way and it's like they're walking up against an invisible wall.

Like yesterday I placed couple decorations to my house and 3-4 pals were supposed to build them, but for whatever reason, they couldn't get there.

I also built a hot tub for them and I never saw them use it for days, even if their sanity dropped until I disassembled it and built it somewhere else. I also see Pals that are capable of doing multiple jobs, focusing only on one thing and it's usually something that I *don't* want them to do.

I wish there was some kind of priority system for duties. Hopefully in the future we get one.

[Dindunuphen]

That should go away as they zone in on the ideal base sizes, possible locations, fix terrain clipping into the ground, and polish stability. I had pals not working too and spawning on top of ore nodes too until this most recent update. Still progressing to see if they've persisted though. Maybe start a new game and try to organize your base in a way that won't break the pathing system so bad? That's what I'm doing along side perma-death runs... Maybe setting our base layout a certain way helps with pathing issues. ^_^

[Mr_Cossack]

Only level 2 miners can mine ore nodes. As for the rest i have same issue.

[ALPHA_RAID]

I actually know the source of what is happening with 4 at least to an extent since I it happen when I was on my way back to my base. One of my pals belive it was penking spawned way up in the air and fell to the ground.

[Epikrato]

Yes I have all of these issues plus adding a few her

pals will go to fight outside the blue line and never come back

Pals will magically teleport to a shut off level of my base and get stuck there permanently. I've even deleted the door and put a wall there to prevent them from getting stuck and they still just teleport up there. Never actually see them do it but they are definitely getting there's somehow.

Pals fall through the map when putting them in a farm.

Pals will sometimes stop doing their job and just wander around like they're on break permanently.

Sometimes cannot assign pals to do specific jobs because when I drop them near say the icebox they will pick something random job they cannot do that is maybe two or three or four foundations away past other things they could possibly be doin. Supper buggy.

If I put three chests down put wood in one rock in another and say leave one blank, pals will do whatever the hell they want and stack items in any chest in any order.

Sometimes pals will become unpickable.

Have an issue with my summoned pal making me melt up on him when I'm doing absolutely nothing. Sometimes I'll go eat lunch and leave the volume on just in case of raid and come back and I'm mounted up on my pal. Occasionally I'll even get stuck on him and I have to log out to fix it.

There's a few more I can't remember.

The fix for the above are to call your pals back to the box and resend them out. But it's not really a fix because they will just do the same thing within a few minutes to a few hours.

FYI... Build as minimally as you possibly can when it comes to bases. My friend doesn't build any base at all and puts everything on the floor and he said much greater success than I have even when my base is completely open on all sides for pals to reach. My base basically looks like a table putting only the rear items in chests above for protection and a few tables for an emergency fix in the middle of a raid.

[RasaNova]

Originally posted by Mr_Cossack:

Only level 2 miners can mine ore nodes. As for the rest i have same issue.

This is an excellent point, thanks for that I had no idea. I ended up removing the stone pit (which seemed to have a higher priority than metal nodes) and brought out mining-2 Pals and now at least my metal production is doing well.

[RasaNova]

Originally posted by Epikrato:

FYI... Build as minimally as you possibly can when it comes to bases. My friend doesn't build any base at all and puts everything on the floor and he said much greater success than I have even when my base is completely open on all sides for pals to reach. My base basically looks like a table putting only the rear items in chests above for protection and a few tables for an emergency fix in the middle of a raid.

Yep this is good advice. I've got 2 bases now and have tried to arrange everything so the "house" portion is off to the side and out of the path of any pal jobs. And in general, just keeping everything separated into "work zones" has helped a lot, so nobody has to travel too far from one task to another, and I try to keep the well-traveled paths clear.

It's glitchy as hell but it's workable. Still not sure why pals are randomly becoming injured, incapacitated, upset, and ignoring basic tasks or needs. Hopefully this is a priority for the next big update!

[Valdyr]

I have resolved most of these issues in my own server with careful base design and picking of pals to do the work. However one issue I am seeing a lot is when I go offline for the night then log back in the next day everyone is depressed or weakened "due to neglect." Do I have to constantly interact with the pals to keep this at bay? With no shared pal storage with the rest of my guild how are we supposed to have access to the pals if we get online before the person storing them to avoid this does? It's a frustrating mechanic that isn't explained at all.

[angelsenvy228]

Originally posted by RasaNova:

Originally posted by Epikrato:

FYI... Build as minimally as you possibly can when it comes to bases. My friend doesn't build any base at all and puts everything on the floor and he said much greater success than I have even when my base is completely open on all sides for pals to reach. My base basically looks like a table putting only the rear items in chests above for protection and a few tables for an emergency fix in the middle of a raid.

Yep this is good advice. I've got 2 bases now and have tried to arrange everything so the "house" portion is off to the side and out of the path of any pal jobs. And in general, just keeping everything separated into "work zones" has helped a lot, so nobody has to travel too far from one task to another, and I try to keep the well-traveled paths clear.

It's glitchy as hell but it's workable. Still not sure why pals are randomly becoming injured, incapacitated, upset, and ignoring basic tasks or needs. Hopefully this is a priority for the next big update!

I found centrally locating the feed box and hot spring and scattering the beds around the different work sites rather than all in one area helps my base run smoothly.

[Mr Rabbit]

the AI in this game is a complete mess... not only do your pals do these and worse... random pals in the world also get stuck in and on objects out in the world..

its a buggy mess this game lol i logged in and everyone is depressed starving and 0 san ffs....

broken

[Shining_Darkness]

Pals feed themselves, but the devs are idiots and have coded them to only eat up to three food items per feeding or until the hungry status goes away. If all you have them eat is berries they will have like 10 or so hunger over the "hungry" threshold constantly so they won't work very long. Put something like berry filled buns as their main food and they will actually stay well fed since they will eat up to three of them when hungry and actually stay fed instead of working for all of a minute or so before getting hungry again. If they get hungry right before bed they go to bed hungry and this causes them to get even hungrier which is what causes the random injuries and way lower mood.

[Maelstrom]

The base Pal AI is bad but once you know how it's bad you can design your base to sort of deal with it, but it's really limiting and they still get stuck sometimes no matter what I do.

I'm hoping this is addressed relatively quickly.