Backpack inventory

[Wehr Wulf]

Quick questions for ya guys :)

I have my designated engineers equipped with trader packs... when I place a building to be built, they run and grab building materials but only two or three at a time despite having more room and despite needing far more materials. They dont use the stacking feature in the backpack and sometimes dont even use up all the space in the backpack at all? BTW I made sure there are plenty of materials available. Is there a fix for this?

When my guys have food in their backpacks, but their backpacks are in their inventory, do they still grab food from them?
I am noticing they keep ditching their food whenever we stop by my base.. I keep having to manually stop, put on each of their backpacks, put food in the backpacks, walk far enough away from base, put food back in inventory and take off the backpacks because I dont want the debuff on the combat stats.... So I am curios if I can just leave the food in the backpack but leave the backpack unequipped...

Or, will they grab food from a Pack Beasts backpack if they are in the same squad?


Thanks guys <3 xoxo

[bunny de fluff]

When my guys have food in their backpacks, but their backpacks are in their inventory, do they still grab food from them?
Answer is no.

I am noticing they keep ditching their food whenever we stop by my base..
Because Ditch resource option was turned on in AI tab, your worker will ditch everything to appropriate containers when they had their jobs on.

Or, will they grab food from a Pack Beasts backpack if they are in the same squad?
Yes but they have to be near it.

[Incunabulum]

You can remove backpacks with stuff in them and drop them to the ground - or put them in other containers. The only container you can't put loaded packs in is other packs.

[Pyrrhus]

Trader backpack is only good for player managing items such as transferring between animals and storage, strength training, and to rush building base defenses or houses personally, not for characters on jobs. Characters haul up to few items at time to prevent inventory/backpack from becoming full then no room for food, hence they would get hungry. Before arriving your base, turn off job for characters carrying food you don't want to them to ditch.

[Mavrah]

Not sure with the nonsensical updates since '1.0' but you should be able to halt their food ditching by changing settings in your AI menu. It should be a tab you can see after opening your map. That or try turning off their 'jobs' in the bottom right of the HUD. When eating, characters will first look in their inventory. If no food is there they will look in their backpacks when hungrier. If they grow hungrier still they will look in a squadmate's backpack (animals included). If a squad has any edible food in any equipped backpack nearby it won't starve.
As for the engineering, you might look for a mod that fixes their behavior. There's nothing else I know of. Even if they have all 20 building materials in their packs they'll still add them 1 or 2 at a time.

[Wehr Wulf]

Originally posted by Mavrah:

Not sure with the nonsensical updates since '1.0' but you should be able to halt their food ditching by changing settings in your AI menu. It should be a tab you can see after opening your map. That or try turning off their 'jobs' in the bottom right of the HUD. When eating, characters will first look in their inventory. If no food is there they will look in their backpacks when hungrier. If they grow hungrier still they will look in a squadmate's backpack (animals included). If a squad has any edible food in any equipped backpack nearby it won't starve.
As for the engineering, you might look for a mod that fixes their behavior. There's nothing else I know of. Even if they have all 20 building materials in their packs they'll still add them 1 or 2 at a time.

You explained something I completely forgot to ask :)

I was noticing they wouldnt eat out out of certain containers until they got hungrier than normal which I thought was weird, so Im glad thats a known thing....

AND I noticed they only add building materials one or two at a time and then stop, add materials again, continue....It makes the construction process so much longer than it needs to be, IDK why thats like that.
At one point last night I saw my guy running across the base to grab 1 iron plate at a time despite having the room in his backpack, more plates he couldve grabbed and the job needing 3 more plates!! Yet he grabbed 1 at a time. So weird.
Thank you for answering though :)) Much appreciated

[Wehr Wulf]

Originally posted by bunny de fluff:

When my guys have food in their backpacks, but their backpacks are in their inventory, do they still grab food from them?
Answer is no.

I am noticing they keep ditching their food whenever we stop by my base..
Because Ditch resource option was turned on in AI tab, your worker will ditch everything to appropriate containers when they had their jobs on.

Or, will they grab food from a Pack Beasts backpack if they are in the same squad?
Yes but they have to be near it.

Yeah I knew about the ditch item option in the AI, I want to keep it turned on tho :/
I will just have to micro manage them... every time my away team comes back I will have to stop and make sure all food is in backpack. Its not a big deal really, but when I already have so mnuch stuff going on its one more thing I have to worry about :p
Thank you for always being so helpful though!! I notice youre on here answering questions a lot

[Wehr Wulf]

Originally posted by Incunabulum:

You can remove backpacks with stuff in them and drop them to the ground - or put them in other containers. The only container you can't put loaded packs in is other packs.

I was asking if I put food in backpacks, then put backpacks in my inventory, if my character would still get food from the backpack. I guess the answer is no though, the backpack has to be on in order for my character to access the backpack inventory.
Thanks though!

[Wehr Wulf]

Originally posted by Pyrrhus:

Trader backpack is only good for player managing items such as transferring between animals and storage, strength training, and to rush building base defenses or houses personally, not for characters on jobs. Characters haul up to few items at time to prevent inventory/backpack from becoming full then no room for food, hence they would get hungry. Before arriving your base, turn off job for characters carrying food you don't want to them to ditch.

So not only do they not grab enough materials for a job, but even if they could/ would..... they cant even use trader backpacks correctly anyway haha.
Oh well.....

So what kind of backpacks do you have your workers/ farmers wear? Large backpacks? Thief backpacks?
I always have my "away team" use the trader backpacks.... my archers can stack their bolts and save tons of space, and when I loot ruins i can stack AI cores and books stacks 12 at a time I think.

Thank you for replying :) :)

[Pyrrhus]

Originally posted by Xepheon <3:

Originally posted by Pyrrhus:

Trader backpack is only good for player managing items such as transferring between animals and storage, strength training, and to rush building base defenses or houses personally, not for characters on jobs. Characters haul up to few items at time to prevent inventory/backpack from becoming full then no room for food, hence they would get hungry. Before arriving your base, turn off job for characters carrying food you don't want to them to ditch.

So not only do they not grab enough materials for a job, but even if they could/ would..... they cant even use trader backpacks correctly anyway haha.
Oh well.....

So what kind of backpacks do you have your workers/ farmers wear? Large backpacks? Thief backpacks?
I always have my "away team" use the trader backpacks.... my archers can stack their bolts and save tons of space, and when I loot ruins i can stack AI cores and books stacks 12 at a time I think.

Thank you for replying :) :)

All of my sword/MA characters wear small thief backpack to store armored hood, fog mask, medic and robotic kits with enough room for several food cubes or rations and I have 11 sniper characters wearing medium thief backpack to store bolts, medic and robotic kit with a room for a food cube or 2 rations. They have 75 strength or higher so no encumbrance.

Small thief backpack has no combat penalty, that's why it's best. Medium thief backpack has -2 combat penalty but sniper characters don't engage into melee that much. If I need to carry more bolts to some places then I'd bring a pack animal loaded up with bolts. Bring more animals for loots from ruins rather than characters to carry them back home. It's more important for characters to be ready and capable to engage into combat without encumbrance penalties. Other backpacks hurt stealth capability but not thief backpacks.

[Mavrah]

Originally posted by Xepheon <3:

I am noticing they keep ditching their food whenever we stop by my base.. I keep having to manually stop, put on each of their backpacks, put food in the backpacks, walk far enough away from base, put food back in inventory and take off the backpacks because I dont want the debuff on the combat stats....

If you toggle their 'Jobs' on or off near the bottom right of your screen they *should stop ditching resources temporarily. They'll still do first aid and robotics but stop considering themselves a part of the town.
I still highly reccomend thieves backpacks. Stat penalties are negligible and the large ones are spacious enough for most missions. Should help you with less micro managing.

[Faerador]

When doing construction jobs, the AI is extremely stupid. They literally grab just TWO of any needed component, and rush to the job. It doesn't matter if the job requires 1 or 100 components; they always grab 2 at a time.

There are no limit checks, no necessity checks, nothing. The coding is dead simple, which is why we struggle with automating tasks. By doing this, it avoids the complexity of balancing multiple AIs doing the same task. It'd be extremely complicated to program the Engineering job so that it doesn't suck balls. How many engineers are on the task? What building materials does each engineer have? How far along are they in the construction? There aren't easy solutions to operationalize these questions into a new mechanic. Thus, we have brain-dead workers you have to micromanage at times.

I wish the AI job tasking were better. I can't stand how poorly it's programmed. It makes me want to punch Chris right in the balls for not doing better. But at least I understand why he chose the route he did. Complexity breeds more complexity. By simplifying things, it makes the coding so much easier, but it puts that frustration on us instead.