Weapon Smiths storing *Equipped* weapons

[Scoob]

Hey all,

This one has been around for as long as I can recall and I was wondering if I'm missing any tricks to work around it.

Basically, for example, my Weapon smith has two weapons equipped, Weapon I is her Spring Bat for ranged attacks and Weapon II is her Katana for melee work. However, when I add items to the smithing queue, the very first thing she does is pop her Spring Bat into the Weapon Cabinet I made for crafted weapons.

So, is there any way to ensure that she doesn't store her equipped primary weapon? I have to micro manage her for any incoming attacks, often sending her back to collect her weapon after she's already dashed off. Not ideal.

Personally, I think equipped weapons should be exempt from auto-storage and crafted weapons should equally never be auto-equipped. A small, but significant QoL change.

Scoob.

[nex]

yeah i agree.. i have everyone on a eagles cross and MA and they always store the crossbow even though i am crafting melee weapons.. WTF?!

[Scoob]

No work-around then I guess...ah well. Something (hopefully) for the devs to look at while polishing now the map is complete.

Scoob.

[TheWizard]

+1 ... all that space in backpack and main inventory and we can't have an equipped weapon.

[yippeekiay]

It's a failsafe to make sure production doesn't stall no matter what circumstances, i.e. you can always remove a large weapon to storage to work on next weapon. Not ideal but it works.

Ideally the game should check if you can can carry a second large weapon, if you can then use the backpack (inventory is useless in this case). If you can't THEN & only then drop your weapon into storage to be able to move new weapon to storage once produced.

[TheWizard]

I just checked and if you put a Katana length weapon in the secondary slot the WS will function fine and always have the weapon ready for fighting. Still the situation is not ideal and I do know why. Just like to see a better way by release.

[Scoob]

It being a fail safe does make sense. In the end though I've just left my Weapon Smith with a single, secondary weapon foregoing the Spring bat.

It would be nice to have a little check box for "do not ditch" next to the primary weapon slot though, so we can choose our own behaviour. Many of my characters end up with just a large, primary weapon, though this times I've bought the Katana schematics early, so most of them will be light this time. Though my aim was to give all of them a ranged weapons too, as I've not really played with those much...a lucky find early-game triggered this personal goal.

Note: I recall an issue with Crossbow ammo that's similar to this - ALL of my crossbow users would ALWAYS ditch ALL their ammo...caps for emphasis, as this was a real pain...once I built ammo storage. I've not built ammo storage yet this game....I wonder if that's been fixed?

Scoob.

[TheWizard]

I am just guessing here, but I doubt many players use ranged weapons much due to the fact they hit your own players more than the enemy. At least that has been my experience with them.

[Neccarus]

Ranged weapons hit your guys more if they are in the line of fire... which makes sense. I move my xbows to a flank so I am less likely to hit. An alternative would be to use a toothpick for training and throw some well armored guys in to the melee. Toothpick won't penetrate most decent armor (even ninja cloth with darkened leather shirt) and this should train up your xbows precission so they are less likely to hurt your guys.

[Scoob]

Yes, using ranged weapons at lower levels does require some micro-management in regards to positioning. However, once they become competent they're quite useful - even if just for getting off a couple of shots as an enemy closes in, a chance to weaken them if nothing else.

Scoob.

[Swagnificence]

Originally posted by Scoob:

It being a fail safe does make sense. In the end though I've just left my Weapon Smith with a single, secondary weapon foregoing the Spring bat.

It would be nice to have a little check box for "do not ditch" next to the primary weapon slot though, so we can choose our own behaviour. Many of my characters end up with just a large, primary weapon, though this times I've bought the Katana schematics early, so most of them will be light this time. Though my aim was to give all of them a ranged weapons too, as I've not really played with those much...a lucky find early-game triggered this personal goal.

Note: I recall an issue with Crossbow ammo that's similar to this - ALL of my crossbow users would ALWAYS ditch ALL their ammo...caps for emphasis, as this was a real pain...once I built ammo storage. I've not built ammo storage yet this game....I wonder if that's been fixed?

Scoob.

Just turn off the ditching/dumping for the AI, its like the first box in the AI tab

[Scoob]

Originally posted by Swagnificence:

Just turn off the ditching/dumping for the AI, its like the first box in the AI tab

That's not really very useful though as the ditching mechanic is vital to keep things working smoothly. Without it, inventories quite quickly become full and production, mining etc. quickly stalls. I have tried disabling it in the past, and perhaps it'd help if it could be done per-character, but it's a global setting.

I've worked around the issue as it's only a problem for my Weapon Smith, he just has the one, secondary weapon. Not ideal, but he's not front line combat / defence and he's getting pretty good with his secondary weapon now.

Scoob.

[TheWizard]

I always turn off ditching resources also. In mining you can shift+right click and hold to bring up a menu on a iron resource or refinery etc and choose use or inventory. So you can tell them when to unload that stack of 5 raw iron and it becomes a job. Takes some getting used to but I like it better than putting some building tools in my engineers inventory and 1 minute later they are gone as he has stashed them.

[Scoob]

I did use to set up manual resource offloading before ditching was a thing. I still do it from time to time. However, overall, keeping ditch enabled makes things run much more smoothly. The problem was that my guys set with multiple jobs to move stuff around would work perfectly...until they didn't. Then I'd need to clear all their jobs and re-apply them before they'd wake up again. Using ditch eliminated all these woes.

Per-character ditching would be a good solution, enable it with some, disable it on others.

Scoob.

[BloodyRain2k]

Originally posted by nex:

yeah i agree.. i have everyone on a eagles cross and MA and they always store the crossbow even though i am crafting melee weapons.. WTF?!

Originally posted by Scoob:

No work-around then I guess...ah well. Something (hopefully) for the devs to look at while polishing now the map is complete.

I've been wondering about this issue with them ditching their weapons while they won't ditch their armor and I think I've figured it out: weapon size.
The basic inventory is only 8 wide while the weapons can be up to 10, if items were rotatable in the grid that could already solve the issue, but they aren't.
So to make SURE the new weapon can be taken out, without even checking whenever or not it will be able to fit before hand, will someone with the job throw their weapon away in advance.

But if the weapon is smaller, whatever... I've had a character have 3 offhand weapons equipped at one point for whatever reason.

And the fact that items can't be rotated to fit the grid space available has bothered me SOOO often already, not just with the oversized weapons while not having a sufficient backpack...
The other bizarre thing that the AI loves to do, well rather the game I guess, is picking stuff into the main inventory FIRST...

Why do you think I'm having a backpack game?
So I can be encumbered by the stuff being NOT in my backpack but in my "pockets" instead?Why you do this? : (

It's really so damn annoying to loot things only to have to throw them into your backpack right after because it will first fill the inventory that doesn't get encumberance reduction... Just why...

[Schlonz]

Scoob wrote :
Per-character ditching would be a good solution, enable it with some, disable it on others.

you read my mind. i always love the moment when my squad ditches it´s just aquired travel stuff : sleeping bag , medics and food.
yes there are mistakes of myself involved too. pack them up and have jobs enabled, then do something else before leaving for 5 secs . doh . welcome in the dirt , far away without anything left in bag