"I don't have any materials." Bug?

[6000 Chipmunks]

I've asked my squad to build something, and they keep giving me the "I don't have any materials." reply, when in fact the entire base is overrun with all the materials they need. What gives?

I've had to import my game about every 4 game days due to this.
I have a fair number of mods installed, and have created a few of my own, but everything runs smooth as silk for the (roughly) 3 days prior...so, I'm suspecting something else may be at play here.

Ideas appreciated.

PS:It would be an added bonus to know how to keep my peeps from running all the way across the map to gather up dead critters, and loot them so that they can be properly disposed of. Their eagerness, although much appreciated, is very un-healthy for them, as well as the rest of the outpost. ;)

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Out-There Dave:

I've asked my squad to build something, and they keep giving me the "I don't have any materials." reply, when in fact the entire base is overrun with all the materials they need. What gives?..

It seems like that's a default error report during Engineering tasks. They may not be able to reach something they need to reach. Also, be sure that they actually have the materials they need. For instance, some buildings require more than just Building Materials.

Check their inventories, too. They will sometimes fill up with unneeded materials they have not yet dumped because their Engineering Job task is not yet completed. Since they will all go run to grab materials, often resulting in the group of them collectively having more materials on hand than needed, their inventories could be filled and/or they can't "fit" the material they need in inventory. That can happen when you have a lot of different things qued for building that require specialized materials.

For those on Animal detail, your best bet is to limit how many are dedicated to that task.

[Hatsune Neko Gaming]

upload your save

[6000 Chipmunks]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

It seems like that's a default error report during Engineering tasks. They may not be able to reach something they need to reach. Also, be sure that they actually have the materials they need. For instance, some buildings require more than just Building Materials.

Check their inventories, too. They will sometimes fill up with unneeded materials they have not yet dumped because their Engineering Job task is not yet completed. Since they will all go run to grab materials, often resulting in the group of them collectively having more materials on hand than needed, their inventories could be filled and/or they can't "fit" the material they need in inventory. That can happen when you have a lot of different things qued for building that require specialized materials.

As for the default error message; Yes. I hadn't actually thought about that, although I suspected that it may have been the case. I would get that error if I say, tried to get somebody to do something while they were carrying somebody.(I must admit, I've used a few not so colorful words while trying to get someone to do a task while they were so encumbered. lol) DOOH!

Is there a distance limit for tasks?
My squad could actually reach the area on the wall, but it was a ways away from the middle of the base.

I have a mod installed that makes all the inventory icons 1x1 and allows items to stack to 50 or 500 so, inventory space seems a non-issue...there may be some underlying problem there that I'm unaware of however. I've looked and they actually have the materials needed(or specified anyway) and, if they didn't, they certainly had the space needed and the opportunity to get them...hence the conundrum.

Originally posted by Morkonan:

For those on Animal detail, your best bet is to limit how many are dedicated to that task.

This seems like a logical solution and, would/should help...but then you get the spiral of having corpses pile up while one individual is trying to clean up the mess, and then more "scavengers" show up to take advantage of the corpses left, and then your ONE guy is left fighting off Beak Things, and Raptors, alone...or you can micro-manage the entire process, and forget doing anything else the rest of the night. :)

Originally posted by HaTsUnE_NeKo:

upload your save

OK.

[RasaNova]

Check your queue, see what material is missing. If you have plenty of it available, then there is most likely something keeping your crafters from adding it. I've seen this happen for different reasons, sometimes their inventory is full so can't figure out how to pick something up, sometimes items in the queue get glitched with the wrong ingredient being loaded (happens a lot in cooking)

[6000 Chipmunks]

Originally posted by RasaNova:

...sometimes items in the queue get glitched with the wrong ingredient being loaded (happens a lot in cooking)

What do you mean?
Did they add the wrong item to the item being built and bug it out?
If so, should I just dismantle it and start over?
It figures as its a much needed turret, and I have a Cannibal invasion on the way.
Those crazy turrets take longer to build than the entire base.

[RasaNova]

Originally posted by Out-There Dave:

Originally posted by RasaNova:

...sometimes items in the queue get glitched with the wrong ingredient being loaded (happens a lot in cooking)

What do you mean?
Did they add the wrong item to the item being built and bug it out?
If so, should I just dismantle it and start over?
It figures as its a much needed turret, and I have a Cannibal invasion on the way.
Those crazy turrets take longer to build than the entire base.

For example, my cook will say "machine is empty" or something like that. I'll look in the stove, she's trying to make a food cube. The contents loaded in the stove are bread, and water. (Instead of bread and veg.)

I have the same stove on repeat queue making food cubes and cooked veg. But I think sometimes they load too much water, so when the queue switches to food cubes it gets stuck.

When that happens, I just manually pull out the water then it's back to normal. I think I've seen the same thing happen with armor crafting.

[6000 Chipmunks]

Originally posted by RasaNova:

Originally posted by Out-There Dave:

What do you mean?
Did they add the wrong item to the item being built and bug it out?
If so, should I just dismantle it and start over?
It figures as its a much needed turret, and I have a Cannibal invasion on the way.
Those crazy turrets take longer to build than the entire base.

For example, my cook will say "machine is empty" or something like that. I'll look in the stove, she's trying to make a food cube. The contents loaded in the stove are bread, and water. (Instead of bread and veg.)

I have the same stove on repeat queue making food cubes and cooked veg. But I think sometimes they load too much water, so when the queue switches to food cubes it gets stuck.

When that happens, I just manually pull out the water then it's back to normal. I think I've seen the same thing happen with armor crafting.

Thank You for the clarification.
That is good to know. I'll check it out.

[Matty101]

There may be an issue with characters using materials, i've got one guy with 4 sets of tools but when i get him to use them on a lock he says he has none, so i get him to hand the tools to another character and he uses them fine.

[6000 Chipmunks]

Originally posted by Matty101:

There may be an issue with characters using materials, i've got one guy with 4 sets of tools but when i get him to use them on a lock he says he has none, so i get him to hand the tools to another character and he uses them fine.

Thats interesting. I wonder how/if we could fix that issue. SHIFT-CTRL-F11 maybe?

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Out-There Dave:

...Is there a distance limit for tasks?

Yes... Though, it's sometimes hard to tell just how far that is. Characters won't have much trouble with tasks that have targets in the same "chunk" of the game they are currently in or the one that borders it. But, if it's one that's outside of that area, all bets are off. So, the active chunk and partially active chunks are generally fine for Jobs with assigned targets. For jobs that don't have assigned targets, it's hard to tell. (ie: Rescue/medic/corpse detail/animal) Sometimes they seem to react when those are triggered for them based upon whatever their current task is and sometimes not.

My squad could actually reach the area on the wall, but it was a ways away from the middle of the base.

Hard to say, really. People have different results with player-base tasks. I don't think it's as much related to distance as it may be for the game always recognizing ownership, since that can be a problem too. (I don't necessarily mean the "Ownership Bug" where a portion of the base becomes the property of a nearby town/location, but something deeper in there that gets confused. Talking out my butt on that, since I have no way to tell. :) )

I have a mod installed...they certainly had the space needed and the opportunity to get them...hence the conundrum.

Means nothing, unfortunately... since it's a "Mod." :) What if it changes values that aren't also the ones used in other actions? "Itemsize=<variable>" might just be used for backpacks and somewhere there could be a "craftingitemsize=<variable>" the modder didn't change. :) That's the kind of thing that makes any mention of mods throw everything sensible out the window. I'm not particularly confident anyone scrubbed through the code to normalize it and clean everything up nice and neat.

This game is so easy to mod that I am not also left to wonder if it's just as easy to screw up with mods. :)

This seems like a logical solution and, would/should help...but then you get the spiral of having corpses pile up while one individual is trying to clean up the mess, and then more "scavengers" show up to take advantage of the corpses left, and then your ONE guy is left fighting off Beak Things, and Raptors, alone...or you can micro-manage the entire process, and forget doing anything else the rest of the night. :)

That's Kenshi's "emergent gameplay" thing going on. It's one reason why roleplaying in the game can be a lot of fun.

But, mircromanagement in Kenshi is a bit much later on, especially when one starts increasing the number of allowed characters. Kenshi's gameplay is heavily based on these sorts of interactions going on and RNG-rule with random spawns and wacky faction interactions with coupled with their behaviors. That's fine, but Kenshi isn't strong enough on the behavior end to compensate for all the situations that could happen and usually end up happening... For instance, one can practically "automate" Rimworld up to a point. (More with mods) With Rimworld, the micro-managing is by degrees with tweaks here and there. The player then "responds" to the game's changing circumstances and events or, more often, engages in complex planning behavior to anticipate changing needs and goals.

After an "event" in Kenshi... the player is left to set everything back up the way it was, first, and then try to figure out how to fix whatever got broked... It's not terrible, but it's not really something one looks forward to doing. Combat is fun, cleaning up the blood and guts afterwards is not.

Kenshi routinely walks down a beach filled with player's and kicks down their sand-castles, leaving them to start rebuilding grain by grain.

One solution for this problem should be easy, but I don't think the behaviors are able to figure it out or easily interact with what would be required- Characters should automatically use beds at a player-selected wound threshold and will "wake up automagically" after they are healed from resting unless specifically ordered to Sleep as a Job. Characters will seek out a bed when they're gravely injured, but if most play like i do we'd all probably like it if they took a few minutes to heal up some minor woulds without us having to clickfest through a group.

But, that one life-saving critical feature is not in the game. And, it doubles the amount of micromanagement required because of that.

One thing you can do is just hire and create a Laborer taskforce that doesn't do anything but common labor, is Passive, no Rescue or Medic jobs to interrupt them, etc.. Yeah, they'll get slaughtered by a common Bandit, but they're farmers and waste disposal workers... Just host a "Job Fair" after every raid when you lose a few. (ie: Go recruit some more random recruits.) :)

I have taken to looking for some disposable Greenlanders for my common laborer force. Lightly armored with polearms and wakizashis, I am only counting on them to be able to survive for a few measly seconds if they're jumped and they won't respond to any general "Call to Arms" if I can help it.

And, if I need someone to automagically skin/loot animals, I will hire just one guy and that's all he will ever do for the rest of his short life. When he gets into an argument with a pack of nearby Bonedogs? Well, I'll just have to go get me a new AnimalSkinner guy.

[6000 Chipmunks]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

Originally posted by Out-There Dave:

...Is there a distance limit for tasks?

Yes... Though, it's sometimes hard to tell just how far that is. Characters won't have much trouble with tasks that have targets in the same "chunk" of the game they are currently in or the one that borders it. But, if it's one that's outside of that area, all bets are off. So, the active chunk and partially active chunks are generally fine for Jobs with assigned targets. For jobs that don't have assigned targets, it's hard to tell. (ie: Rescue/medic/corpse detail/animal) Sometimes they seem to react when those are triggered for them based upon whatever their current task is and sometimes not.

My squad could actually reach the area on the wall, but it was a ways away from the middle of the base.

Hard to say, really. People have different results with player-base tasks. I don't think it's as much related to distance as it may be for the game always recognizing ownership, since that can be a problem too. (I don't necessarily mean the "Ownership Bug" where a portion of the base becomes the property of a nearby town/location, but something deeper in there that gets confused. Talking out my butt on that, since I have no way to tell. :) )

I have a mod installed...they certainly had the space needed and the opportunity to get them...hence the conundrum.

Means nothing, unfortunately... since it's a "Mod." :) What if it changes values that aren't also the ones used in other actions? "Itemsize=<variable>" might just be used for backpacks and somewhere there could be a "craftingitemsize=<variable>" the modder didn't change. :) That's the kind of thing that makes any mention of mods throw everything sensible out the window. I'm not particularly confident anyone scrubbed through the code to normalize it and clean everything up nice and neat.

This game is so easy to mod that I am not also left to wonder if it's just as easy to screw up with mods. :)

This seems like a logical solution and, would/should help...but then you get the spiral of having corpses pile up while one individual is trying to clean up the mess, and then more "scavengers" show up to take advantage of the corpses left, and then your ONE guy is left fighting off Beak Things, and Raptors, alone...or you can micro-manage the entire process, and forget doing anything else the rest of the night. :)

That's Kenshi's "emergent gameplay" thing going on. It's one reason why roleplaying in the game can be a lot of fun.

But, mircromanagement in Kenshi is a bit much later on, especially when one starts increasing the number of allowed characters. Kenshi's gameplay is heavily based on these sorts of interactions going on and RNG-rule with random spawns and wacky faction interactions with coupled with their behaviors. That's fine, but Kenshi isn't strong enough on the behavior end to compensate for all the situations that could happen and usually end up happening... For instance, one can practically "automate" Rimworld up to a point. (More with mods) With Rimworld, the micro-managing is by degrees with tweaks here and there. The player then "responds" to the game's changing circumstances and events or, more often, engages in complex planning behavior to anticipate changing needs and goals.

After an "event" in Kenshi... the player is left to set everything back up the way it was, first, and then try to figure out how to fix whatever got broked... It's not terrible, but it's not really something one looks forward to doing. Combat is fun, cleaning up the blood and guts afterwards is not.

Kenshi routinely walks down a beach filled with player's and kicks down their sand-castles, leaving them to start rebuilding grain by grain.

One solution for this problem should be easy, but I don't think the behaviors are able to figure it out or easily interact with what would be required- Characters should automatically use beds at a player-selected wound threshold and will "wake up automagically" after they are healed from resting unless specifically ordered to Sleep as a Job. Characters will seek out a bed when they're gravely injured, but if most play like i do we'd all probably like it if they took a few minutes to heal up some minor woulds without us having to clickfest through a group.

But, that one life-saving critical feature is not in the game. And, it doubles the amount of micromanagement required because of that.

One thing you can do is just hire and create a Laborer taskforce that doesn't do anything but common labor, is Passive, no Rescue or Medic jobs to interrupt them, etc.. Yeah, they'll get slaughtered by a common Bandit, but they're farmers and waste disposal workers... Just host a "Job Fair" after every raid when you lose a few. (ie: Go recruit some more random recruits.) :)

I have taken to looking for some disposable Greenlanders for my common laborer force. Lightly armored with polearms and wakizashis, I am only counting on them to be able to survive for a few measly seconds if they're jumped and they won't respond to any general "Call to Arms" if I can help it.

And, if I need someone to automagically skin/loot animals, I will hire just one guy and that's all he will ever do for the rest of his short life. When he gets into an argument with a pack of nearby Bonedogs? Well, I'll just have to go get me a new AnimalSkinner guy.

Thank you, Morkonan.
A very thought-out and in-depth analysis of the problem(s).

My base was,(I later discovered), very close to the border of another zone. It may have, in fact, been ON that border, as I would get the notification of entering the zone when moving that camera around at times. So, this could have contributed in a major way to the problem.

Another interesting point you made, was the adjustments made by mods that may impact other parts of the game. The point about size variation being a very good one.

It would seem, all things considered, that there are ways to play that will mitigate some, or most, of the more egregious failings, or limitations of the game. It seems this "learning curve" is rather steep, and not well documented, or hard for me to find at least.

It is even more disappointing when the documentation is so out of date that one cannot, and therefore rarely does, rely on it...much to the aggravation of people who are aware of some aspects that ARE correctly documented. *Wiki's are notorious for this, and have not let me down in that regard to date, with any game.

Thank you again.

[RasaNova]

Yeah... Half of the game is learning the mechanics, the other half is learning how to work around the glitches. And the other other half is figuring out which mods smooth out the first two halves.

This adds up to a game that's 150% awesome.

[SnugSnug]

Originally posted by RasaNova:

Yeah... Half of the game is learning the mechanics, the other half is learning how to work around the glitches. And the other other half is figuring out which mods smooth out the first two halves.

This adds up to a game that's 150% awesome.

+1, the other thing is that with each update the goal posts (may) move. Meaning that one not only has a learning curve but also has to adapt said curve to current situation. Some updates are much more user friendly than others in the short term, while the behind the scenes works towards a better product in the long run.


edit:

Originally posted by Morkonan:

And, if I need someone to automagically skin/loot animals, I will hire just one guy and that's all he will ever do for the rest of his short life. When he gets into an argument with a pack of nearby Bonedogs? Well, I'll just have to go get me a new AnimalSkinner guy.

This made me chuckle, but i've also seen it work in reverse when a character of mine aggro'd a leviathan that was trying to eat the beakthing he was foraging. Unfortunately he dragged it back into the npc town and it 'cleared' the area of npc, as their fighting started a downwards cycle of 'protecting ally' plight.

[6000 Chipmunks]

Originally posted by RasaNova:

Yeah... Half of the game is learning the mechanics, the other half is learning how to work around the glitches. And the other other half is figuring out which mods smooth out the first two halves.

Yes, very true.

Originally posted by RasaNova:

This adds up to a game that's 150% awesome.

Even truer. :)

This made me chuckle, but i've also seen it work in reverse when a character of mine aggro'd a leviathan that was trying to eat the beakthing he was foraging. Unfortunately he dragged it back into the npc town and it 'cleared' the area of npc, as their fighting started a downwards cycle of 'protecting ally' plight.

Yea, you don't really want your guys "fishing for Leviathans" while your away. lol

[Anon Ymous]

I had the same thing happen to me. I had a guy with building materials in inventory and in backpack. I asked him to build a number of buildings that only required building materials. He claimed to not have any.

To solve the problem, I dismantled all of the buildings I had planned for construction and tried again. He was still bugged. So I assigned another character the Engineer job and had him start construction, at which point the bugged char began to assist. He was fine after. Regardless, import save would work too, I'm guessing.