Manual Work Priorities (Starter Steps)

[BioFringe]

I ran across a 5 Step guide from about a year ago for A16. Most of it works but I decided to change it up for my own purposes and I must say that the system works really well. Here's the original Link[imgur.com] as well an outdated Discussion on that particular guide.

EDIT: As was the intent of the original, the following is meant as a possible guide to help make manual work priorities easier to understand and deal with without having to just leave them off. It's not meant as a guide to achieve the ultimate setup or on how to win. I thought that this would be obvious but apparently not. Sorry, my bad. :EDIT

Here's my adapted version...

Step 1 - Unskilled (No Relevant Skill)

Firefight = Set to 1

Patient = Set to 1

Bed Rest = Set to 1

Flick = Set to 2

Plant Cut = Set to 3

Haul = Set to 3

Clean = Set to 4

Step 2 - Passions (2 Flames = Set to 2)

Step 3 - Interests (1 Flames = Set to 3)

Step 4 - Competencies (Highlights = Set to 4)

Step 5 - Inconsistencies (Adjust based on Skill Levels & Personal Preferences)

Note: Any jobs left empty during a pawn's initial setup process should remain as such until they are specifically needed at a given moment. If someone really sucks at Art there's no need to put a 4 there since they'll be plenty busy with the things that they are good at and enjoy. It's also less numbers on the screen clogging up the useful info for your eyes and brain.

Here's how I use it...

Follow these steps on Day 1 and upon arrival for each new colonist.

During each night, while everyone is asleep, make any adjustments for individual colonists based on the colony's needs the next day. Revert back to the the original settings for any that have changed before everyone goes asleep.

Rinse & Repeat.

To make nightly changes easier I only make changes "From Original - Down to 1 - Back to Original"

For Example: Colonist Bob has Clean set to 4 as per Step 1 but for the first half of the next day he will become a dedicated cleaner simply by changing that one number from a 4 to a 1 and then back to a 4 once I'm done punishing him with cleaning duty. Throw in the use of Allowed Areas and he can usually get the cleaning done by noon so I'll change it back to 4 but change Haul from 3 down to 1 until dinner. Change the allowed area from Clean to Haul and Colonist Bob just earned his keep with little continued effort on my part. While he's eating I'll set Haul back to 3 and let him do whatever he was originally programmed to do for the rest of the evening. Once he's asleep though I'll poke my fingers back into work priorities and allowed areas so that he'll be an even better pawn tomorrow.

This allows me to micro-manage individual pawns without much micro-management. Huge benefits for little effort. Plus, the colonists get a nice mix of dumb labor and personal freedom so they couldn't be happier. Add to this the fact that most pawns go completely unchanged from their original setup most of the time. This system allows me to make sure the dumb labor gets done without too much time investment on mine or the pawns part, keeps us all happy, and really only requires a handful of pawns at any given time.

Works for me. Hope it works for someone else as well.

[bigsengineer]

so much more to work priorities u cant just summeris it as flames to 3 and passions to 2. best setup never needs adjusting

[BioFringe]

I disagree. You're free to play as you wish but for me that sounds boring or simply like leaving manual off. Besides, this isn't about "best" but rather just as a guide to help those that struggle with this portion of the game as has been the case quite often. Now, along those lines if you'd care to enlighten us so that we may all learn from your "best" setup then, yeah, that'd be great.

[bigsengineer]

Originally posted by BioFringe:

I disagree. You're free to play as you wish but for me that sounds boring or simply like leaving manual off. Besides, this isn't about "best" but rather just as a guide to help those that struggle with this portion of the game as has been the case quite often. Now, along those lines if you'd care to enlighten us so that we may all learn from your "best" setup then, yeah, that'd be great.

y should u ever need to adjust is my point i always have at least 1 person set to do each job as a max priority so i dont need to change but leaving it as ticks u cant do that. eg: my cook will have first 5 things set to 1 unless hes not a doctor, cooking at 1 cleaning at 1, hauling at 3 and mining/crafting at 4 that way even if everything is clean/hauled or mined he will be doing something and i will never need to change him because always gonna need food cooked

[Ͽ҈҉Ͼ]

Setting cleaning to 4 is a bad idea. It might work in the early stages, but once you have a reasonably large base and 8-10 colonists running back and forth through it (often dragging bloody carcasses), you're going to start loosing mood and beauty quickly.

At this point I usually look at where my colonists skills are at and assign one of them as a specialist in Hunting, doctoring, cooking, building and crafting. You set these skills to 1 priority for that specialist. For remaining colonists, you leave their priorities between 2 and 4 for anything they are decent at with the exception of smithing and tailoring which is usually exclusive to your primary crafter since you want better qualities.

I then pair up more on-demand tasks like hunting and doctoring with hauling and cleaning respectively. So your primary hunter also has hauling at a priority of 2, and your primary doctor has cleaning set at 2. The reason for this is that your hunter is usually also your best shot and best armored person, so having them haul also increases their odds of being outside when a secondary hunter is needing help or a wild animal pops up. Whereas with the doctor, being setup to do most the cleaning means that they are most often within your base and available to tend to any immediate concerns. For building and crafting specialists you can also setup hauling as a secondary but since these tend to be stuff that you are constantly working on, the amount of hauling won't be as reliable. Your primary cook you can assign cleaning as well, but at later points you will probably be cooking non-stop so again, probably won't be able to rely on them for much cleaning later on. With other activities at 3 or 4. Once you get to around 15 pawns, you can start trying to have 2 specialists to ease demands.


Other tasks like plant cutting, animals, research, wardening, I usually do not put anyone at 1 priority for since these activities tend to be more constant in nature and would leave that pawn unable to do much else unless you intentionally stop activities. For non-specialists, I keep most their stuff at 3 and flip it to 2 when I need them to help with specific tasks, even if they don't have passion or much skill.

For any pawns that tend to be complete crap, I usually have them focus on hauling and/or cleaning if they even allow it. If not, I tend to just give them a weapon and set them up as a hunter/warden/animal/planting/plain crafting/research drone depending on what they CAN do.


The point is that you don't just set and forget priorities. You continually adjust them as you get new colonists or need to have more people work on a project.

[BioFringe]

All good things to consider for advanced players with 100+ hours. This was all meant for the person (like myself) that after playing for a couple of hours turned on Manual Priorities only to instantly say "I'll deal with that later" then proceeded to turn it right back off.

This was only meant as a simple starting point for those that want to start getting their feet wet without too much trouble but something that lends itself to fine tuning based on your own personal skill level with the game (this is what Step 5 is all about).

So, while all good advice above I would still suggest that those like me could start with the 5-Steps then move on to consider the more intrecate details of Manual Work Priority strategy.

Also, no offense but 5 simple steps to set something up within minutes is a lot easier to remember then a wall of advanced strategy. That was the point.

[elonashooter]

I prefer not to micro manage if I can avoid it. I generally start with people doing what they're good at and being more generalists and specializing labor more and more as I get more people. It isn't really viable to have a dedicated cleaner/hauler until you have 7 + people, but you really need someone doing it.

I don't think it should be necessary to adjust priorities day by day, considering that not much changes daily.

Yes there are days when you realize that your entire base is disgusting with filth and blood and set someone to clean, and yes there may be times you need to set everyone to plant cut or haul to help with the harvest.

However by and large you can get odd jobs done by just forcing pawns to prioritize a particular task via right click, rather than going into job priorities. Yes they often forget what they're doing after 10 seconds, but that's all you need to clean the hospital, or rescue a colonist or whatever.

I get that you're trying to keep things simple, but really the default priorities are enough for new players, and it's only when you've started to understand the inherent issues with those that you should start looking to manually prioritize things.

There really isn't a one and done method that will work for every player, I will give you credit for step five leaving leeway for people to personalize and adjust, but one thing you have to keep in mind is that passions and interests don't always line up with what your colony needs. If the only person with an interest in crafting was passionate for research, I would set research lower than crafting because unskilled researchers just research slowly instead of wasting resources on awful equipment.

That's just an example, but manual priorities solve ties in the default order, so for example construction goes before growing, which can cause problems with food supply if you have someone good at both.

As you play more you'll get better at handling priorities and identifying unintended loops (i.e. certain jobs never getting done due to being set too low as priorities), and when you find something inefficient, you correct it and move on.

It doesn't take anywhere near 100 hours to figure out how to do it, though it's something that you'll keep improving even past then.

Basically, what I'm saying is that you'll fairly quickly start to notice issues with your own plan, it might work for your current colony, but it might not for your next, and that's part of the game.

My advice would be not to mess with manual priorities unless you've reached a point in the game where you think you know how to run things more efficiently than the default on-off behavior.

If you feel you're at that point, that's great, but this guide seems to be aimed more at people that haven't quite reached that point yet. The issue with that is of course that you can actively screw yourself over if you mismanage the manual priorities.

If you feel like the guide you found here was outdated, my suggestion would be to make a new guide composed of various tips like what I and... Ͽ҈҉Ͼ ... that guy... have provided along with general advice like your first step which everyone should follow (if they're using manual priorities).

[BioFringe]

Thanks for contributing elonashooter.

Just a quick reply to say once again that this wasn't meant as an in-depth guide and I don't plan on making it as such. It's just a simple 5 step list. That's it. Take it or leave it. I'll let any discussion that follows my posting of that list to act as a reference guide that anyone considering my list can then use to make their final decision.

You don't have to follow my list. You don't even have to like it. BUT it works for me and I have a lot more fun with the manual work priority system now than I did before and I wanted to share in the event that someone else might find it useful. That's it.

I wasn't trying to make a guide and I wasn't trying to claim greatness. I was just sharing some very basic things that I do that allows me to enjoy RimWorld a little bit better than before.

Having said all that, I encourage others to continue to pick apart my list as discussion is always welcome. Just know where I stand in regards to intent so that there's no misunderstanding as to why I won't continue to defend it or myself. Outside of that I truly hope that someone will find some useful info in this thread regardless of where it came from.

Peace

[Hamstirly]

Just bought the game yesterday and was completely lost - this guide really helped. Thanks!

[itssirtou]

I always set flick to 1. If I want it flicked I want it done ASAP. I set clean at 3 as well. And set mining to 4 if on a large hills/mountain map. These are the 'busywork' jobs. And anyone with a minor passion and a ranged weapon that ISNT a minigun gets hunting set to 2.

Mostly I do mine on a colonist-by-colonist basis. Everyone has a main purpose and something to keep them busy. Its one of the reasons I like mountain/hills maps, no one idles, they expand or strip mine. I even put no-skilled crafters on tailoring benches from time to time as a VERY last resort.

I also set 2 as the maximum for anything past Flick/Basic, so that when I need something done en masse I can just spam shift-click something to 1 and get it knocked out in a few moments.

[BioFringe]

I'm glad to see that this has helped some and others have been willing to contribute their thoughts as well. The beauty of a game system like this is that there really is no perfect way to set it up. This was written back when I had about 20 hours of experience and I really should update it with the knowledge that I've learned over the hundreds of hours of play since.

Until the game goes live and I consider updating this I offer the best advice that I can think of...Experiment. If you choose to use this guide or any variant thereof don't just leave it alone forever. Keep playing with adjusting it throughout your playthroughs and it will just keep getting better all the time.

Thanks again for those that have commented.

[Haraise no Tenshi]

Lateron you can also increase the possible grades of priority between enabled and disabled. not just from 1 to 4 But from 1 to 9.

[Wolfguarde]

I have a starter stage (getting my compound up, protected, fed, and powered) and a game stage. Starter stage priorities are usually very uniform in their basics and priorities. Game stage winds up being very different depending on what pawns I have doing what tasks.

As a general rule, though, you want at least five people with hauling and cleaning as a priority 1 task. Because if you don't have a task force dedicated to that before anything and everything else they do, the two jobs simply aren't going to get done.