The Night Shift

[Jaggid Edje]

As my colony grew bigger, in order to not need to build as many extra work benches I started putting my pawns on different shifts.
Obviously I'm sure most players do this and there's even a trait some pawns have which make them want to be on a night shift.

I'm just curious what "jobs" other players put on round-the-clock activity. So far I've only done a cook, a constructor (mostly just for when repairs/rearms are still needed going into the night), a crafter/tailor/smith and a doctor (who also does handling for any night time animal needs).

[glass zebra]

Do the shifts do much to the workbenches? People need less than 8h of sleep, if you don't do like 3 shifts for 2 workbenches you will still have overlap. With transhumanist and bionics, they hardly sleep at all.

Doctors can be good on night shifts, if sick people plop their tendable state or get hungry over night, but I usually just micromanage that. Prisoners also seem to like to mess up their sleeping cycle (and ignore that they hate the day), so a shift there might be okay too if you have big colonies and not try to squeeze every bit of social xp out of them onto a single pawn.

Stuff that does not need workbenches can be easier to handle but e.g. plant work will likely have the 20% work and movement speed malus if you dont take care of that somehow and without mods, animals will sleep at night.
I obviously don't know what I am talking about.

[Jaggid Edje]

Yah, I don't really see a need for most things to go into night shift. Animals I only care about the handler at night for if escapes from pens happen or one gets sick or injured. It can happen with a well placed lightning strike.

I have my pawns working 10 hour shifts, so for workbenches I just do 2 shifts with no overlap and don't really care about the 4 hours (most of the time some pawns work past their 10 hours a bit into it).

I forgot to mention it, but I also do researchers overnight...that was actually the first thing I started doing overnight (I got a researcher who WANTS to work on night).

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Yah, I don't really see a need for most things to go into night shift. Animals I only care about the handler at night for if escapes from pens happen or one gets sick or injured. It can happen with a well placed lightning strike.

I have my pawns working 10 hour shifts, so for workbenches I just do 2 shifts with no overlap and don't really care about the 4 hours (most of the time some pawns work past their 10 hours a bit into it).

I forgot to mention it, but I also do researchers overnight...that was actually the first thing I started doing overnight (I got a researcher who WANTS to work on night).

10work + 8sleep = 18 though? and 24h - 18 is 6h, not 4h. With high quality recreation stuff, my people don't do nearly that many hours of recreation per day.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Yah, I don't really see a need for most things to go into night shift. Animals I only care about the handler at night for if escapes from pens happen or one gets sick or injured. It can happen with a well placed lightning strike.

I have my pawns working 10 hour shifts, so for workbenches I just do 2 shifts with no overlap and don't really care about the 4 hours (most of the time some pawns work past their 10 hours a bit into it).

I forgot to mention it, but I also do researchers overnight...that was actually the first thing I started doing overnight (I got a researcher who WANTS to work on night).

10work + 8sleep = 18 though? and 24h - 18 is 6h, not 4h. With high quality recreation stuff, my people don't do nearly that many hours of recreation per day.

I set the remaining time to any thing. They will recreate, meditate, prune their trees (almost all of my pawns have a Gauranlen tree), haul, clean or work based on what is actually needed.
I do not have dedicated haulers or cleaners so I also have most pawns with higher priorities to those specific tasks during their "not scheduled to work" hours.

The 4 hours I mentioned is the idle time of the workbenches, not the pawns. 2 shifts of 10 hours gives the benches 4 hours of idle.

[glass zebra]

Is this some kind of mod you are talking about? In vanilla you can only set forced working hours on pawns schedules and workbenches will not remain idle in "anything" time.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Is this some kind of mod you are talking about? In vanilla you can only set forced working hours on pawns schedules and workbenches will not remain idle in "anything" time.

Sure they will if the pawns assigned to those tasks are meditating or pruning their trees instead. They do those things during "anything" time too.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Is this some kind of mod you are talking about? In vanilla you can only set forced working hours on pawns schedules and workbenches will not remain idle in "anything" time.

Sure they will if the pawns assigned to those tasks are meditating or pruning their trees instead. They do those things during "anything" time too.

So you are actively changing priorites on that stuff higher during "anytime" and then lower them again during "worktime" when you want them to use the workbenches instead?

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

So you are actively changing priorites on that stuff higher during "anytime" and then lower them again during "worktime" when you want them to use the workbenches instead?

Oh, yes, i do use a mod that lets me set priorities based on time blocks so I don't need to micromanage that.
But that's irrelevant when talking about "anything" in their schedule, because both pruning and meditating can and do interrupt higher prioritized work tasks during "anything" if they NEED to meditate or prune in order to maintain the targets set for those two things, as will recreation or sleep needs.

[glass zebra]

I just didn't understand why the workbenches were save outside of the work hours.
Pruning does not benefit from global work speed so pruning at night is fine. If you got the workbench stuff handled, I'd still say medical is the one that mostly benefits from having shifts, as many other work types are not that useful at night.

[Mr W]

I like putting researchers on the night shift so that we can get stuff researched about twice as fast.

[Markus Reese]

I run two shifts, primarily based on night owls. Usually enough to do and diverse pawns and passions that overlap is low.

I do two shifts though so that social time can overlap

[MortVent]

For me things I want at night:
1 doctor/researcher (they either research or tend to medical needs )
1 butcher/researcher (they are usually not a good cook, just butcher any left over corpses then do what research they can... usually not too good at either)
2 general workers (crafters, cleaners, haulers, etc... mostly firewatch duty)

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by MortVent:

2 general workers (crafters, cleaners, haulers, etc... mostly firewatch duty)

I didn't even think of the firewatch aspect of the night shift, but that is definitely something it's been nice having them on nights for and will motivate me to keep doing an off-shift even without a night-happy pawn.
For me, the two pawns that go put out fires the most are an artist and a crafter. I actually turn cleaning off when most pawns are asleep to stop cleaners from going into bedrooms and disturbing the folks sleeping.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by twistedmelon:

I run two shifts, primarily based on night owls. Usually enough to do and diverse pawns and passions that overlap is low.

I do two shifts though so that social time can overlap

I do the same and try to kick it off when I get my first Night Owl and/or indoor/darkness lover types that may not be as impacted from not having some "outside" Cloudwatching and the like fun. I don't tend to "fully staff" the Second-shift workers, largely because I don't tend to have a large number of pawns.

Second-shifts are a powerful thing to have. Round-the-clock trade, food-production to catch up on demand-related issues, tending of the injured when needed, fire-watch, any kind of on-demand task that is necessary, they can do just like any other pawn without the "interrupted sleep" issues.

I always overlap shifts, too, to ensure good chances for social bonuses.

PS: On job assignments - My first choice, if I have one, is for a Cook. After that, just about anything is fine with me. One thing I wouldn't want to deal with would be a Hunter or a pawn that would be far from base and unsupported. Night Hunting is fine, with a pretty much guaranteed first-hit, but the risk is too great for low-pop colonies. The same goes for long-distance mining and gathering/hauling types - Not worth the risk for those job types, IMO, unless you have several that could quickly respond. (Predators Sleep at night, no exceptions that I know of. But, uncovering bugs, a Raid/similar (Can't recall a night raid atm), walking back as everything wakes up, getting a runny nose, etc... Not worth it.)

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

PS: On job assignments - My first choice, if I have one, is for a Cook. After that, just about anything is fine with me. One thing I wouldn't want to deal with would be a Hunter or a pawn that would be far from base and unsupported. Night Hunting is fine, with a pretty much guaranteed first-hit, but the risk is too great for low-pop colonies. The same goes for long-distance mining and gathering/hauling types - Not worth the risk for those job types, IMO, unless you have several that could quickly respond. (Predators Sleep at night, no exceptions that I know of. But, uncovering bugs, a Raid/similar (Can't recall a night raid atm), walking back as everything wakes up, getting a runny nose, etc... Not worth it.)

Why do you get a first hit at night? Usually the shot has a very low chance to hit, due to the "*20% Target lying down". Apart from that, pawns move slower at night if they don't have something to disable that. I usually try to not do any of the "outdoor" work types at night.