Workers go idle and can't be controlled any longer

[Silvius]

Hey all,

I'm using MegaModPack since the start, so I'm not sure if this is what it causes or if it's a known vanila bug. As I bought the game only a few days ago, it could very well be that I'm overlooking a gameplay element

As the title says, sometimes completely random my workers just run off to a worker house and the only two options I have is 'open inventory' and 'fire employee' (while there should be a whole bunch of actions). This happens mainly to characters that are controlled often such as Thugs, Robbers and Thieves.

- The employees don't respond to anything and can't be moved to another location either.
- It appears to happen often to high level employees, often 'Master'
- The employees have an average to decent attitude towards me and shouldn't be the issue as it sometimes happens to an employee I hired the same day.
- It happens in the middle of a job (such as waylaying, patrolling or plundering), sending them to a medic appears to have a higher probability of initiating it.

[Bedelguese]

Could be in the middle of doing something, I know my who'res won't listen if I try to command them while they're servicing people. Also they won't listen to you on their way home from their jobs at night, and before 8 in the morning, but they should continue their jobs or follow new orders you gave them (even if they were given before 8) as soon as 8 am is reached.

[Fajeth]

I am still not sure what causes this but it is caused by the mod and seems to mainly effect rogue employees. I did some changes for the next version and will test if they help. Sorry for the inconvenience :/ (I need to do some bigger changes for the next version before I can release it though. But there might be a test-version out soon)

[Silvius]

Thank you so much for your reply, Fajeth. I'd like to take this oppertunity as well to thank you for your hard work. I never bothered with this game because of the fear it would constantly crash and break, but then I read in several game reviews that your modpack fixes most things (and saw that insane list of changes!) - That made me buy the game and I haven't played it a second without your ModPack. I wish I bought this game sooner now because this is amazing!

Also I paid more attention to the bug and noticed the following:
- It only happens to employees of the 'rogue' businesses (as you mentioned) AND the thugs you hire from your home.
- It appears to only happen to employees you manually hire. The first employee that comes with the building itself and those that are hired by the AI (through 'manage building') do not seem to be affected by the bug.

It would be too early to assume it has something to do with the AI-control and it wouldn't make much sense then why the 'thugs' hired from a house (no AI-control there) have the same issue. However, as I mentioned earlier, it sometimes does happen when you send your employee to a medic, which is what I did to some of my thugs whenever they're hurt.

[Vega]

This bug has already been discussed here a few times - but probably not in a dedicated subject, which it required since it's quite debilitating.

Someone mentioned the bug doesn't affect employees recruited at the apprentice level. That would concur with your 2nd observation.

[Silvius]

I've been playing for quite a few hours without the bug occuring since the following:

- Not manually hiring any employees in the rogue businesses, while the building is on AI-mode with automatic hiring on.
- Not changing ANY of the default settings of the AI hiring options
- When manually hiring, avoiding Master level
- avoiding the patrol mechanic for thugs and mercs (acts dodgy when command is given)
- sending employees to the doctor seems to work constantly without the bug occuring (not even sure if this was really triggering it or if it was a coinsidence)

I know it's not too helpful to mention the way where it all goes fine when actually trying to pinpoint the bug, but I'm trying to enjoy the game in the meantime as well, since I just bought it.

[ThreeOfMe]

Originally posted by Fajeth:

I am still not sure what causes this but it is caused by the mod and seems to mainly effect rogue employees. I did some changes for the next version and will test if they help. Sorry for the inconvenience :/ (I need to do some bigger changes for the next version before I can release it though. But there might be a test-version out soon)

My guess would be that part of the problem lies in these lines in std_idle.lua (from 15):

if Time >= 6 and Time < 18 then
	if GetState("", STATE_WORKING) or (SimGetProfession("") > 0 and GetDynastyID("") > 0) then
		std_idle_Worker(true)
		return
	end
end

Considering the hardcoded time check it goes with my observation that sometimes hospital workers leave work early as well.

[FalconerHG]

First off, great mod Fajeh.

This is an old topic, but the bug still exists and it kind of makes the game unplayable for anyone who would like to dabble with the thieves guild.

The suggested workaround of "don't hire workers manually" does not work. In the current build hiring pulldowns for this building and the robber's nest are all disabled, even after you switch on the AI management.

I am realistic - I don't think this will be fixed, but it helps others decide if they want to play.

[Blade_song]

its still happening
my solution : fire the guys which are not controllable, hire new ones, but ONLY apprentice
not higher
that fixed it for me
(playing rogue )

[H4xX]

How can you fire them? For their action buttons, I only have the inventory and a grayed out x, so I'm forced to tear down the building :(

It happens for me in 2 cases:
When guards engage them while attacking a building, 20% of them will go perma idle. So with 30, about 6 will be broken.
When having pickpocketed for a while and I try to take them out, about 20% will go perma idle.

Regarding hiring, my behavior is to pick the highest possible. Master was never available. Lv1 house hired characters are also affected, not just thief workers (main char profession is thief, though).
Tried to remove all disables from all states, but didn't notice any effect, nor a fix. Not sure whether any lua changes I attempt have any effect, though, expected the game to break.

[Vega]

You shouldn’t hire rogues above “apprentice” level, or they’ll become stuck.
I can't say if that's the reason of your problem, though.

[H4xX]

Nope, just tried firing and rehiring 15 workers of the lowest experience level (living house+waylays+waylays) and after only one guard patrol interferring while attacking a church, at least one from all 3 groups is perma stuck :/

Then I tried firing and auto rehiring 10 workers, same issues.

It might be caused by a change of actions. I wonder whether while pickpocketing, they can be persecuted by guards in any way, which would be a similar case. For pickpockets it happens when I get them out of the pickpocketing action, but I don't know whether they had already stopped during the long pickpocketing time. For waylays only if they are waylaying too close to guards, so if they can get into fights.

Another suspicion I have is the annoying listen around action (looking for proof) (dunno what it's named in English) which keeps talking to about 20% of the employees, disturbing group control. Couldn't find it in the lua/db files at all to try to disable it.

Family chars may be immune (maybe because they don't assist in fights?), or it is because I never send them in first, so they don't die and because I mainly use them for crafting, rarely pickpocketing. I never saw an employee become unconscious. If they are supposed to from fights, that may be the bugged part.
Now what I've read yesterday is that chars only die in duels if their max hp is low enough for the last strike to kill them. Here the apprentice level you guys have experienced may come into play, causing them to die instead of going unconscious more often due to low constitution (and the low gear). But then again, my last employees it happened to: 95% hp, 100%, 0%->100%?, 0%. 30%, 70%, 100%

Test regarding time dependance: can happen both just before and after 6:00.

[magickrot]

same issue