Survivors Idle when Gather Limits set.

[Sore]

I have lots of tasks available on the map. If all the gather limits are met though then survivors will idle. This should not be the intended behavior. The gather limits are only there so that the proper resource is prioritized.

If there are gather tasks and survivors have nothing else to do they should fill some task at least.

[Suncrash]

Hey Amaron,

You are correct, if a survivor has a task that is disabled due to gathering limits they should move on to their next highest priority task. Could you please make sure the survivor actually has other tasks that are enabled (ie not disabled in the priorities window for that survivor), and that such tasks exist and are not assigned to anyone?

If you verify, then it may be a bug, and I'd appreciate it if you could send us the save file as explained here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/455980/discussions/0/3377008022035622291/

[Sore]

Originally posted by Suncrash:

Hey Amaron,

You are correct, if a survivor has a task that is disabled due to gathering limits they should move on to their next highest priority task.

Why would a task be completely disabled due to gathering limits? I would consider that buggy behavior.

If they are idle due to no tasks then I want them to go back to gathering tasks even if the limits are set. The gathering limits should only exist to prioritize resources when they are low. Not to restrict gathering them.

[Suncrash]

Yes, if you've reached the limits no one will gather that resource, regardless of whether or not they have other, better stuff to do.

It was designed that way, and while I do agree that there may be a better way, there are architecture and performance considerations here as well. With hundreds of tasks and 30+ survivors, performance can become a major issue, and having to take more parameters into account, such as "are there any other tasks down the road that this survivor can do? no? ok, then let's do this one anyway" can have a significant overhead.

I'll be honest, this piece of code is very complex, hard to test, and has a high impact on both gameplay and performance, so I am reluctant to mess with it for anything that is not a game-breaking bug.

I guess that means that players will have to keep an eye and if they see idle survivors up their gathering limits.

[Sore]

Originally posted by Suncrash:

With hundreds of tasks and 30+ survivors, performance can become a major issue, and having to take more parameters into account, such as "are there any other tasks down the road that this survivor can do? no? ok, then let's do this one anyway" can have a significant overhead.

Is each tree/rock/etc a separate task that has to be evaluated? Complex scheduling is always complicated I know. I would at least recommend a more visible UI element to highlight when survivors are idle then.