Work shifts

[Grogrot1]

Hi,

Following this ongoing thread by Myricaulus, I'd like to discuss the possibility of implementing one strangely lacking feature : workshifts and schedules

Walking prevents a building to work at peak efficiency

When Bob the worker starts its walk to a workplace he reserves his future workplace before walking. (I just assume he is calling his boss to say he is on the way with a telephone at the trainstation) In the meantime of his short walk of 400m at 115% walking speed up to 33% of the workforce at the destination have decided that they have done enough work for today. But when all workplaces are used up by actual workers and future workers still walking around nobody else can reserve a spot at that building, resulting in a net loss of efficiency for every minute any worker is walking.

I have a food factory with around 3000 people in walking distance, all of them are 300-400m away, with a 10% unemployment rate. So theoretically i should be more than enough people for a 170 Workers building. But in reality only around 110 are actually IN the building and working, while the rest i actually still walking. I tried to send a bus directly to factory, but only 2 people left the bus, so those places are already reserved.

This actually happens to all Buildings in a city. Even with high unemployment, around 33% of the workplaces are rarely used. It got really worse as the walking distance was increased.

So my suggestion would be to allow people to queue in front of all Workplaces, limit this to 50% of the maximal workforce and add a slider in the building info to adjust the queue size.
OR fix the search for work algorithm altogether somehow, but please make it so, that it is at least theoritical possible to let a run at peak efficiency continuosly. Currently its not.
OR just count walking people as working.
OR define that you only need 66% of the workforce to run at full capacity.

I have gathered that the reprensentation of time in this game can be mostly symbolic, however I wanted to ask anybody knowledgable of this if a two or three 8hours workshift system, synched between all workplaces and maybe allowing us to schedule your transport network, could be implemented without having to change everything.

Creating a waiting line that can be increased or decreased at workplaces could be the simplest way as a workaround, allowing stragglers to arrive before they could take a slot ? Or maybe more complex and interesting changes, with a day divised in 3 shifts, maybe made to overlap a bit so workers can arrive in time, or with a waiting line opening a little time before the end of the previous shift ? Maybe allowing the player to choose between different shift configurations for each workplace (or create templates), with a standard 2 day-shift, or more taxing options for the health and hapiness of the workers like 3x8 shifts or double shifts (its called "workers and resources", not gallivanters and leisures).

[vantuz58]

Work shifts would be nice but difficult to implement.
On the surface it doesn't look that bad. Just make people reserve places in the next shift of a factory and leave home early. But this doesn't take transport into account.
Buses would have to follow a very strict schedule. That means if they are 10 minutes late because of a traffic jam then the whole building will shut down.
And if they don't want to arrive too early then buses will have to find some place to wait and it can cause a traffic jam.

Besides, how do you imagine a whole shift of 600 workers arriving at a steel mill via buses all at once? That would be a traffic nightmare.

That's why i don't mind the current system. It's good enough.

P.s.

or more taxing options for the health and hapiness of the workers like 3x8 shifts or double shifts (its called "workers and resources", not gallivanters and leisures).

For your information, decreasing the length of the workday from 11.5 to 8 hours was one of the first things Soviet government did after the revolution.

[forzion]

Exactly the transportation would be issue. And not onpy that. Your shops and other facilities would not be able to sustain the flood of citizens when the shift is over.

Now the distribution of workers is gradual and customers do not arrive all at once.

Then you would also lose precious workforce because now if somebody is satisfied his free time is ended and he goes to work. And those who are happy and satisfied work longer. In fixed shifts scenario you would not be able to benefit and most of your buses would be useless outside peak hours.

[tea_bush]

I'm not against it, but I don't understand, what the benefits would be. Why exactly do we need work shifts?

[Grogrot1]

Originally posted by vantuz58:

Buses would have to follow a very strict schedule. That means if they are 10 minutes late because of a traffic jam then the whole building will shut down.
And if they don't want to arrive too early then buses will have to find some place to wait and it can cause a traffic jam.



P.s.

or more taxing options for the health and hapiness of the workers like 3x8 shifts or double shifts (its called "workers and resources", not gallivanters and leisures).

For your information, decreasing the length of the workday from 11.5 to 8 hours was one of the first things Soviet government did after the revolution.

1) Yes ? I mean I'd rather manage a minimal amount of traffic and scheduled public transports than having to fight an unintuitive and boring mechanic.

2) It doesn't feel like a game about the glory and humanism of the USSR though.

Originally posted by forzion:

Exactly the transportation would be issue. And not onpy that. Your shops and other facilities would not be able to sustain the flood of citizens when the shift is over.

Now the distribution of workers is gradual and customers do not arrive all at once.

Then you would also lose precious workforce because now if somebody is satisfied his free time is ended and he goes to work. And those who are happy and satisfied work longer. In fixed shifts scenario you would not be able to benefit and most of your buses would be useless outside peak hours.

1) In a 3 shifts scenario, everyone has rouglhy 16hours of leisure/day, it's more than enough time for all workers to fill their needs while not clogging everything. If every worker has to fill the same priorities first (like going to groceries), it might be a problem, but it doesn't have to be that way. If needs are prioritized individualy, then it would be just as it is now for this part.

2) In this case the "satisfied worker works longer" mechanic could be removed, it's just gamey and not very interesting imo.

3) That's what scheduled public transports are for, and it's not like the bus lines we are currently using usally do more than 3 travels/day ?

Originally posted by tea_bush:

I'm not against it, but I don't understand, what the benefits would be. Why exactly do we need work shifts?

Currently a worker going to work reserves a slot at the factory, so they are usually running at 80% even though some workers are jobless.

[forzion]

@Grogrot1 You have not counted in delays and travel times. To have scheduled shifts, the only option would be everything in walk distance for workers because every worker has different travel time not only to work but also to citizen related facilities.

For example if he needs to visit a doctor and spends 2 hours traveling there and then waits in the qeue he has much less free time to get to shop and do other activities.

The system is not that simple. It can work in Surviving Mars where you do not need to manage transportation too much but here the transportation is crucial. And travel times are counted outside work and free time.

[tomasoltis]

well, IRL, when a shift ends at a steel mill, before that, you have lets say, a traffic overload, for workers coming to the steel mill and getting to their places before theyre actually working even by 45 minutes from the shifts start, how was it before american coup and western-democratic looting of 1998-onwards ? I dont know, what I do know is they halted the growth of salaries for years and invested nothing in 20years. Constructed in years 1959-1964 by the state, stolen by Yankees after NATO 1998 coup, officially given to Yankee oligarchs in 2000. This is what they call democracy, like they brought to unsuspecting Iraqis for example. But all their corporate media sing how humanitarian, freedom loving they are. Crapoligarchy.

[KJ]

Originally posted by vantuz58:

Besides, how do you imagine a whole shift of 600 workers arriving at a steel mill via buses all at once? That would be a traffic nightmare.

Why would it lead to traffic jam? It worked IRL (before everyone owned SUV tanks)
Also, not all people have to leave the building. It could be also that every 4h a shift is changed (but with half people) to reduce traffic burden.

It doesnt need shifts anyway -
The most important is that workers need to arrive at the work place BEFORE their shift starts, not start walking after the shift of the other person ended

For foot passengers walking from home this is easy to determine how long they take (it doesnt have to be absolutely precise to work well enough)

And people know that in 1h there will be a free slot, because the person working in their slot has already 7 workhours. Also, we know how many persons will leave in 1h.

They arriving workers should just wait inside the building or in front of, when they have arrived too early and there is no slot (waiting counting towards travel time limit)

[KJ]

Originally posted by forzion:

@Grogrot1For example if he needs to visit a doctor and spends 2 hours traveling there and then waits in the qeue he has much less free time to get to shop and do other activities.

People already just go and wait in front of civilian service building to get serviced. And if there is a que you know you did something wrong (would be nice if it was visually indicated by a big crowd in front of the building). So it already works like that.

And waiting for service is (should be) the exception, therefore "not enough free time" is silly argument, when we already have an allowed worker travel time of 4h.

Count waiting in front of work place towards travel time, and there will be no difference in freetime.

[vantuz58]

Originally posted by Grogrot1:

Yes ? I mean I'd rather manage a minimal amount of traffic and scheduled public transports than having to fight an unintuitive and boring mechanic.
...
That's what scheduled public transports are for, and it's not like the bus lines we are currently using usally do more than 3 travels/day ?
...
Currently a worker going to work reserves a slot at the factory, so they are usually running at 80% even though some workers are jobless.

What part of "it would be difficult to implement" you don't understand?

Let's imagine you have a factory that needs 4 buses to be fully staffed. All 4 of them have to arrive and unload at the same time which is impossible. They'll need to enter and unload one by one. But that takes time! Muh efficiency!
Now let's imagine one bus was stalled by a bulldozer and arrived 1 hour late. That means workers it was carrying will only work 7 hours till the next shift. Muh efficiency!
Then these buses will have to go somewhere to wait. Where?
Then they have to go another round. But how early should they leave? How should they take into account the snow on the roads? The night time? Other buses using the same stop?

It will require a full overhaul of the whole production and transportation AI and UI. This is a very large task and its cost will outweigh all the (not very significant) benefits of the work shifts.

Originally posted by Grogrot1:

... If every worker has to fill the same priorities first (like going to groceries), it might be a problem, but it doesn't have to be that way. If needs are prioritized individualy, then it would be just as it is now for this part.

Yep. Add the overhaul of the citizen AI to the list while we're at it.

Originally posted by Grogrot1:

It doesn't feel like a game about the glory and humanism of the USSR though.

It's a game about the glory and humanism of an unnamed soviet republic where true communism has already been achieved and no one is allowed to oppress the working class. Even the player.

[vantuz58]

Originally posted by KJ:

Originally posted by vantuz58:

Besides, how do you imagine a whole shift of 600 workers arriving at a steel mill via buses all at once? That would be a traffic nightmare.

Why would it lead to traffic jam? It worked IRL
...
They arriving workers should just wait inside the building or in front of, when they have arrived too early and there is no slot (waiting counting towards travel time limit)

Not everything working IRL can work in a game.
...
Workers going to the "queue" could actually work. It's (probably) relatively easy to implement compared to the monumental overhaul for the work shifts.

[tea_bush]

Originally posted by Grogrot1:

Originally posted by tea_bush:

I'm not against it, but I don't understand, what the benefits would be. Why exactly do we need work shifts?

Currently a worker going to work reserves a slot at the factory, so they are usually running at 80% even though some workers are jobless.

And why exactly is that bad? You need more workers working simultaneously? Then it would be much easier for the devs to just increase the worker capacity of factories.

[Grogrot1]

Originally posted by vantuz58:

Originally posted by Grogrot1:

Yes ? I mean I'd rather manage a minimal amount of traffic and scheduled public transports than having to fight an unintuitive and boring mechanic.
...
That's what scheduled public transports are for, and it's not like the bus lines we are currently using usally do more than 3 travels/day ?
...
Currently a worker going to work reserves a slot at the factory, so they are usually running at 80% even though some workers are jobless.

What part of "it would be difficult to implement" you don't understand?

Let's imagine you have a factory that needs 4 buses to be fully staffed. All 4 of them have to arrive and unload at the same time which is impossible. They'll need to enter and unload one by one. But that takes time! Muh efficiency!
Now let's imagine one bus was stalled by a bulldozer and arrived 1 hour late. That means workers it was carrying will only work 7 hours till the next shift. Muh efficiency!
Then these buses will have to go somewhere to wait. Where?
Then they have to go another round. But how early should they leave? How should they take into account the snow on the roads? The night time? Other buses using the same stop?

It will require a full overhaul of the whole production and transportation AI and UI. This is a very large task and its cost will outweigh all the (not very significant) benefits of the work shifts.

Originally posted by Grogrot1:

... If every worker has to fill the same priorities first (like going to groceries), it might be a problem, but it doesn't have to be that way. If needs are prioritized individualy, then it would be just as it is now for this part.

Yep. Add the overhaul of the citizen AI to the list while we're at it.

Originally posted by Grogrot1:

It doesn't feel like a game about the glory and humanism of the USSR though.

It's a game about the glory and humanism of an unnamed soviet republic where true communism has already been achieved and no one is allowed to oppress the working class. Even the player.

1) No need to be aggressive. Because it is difficult in your opinion doesn't mean it's not worth entertaining the idea for a moment. Are you from the dev team ?

2) If your opinion is that things are as good as they could be, why bother replying ?

3) Yeah, why not overhaul the worker AI too while we're at it !

4) Sorry, but it's not really the topic of the discussion. I think you're projecting something here.

Anyway, the "workers waiting in queues" solution was the one I proposed as a first solution and is very obviously the easiest fix, I just think the issue is worth discussing.

Originally posted by tea_bush:

Originally posted by Grogrot1:

Currently a worker going to work reserves a slot at the factory, so they are usually running at 80% even though some workers are jobless.

And why exactly is that bad? You need more workers working simultaneously? Then it would be much easier for the devs to just increase the worker capacity of factories.

Yes ? No ? I mean, they would still almost never be staffed at 100%, and as said in the previous discussion it can be a problem for some buildings with low worker count like sportfields or the coal plant if it's a little far away.

[forzion]

The main problem is that we currently have a working system which is already tested over time. It does have some weaknesses but nothing terrible. If we would like to have workers working in shifts a total new system would needed to be introduced which would change everything from shopping, through free time, public transport, kindergartens and I can go on.

Now I could work and it could not. But how much time is needed to develope the whole system from the scratch? I think it is not worth it because the work hours needed to make that happen.

Then you need to teach other players how to play the game they are used to play in certain way totally differently.

But maybe it can be implemented in another game.Just try to imagine how much time the developer spent when he was inventing the current mechanic. All that would be waste of time then.

[tea_bush]

Originally posted by Grogrot1:

Originally posted by tea_bush:

And why exactly is that bad? You need more workers working simultaneously? Then it would be much easier for the devs to just increase the worker capacity of factories.

Yes ? No ? I mean, they would still almost never be staffed at 100%, and as said in the previous discussion it can be a problem for some buildings with low worker count like sportfields or the coal plant if it's a little far away.

IMO vanilla sportfields are totally unbalanced, and I hope they will be reworked completely.

As to other buildings, I don't see any problems with them. Yes, it's hard to staff them at 100%. So what? IRL factories and offices have open vacancies all the time, too.

[vantuz58]

Originally posted by Grogrot1:

1) No need to be aggressive. Because it is difficult in your opinion doesn't mean it's not worth entertaining the idea for a moment. Are you from the dev team ?

2) If your opinion is that things are as good as they could be, why bother replying ?

Oh, yeah. I tend to do that when people ask me questons

Originally posted by Grogrot1:

I wanted to ask anybody knowledgable of this if a two or three 8hours workshift system, synched between all workplaces and maybe allowing us to schedule your transport network, could be implemented without having to change everything.

and then, when given a reply they just go "yeah, whatever, just give me what i want!"

Originally posted by Grogrot1:

1) Yes ? I mean I'd rather manage a minimal amount of traffic and scheduled public transports than having to fight an unintuitive and boring mechanic.

I wonder why i am so aggressive sometimes...

Originally posted by Grogrot1:

4) Sorry, but it's not really the topic of the discussion. I think you're projecting something here.

No, since you mentioned that first and later continued the discussion, it IS a topic of discussion.
"Cruel work shifts" you suggested will not bring anything noticeable because the level of production is limited by factory output and will confilict with the theme of the game.