Solved one problem, need (probably developer) help with another.

[Scifiwriterguy]

So, I'd been having a problem with doctors slacking off in the common rooms or walking across the hospital to "fulfill needs" when there's a perfectly fine bathroom and water dispenser in their own department. Patients ended up waiting for medical help because their doctors were everywhere but at their workstations.

Managed to solve the "slacking in the break room" problem, though! Simple solution: sold off all the sofas. There's still plenty to eat, nice dining room tables, even a stereo, but the "sit on your butts and avoid work" objects are right out. Solved that problem beautifully.

However, doctors are still wandering across the hospital for no good reason. Bathroom right next to your clinic office? Nah, let's walk over to neurology. Need water? Forget the dispenser at the reception desk in your own department and take a safari over to radiology. This is still a problem. I would ask for one of two potential long-term solutions:

• An option to forbid employees from leaving their contiguous department zones. Since corridors can be listed as part of department, creating self-contained departments would be easy for players and "do not enter non-department zone" is probably relatively straightforward for the pathfinder routine. This would be ideal.
  
  
• The runner up solution would be some kind of Invisible Fence collar for the doctors. Granted, I can see how this could put a tiny dent in employee happiness, but it would mean patients don't have to wait an hour because their doctor is off for a cool drink of water in Pathology.
  
  
  That aside, though, if anyone has any suggestions on how to stop the staff wandering problem, I'd certainly be happy to get those insights!

[zmoi6]

I don't think it's possible to forbid employees from leaving their department because it would break the game: for hospitals with operation theatre on an independant floor for example that would be a big issue. Or for people who design their hospital with clinics at different places than the hospitalisation part etc...

If all your doctors are idle it's just that they don't have anything to do. In my game I have 8 doctors in emergency and thet are not all idle at the same time unless there's no patients anymore.

Sometimes you can see a patient who is waiting and a free doctor at the same time. Usually it's because the patient has done a test or a radio and is waiting for the doctor he saw the first time.

If too many of your doctors are wandering across the hospital It's probably you don't have enough toilets or water dispensers in the department. When a doctor wants to fullfill a need, he will go for the nearest item he can find and reserve it. Once it's reserved, he will go there and do what he has to do. If you don't have enough of this item in the departement, when your doctor want to use it, he will see that the nearest item is reserved already and will check for the next one. If the next one is in an other department he will go for it.

Hope that can help you ;)

[Silent Ember]

Yes, pathfinding is a bit annoying in the game, but it's also predictable once you understand how it works.

As zmoi6 pointed out, when filling needs, staff will reserve the item closest to them in a straight line (ignoring walls, doors, and objects). The item will stay reserved and will be unusable for all other staff until the interaction is complete.

This means that you should be mindful of the placement of your items with respect to workstations. For example: you place a water dispenser outside in a corridor outside a doctor's office, 5 tiles away from his chair. If there is a closer water dispenser, (e.g. 4 tiles away), the doctor will reserve that first, even if the actual walking distance is like 30 tiles (because there's a wall between the doctor's station and the 4-tile water dispenser, and they are accessed by different corridors).

I and many others have solved this problem by adding bathrooms (they don't need to be zoned as bathrooms and can stay as a part of the doctor's office) and water dispensers inside each office. When placing the toilet and the water dispenser, make sure you minimize the distance between them and the doctor's chair, otherwise your doctor might end up using the dispenser/toilet in his neighbor's office.

Doctors, in particular, will take breaks only when the workload is done. If they don't have the Hard Worker perk, they will spend a considerable time in the common room if there are no patients. It's easy to check this behavior with the night clinic. If a doctor is idling at the common room, there seems to be a minor delay between a patient checking in at the waiting room and the doctor getting paged and walking back to the office. This seems to be a standard game behavior, though, and this delay is not long enough to cause your patient to get the Long Wait modifier.

Of course, you have to plan how far your staff will end up walking. That's why it's helpful to have common rooms accessible to everyone within a few tiles. Planning routes for walking time is one of the biggest elements of hospital building in this game, imho.