My buildings are no longer maintained, probably after I changed the maximal population from 1k to 1.5k, or after the population grows over 1k.
I followed a builder, and found that they are doing maintenance work. They walk to the building and do sth, and turn to another building. But the building’s health(?, sorry I do not play in English so I do not know the term) do not increase. I followed several builders and found this happens repeatedly.
I saved and reload the game, but it do not help.
Does anyone know how to fix this problem? Or it’s just a bug?
I might be wrong, but I’ve found that builders have two roles in maintenance: one being dropping off supplies for the maintenance, and the other being actually fixing the building.
It is extremely inefficient that the builders with the first role doesn’t do the ‘extra’ work. They just drop off the supplies and simply move on to the next building that they’re assigned to drop off supplies or fix.
At first, I was expecting the builders who dropped off the supplies would fix the building after they finished their first job, but in most cases, another builder had to come and fix, which is pretty annoying since while the building is waiting for the ‘fixer,’ it decays more, and cancels the fixer’s job, and assign another builder to visit the building with more resources. I think this should be looked into and fixed.
Also, I think that as frame rate drops, as we all experience after around 700 population, the AI is lagging with assigining jobs to people. However, this could just feels that way because with my 2800 population town, the frame rate I get is around 3 or 4.
What often happens, just like what happens with building, is the builders finish dropping off supplies. While they’re doing that (which happens much more often when you have a larger settlement) is they meet the threshhold of basic need, and do that after finishing their current task (drop off supplies).
I have abandoned games once the building repair icon appears. I have seen them when I am approaching T4, regardless of my population size, and regardless of how many of my population is allocated to builders. I have had over 40 builders allocated but when I check perhaps only 15 or so are actually engaged. Why ask for more builders when they’re not being used? I think the answer is in the number of labourers above that of the number needed to not be short on labourers. For example (and pulling numbers out of my straw hat) I have 120 labourers but if I drop to 85 the number turns red and the game says I am critically short. At the same time I have 35 builders but only 15 or so in use. I would need to have 150 plus labourers so that the number of required builders does not drop my labour count below 85. In short an effective labour/builder ratio requires me to have a labourer and a builder, 2 villagers, and the same number of villagers (3) above the red line. If I can’t do that I start a new game. I also do that when I reach Tier 4, there’s no other reason to continue.
My point is that even if I have a surplus of builders if I don’t have two labourers to match then repairs don’t get done. That’s two labourers per builder above the number required to stop the numbers going into the red. That has to be a programming fault.
In the last update, some settings for structural integrity (ie. building maintenance) accidentally got reset and buildings that were not supposed to require it now do (walls, town center, many decorations…).
This has resulted in the settlement needing way more maintenance and builders than before. While this can be managed, the buildings that were not intended to have structural integrity will correctly not require it again in v0.9.7.
I thought they do drop off and fixings together. No wonder the bar does not change after the builders leave.
I did not met this problem in my latest game which reached 1500 populations. I agree with your idea that it is not a matter of AI. My friends told me that lack of maintenance resources can also results in no maintenance, which I did not checked. But I cannot check it now since the autosave was lost.