Workers are sometimes making very poor decisions about where to pick up resources for workplaces. It’s been mentioned a few times so I decided to look very closely. What seems to be happening is that when starting a new task they will look for the closest resource required for the next job from where they are currently standing and go pick it up. This means that even if you have a full stockpile of the resources required for their job next to their workplace, if any resource is slightly closer to them than the stockpile they can decide to head in the exact opposite direction to pick up the good and then cart it all the way back. I think the best way to fix this is to have the worker look two trips ahead instead of just the one. If they considered both how close the resource is to their current location, and how close that resource is to the final destination, then they would behave in a far more intelligent manner. You would take a performance hit for the extra calculation, but I think you’ll probably make it back up with the much shorter overall pathing calculations required. The distance calcs seem to be as the crow flies, so it might even be a performance gain on average.
That’s actually stated on patch notes
instead look what happens.
That video is exactly what I’m talking about, but it is missing the crucial part, which is where those workers were standing when they made the decision to pick up those logs. If they had been in the sawmill they would have correctly traveled to the stockpile. Judging by the time of year they had gone home to shelter though the cold, and then the moment they stepped out of their house looked for the closest location of available wood, which was in the opposite direction of the workplace and stockyard.
Will do another video about it. I saw it happens all the time even during spring and summer, that was a listed fix that was not fixed.
Winter isn’t the only reason they might not start at their workplace. They might have been to collect clothes, or stock their shelter, or have a beer, etc. Any of which could then lead to this situation.
Do villagers carrying resources walk as fast as those that are simply moving from point A to point B? I’m thinking not, but I have not checked. I will in just a bit.
Here is where I am going with that. If I have the option of walking across town empty handed, and then getting resources next door to the construction site, I’d rather do that than pick up the same type of resources, even if they are sitting at my feet, and then carry them across town to the construction site. I’ll walk faster AND save energy, which means that I’ll be able to do more for my community.
I think to be a bit more realistic, the calculation should not be based on how close a villager is to the resource, but on how much effort the villager will exert. Of course, that might mean changing how fast villagers walk depending on whether or not they are carrying resources.
On a side note, I didn’t realize that different villagers can carry more than others. I had several laborers stocking planks at a build site on the outskirts of town. All of them hand carried 2 planks, with the exception of this particular guy that seemed to be able to hand carry 5.
For that last one… he probably had a basket whereas the others didn’t (probably).
The inefficiency may be in what is defined as a task? It appears the process of picking the item up is 1 task and then bringing it to work is a second task. We as humans would think of those 2 tasks as one and then make determinations based on that as to where it was most efficient to pick up the item.
Not certain how much overhead combining such tasks would make in the programming. But I share your frustration.
d1 = resource location distance from destination
d2 = resource location distance from worker
for all resources R select Rn such that d1+d2 = min(d1+d2).
This also happens if you don’t have enough planks at the time the construction site is stocked. First villager grabs what’s left (5) and each of the others grab planks as they are produced (2 at a time). It makes for super inefficient build site stocking.
That wasn’t the case for this build site. There were three people carrying 2 planks, and the last one a few seconds later, carried 5. Maybe he walked smaller?
Sorry, I’ll ask directly: did the last worker have a basket? And the others not maybe? Workers with baskets carry more.
Sorry, I forgot to reply to your question when you asked the first time. I do not know if that last one had a basket as I didn’t check, because, well, it never dawned on me that you would use a basket to carry wood planks…because you just don’t use a basket to carry wood planks. I know that the last person did not have a cart, but no idea of a basket. I’ll pay more attention next time.
Are the baskets used for carrying the ones that are made by villagers our of willow? Or are they part of “tools”? Thinking about it, where do the carts come from? Wheelwrights? Or are they “tools” too?
Pretty sure the carts are just a graphic change for certain statuses (stocking build site, burying villager, etc?).
Baskets are those items made by the basket maker out of willows. They serve as a representation for the villager being able to carry more of any item.
Ok, thanks. I was thinking those were a luxury type item for storage use inside of their homes only.
They appear to also be a pretty steady Trade Item - at least, almost every year at least one Trader is willing to buy any Baskets I can supply.
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