Summary:
Hearthlings tend to idle very often and many times for no good reasons which i thought could been due to towns getting big and anvanced many times but they should still work with that ofcourse but i just made a new town 2nd day they just stopped digging for me no error messages or anything and they refuse to continue even with save / load and they got ways to get down to dig there but they refuse to. If i tell em to chop trees tho they happily do it Steps to reproduce:
Set out an area to dig down
Watch hearthlings go idle and not fully done
Expected Results:
They do their job and not idle around for no reason Actual Results:
They idle without doing anything but if i tell em to chop wood instead of the mining i had from before they happily do this but not dig. Notes:
Not sure if this always happens but i notice that hearthlings tend to idle around many times with the current ai when they have stuff to do and these hearthlings have no other job at all to do. They are not building or anything only job they have is to mine Attachments:
It seems if i add a ladder ontop of it they start again? feels like the ai needs a bit more thinking to the digging parts if they cant dig from underneath
Pretty much any time they stop mining it’s because they can’t reach whatever they’re trying to get to. Unlike building, they won’t automatically put up their own ladders or scaffolding.
I’m pretty sure they’ve mined themselves into a corner. If I’m interpreting correctly, The only way up to the middle level is obstructed by a block they can’t mine:
Ugly highlighting, but the point is that’s a 3-high space above the step, which is the same height as a hearthling. Most of the time, a hearthling cannot mine the block directly overhead. A hearthling seems to be able to mine a block 4 above the surface they’re standing on. So there’s no spot left where they can mine the purple block - from the lower level, it’s too high, and from the step, it’s inaccessible.
(I’m assuming that 2-high segment isn’t itself marked for mining. If it is, then … I guess they got really picky about order?)
I hope that even with all the workarounds and reasons posted in this topic, readers (especially the developers) won’t overlook how serious this problem is.
If an area is selected to be mined, you can’t have hearthlings idling around, waiting for you to put up a freaking ladder. Why the heck can’t they do that themselves?
(I realise I come across as a bit triggered. That’s because I’ve had this happen to me numerous times before I found out the real reason.)
