Limited number of workers mining

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Summary:
When you have a lot of workers and mining to do, a few of them will do the job and the rest will just sit around.
Steps to reproduce:

  1. Have a lot of workers (5+) with nothing else to do.
  2. Select an area to mine.
  3. Watch as many of them will just sit around even though they should be working!

Expected Results:
All the workers would start mining. Not only some of them.

Actual Results:
There seems to be a limit on how many of them can mine at a time, it seems like they want to avoid kicking up too much dust so they don’t get lung disease or something.

Notes:
The more mining zones I have, the more decide to go. I have experienced this problem on all my saves, although to varying degrees. On this particular save, only 4 are working, but on another (larger) town 8/12 workers where working.
I do realize that it takes them a moment for them to update, but I have been watching them sit and wait there for a few minutes. They go to bed, eat, etc and keep a steady 3 or 4 guys in the mine but never more than that. Once they finished the mining zone in the picture, they didn’t go on to the next one until I placed another mining zone inside the one already there, which I thought did nothing, but apparently it prompted the 4 guys to continue working. I’m not sure if this is intentional (to actually prevent lung disease, of course) but it seems counter-intuitive.

Attachments:

MinersWorking.PNG1246Ă—634 299 KB

WhatTheyAreDoing.PNG989Ă—716 176 KB

Version Number and Mods in use:
Alpha 20 with no mods

System Information:
64 bit Windows 10 Enterprise, AMD FX 3.8 gz quad core processor, 8GB DDR3 RAM, Nvidia GTX 760 graphics card.

2

hey there @lturtlesrock,

this isn’t actually a bug, as there actually is a limit of 4 workers per mining zone. though can’t remember the reason for the limit at the moment, if you make multiple small mining zones, rather than one large one, everyone should start working.

hope this helps clear up some confusion :slight_smile:

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3

Thanks for the reply. I thought about that but decided to post this because I couldn’t think of a reason why there would be a limit, it seems strange to me.

4

no problemo mate, i’m here to help :jubilant:

yeah, it is kinda strange, but i have a feeling the reason was something performance related… thinking of performance, its a good idea to break up large mining zones regardless of how many workers you have, as large mining zones can take a toll on performance.

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