Summary:
Issue several simultaneous tasks, such as a loot cleanup after clearing an encounter. You may see more than one Hearthling is dispatched per task. This results in the slowest Hearthling arriving on the scene after their intended target has already been retrieved by the fastest assignee.
When this happens, unless there are other pending tasks in the immediate area, they just stand there and look around for a while until the AI eventually gives them something else to do, or the player recalls them manually using Town Defense. This apparent inefficiency can lead to increased danger for non-combatants by placing workers in less safe scenarios unnecessarily.
This behavior is especially apparent if you have more available Hearthlings than you do tasks to complete in the area.
Steps to reproduce:
- Create several tasks simultaneously and within close proximity of each other. I’ve found that this issue can be more apparent when the tasks are all located at the outer edge of the AI pathfinding limits.
- Observe some tasks being assigned to more than one hearthling.
- Observe the first hearthling to arrive complete the task, while the additional hearthling(s) that come to complete the same task arrive with nothing left to do, and then stand around for a while waiting for other assignments.
Expected Results:
One Hearthling assigned to each task, and no additional Hearthlings assigned to a task once the first assignment has happened.
Actual Results:
More than one Hearthling dispatched to complete a given task, resulting in inefficient worker utilization and potentially increased unnecessary risk to worker Hearthlings when tasks are located in unprotected areas.
Notes:
If a video of this would be valuable to help illustrate the problem, I can create one.
Version Number and Mods in use:
A15 R549