Cosmoteer 0.15.0 Preview 1 - Crew Squads, Roles, and Priority Customization

Slvrsrfr

clojelo Noticed the bed sheets in a quarter/bunk are nicely colored after its assigned role/squad

That sounds amazing(ly) [adorable]. 🙂
And the whole redshirt thing is seriously special.

Walt

clojelo While it might be a visual cue only at the moment, GetColorFrom parameter could potentially add colors (max 20 roles?) to many ship parts, not limited to interiors. Eg GetColorFrom=PartCrew Inherit color from crew who control the part, etc

Currently only CrewSource can provide a color. PartCrew potentially could, but what color would it pick if multiple roles are crewing the same part?

Catelyn

Walt I would add the red, green and blue components of each crew's shirt, then divide by the amount of crew.

clojelo

Tea break 🍵

One word, "role decals",

A decal is reusable for zero or more roles.
A role's decal is not tie in with its priorities.

Walt Currently only CrewSource can provide a color. PartCrew potentially could, but what color would it pick if multiple roles are crewing the same part?

Errr... surprise us?

RandomCommander

clojelo

I mean, that's two words, but I am in FULL AGREEMENT that this should be a thing. Maybe for the default decals, it's kept simple, like different hats.

Walt what color would it pick if multiple roles are crewing the same part?

If you want simplicity, turn the part into a color that has the most of one role, EG if a Sensor room has 3 redshirts and one specialist, it turns red, and if vice versa, it turns purple. In the case of a tie, the color is picked by the Role ID (going back to the example, if a sensor room has 2 of both redshirts and specialists, it would default to the redshirt color because that role is first).

SpaceCat

Catelyn I would add the red, green and blue components of each crew's shirt, then divide by the amount of crew.

Sure you would be able to tell by the shade of brown what squads are involved? - not going to work.

The only way of coloring destinations would be not to color the whole destination part but only the specific point/place where crew members will do their job get marked with a colored dot perhaps.

Not sure if the whole destination coloring thing would be more confusing than help.

Since you can see the color of the crews uniforms you will know who works where anyway.

Catelyn

SpaceCat it's a modding feature that would not need to be implemented into vanilla, same as the spawn bullets hiteffect, which before the mine, had no implementation in vanilla, also this would give grey tones more than brown since that's how computer colors work.

SpaceCat

@Walt

Do job priorities actually work in the preview or is it just a visual representation?

What i did was giving the Blue squad 10er priority to man the flak while the Red ones still had 5er prio for flak.
Still the blue ones decided to man the lasers rather then the flak.

I would even expect that crew exchanges when higher priority squads are available and reasonably close.

edit: When setting the red squad to "flak never" the blue ones man the flak as intended.

Walt

SpaceCat Do job priorities actually work in the preview or is it just a visual representation?

What i did was giving the Blue squad 10er priority to man the flak while the Red ones still had 5er prio for flak.
Still the blue ones decided to man the lasers rather then the flak.

I would even expect that crew exchanges when higher priority squads are available and reasonably close.

Currently, priorities determine which jobs get preference when there is a scarcity of crew. If there are more jobs than crew, then crew are assigned mostly based on distance.

I agree that ideally higher priority crew would get picked to do a job when possible. I'll think about this, though it's a bit of a tricky problem to solve efficiently.

SpaceCat

Walt ... since the blue squads quarters where directly adjecent to flak i assumed they will man flak before they go for the farther away lasers just because they where in the most near quarter to the lasers.

Also why did the red ones man the flak instead of the remaining blue ones when both quarters where directly adjecent (?)

Walt tricky problem to solve efficiently.
i totally get that!

... remembering that direct assignment of crew to parts is ont the todo list - this on one hand could solve problems but on the other hand could contradict with the assigned priorities.

New crew behavior should moslty solve "crew running off" afaik.
Tbh i'm a bit confused about it all atm.

(uploading images directly thru the forums "attach" funciton does not work since quite soem time now ...)

Walt

SpaceCat ... since the blue squads quarters where directly adjecent to flak i assumed they will man flak before they go for the farther away lasers just because they where in the most near quarter to the lasers.

I've changed the job algorithm so that roles with a higher priority will always do a job before roles with a lower priority (assuming the higher-priority crew aren't busy doing something even higher-priority). I think it should now work pretty much how you expected/wanted it to, with the caveat that higher-priority crew are always chosen regardless of distance, so an 8 priority crew will always do a job even if there's a much-closer 7 priority crew. (If crew have the same priority, the closer crew are still generally preferred.)

This change will be in the next RC/preview.

Slvrsrfr

nor can i attach images...

Catelyn

Also, did you forget about string based modes in the ModeToggle components?

SpaceCat

Walt appreaciate that! tho it is hard to predict how this will work out 😉 hope it does not lead to crew running across the whole ship to deliver one energy cell or ammo again ...

in the meanwhile i had the idea that there could be a priority above 10 that means "always do this job before other crew members" and only then similar rules to what you described above would apply, plus other crew would only jump in when there is no (more) dedicated crew available.

Kind of like the opposite to the "disable this job completely" priority" - which i used to directly assign crew to specific jobs only, having the downside that crew does not jump in even if there is no other crew available - so i was switching roles/prios on the fly.

My confusion has faded a bit - getting into it slowly. But the whole priority concept is still very complicated.

Hope that there will also be enough input from the playerbase on that matter.

PS.: my time for cosmoteer and gaming in general will be very fluctuating in the coming months

SpaceCat

Walt with the caveat that higher-priority crew are always chosen regardless of distance, so an 8 priority crew will always do a job even if there's a much-closer 7 priority crew.

How i was seeing it is that crew still does the nearest task but when a higher priority soul arrives they swap their task - so the low prio soul is free again.

Also the other way araound when a soul has taken a task but has higher priority to another task it would still do it but get swapped by a lower priority soul - so the high prio soul is free again.

... phew it's RLY complicatet ...

The outcome should be that ideally all crew doing their higher priority tasks - and only temporarily jump in to do low priority tasks.

regards,

Walt

SpaceCat hope it does not lead to crew running across the whole ship to deliver one energy cell or ammo again ...

It won't override the specific part assignment, once I have that implemented.

SpaceCat in the meanwhile i had the idea that there could be a priority above 10 that means "always do this job before other crew members" and only then similar rules to what you described above would apply, plus other crew would only jump in when there is no (more) dedicated crew available.

That's an interesting idea. I'm trying to keep things as simple and understandable as possible, though, so let's try my way first.

SpaceCat But the whole priority concept is still very complicated.

What are you finding complicated about it?

SpaceCat How i was seeing it is that crew still does the nearest task but when a higher priority soul arrives they swap their task - so the low prio soul is free again.

Also the other way araound when a soul has taken a task but has higher priority to another task it would still do it but get swapped by a lower priority soul - so the high prio soul is free again.

... phew it's RLY complicatet ...

The outcome should be that ideally all crew doing their higher priority tasks - and only temporarily jump in to do low priority tasks.

You can basically think of the new system like this:

First, any crew with priority 10 tasks get assigned to those tasks.
Then, any remaining crew with priority 9 tasks get assigned to those tasks.
Then, any remaining crew with priority 8 tasks get assigned to those tasks.
And so on, all the way down to priority 1 tasks.

This includes replacing any crew with a lower priority number, so if a task has a priority 9 guy already doing it, he can still get swapped with a priority 10 guy if there's one available.

SpaceCat

Walt What are you finding complicated about it?

As it is now it is simply hard to predict what job a soul will go for next - when you have set up multiple squads/roles.
I also suspect that @Equalizer ran into inpredictability rather then a bug.

See how this goes in the next preview that will behave very different - i read from your responens.

What i also noticed is that crew behaviour hardly changed when you leave priority settings standard.
Shields still get powered up very late. Crew still transports energy/ammo across the ship when starting with empty ships mainly because they go for the first powered source first - and not the nearest when it is unpowered.

feeling a bit lonely with testing on interconnected ships here

AnonimusPrime

Walt Idea: Be able to give more than one role to the crew, and assign it to ship status.
For example:
Customize the red crew and call the configuration "all power to the engines", then...
Assign another configuration to the red crew and instead of prioritizing the engines they now prioritize reloading the weapons, and call it "reload the weapons"

Equalizer

Walt Some comments:

Operator priorities seem to have no effect. (Has this been mentioned?) The only way to force certain crew to be operators seem to be to disable operate for other crew.)
Very severe crew task thrashing between equal priority tasks (Need to set all tasks to distinct priorities to reduce crew wandering.) Even with this crew loading weapons seem to swap back and forth between nearby weapons of the same type.
Crew are very indecisive.

Note: Crew choosing to bring power/ammo/missile parts from a far away sources remains the main issue that forces the use of modules (worse cases is when source is over drawn).

It looks really odd to see crew idealing next to a full factory and empty weapon due to crew bring supplies from a far away source.

By the way, there is a noticeable delay to open edit role menu.

Walt

Equalizer Very severe crew task thrashing between equal priority tasks (Need to set all tasks to distinct priorities to reduce crew wandering.) Even with this crew loading weapons seem to swap back and forth between nearby weapons of the same type.

Can you show me an example of this? I'm not sure why it would be any worse than before.

Equalizer Crew are very indecisive.

I haven't experienced this problem, please send me a save.

Equalizer Note: Crew choosing to bring power/ammo/missile parts from a far away sources remains the main issue that forces the use of modules (worse cases is when source is over drawn).

Yeah, that's not addressed in this update.

Equalizer

Walt I've put the saved game on discord under bug-reports.

Walt

clojelo One word, "role decals",

Really cool idea!