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Author Topic: Unreachable mechanism makes "link" task unperf  (Read 509 times)

Maximus

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Unreachable mechanism makes "link" task unperf
« on: January 05, 2007, 12:59:00 am »

I saw a mechanic of mine walk over to a mechanism that was in a filled magma channel.  He blinked ? for a while, then walked to the floodgate that was supposed to be linked to a lever and stood there forever as though he was linking it.  

However, I think the floodgate already had its mechanism installed and the lever-side mechanism was the one in the channel.  When I drained the channel, the dwarf  promptly left the side of the floodgate, picked up the mechanism, attached it to the lever, and finally completed the task.

I wonder if this isn't what underlies bug #105.

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Ookpik

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Re: Unreachable mechanism makes "link" task unperf
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2007, 05:25:00 am »

Possibly related:

We were talking a few days ago about how a flood can wash stuff into the inaccessible squares of a workshop, maybe you remember.

Well, in my game today, some stone got washed into the bottom left square of a carpenter's workshop.  Just my luck, that stone was tasked for a mechanism.  My mechanic stood totally still for a million years, his task set to "Construct Building."  If I weren't actually watching him on the screen, I wouldn't have had any reason to suspect anything was wrong, since I didn't get a pathing error and his entry on the U menu was normal.

I hope we can figure out a way soon to get stuff out from workshop corners.  But at any rate, it does seem like mechanics can freeze up if their materials are unavailable.

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Maximus

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Re: Unreachable mechanism makes "link" task unperf
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2007, 01:37:00 pm »

Your example may be a coincidence (that it was a mechanic).  Plant gatherers freeze up when trying to gather a plant on an inaccessible tile as well.  

Forewarned is forearmed, at least.  That mechanism remained unlinked for months before I spotted what was going on.

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Toady One

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Re: Unreachable mechanism makes "link" task unperf
« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2007, 08:37:00 pm »

It seems strange that the construction job wouldn't suspend -- the path spam from construction jobs with inaccessible build materials was a common complaint, and the building jobs should be suspended now.  I'm not sure how lever linking acts now when the mechanism is inaccessible, so i can play around with this a bit.
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Maximus

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Re: Unreachable mechanism makes "link" task unperf
« Reply #4 on: January 09, 2007, 03:39:00 am »

I've been studying this issue some more.  This time it was linking up a cage.

I saw a mechanic holding a mechanism linking it to the cage, then finishing that and walking off to fetch the mechanism for the lever end.  However, he got interrupted by sleep.  The next mechanic to take the job started back at the cage, and spent a lot of time linking it again, even though it was already in the cage's 't' menu.  He then went to fetch the second mechanism and also got interrupted.  And the same happened to the 3rd mechanic.

The mechanism attached to the cage has a "TSK" flag even when the task is inactive.  I don't know if that's of any significance.

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Toady One

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Re: Unreachable mechanism makes "link" task unperf
« Reply #5 on: January 09, 2007, 04:58:00 pm »

I guess they are failing to check if the job is halfway completed in a basic way.  It should be a straightforward fix.  The TSK just means the job has a hold on the mechanism that you selected back when you made the job, which for this particular job is independent of the job being taken by a dwarf.  Other jobs are more fluid with their items, which has received some discussion before as to whether that's a good or bad thing.
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