Workers have too high priority for collecting items
Sorry, there supposed to be a video demonstration, but unfortunately OBS captured only sound and a static image for a reason. :(
It was supposed to show a worker that refused to claim a perfectly safe area consisted of an enemy tile and enemy Archive. I battled it for about a minute, dropping it as close as possible to the entrance tile. Interestingly, it agreed to fortify walls if dropped near one.
Anyway, whenever a worker goes for 'collecting an item' as indicated by its activity, it's not possible to force it out the activity via conventional means, such as dropping near its designated area. They will always return back to that activity, ignoring even fallen minions a tile away!!!
Game Version:
Steam Public
Platform:
Windows
Hi ZzZombo.
Again this doesn't appear to be a bug. Collecting tasks, such as rescuing KO'd minions, etc are the highest priority because that's what seemed intuitive and the majority of players seem to be ok with it. In the situation you're describing it is not just the distance that is taken into account when selecting a task, but also a hard coded variable of importance/priority so i'm guessing that even though another task may have been closer, the AI was deciding that the collection task was still more important.
With that in mind i'll have to decline this ticket as it's not a bug as far as I can tell, however If you feel strongly about this (and think the priorities need re-adjusting), i'd suggest making a thread in our suggestion or general discussion forums and see if anyone else feels the same way.