Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Descan]

I'm sure it's been thought of, but we've all seen the problem of dwarves, especially miners, mining out half the bedrooms then zipping all the way across the hall to mine out half the dining hall, then going up a few layers to mine out half the stockpile.

Basically, the dwarf has ADD.

And I thought of a fairly simple way to fix it, which would be an alternate designation. A priority mining job, or possible an overarching modifier for the designations menu to prioritize this area, say pressing a capital P (Is P used in the designation menu?)

So you could prioritize what you need immediately, say the bedrooms, while still being able to lay out the rest of your fort and not have to baby-sit your dwarf in terms of cutting off access to the dining room designation until he's done the bedrooms.


I'm sure we could all think of other things that could use a priority modifier, like building (though at least constructions have a "last designated is first priority", which is easy to work with)


Just a thought, simple enough. :3

Edit: With the batch idea it's simpler. You'd designate everything like normal, then you'd select a "batch" command from the designation menu, and box-select things you want to be in a single batch together. Once you've designated all your batches, there's a prioritization screen where you can move a batch to be a higher priority or a lower priority, as well as being able to rename them to make things easier to remember.

[Pinstar]

To expand on this, I'd like to see the ability to prioritize different labors.

So for example:
Carpenter
Wood Hauling
Wood cutter.

If there are any active carpentry orders, the dwarf will do those jobs first. Once there is nothing to do that requires carpentry, the dwarf will look to see if there is any wood that needs hauling and haul it. Once all wood is in its proper place, the dwarf will go off and start cutting down trees.

Of course, the moment they cut down one tree, the wood hauling labor will take priority so they'll stop cutting, take the log they just cut and haul it to an appropriate stockpile.

[Descan]

Perhaps also have a "batch" system of sorts. Basically telling your dwarf "Once you start cutting this tree down, you better cut these other trees I've also designated as part of this batch".

It'd work for mining too, you'd set the bedroom area as one "batch", the dining hall as another "batch", etc, and have a priority list, perhaps on a seperate screen, of which batch needs to be done first. Being able to modify it on the fly as priorities shift (like a surprise 30-dorf migrant wave. Suddenly you need those bedrooms now instead of later)

[Maklak]

A simple system for priorities would be to have two sets for each designation: priority and non-priority. Non-priority would only be touched if priority is empty. But I like your batch idea better. Designate a bunch of things, then add and name a "batch" on top of it like a burrow, name it and have a screen with butches, the number of remaining jobs in each and their priorities.

Still, the designations system we have now was much improved over the original one. Workers will usually choose designations inside a 16x16 square rather than the old vertical line by line and usually go for whatever is adjacent to where they're standing first, so time wasted on walking is reduced.

[MrWiggles]

Things like this are planned.

ToadyOne and ThreeToe has spoken to making Job priorities like this exist through the various guild leaders.

[Descan]

Do you have a link for where they said that?

[Matoro]

Yeah, job priorities are going to get an overhaul in the next release. I believe there is something like that in bay12 site and in DFtalk #21.

[Babylon]

I know job priorities drive me nuts.  Not just what miners choose to mine, but also that trading at the depot, recovering wounded, and feeding and watering wounded seem to be very low priority tasks.  I'd also love to be able to tell dwarves to haul perishables before non perishables.