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[Rakaneth]

Hello, I'm a newbie. I've started about nine or ten different forts, most of them with invaders-off, just to get a feel for the basic mechanics of the game. I've experimented with some of the more esoteric engineering projects one can get into (like minecart routes, for example).

One thing I am having trouble with in one of my forts is repeating tasks. While I love the manager to death for queuing up finite tasks, I have access to enough resources in this particular fort to leave a task on repeat. I was a little late on getting my textiles industry started and so I am trying to play catch-up, using the wealth generated by my multiple master craftsdwarves (yeah, we're a moody bunch here) to buy out caravans of their cloth and leather goods.

The crux of my question is this: what happens if I set multiple tasks on repeat? I read in the wiki that they're supposed to be cycled, but when I tried this (had a clothier set up with most of the important articles of clothing), he made trousers until he was out of cloth. Is there a way I can set up my clothiers to make complete suits of clothing without building a sweat shop of 12 clothiers? I'd like to get away from using the manager to queue up things I need regularly - I've built small numbers of extra workshops, for example, to permanently produce things like ash and charcoal that I tend to go through like candy.

Second question: when my dwarves do eventually replace their clothes, where do they go? Can I set up a stockpile for them? I read in the wiki that cast-off clothes can be sold to caravans. (What they'd want with clothes my Dwarves have been wearing for years, I do not know....)

Thanks a bunch.

EDIT: second question

[Merendel]

My experience has been repeat jobs in the same shop do cycle automaticly.  When a particular job finishes it moves to the end of the list.  then agian its always possible a DF hack plugin is modifying the base behavior.

If you really want to make sure you have compleat sets of clothing avalible at all times without mucking with the manager constantly I recomend you look into the workflow plugin for DFhack (it comes standard with the most recent version of dfhack)   With it you can configure limits on repeat jobs.   You could tell it for example, that you want to keep between 20 and 30 pairs of trousers avalible at all times.  If stocks fall to 19 or less the plugin will auto resume the repeat task in the workshop till you have 30 in stock and then suspend it agian.   set limits for each type of clothing and your done, it manages itself.

old clothing normaly gets left wherever the dwarf was standing when they decided to swap out for newer stuff.  Eventualy it unclaims and ends up back in a finished goods stockpile.   if you order your clothing bins moved to the trade depot you'll normaly find the worn out clothing in them

[smjjames]

DFhack has the workflow thing that would help in that regard. The only problem is that the clothes tend to wear out as fast as you can replace them or something. Works great for automation of things like brewing since that way, you don't have to keep constant track of things. Not sure about workflow telling the difference between clothing that is worn out and clothing that isn't.

[Rakaneth]

Confirmed - repeated tasks DO cycle, so to get caught up on clothes, I need to build maybe one or two clothier's workshops, and not the thirteen I queued up this morning. Of course, I have a fortress with 198 working adult Dwarves and like 60 kids (lesson learned: using the LNP to change graphics files has fun, preference-resetting effects if not closely monitored) so I could have, if I wanted, built a sweat shop.

Humorous note: I realized something had changed when two things happened when I loaded up this morning: one: BABYSPLOSION in a fort that hadn't seen kids since striking the earth, and two: the appearance of kobolds and goblins in my civ screen and subsequent stream of thieves. So I got a crash course in fortress defense.

While I'm here, another question: why is it sometimes that I can clearly see a river when embarking on a new site - I can even put my embark tiles against or IN it - and find NO river at all on game start? that is irksome, because I am trying to practice the engineering of well construction.

[smjjames]

There are different types of rivers, from brooks with walkable surfaces, to streams, to minor rivers to major rivers.

Maybe you're embarking on brooks? I haven't had the problem with rivers you're describing.

[Rakaneth]

Should that make a difference? I make liberal use of the Find tool when I embark, and I always look for rivers. The sites it returns are brooks. Some I can see on embark, and some I cannot.

In the case of my latest fort, it makes no difference, as I have applied some of the things I learn from obsessively reading the wiki in constructing a screw pump to purify a local murky pool and create a reservoir for my hospital well. However, I want to try some things with machinery and the five windmills I have set up on the plateau at the top of my embark are inconvenient for a power grid base.

[WhimsyWink]

I've noticed embarks in temperate zones where I can't see the water because of the snow .... z-1 and scroll if you recall where your window touched the brook