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Author Topic: Labor Management  (Read 1217 times)

Marble Dice

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Labor Management
« on: August 23, 2007, 11:29:00 am »

I realize interface isn't generally worth the time investment once you get things working and a game's final feature set and play-style aren't set in stone.  This's been alluded to before in threads like this and this, and I apologize if there's any formal plans to do something about this problem (There's a LOT of information to go through in searching the forums, the wiki, and the dev notes!), but I tell you what I'd love to death would be...

<<<If>>>

A labor management screen either off of the nits list or in a new entry-point entirely, similar to [m]ilitary-[w]eapons, that would list all the 46 labors, highlight the labors each dwarf is set to do, and let you toggle them.  Obviously 46 labors aren't going to fit onto one screen, but they could be separated into multiple menus such as nits-[p]roduction, nits-cr[a]fting, nits-[h]auling, etc, or I guess a two-list menu ala the custom stockpile settings menu or the prepare carefully menu might work too.

<<<If>>>

Micro-managing your team of haulers and farmers is possible and very effective for off-seasons and current fortress workload (massive furniture expansion, large waste generation, heavy food production) but gets very tedious with larger populations, having to use -select dwarf-[c]-[p]-[l]-edit labors-Space-repeat.  I've taken to giving my haulers special profession names that describe which haul settings they've currently got enabled so I can get a better idea of who's moving what, and where my workforce exceeds my hauling demands.  Does anyone who's been around longer than I have anything to say about solutions to this problem?  Obviously Burrows would help, but it seems that still could leave something to be desired in the mass designation of labor settings.

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mickel

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Re: Labor Management
« Reply #1 on: August 23, 2007, 04:28:00 pm »

I'm all for smarter ways to manage things. A way to define profiles (like Miner, Carpenter, Food Hauler or whatnot) would be nice too, with the primary ones (Miner, Carpenter, Farmer etc.) being predefined.

That'd save a lot of time everytime another batch of five or so Peasants come along.

I love Peasants. I wish you could order more of them.  :)

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I>What happens in Nefekvucar stays in Nefekvucar.