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[Hakiki]

Hi

I am pretty new here, both on forum and also with the game.  Curse the hippie elves! Am I accepted as a part of your group now?

Anyway, I don't know if this a feature exists, but I don't think so from what I've found atleast.  My problem now is that while I have gotten my fort up an running fairly well, I am mining out entire z-levels in the search for metal and gems and such.  However, when I do so, I designate up a grid of pathways throughout the entire level, which is all fine and dandy.  The problem occurs when I want to dig somewhere else at the same time.  All my dwarves are diggin on my mining level, and wont do anything else for a long time.

So my suggestion is to implement an option for different dwarves to prioritize mining (or any other designation) on different levels.  Obviously not in a way that would make a single dwarf do 1 digging on one floor, one digging on the next, etc., but if you have 2 or more with the ability to do the same thing, they would focus on different floors if there were designations on different floors.  This could very well fit in in the 'standing orders' menu.  It would greatly reduce micromanaging digging orders as you could designate big chunks at a time and still know that you wouldnt hog all the digging for hours to come. 

Thanks

[RAM]

Good idea, I would certainly like the ability to give different dwarves a preference for different tasks. I am not sure how I would implement it though...

[Duke 2.0]

 Indeed, I would love an area to be designated so that specific miners will go to them. However, know if you block off a choke point to a large designation you don't want mined yet then your dwarves will mine everything but the massive designation. Works well for those pre-planned fortresses.

 Say you want a massive room mined out in two different locations, but you want one done now and the other later. Both rooms are complex enough that you don't want to designate them again. Simply undesignate the entrance to the room you want done later and presto!

[Hakiki]

Yeah I am aware of that, but when I predesignate the entire floor the "easy" way to cut chokepoints is to undesignate along a single line from top to bottom, and one from left to right.  But since the dwarves have a tendency to start at (or work towards) the upper left corner, and then push along a SW-NE diagonal line (I'm sure you know what I mean even if that sounds retarded) even that may leave up to many hundred tiles to keep digging (I do 3 tile wide paths) before my cutoffs really have any effect.  And the hole "cut off one shift-jump down, one shift-jump left, one down, one left" etcis exactly the sort of mm'ing I'm hoping to avoid.  I could ofcourse redesign my grids to make easier chokepoints, but I DUN WANNA!    

[Duke 2.0]

 Unless you have hundreds of access shafts, such designations should be easy enough to block. That is, unless they started to dig.

 In which case yes, this would be a nifty feature.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Congratulations You have won the "Newb who makes original and useful suggestion" award your reward is to not be crucified by forum grognards.  (Seriously they will crucify you if you suggest something obvious like Mine carts).

As for how to implement this, I'm thinking each time create a designation you can set a 'Mining Gang' for it, Mining dwarfs can then be assigned one or more Mining gangs and will only dig their assigned areas.  A new type of designation "change gang assignment" lets you select an area and change all the designations their in-mass without actually re-designating anything.  In addition you could view the Gangs by a Mining manager that would tell how much rock remains un-mined in each gang.

This would have the additional benefit of addressing the long sot after requests of being able to divide mining by skill so veins are mined by the most experienced dwarfs while also allowing more time and space based control.  For example you could design/designate a large area then divide it into several gang areas and limit mining to certain areas by not assigning any dwarfs to some of the gangs.

[Foa]

I am pretty new here, both on forum and also with the game.  Curse the hippie elves! Am I accepted as a part of your group now?

No, but landing a shot in the dark is a good way to become a more respected member.
But, I agree with your suggestion, prioritize tasks!

So, show us more dwarven qualities, I've planned a Marathon Feature Print, then a Lava Poticullus that has a great curtain effect, and a Hall that effectively floods/cleans itself.