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[andylatham82]

Hello, I can't work out why my dwarves don't seem to want to mine. They are doing other jobs without a problem. The have access to the areas I'm trying to mine and I have used the labor menu for a couple of the dwarves to make sure that mining is toggled on for them, but still they just do other jobs. Does anyone have any ideas what I can try please?

The arrows show where I've designated as mining areas.

[PatrikLundell]

- One common reason is burrows, in particular civilian alert burrows forgotten after a siege, as new areas typically aren't included in existing burrows.
- Another reason is job priorities, i.e. the buggers decide to take up other jobs rather than what should be their primary job, such as building or hauling.
- Have you verified they've got a pick axe? If you've lost your previous miners in inaccessible locations (e.g. drowned) they typically had their picks with them.
- Uniform clashes. Mining, hunting, and woodcutting jobs have an invisible "uniform" (to give them their tools/weapons), and those uniforms clash with each other and with military uniforms, leading to problems.
- Pathing (doesn't look like the issue here). They have to actually be able to get there (locked doors, removed ramps,...).

I've probably missed a number of possible reasons, but that's a starting set to look at.

[andylatham82]

Ahh I think the problem was either one of job priority or uniform. I picked a dwarf and disabled all labours except for mining and he's now gone off to mine. I'm not sure which of the two problems was the issue, but I'll try switching the other labours back on for him one by one and see if he stops mining.

Many thanks for your help!

[Uthimienure]

In the "d" menu, if you use the "Set Priority" control, you can very greatly influence the dwarves' behavior.  It defaults to "4", with "1" pretty much telling them to get their butts in gear and get it done now, and "7" telling them to do the job whenever they don't have anything else to do.

[Leonidas]

In the "d" menu, if you use the "Set Priority" control, you can very greatly influence the dwarves' behavior.  It defaults to "4", with "1" pretty much telling them to get their butts in gear and get it done now, and "7" telling them to do the job whenever they don't have anything else to do.

Are you sure about that? I always thought that mining priority only determines which tile he goes to once he has chosen to mine, and not whether he chooses mining over some other activity. But I've never tested it.

There's a similar question on the Do Task Now! designation for workshops and levers. From the phrasing and context, I assume that it gives that task priority in the jobs list. But I would love to know for sure.

[PatrikLundell]

The priority seems to mostly affect mining tile selection. I looked in annoyance as my miners harvested, planted, harvested... rather than dealing with the prio 1 mining task (I've got farming set on all dorfs, and harvesting is important enough to recall a dorf en route to a mining location (really annoying when it takes two days to get there)).
However, low prio mining tasks seem to often be kept on the waiting list in favor of hauling, while regular mining (standard prio 4) is often ignored in favor of construction tasks.

The Do Now! orders seem to work in the sense that they're allocated as quickly as possible, before non Do Now! jobs are considered, but that doesn't mean it gets reallocated from the dorf three days away who was the first one to get free to the one who just deposited something in the stockpile next to the critical "PULL TO STOP THE HORDES FROM GETTING IN" lever. However, the introduction of Do Now! was a significant improvement when it was introduced.

[Leonidas]

andylatham82, you might want to reconsider your fortress layout. With such a huge horizontal footprint, your dwarves will spend most of their time walking back and forth instead of doing the work that you want. One of the counterintitive facets of DF is that when a dwarf chooses which task to do next, he doesn't factor in how far he'll have to walk to perform it.

So consider going more vertical. Aim for a cube with lots of ramps or stairs. Your dwarves will spend less time walking, and you'll finish your projects much faster.

[Uthimienure]

In the "d" menu, if you use the "Set Priority" control, you can very greatly influence the dwarves' behavior.  It defaults to "4", with "1" pretty much telling them to get their butts in gear and get it done now, and "7" telling them to do the job whenever they don't have anything else to do.

Are you sure about that? I always thought that mining priority only determines which tile he goes to once he has chosen to mine, and not whether he chooses mining over some other activity. But I've never tested it.

It's not "absolute control" of course, but it seems to work in general that way for me. There are times when extra measures are needed, like turning off other labors.  One in particular is my only woodcutter. We do the tree felling in batches, just occasionally, and even on priority "1" I might need to turn off other labors. If I had 5 woodcutters it wouldn't be a problem.

If I have 8 miners for instance, it's never a problem to get at least 2 on a new mining job.  And in this case I also see that high-priority (low number) will bring more miners quickly to a newly designated large mining area than if it was low-priority.  Especially a dozen separate newly-designated "automine" tiles.

Actually, I'm very happy that we can not control the dwarves' lives and work as exactingly as we would like. That would be too easy and the dorfs would seem to be nothing more than robots, taking away from the draw of this incredible game.  The challenge of finding ways to bend them to my will can be engrossing.  But of course, when their stubbornness results in mass death because a lever TO STOP THE HORDES FROM GETTING IN wasn't pulled... that's another story.

Basically, I've found that having many dwarves assigned to each labor makes things get done fairly efficiently (at the expense of higher skill levels, but that's no big deal for me except in specific instances).

But having rambled on... no, testing things isn't my style so it's all just observations.

[knutor]

Your miner is asleep. Ha! Lookie there, he is on his bed, blink snoring.

Those sand/soil hallways are gonna grow shut, they spit seeds anywhere. Making pathing even farther. Bunk the hairy lil freaks, in a stone layers. Put grazers in tbose rooms or egg layers. Good luck

[Leonidas]

Those sand/soil hallways are gonna grow shut

Is that still true? I thought Toady fixed that by requiring two z-levels for trees.

[anewaname]

Yep, 2 z's needed for a sapling to grow into a tree.