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[CatkinsFTW]

Currently, when a building job is suspended the overseer must manually un-suspend the job.  Sometimes the overseers knows that they will continuously un-suspend a job until it is completed.  For example, when building walls in aquifers actively being pumped out, or when the cancellation was due to a dwarf, animal or material temporarily occupying the building site.
 
I propose a change to the Set Building Tasks/Prefs menu to designate a job as keep trying so that the dwarves will automatically un-suspend the job and add it to the end of the job queue until it is completed, similar to repeated jobs in workshops.  The current menu for a suspended job has 3 options.  I propose either adding a 4th bi-modal option: Suspend/Resume Construction, Try Once/Keep Trying, Remove Building and Done or change the first option to tri-modal: Suspend/Resume/Keep Trying Construction, Remove Building and Done.  In the jobs menu one of these jobs would show up a Attempted X times, so that you can find jobs that really are impossible.  The first time that a job is suspended it generates a suspension message, but after that the dwarf just keeps trying.

Perhaps an option in the init file can make this the preferred mode before suspension, so that suspension is only used when explicitly set by the overseer.  This might be catastrophic as all the dwarves attempt some fatal construction one after the other.

A better synonym for keep trying might be persist or persistent.

I think that this change would remove some of the tedium and micro-management from tasks like wall construction in aquifers, without changing the amount of work or time taken by the dwarves to accomplish the task.

 

 

[GreatWyrmGold]

Doesn't it defeat the purpose of commanding dwarves not to build something if they then go and build it after a while? A better solution would to get them to not suspend it unless there's a good reason not to (something in the way, a magma flood, etc).

[CatkinsFTW]

GreatWyrmGold you are correct, but I think you misunderstand my intent.

When you suspend a job it it stays suspended.

When a dwarf suspends a job and you don't like the reason, then you tell them to persist. 

If the dwarves always made good decisions about when to suspend a job this change would be unnecessary, but sometimes you have special knowledge.  When a dwarf suspends a job due to 2+ water they don't know if the water is rising to 7/7 due to permanent flooding or it is just a temporary obstruction due to pump fluctuation.  The aquifer is the better of the two examples I provided, where I know that a Novice swimmer will never drown and eventually complete the wall if they keep trying, but it is tedious to un-suspend the job 10 times.

 

[GreatWyrmGold]

So...you're suggesting that there be some kind of new designation that  keeps the building from being suspended? Sounds like a good idea, but you might want to change the title for people who read the first paragraph or two and then skim the rest because between that and the title they're pretty sure they know what the suggestion is. They might miss something, and think you were refering to some kind of order in the 'o'rders screen.

[Muddy Mudstone]

it is tedious to un-suspend the job 10 times.

...10 times per wall tile, per z-level. You're not wrong it's tedious. I think this is a very good idea.

Here's an alternative idea, though: make pumps work better. Currently the only tile you can build on without (much) auto-suspension is the one directly in front of the pump (and when you've finished building a wall there, the pump will stop working). Intuitively I expect that if I add multiple pumps, their combined power will suck water in from further away, but this doesn't happen. So they could be given an area affect, or perhaps it could be made possible to attach pipe sections to the front of pumps in order to vacuum water out of those hard-to-reach corners.

[GreatWyrmGold]

On one hand, it would be nice if pumps could clear out aquifers better. On the other hand, try four pumps, one on each side; and this kind of designation would be useful for other things, without creating pumps that magically suck up water two or three tiles distant.

[CatkinsFTW]

GreatWyrmGold, how about "Order dwarves to persist after they choose to suspend a build job.(Think aquifer walls)"?

Muddy, I don't care if the job is time consuming, difficult or dangerous for the dwarves,  designating it should be easy for for the overseer.     

[Muddy Mudstone]

On one hand, it would be nice if pumps could clear out aquifers better. On the other hand, try four pumps, one on each side; and this kind of designation would be useful for other things, without creating pumps that magically suck up water two or three tiles distant.

You try four pumps, one on each side, when you're trying to sink a constant-diameter shaft through anything up to 20 layers of aquifer. The design can't be like that, there's no space, the pumps have to go in the middle - or rather the single pump, since with the current physics using extra pumps achieves 0. I don't think a system where extra pumps do more pumping should be dismissed as "magic". The problem is the quantisation of water, or something ... only one bit of it can move per frame.

Getting back to the OP's suggestion, the "keep trying" designation might be useful for other things, it's true. Can't immediately think of any, though. OK, I guess if your mason has a cat who likes sitting on half-built walls.

[10ebbor10]

Maybe the problem doesn't lie with the job construction , but with the aquifers themselves. WHich have kinda silly behaviour right now.

Though I can agree such I feature can't hurt. (Except in an aquifer situation, where 100 walls being unsuspended/ suspended every tick can create some fps problems).