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[vanatteveldt]

Dear developers, fellow fans,

I apologise before hand that I have not read through all the suggestions here, and much of what I say has probably been said already. I love this game and this is purely meant to help fix what I find as frustrating in the control of the game. I am not a seasoned veteran, so I might miss some obvious way of doing stuff better within the current interface, but on the other hand I feel that my suggestions as a a newb that has played long enough to be over the initial learning curve can be insightful because I have not found ways to work around all my problems. I feel that these suggestions are not examples of the famously steep learning curve of DF, but rather of repetitive micromanagement that does not really reflect substantive choices.

That said, what irritates me in the control of the game are (in order of increasing complexity):

1) coffers. I lay out nice bedrooms for my dwarfs, but I have to "mass procuce" them if 20 more dwarfs arrive. Cabinets and beds and doors all go easily and are a matter of b-{f,b,d,}-move-enter. Coffers, however, are mixed with bags, and the order is determined by distance, which can vary from bedroom to bedroom. So, if I place 20 coffers, I have to read through the list every time and make sure to select a coffer instead of a bag. Suggestion: make the coffer and bag menus separate.

2) stock. I use the stock screen a lot. I look at what plants I have and then give out processing/milling/etc jobs. I look how much cloth I have and give sewing orders. I look at which gems I have and give cutting orders. I look at what stones and bars I have and give smelting/forging orders, etc. For me, the stock screen is one of the most insightful screens for managing my fortress. However, the stock screen has a non-obvious ordering (eg not alphabetical, it seems to be categorised but the categories are not shown explicitly) and I have  a big screen so the "*" doesn't really help me: I need to press the down arrow like 20 times to get to bars, etc. Suggestion: Categorize the stock screen the same way as the stockpile menus, and allow me to browse by subcategory. That way, to find out how much bars I have I would do something like: z, right arrow to stock, enter, b (bar/block). Alternatively or in addition, have a search menu like in the "new job" menu, so I can just type "tetra" and immediately see how much tetra I have for smelting.

3) jobs., esp. farming, cooking, processing etc. I like setting up and micromanaging a fortress (otherwise, I don't think this game is the right choice). However, when the fortress runs, I would like to be able to concentrate on other stuff, like exploring caverns, digging, military expeditions, megaprojects, etc. So, I would love to be able to automate the 'routine jobs', especially connected to the food and clothing industries. What I currently do is assign perpetual 30 dink, 30 meal jobs and periodically check to see if I have plants that need processing, but that is not very efficient, I don't really get a lot out of the plants that need milling and processing, and if I forget to check for a year because I am designing something cool the plants just sit there. Same for the plant -> thread + dye -> cloth cycle. Suggestion: like fishing, assign a "process/cook/distill plant" job immediately when a new plant is harvested. Use the kitchen screen to assign proportions, e.g. I could say to assign plump helmets to "50% brewing, 25% cooking" and have 25% left over for eating raw. Use this proportional either systematically or stochastically to assign the jobs.

4) jobs on repeat. AFAIK, a job on repeat is cancelled if e.g. the material runs out. I would love to be able to tell my still to just brew a drink whenever the distiller can find something to distill, or my workshop to alternate milking and cheese making whenever there is something to milk or make cheese from. Suggestion: make repeating jobs not cancel if impossible, but simply break for e.g. 30 "player" seconds, and alternate two repeating jobs such that after one is finished it moves to the bottom of the queue (like repeating orders in Civ IV are handled). If (3) is implemented this becomes less urgent and vice versa.

5) workshops and the manager. Some workshops can do multiple things, like a farmers workshop that can process plants but also be used for milking and cheese making. I would like to be able to use one workshop (near the fields or plant storage) to do the plant related stuff, and another for the dairy stuff. currently, AFAIK, if I have two workshops and issue a "process 20 plants" order, the 20 plants will be divided over the two workshops, even if one of the workshops is unable to do the job, e.g. because it is profiled to be available only to the dairydwarf, or because if accepts only from a stockpile with other material. The same holds for e.g. stonecrafting, bonecrafting and other workshops that can participate in multiple industries. Suggestion: easy: exclude a workshop from manager orders. More complex: exclude a workshop from certain manager orders. This suggestion might no longer be needed if (3) or (4) are implemented

I hope this helps!

Kind regards,

- -Wouter

[10ebbor10]

I agree with most of these. And yeah, there are probablu similair posts.

3) I believe there are mods to alleviate this problem. You'd add a list of stocks in the program, and whenever something dipped below that the program would automatically que some more in the manager.

4) I believe that repeating jobs are already alternated. Not sure though.

[Putnam]

Bags count as coffers.

DFhack solves some of those.

[toomanysecrets]

1) To work around this, make a stockpile for bags only that is further away from your bedrooms than your normal furniture stockpile. BAM! Coffers are always at the top of the list.

2) Start using the search plugin in this thread. Only works for 34.11 in conjunction with dfhack r2 (the most recent dfhack NOT the one included in Lazy Newb Pack)

3&4) You can use dfhack's "workflow" command to automate a lot of jobs.  I don't use it, or I'd tell you exactly how it works.

[vanatteveldt]

Thanks for all the great suggestions for workaround, I will experiment a bit with them!

I still feel that they are workarounds, and that the game should be enjoyable without messing around with plugins or dfhack, but I guess that can be seen as part of the learning curve :-). Still, I feel that the developers should be able to easily add some interface options that will make it a lot easier to manage a fortress...

Thanks,

Wouter

[10ebbor10]

developer

Just one guy.