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[Azerax]

Greetings all,

I stopped using the Manager about 4 fortresses ago and have been trying to convince myself to try it again.. but I never really saw it added much benefit other than building specific mandated items (wild boar bone armor rack anyone?)

I understand the big benefit of having profiles for workshops, but I find that my highest skilled dorf usually does the work anyway.

What am I missing?

cheers,
Az

[Girlinhat]

Managers don't make mandates.  Unless the manager is the mayor.  All the manager normally wants is a place to sit...

It's particularly useful for bulk items, like "Make 30 suits of armor, then I'll melt the non-masterwork" and "Traders just left with all my profit, pile on about 150 requests for glorious rope!"

Also it's required to use DFHack's Workflow plugin, which can keep stock levels.  I don't worry about running out of drinks anymore, I just get a manager and then DFHack, "Keep 500 drinks in stock" and it toggles the job on and off as needed.  Works with almost every job, some trouble with things like dying and encrusting, but works gloriously when trying to keep food, drink, and ammo in supply.

[Azerax]

Sorry, I should have been more clear - using the manager to build something that was mandated by someone else.

I didn't know that about inventory levels - I had a stock pile of 1600 bolts, got sieged by Lashers, and discovered I had used them all up.. I'll try it just for that!

Thanks!

[smakemupagus]

i like being able to type "jmq smelt gold 4 smelt silver 4 gold table 16 silver throne 16" or "jmq construct bed 24 wood cabinet 24 rock coffer 24 wood chair 24 rock table 24" a lot, rather than navigating the nested lists in the forge menu somehow, and worrying about how to get the right number of things. 

of course you don't have to type the whole word, so in practice it's less typing than that.

[VerdantSF]

I use the manager all the time to queue up items that have dependencies on others.  So for suits of armor, I queue up the armor, the fuel, and the bars, and eventually everything gets made.  Doing it manually is a pain, because if 1 thing is missing, then something further up the chain gets canceled.  With the manager, when things are canceled, they're really only delayed as the requisite items are also being made at the same time.

[joeclark77]

I use the manager all the time to queue up items that have dependencies on others.  So for suits of armor, I queue up the armor, the fuel, and the bars, and eventually everything gets made.  Doing it manually is a pain, because if 1 thing is missing, then something further up the chain gets canceled.  With the manager, when things are canceled, they're really only delayed as the requisite items are also being made at the same time.

This!

[Matoro]

After the fortress has grown large and there is multiple workshops of same type, I've found that navigating in those menus starts to bo pain, at least if you want to get tje job done efficiently. It's just so much easier order things from manager, who will find empty workshop by himself. Also, mass production. Instead of just putting your carpenter to repeat, you could get an exactnumber of beds you want. Manager is probably the second most useful noble after bookkeeper, especially in larger forts.

[Azerax]

I may be wrong, but I didn't think jobs were processed until the existing job finished, which is not very efficient.

ie: build 25 rock doors has to be completed before build 25 wood beds will start

[VerdantSF]

Nope.  Jobs are issued to available workshops and are processed according to whenever your dwarves get to them.  So things can be done in a very different order from the queue in the manager screen (if the tasks use different workshop types).  I have plenty of masons and only 1 legendary weaponsmith.  When I have weapon orders ahead of rock block orders, the rock block orders are still usually finished first, since there are always multiple masons and multiple workshops available.

[ORCACommander]

nope it is on a per workshop type basis. it is still first in first out though. your example there both would be made concurrently. however if you ordered 30 rock pots and then ordered 30 rock thrones all the pots would be made before the thrones. also note that the order amount is evenly divided amongst all workshops of that type.

[Drazinononda]

Pots and thrones are made at different workshops though, so even those would be done concurrently.

If you had two mason shops and ordered ten rock thrones and ten rock tables, then each workshop would receive five throne orders followed by five table orders. If only one mason goes to work, he'll finish off one workshop first, doing the five of each, then go finish the other five of  each. 

[slothen]

The manager is excellent for ordering clothes production.  You don't want to use all your cloth on socks by setting it to R, but if you want say 60x (socks shoes trousers tunic hood cloak gloves) that would take 42 workshops, and you'd need manually queue each item.  Its much easier to do this from the manager, it would take about 14 orders (max is 30 items per order).  Furthermore, if jobs are canceled due to lack of materials, the manager will remember and keep queuing those jobs instead of you trying to figure out of 5 helmets were made or only 3 before you ran out of steel.  Lastly, accessing the manager and ordering items is exceptionally fast compared to finding the workshop and then ordering the item from the menu.

The manager is NOT particularly suited to situations where you care about quality and you have workshops for high skilled workers and others for low skilled workers, or if you care about the input materials (and there is variance in the input materials).  Masonry is the prime example.  If you have a few workshops for block making restricted to low skilled dwarves, and a few for high skilled dwarves to make furniture out of ore-rocks or rocks of a particular color, the manager won't be useful to you.  Another example would be in metalsmithing.  If I have 9 forges, but only 1 legendary metalcrafter with that job enabled, ordering 90 brass crafts will block all the forges without speeding up production.  Similarly, if you want to decorate all your fresh armor in brass and electrum, you might have a stockpile for armor set to give to one of your multiple workshops.  In this case, the manager would not be helpful.

however, if you need like 30 floodgates fast, and don't care the color or quality, then the manager is right for you!

[Solon64]

I consider the manager to be THE most useful "noble" in a fortress, even above the bookkeeper. I don't care so much exactly what I have in stock til later, but making 20 bedrooms worth of beds, cabinets and such is a breeze with a manager.

If I care about quality and material of items then I wouldn't leave it to a manager anyway, id manually link stockpiles and enter the order by hand. But then again, only nobles and great heroes get special-made goods anyway, so its a rare occurence, my forts value lies in architecture and not in goods :p

Actually, I usually make my bookie my manager as well so I rarely go without either

[anzelm]

All of the above, plus it's nice to be able to quickly asses progress on the queued jobs (anyone else with j-m screen checking OCD?).

[Deepblade]

The noblest deed is to serve your fellow Dwarf. And, if you killed a Fishery worker, that macabre mood will make you a hero.

I check it all the time if I'm waiting on stuff, especially armor. I got lucky in my last fort and had a Vampire Accountant. If I ever get another one I'll window him into a side are of the dining hall. It'll be like a zoo