(search didnt yield any results, but admitedly I suck at forming proper search phrases)
I'd like to discuss one problem that a typical overseer bumps into quite frequently. Namely that is, every workshop is treated as equal. Currently, we are able to make workshop require workers to have a certain skill. Truly a godsend when your novices would otherwise waste materials on inferior quality items. The system though, is a stop-gap solution, solving only a part of the problem one has with managing larger orders versus multiple workshops.
DF has many workshops that have multiple of different task handled by different proffesions. The way things are, its really hard to have a looped production order AND a managment order being done at the same time. An exploity solution, one I have no doubt many a veteran figured out himself, is to fill the workshop with 10 copies of the same looped order. This definately works, however it is :
1) a workaround solution
2) error prone, as those looped orders will be cancelled upon reaching material shortage. Many player tantrums abound.
The other problem is the extremely annoying problem I'd like to call "1 armorsmith, 1 weaponsmith and two forges with 1/2 weapon, 1/2 armor orders." Many times, because the manager orders are pretty simple and have no concern for efficiency, you will stumble upon a situation where there are many workshops with topmost jobs requiring one specialist. While said person does a task at one place, the other workshops with such orders stay idle, other specialists being unable to do anything since their tasks are not on the top. Only after a full batch of orders from one shop is completed, will they be able to get back to work. This is double frustrating when your working specialist goes on your typical Dwarf 2-month R&R, stalling the production completely. If a player wants to kickstart the production, he has to bump orders from workshop manually, one at the time. Micro-intensive, pointless, and frankly and pardon the french, fucking annoying.
The solution I propose is simple. Workshop profile should allow players to disallow the workshops from taking orders requiring certain skills.
This way, when an order is issued, it doesnt just mindlessly issue x workshops 30/x orders, but issues those production orders to workshops that allow the proffesion which is used in the reaction.
An example:
6 craftsdwarf shops. 4 of them have blacklisted bonecrafting, (the other ones have the other skills blacklisted). Fortress overseer mandates 10x30 bone bolts to be made, because, unfortunately, thats how they work. 4 out of the 6 are ignored, and a batch of 300 bone bolts [5]'s are eventually made from 2 workshops.
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Q: You shouldnt care about quality or efficiency, just throw more dwarves at the job
A:I could also assign every task manually, but whats the point? Just because one can power through, expending lots of time and attention, doesnt mean that there is no progress to be made.
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Q: Toady will probably never implement this, (ramble on how the dev cycle works, blabla)
A: I doubt and honestly don't expect Toady to dump everything hes been doing right now and do this instead. While as a relative coding layman this seems like a simpe this to do, I do not have a nearly long enough stick up my ass to believe it would be so. If Toady ever gets to reworking workshops and/or manager and gives the forum a quick search and this pops up, it will be worth it.
Cheers.
Author
Topic: Workshop job preferences. (Read 1142 times)