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[PatrikLundell]

I'm at my first attempt trying to use the (relatively) new manager/workshop order system so previous experience is very close to zero.
I'm trying to come up with a way to always brew all brewable plants EXCEPT pig tail and rope reed. For those two I want only a small amount to be brewed, while most of the produce goes into thread production.

However, as far as I can see, you can either specify a specific source material in the order, or all matching ones, not all except these ones. Have I missed something, or will it have to be done using a specific source material based order for each plant, with added conditions only on the two exceptions? (I'm asking about the workshop manager interface specifically: I'm aware you can achieve what I'm after using stockpile linking and separate workshops).

Edit: I also seem to do something wrong with orders to check seasonally/monthly, since they generate constant cancellation spam, even though I've set up the condition that they should have something to work on (except shearing/milking, which doesn't allow checking for inputs). I had expect them to check once per time interval and not start silently if material is missing, or start and then stop silently when running out of material to work on, not generate cancellation spam every few days.

[Iamblichos]

The only way I have found this is set those plants to "No Brew" using the Kitchen/Plant settings.  This doesn't let them brew a little, though - it's a Boolean yes/no, I'm afraid.  Otherwise you just have to micromanage the hell out of it, re-enabling brewing, setting a limited number of brew jobs, then turning them off again and monitoring how much is left in the stockpiles.

[PatrikLundell]

Thanks. I was afraid that was the case. So far the manager stuff has turned out to be a disappointment with a potential but no delivery.
It looks like I'll have to go back to the pre upgrade practices (with it's attendant ignoring of production that just requires too much management to be worth bothering with). The materials selection addition is useful, though.

[lazygun]

You can link manager orders to particular workshops. Maybe you could have two distilleries: one linked to a stockpile that doesn't accept pig-tails and gets the brew-all order assigned to it. The other gets the order to brew a pig-tail or two every month provided there is sufficient excess for the cloth industry.

[freeze]

I use the same multiple pile technique to mill dyes with occasional jobs for flour. To save space and route hauling jobs just so I use one workshop and link the appropriate stockpile as needed.

[PatrikLundell]

Sigh... So much for stating I'm looking for how to do it with the manager and NOT through workshop linking.

[freeze]

For me pretty much everything goes through the manager. I offload stuff to work orders when it fits, which for my typical setup is a lot. But yeah, if you can't get it working with work orders, try moving those into a pile-workshop chain that will accept manager orders. Leave the others in a pile/workshop with a workshop order set up and manager orders disabled, then use the manager with material specification to do rum and spirits manually.

Another alternative would be production orders for each type of ingredient that you have (if product conditions works with specific inputs -- I haven't tried that personally) which should allow you to set desired stock levels for each drink type.

Not saying the work order system is 100% working, just that it can be made to work with practically any configuration.

[timotheos]

Depending on your plant selection you could only grow fruit which could then be auto brewed. Then your plant brewing (of only the cloth plants) could have a high material start threshold. Throw in some cave wheat/sweat pods for milling as well if you want.

[Pancakes]

Think this might be a workaround example:

1) Set an order to brew 10 drinks with pig tails when 100 are in stock
2) Set an order to process 90 plants when 100 are in stock
3) Have both checked daily/monthly/whatever

In this way, a small order is set to brew pig tails while simultaneously, a large threshing order is placed -> Brew a small amount, thresh a large amount for thread every now and then when there's a large enough surplus.

You might not want those exact numbers, because AFAIK dwarves usually don't use exactly 1 plant in most processes that would constitute job orders. Also, for the condition, set the material for the reagents to be pig tail plant (c->r->m->pig tail plant)

[Repseki]

Sigh... So much for stating I'm looking for how to do it with the manager and NOT through workshop linking.

If you really want to avoid stockpile linking that badly you should just use DFHack's Workflow.

The new work conditions aren't perfect, but they are damn sure a big jump in the right direction.

[PatrikLundell]

Do you have any suggestion for how to phrase a question about a mechanic so that is abundantly clear the information sought is about that mechanic, not more or less clever ways to avoid using the mechanic in question?

[Sanctume]

Without linking stockpile to workshop, I am wondering if brewing job follow the behavior in cooking where the next ingriedient seems to be selected by distance to the kitchen. 

Goal: Brew all, and limit pig tails. 
Or, may I phrase that as brew pig tails last when other brew-ables are available?

So, without linking stockpile, I would micro manage 2 separate stockpile.
Stockpile 1: Plants:Pigtails.
Stockpile 2: Plants and Fruits, no Pigtails.

I would then arrange the following buildings in a flat layout:
[Still] [Stockpile 2] [Farm plot] [Stockpile 1] [Farmer's Workshop]
My theory is that the brewer will start brewing items on Stockpile 2 first, before using any pig tails in Stockpile 1.  And if new plants and fruits are placed on Stockpile 2, those will be brewed first than pigtails if choosing what to brew is based on distance from the Still.

[Fleeting Frames]

Work orders questions and suggestions thread suggests that you can have multiple start conditions.

So, something like what Not Avenger said would work - another variant could be to order to brew whenever there's less than ...5? pig tails AND rope reeds in stock, and order to tresh when there's more than 5 of either of those.

The efficiency of this would of course depend on stack size, grower/herbalist skill and fort layout.

[Goatmaan]

I'm still on 40.19, so this is just a guess...

Can you set the output to keep just a few say 5 whip vine wine?
Can't remember what pigtails make...but 5 of those too.
If they get drank, another brew job of them gets added.
Or am I way off here?

  Goatmaan

[DeKaFu]

Do you have any suggestion for how to phrase a question about a mechanic so that is abundantly clear the information sought is about that mechanic, not more or less clever ways to avoid using the mechanic in question?

Well, your original question was pretty much answered: No, there's no way to achieve the situation you outlined using only the manager interface.

Furthermore, it is not actually possible to specify a particular type of plant for brewing. That's done through the (d)etail option, which isn't available for brewing or any of the other jobs that use plants. It's important not to get it mixed up with (c)onditions, which are only the conditions that must be met to trigger the order starting. You can have a job trigger based on the number of pig tails, but that job won't necessarily use any of those pig tails as reagents.

For your second question: Conditions that are checked monthly only consider whether or not the conditions are met at the precise second of the check, and if so, trigger the order to "active". Once an order becomes active, it will keep generating jobs until it's filled, regardless of item stocks or time passed. Condition checks only happen when the order is inactive, because they are start conditions, and the game logic dictates there's no reason to check whether an active job needs to be started again until it has finished.

So if you have 11 plants at the beginning of the month, your "brew 10 plants when plants > 10" will switch over to "active". If 9 of those plants are then eaten by dwarves, the job will brew 2 plants and then continue spamming brew jobs until it can finish the other 8. Even if another month passes, it won't bother checking the conditions again until it has successfully brewed the 10 drinks you asked for.

At least, that's been my experience so far. It's actually a fairly desirable behaviour if you really need a certain amount of something because it powers through supply interruptions, but it's pretty clunky for background automation.