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[Thorfinn]

My first few days are a nightmare of micromanagement. One of the things that would really help might exist, but I've never found it. Is it possible to set the planter to prioritize taking a task planting seeds/spawn over preparing the next plot? If when they finish the previous task and there was an assigned plot for a seed available, they plant, and if not, prepare new plots?

Thanks!

[IronGremlin]

What actual problem are you having?

If a dwarf could theoretically choose between two tasks you have no way of telling them which task to pick (with the exception of priority designations and workshop jobs).

It's sort of part of the soul of the game that you have limits on how much control you can exert over your dwarves, so generally the better plan is to achieve your goal in some way that doesn't involve explicit instructions.

[Thorfinn]

I was just asking if there was some kind of priority system for planters that I had not found. Queueing up all plots at once and assigning crops as they complete pretty much guarantees nothing will be planted before they finish building all the plots. They may or may not be just running down the job list, taking the first that applies to their assignments. If so, all I'd be doing is looking for a way to bring all planting jobs to the top of the queue, or, equivalently, all the Build Plot jobs to the bottom.

That just seems a common enough thing to want. We have the ability to prioritize digging, chopping, plant gathering, etc., and we can move tasks around for the carpenter. It just seems to be an oversight (?) that planters don't have the same options? And worse, if given free rein, that they would choose to do anything BUT planting?

[IronGremlin]

There isn't and it's not an oversight.

I am just absolutely blowing a gasket over here trying to figure out what you were doing that somehow turned this into a problem - like you really do not need that many farm plots, and they don't take very long to construct. Like, hell, you can only have 200 seeds for a given crop to plant at any given time anyway. Are you trying to just plant a dozen 10x20 plots right out the gate or something? Even with that it seems like you should be able to finish those plots before it screws you...

[Thorfinn]

No, just a few 1x3s. The way things are, as soon as my miners clear out an area on the level above the aquifer, the planters (who have probably been roofing over the cart and the stairs down, maybe gathering plants, depending) I set up 3 1x3s, because I don't want the planter#1 running off doing something else when he finishes. When he finishes, assign plot#1 to plumps. When planter#2 finishes plot#2, he immediately chooses to plant plot#1(1 of 3). When planter#1 finishes plot#3, he takes the task plant plot#1(2/3). When planter#2 finishes planting, he chooses the task plant plot#1(3/3). By the time planter#2 finishes, I need to make sure plot#2 is assigned to plumps so he can take plot#2(1/3). Repeat for the rest of plot#2, then for plot#3. But because of the difference in time, I would rather plot#3(2/3) also plants plot#3(3/3) because it takes longer to get the next plot ready for planting.

I'm just surprised this is at all unusual. Don't most people seek to maximize their early game? Or is it just me?

[anewaname]

To this degree? It might be just you... but I suppose I'm equally intent on getting a door built for everyone and everything to hide behind before dangers arrive.

Maybe "Alt+-" to lower your FPS during the first few days and pause the game at the moments you find critical to getting the seeds in the ground as soon as possible.

[Bronimin]

One planter doing mushrooms on rotation in one 3x5 plot will keep the early fort fed and watered. I only grow plump helmets in winter personally.

If you're on a woodland embark or have wood to spare, 3x5 is pretty much as efficient as it gets for potash fertilizer. Just 4 bits of wood per season to double the yield early on.

[Panando]

I'm just surprised this is at all unusual. Don't most people seek to maximize their early game? Or is it just me?

The real question is why you'd be messing around with planting if you're trying to maximize the early game. If you use most your plants traders will bring bazillions of plants in nice big stacks of 5 and they're very cheap due to being no-quality items and don't use up much trader weight budget.

IMO the only reason to even bring a planter is if for some reason you're hell bent on doing a textiles/paper industry, because for booze traders easily deliver more than can be used.

[Thorfinn]

@anewaname, maybe so. My motto: Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

I already run at 20 or less in that phase of the game. It's just really a pain bouncing back and forth between micromanaging the farms and dealing with cancellation from piercing the aquifer. I already use macros to make digging out the plots prioritized for the farmer to be able to start making a plot after placing no more than one or two wall segments, so like

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so that they open up plots so as to make three buildable as soon as possible.

@Bronimin, I don't remember why I standardized on 1x3s. Might have been some workaround in an earlier version that is no longer needed for all I know.

@Panando, food is the only way I've ever been able to buy out the first caravan. Even embarking with several level 5 dwarves can't produce enough large wooden spiked balls, and the crafts are pathetic until you get much better skill level. Can't get there with mechanisms, either. Yes, after that first caravan I switch away from trading food because it feels too "cheaty". Or maybe I missed a rebalance of goods values? Can it be done without food now?

[Blue_Dwarf]

I was just asking if there was some kind of priority system for planters that I had not found. Queueing up all plots at once and assigning crops as they complete pretty much guarantees nothing will be planted before they finish building all the plots.

It works the opposite way for me. They never construct plots or fertilize if they can plant seeds somewhere.

[Panando]

@Panando, food is the only way I've ever been able to buy out the first caravan. Even embarking with several level 5 dwarves can't produce enough large wooden spiked balls, and the crafts are pathetic until you get much better skill level. Can't get there with mechanisms, either. Yes, after that first caravan I switch away from trading food because it feels too "cheaty". Or maybe I missed a rebalance of goods values? Can it be done without food now?

I normally use food and embark with a +5 cook for this purpose, I just don't get food from planting. I'm personally partial to embarking with a +5 herbalist (for much bigger plant stacks per gather), not saying it's the best strategy I just like having the booze variety from above ground plants, this generates a lot of non-brewable plants and seeds that I cook. Another good source is slaughtering the pack animals. You can also embark with egg-layers, turkeys are the best value for embark points, this can produce obscene amounts of food for a very low amount of embark points and labor (like with a turkey, the dwarf gets to pick up 10-14 eggs, compare that with the effort of growing a plant then harvesting and hauling it, and the plant probably gives like 3 food). You can also embark with turkeys then butcher them for food and skins (consider a turkey is 6 pt, a leather is 5 pt). Hunting, either with hunters or with military, can produce absolutely obscene amounts of food but that's somewhat biome-dependent, a savage biome will be good for huge amounts of food if you succeed in killing the giant beasts rather than the giant beasts killing your dwarves, but a calm biome probably just has some skinny birds that are hard to kill. Finally, there's buying out some of the caravan's food, cooking it, and buying out the rest of the caravan.

[Thorfinn]

I was just asking if there was some kind of priority system for planters that I had not found. Queueing up all plots at once and assigning crops as they complete pretty much guarantees nothing will be planted before they finish building all the plots.

It works the opposite way for me. They never construct plots or fertilize if they can plant seeds somewhere.

I think it might be they find another task the same as what they were doing. If they were planting, they keep planting so long as there are planting jobs. I just think it would be nice to be able to change that, similar to how you can change the order of stuff in your workshops, so long as you have not started producing them yet.

[EDIT] Or it might simply be that assigning a crop to a plot adds all those planting jobs to the queue, and that whatever new plots or fertilize orders you issue are all added FIFO after those. Either way, it would be nice to be able to say Fertilize priority=1, plant priority=2, construct plot priority=3, or whatever order you want for that phase in the fort.[/EDIT]

@Panando, I do that, too. Except for the hunters. 2 +5 growers, 2 +5 miners, 1 +5 cook, 1 +5 herbalist is my standard embark, assuming gathering plants is an option. Same with the birds. 6F2M is common, 2F2M for the rest. Pack animals, yep, usually butcher right after getting through the aquifer, which I'm only a little slower at than your video. Weirdly enough, I get a crapton more cancellation spam than you do. Is there something special about marble blocks? I'm usually just using wood blocks of whatever tree I felled.

I had never thought about cooking up the raw food from the caravan and selling it back to them. Great idea!

[Schmaven]

My first few days are a nightmare of micromanagement. One of the things that would really help might exist, but I've never found it. Is it possible to set the planter to prioritize taking a task planting seeds/spawn over preparing the next plot? If when they finish the previous task and there was an assigned plot for a seed available, they plant, and if not, prepare new plots?

Thanks!

Probably the closest way to do that right now, is to designate all your plots to be built, but suspend their construction.  Then just periodically check the 'Farm Plots' tab of the Places menu to see when the plots have been sewn and then resume construction of the next plots.  Setting a hotkey to zoom to the farms, and another one to zoom back to your aquifer project (or whatever else is the main focus at the time) would make it a relatively smooth process. 

The work priority system of Rimworld sounds like what you're actually looking for.  But I wouldn't ever expect that to be added to Dwarf Fortress, so don't hold your breath.

[Thorfinn]

Thanks, Schmaven. Not sure there is a huge difference between unsuspending a construction and adding a new construction, but it is an option.

Ponando, I watched your vid again at super slow (10%) speed to make sure I understood what was happening. I had not noticed the meeting zone before. Cool. What level does your miner have to be to have a reasonable shot at "gutsing" it down to the caverns? 5 is evidently not enough. I've tried that before.

[Panando]

Weirdly enough, I get a crapton more cancellation spam than you do. Is there something special about marble blocks? I'm usually just using wood blocks of whatever tree I felled.

You shouldn't get hardly any cancellations with proper technique (making sure to not dig out too much at once, and minimizing the amount dwarves can get pushed around), also there's what I call the "hatch trick" for the bottom layer: where instead of walling off the bottom layer, you make a hatch over the downstairs, then continue digging, the hatch stops any water pursuing the miner. Dig down until re-encountering heavy-aquifer, or the caverns, or dig a side-of-the-map drain, with the bottom drain established go back and build the walls, bottom drainage more reliably keeps water at depth 1 than pumping does so produces way fewer suspensions. Also DFHack "autounsuspend" function is awesome.

More back on thread topic, I usually make between 3 and 6 of my starting dwarves career military, if I bring 6 military, the 7th is +5 Herbalist/+5 Cook so I really value those skills, I tend to think that Herbalist is all you need on maps with plants, it produces a lot of food and with enough plants to gather levels very fast. Cooking some of the booze makes very large prepared meals very cheaply.

Now, for a glacier or something, I'd probably just bring quite a lot of garden vegetables to brew, they are cheap and come with free bags, having to dump them out before they can be brewed is only a minor irritation. You need about 40 berries to make enough booze for the starting 7 + immigrants until the caravan arrives, it's 80 embark points but you get 8 free bags, strawberry seeds are cookable. And for food just egg layers.

Ponando, I watched your vid again at super slow (10%) speed to make sure I understood what was happening. I had not noticed the meeting zone before. Cool. What level does your miner have to be to have a reasonable shot at "gutsing" it down to the caverns? 5 is evidently not enough. I've tried that before.

I honestly think this idea is nonsense. I'm sure it used to work in some distant past version of the game, in fact IIRC the thing that made it impossible was dwarves pausing between mining tasks.