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[Shadowex3]

I searched for a bit and I couldn't find anything. Basically it occurs to me that the manager, being a live dwarf, ought to know that when I say I need 20 serrated iron discs if I've got unsmelted iron laying around but no bars then he ought to also order up some bars to be made.

It's not total automation, which would kill a good chunk of the fun, but it makes more sense than needing to add the two orders manually and then keep waiting for the smelter to catch up with the forge.

[Rakeela]

I was just thinking about this earlier myself, and I'd like to second the suggestion.  This would also make more advanced industries easier to start.

Just as long as things don't go as far as auto-cutting trees for fuel.  As much as I like having nifty iron weapons and adorning my fortress with golden statues, I kind of like the elves too.  With the wood appetite some of my forts get I'd end up with my dwarves clearcutting the map while I was busy fiddling with stuff in the lowest levels of the fort.

[Shadowex3]

Like I said, not total automation but something with a one-step limit in existing stockpiles would make sense. If you want to do something, but need to perform a lower level task with stuff you already have in your stocks, then automatically add that to be done by the necessary amount.

[SomGuye]

I'd like to second this!

Maybe make the semi-automation tied to some Noble?

That way you have to earn it.  Plus, things are simple enough with say, only 30 dwarves that you don't need this.

I would love to have that for when I am working my steel industry.  God, iron, flux, fuel, pig iron, fuel, steel.  Easy to lose track of what is going on.

Also, some quick tab of what materials are available, aside from building a workshop and seeing what pops up.
Would love to be able to press "Y" and see that I have 2 zinc bars, 30 steel bars, 15 bars of charcoal, 5 blocks of coke, etcc

[Footkerchief]

The problem is that there's currently no "smelt iron" job -- just "smelt hematite," "smelt magnetite" etc.  Conceivably if you created a generic "smelt iron" job they could end up grabbing some other ore with 20% iron rather than the magnetite with 100% iron.  The AI would have to be smart enough to pick whatever best satisfies the job.

Also this kind of automation might make it unclear how much fuel a job will consume.

[Shadowex3]

I don't see that as very difficult numbercrunching for the ai, if you have specific wishes you'd probably order those done anyway rather than overseer it. As for fuel... I don't quite understand.

[Footkerchief]

As for fuel... I don't quite understand.

It's mainly a concern for new players.  Imagine this scenario:

The player has 10 magnetite, 10 charcoal and no iron.  If the player wants iron discs, they might naively say "oh, I have 10 magnetite, let's make 10 iron discs!" when really they only have enough resources to make 5.  Depending on what jobs the dwarves decide to do first, he might end up with 5 iron discs, or with 10 iron bars.  Basically, the results will be unpredictable if resources run short.

[Shadowex3]

the obvious solution would be to fill the player's orders then.

[forsaken1111]

Possible solution?

Have the number of the item that could be produced with the current (untasked) resources be displayed to the side in parenthesis. The instant you put the order in, and its validated, have those resources tasked so they no longer count.

It would look (in your scenario) like this:

Forge Serrated Iron Disks (5)

Indicating that you have enough material to make 5 only.

[Footkerchief]

^^^ That's a good stab at a solution, but for that number to mean much, all of the resources would have to get tasked as soon as you enter the job.  And currently tasked objects aren't movable, so you could have whole stockpiles that dwarves suddenly refuse to touch.  This could be a real problem if you were, say, trying to simultaneously haul ore from a faraway mine to a stockpile next to the forge -- the haulers COULD bring ore as fast as the forge operator smelts it, but since all of the ore is tasked, the forge operator has to haul each one himself AND will probably ignore the untasked ore that the haulers are leaving next to the forge.

Of course, this problem already happens with mass construction designations.

[Hyndis]

I would like to see some automatic tasks for more items.

For example, perhaps automatically render fat. Automatically smelt ore. Automatically brew. Stuff like that.

[Sowelu]

It might be nice if a type of item could be 'requisitioned' but not 'tasked'.  So if you have 10 iron, and make 10 iron-using tasks, it would say "You've requisitioned 10 iron" and warn you if you tried to make more swords or whatever...but not tie that to any specific units of iron, just the number you have in your stockpile and the number you have tasked.

Would also be nice if, say, you have 12 units of iron now, and you request 10 iron swords and 10 iron shields, with the swords being higher priority.  At first, it will fill sword and shield orders in parallel.  But as soon as you complete a couple of shield orders, it says "Oh wait, I have to save the rest for the higher priority task".  Basically it never queues a task unless there are enough materials available to meet the requisition needs of all jobs above it in priority.