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[TCHJ3K]

So I have one glassmaker, two forges (one of which has "Collect Sand" as a repeat task) and I try to queue some stuff up through the jobs screen. And what happens? It queues tasks up on both forges at once, bumps the Collect Sand task down the list, and then keeps stopping production because the stupid dwarves have stopped collecting sand. ARGH.

Is there any simple way to make sure I only get jobs queued up on *one* forge and my dwarves *don't* stop gathering sand, or do I have to just manually add tasks only to the forge I want in use? Because that gets really old really fast when I'd trying to create a whole assload of glass trap components and stuff...

[RPB]

Go to your sand collecting furnaces and add 10 repeat collect sand jobs. If I recall correctly the manager will still cheat and squeeze in an 11th production order job even though you've technically filled the queue on that furnace, but you'll only have to put up with 1 job there for every 10 bags of sand you make.

[Hyndis]

Order the tasks so you collect sand first, then produce the item second.

For example:



Collect Sand(30)
Make green glass blocks(30)
Collect Sand(30)
Make green glass blocks(30)
Collect Sand(30)
Make green glass blocks(30)


Tasks are done in the order in which they're listed, so it'll first do a batch of sand, then a batch of blocks, and then back to sand.

[Derakon]

The problem with that approach is that your dedicated glassblower dwarf will be wasting half his time collecting sand. In an ideal glassmaking arrangement with a skilled glassblower, you need two or three dedicated sand-collecting furnaces to keep one glassblower occupied full-time.

[Hyndis]

Have multiple glass furnaces, so when the collect sand order goes out it will be almost instantly completed by a swarm of peasants. Then when the sand has been collected the only tasks in the queue for each furnace would be the ones to make glass.

Yeah, the glass maker might fill a few bags of sand, but so long as you have an adequate labor force to quickly collect sand for all the furnaces, its all fine.

[Martin]

I usually make 4 forges and only queue glass production at one. The other three have 10 collect sand jobs repeating, as RPB suggested.

Any glass jobs will get queued on the 4th. I'll usually only put two of the 4 on magma and the other two as regular glass forges since the magma forges won't work for fey moods, so I cover that eventually as well.

I've run as many as 8 forges on magma before and doing the 30 glass blocks/30 sand works pretty well then. If you have enough forges, there's pretty much always work for your glassmaker at one of them (or two legendary glassmakers, even). Keeps them from getting quite as cluttered as well since the sand jobs don't leave anything in the building to slow the worker down. You need a fuckton of item/furniture haulers to work the sand though. For 8 forges, with sand 50 tiles away, I'd say probably 30+ peasants to keep all 8 fed and get all the bags/blocks out again.

[Porpoisepower]

Is sand collection a type of hauling?

[AncientEnemy]

it uses the Item Hauling labor. i usually turn that off on my main glassmakers

[Kanddak]

For every magma glass furnace I make two or three regular glass furnaces for sand collection.
In the sand-collection furnaces I put ten collect-sand orders, with nine of them suspended and the tenth on repeat. This means I just suspend or unsuspend that tenth job when I want to toggle sand collection for a given furnace.
When they are filled up with ten orders, the job manager will not force in an eleventh order as RPB suggests. So once I have my sand-collection glass furnaces set up the way I want them, I can make glass orders from the job manager as much as I like, and they will go only to the magma glass furnaces. When I'm training jewelers, I set the magma furnaces to repeat making raw green glass.

You do have to keep an eye on the operation, because a legendary glassmaker will go through sand faster than even three sand-collection furnaces will supply it, but when he leaves to take a drink, your sand collectors will end up cancelling their jobs for lack of empty bags and you'll have to requeue them, making sure no orders to make glass get spots on the regular furnaces and consume fuel.

[Martin]

You do have to keep an eye on the operation, because a legendary glassmaker will go through sand faster than even three sand-collection furnaces will supply it, but when he leaves to take a drink, your sand collectors will end up cancelling their jobs for lack of empty bags and you'll have to requeue them, making sure no orders to make glass get spots on the regular furnaces and consume fuel.

Make more bags. Seriously, if I'm doing a glass megaproject, I'll level up a legendary leatherworker on bags and a legendary weaver/clothesmaker on bags. 1200 bags isn't out of the question.

[Hyndis]

I've found its a whole lot less fuss to simply alternate collect sand and make green glass jobs. I prime the pump with a few extra collect sand jobs, so that there will always be a couple extra bags of sand around just to prevent the green glass job from being canceled.

Set up about 4 magma furnaces like this, and you can ignore it forever. It will produce endless amounts of whatever glass item you want until the end of time.

[forsaken1111]

So... problem solved? Alternate collect sand and make glass jobs, but have item hauling off on the dedicated glass blower. While the peasants are collecting sand, he'll be drinking in the meeting room or doing whatever else you have him set to do. When they're done, he'll crank out 30 blocks faster than you can fill an infirmary with magma.

[Shakma]

That will slow down the glass production a bit.  The key is tons of bags as was said before.  Great way to train on leather making and you can collect sand right from the start before you've set up a magma glass furnace.  That should give you a nice sand stockpile at the start.  Use lots of haulers and occasionally dump the bags out of the sand collecting furnaces to keep them going fast.

[Zaranthan]

Actually, if you set up multiple glass furnaces with the alternating jobs/no item hauling method, the glassmaker will just hop down the line while he waits for the peasants to do their jobs. He has to walk a few tiles to get the sand, anyway, so it's not a significant impact.

[Hyndis]

Actually, if you set up multiple glass furnaces with the alternating jobs/no item hauling method, the glassmaker will just hop down the line while he waits for the peasants to do their jobs. He has to walk a few tiles to get the sand, anyway, so it's not a significant impact.

Exactly. While he's making one piece of raw green glass, the other three furnaces are collecting sand. When he's finished, there are now green glass jobs up on the queue for those other furnaces. And if you build a 2x2 block of furnaces he has to walk a whole 3 spaces to get to the next furnace. Doing it with this method means you don't need to build a ton of bags to store the sand. Really, you don't need to make any bags at all. I have all the bags I could ever need through buying the occasional seeds and dye from traders, then I reuse the bags for sand.