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[Hyndis]

This is a relative minor point, more of a gameplay mechanics suggestion.


One thing I would like to see is that if a job cannot be completed due to lack of materials and the job is on [R]epeat at a workshop, the job will not be removed from the queue. The job will be skipped and moved to the bottom, and the next one up will be done.

This would allow a lot of options for making a great deal of your fortress automatic.

For example, making tasty roasts.

Have fields where you can grow cave wheat, sweet pots, and quay bushes. Have several mills/quens, farmers workshops, and kitchesn.

Put a mill plants task on [R]epeat. Then in the farmer workshop have process plants to barrel [R] and process plants to bag [R]. In the kitchen, prepare lavish meal [R].

You will probably get a lot of cancelation messages, but you can turn off that spam in the options so its not an issue. The result would be that farmers would automatically plant, harvest, and store crops. If barrels are available the sweet pods will be made into syrup. If bags are available then bags of quay bush leaves, cave wheat flour, and sweet pod sugar will be made.

These ingredients will then all be combined in the kitchen automatically with the roasts hauled away and stored for eating or trading.

This workflow will be interrupted often, but thats okay. If you run out of barrels for a few seconds the entire process will not grind to a halt. You will get a few cannot complete task messages until the kitchen frees up some barrels. Same deal with bags. Or even plants if you mill/process all plants, and the production will resume next harvest without any intervention from the player.


You could set something up for other things as well, automating a huge number of tasks in your fortress and doing so with allowing a ton of customization as for what tasks you want repeatedly attempted indefinitely.

[SirHoneyBadger]

This idea is studded with platinum spikes of goodness.

[sproingie]

If this hasn't been suggested a million times, then I'd damn well like to suggest it a million times.  Perma-cancellation of repeated tasks has got to be the single most annoying thing after digging into microcline.

[SirHoneyBadger]

No, the most annoying thing is resetting all those perma-cancellations.

one by one by one by one by one by

[Pilsu]

I think automation should be handled with the work orders system. That includes any "repeat until out of material" orders. While needing a bit of fleshing out, it's a bit underutilized as is

[SirHoneyBadger]

I don't think too many people are taking the time to learn it, yet, either. Not with the new version coming.

I know I've been playing for years, and there are still plenty of things I don't know about DF, but I'm not prepaired to commit the necessary time to learn them until we make that shift.

Is there a way to order "repeat infinitely whenever possible, until told not to"? I'd be happy enough with something like that, until we hit the cutover anyway.

[Hyndis]

Is there a way to order "repeat infinitely whenever possible, until told not to"? I'd be happy enough with something like that, until we hit the cutover anyway.

No. The closest you can come is to queue up pages and pages of sets of 30 jobs in the job manager page. But while you can queue up a very large number of jobs its still a finite number of them and eventually those jobs will be completed.

I would love to just have repeated jobs that are canceled due to lack of materials not be removed from the workshop queue.

This solves all of the automation problems and allows almost limitless customization all at the same time.

[Hyndis]

I think automation should be handled with the work orders system. That includes any "repeat until out of material" orders. While needing a bit of fleshing out, it's a bit underutilized as is

This would probably be ideal, yes. But there is currently no way to do that.

IIRC, being able to set up conditions to order more items to be made is on the eternal suggestions voting list.

If booze < 300 then brew booze.
If iron bolts < 1000 then forge iron bolts.
If quay bushes > 0 then process plants to bag.

Stuff like that.

[Arrkhal]

I'd only want that if it can be set to stay or not.  90% of the time, when I set a job to repeat, I want it to go away after the material is used up.  I just consider it a "use up the rest on this job" command.  Like I'll make a certain number of beds, then order the carpenter to make bins on repeat to clear out the wood pile.

[jfs]

This is essentially "perform the job whenever there are materials for it", which already exists for certain jobs, through the standing (o)rders menu. So this is essentially a call for generalising that mechanism, and controlling which workshops participate in the automatic job creation.

[Darkond2100]

[Hyndis]

This is essentially "perform the job whenever there are materials for it", which already exists for certain jobs, through the standing (o)rders menu. So this is essentially a call for generalising that mechanism, and controlling which workshops participate in the automatic job creation.

Yes, thats correct.

IIRC, Toady plans to put a lot more jobs to be automated in the standing orders menu, but its still not every job. Seems easier and faster for him, and more useful for the players, if the tasks would not cancel. Just skip to the next tasks in the queue, put the task that ran out of materials at the bottom, but get back to it when it cycles through the workshop queue again. Now everything can be automated!

Like lets say I want to decorate everything in my fortress with both green and clear glass.

I set up everything in all of the workshops, put things on repeat, and if I run out of a resource for a few moments the entire supply chain will not break down, forcing me to reset everything. It will just keep on chugging away happily so long as I can feed wood into the machine for the pearlash. And if I do run out of wood to throw into that glass making factory it only pauses, and then automatically resumes once more is available. The entire thing doesn't collapse and have to be manually set back up.

[NW_Kohaku]

There's a problem with the work manager - it doesn't allow you to select what workshops get the job orders.

I set orders for making several glass items, because I knew it would be easily completed, my guys were doing it already, and I just wanted my manager to get more experience, because I wasn't really using the manager for much of anything else at the moment.

Then I started getting job cancelation spam about not being able to make glass because of a lack of fuel.

Turns out that my magma glass furnaces were being overlooked for the regular glass furnaces I set up to collect sand when work orders came down.

Likewise, I can't use those work orders to select what craftsdwarf will make the item, so I'm better off just using a workshop's ability to select who can work there if I want to have something specific, like only a legendary mason making a statue in the workshop near the native platinum stockpile.

I'd only want that if it can be set to stay or not.  90% of the time, when I set a job to repeat, I want it to go away after the material is used up.  I just consider it a "use up the rest on this job" command.  Like I'll make a certain number of beds, then order the carpenter to make bins on repeat to clear out the wood pile.

I agree with this... but this can simply be another button.

"(r)epeat" would just repeat until you run out.

"(e)ndless repeat" would repeat forever, without being canceled.

[Hyndis]

"(r)epeat" would just repeat until you run out.

"(e)ndless repeat" would repeat forever, without being canceled.

Ooo, I like this!

Solves the problem while still leaving the current functionality to use up all of that material in the game.

[immibis]

"(r)epeat" would just repeat until you run out.
"(e)ndless repeat" would repeat forever, without being canceled.

This.