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[GhostDwemer]

Running 31.18, I have seen jobs queued up in smelters spontaneously rearrange themselves for the better on multiple occasions. At first I thought I had just not noticed how I'd queued things up, but I've seen it more and more. I'll set two smelters up to smelt coal on repeat, then iron on repeat. I'll come back after a while to check, and one of them has iron first, then coal. It's as if, as soon as one could switch to doing iron, it did. Am I hallucinating or is this really happening? If so, well, that's pretty cool.

EDIT Well one thing that is not cool, and I KNOW I didn't queue the jobs up this way: lignite has jumped ahead of bituminous coal, ah, I'd really rather get the two coke per job first thank you very much.

[Lagslayer]

When a repeatable order is completed, it gets cycled to the bottom of the list and everything else gets bumped up.

[cdrcjsn]

Not entirely sure, but I think what's happening is that they do one thing first.

Then the fact that you have it on repeat means that it gets requed again.

But they work on the second thing.  Requeing again after it is done.

I know that if I assign a task in a workshop like:
Bed (r)
Bin (r)
Bucket
Bucket
Bucket

Then I'll get the three buckets eventually made.  It doesn't make an infinite amount of Beds until it runs out of materials.

I assume that the same thing applies to smelters.

[GhostDwemer]

When a repeatable order is completed, it gets cycled to the bottom of the list and everything else gets bumped up.

Really? If you put repeatable orders in a list, it gets cycled? So, if I queue up a bunch of gem encrusting jobs, they won't do all of one gem first but will do one of each?

[Zrk2]

I think so...

*Runs off to apply it*

[Lagslayer]

When a repeatable order is completed, it gets cycled to the bottom of the list and everything else gets bumped up.

Really? If you put repeatable orders in a list, it gets cycled? So, if I queue up a bunch of gem encrusting jobs, they won't do all of one gem first but will do one of each?

Yes. In fact, I have my gem cutter, gem setter, smelters, glass makers, and milker/cheese maker all have cycling repeating tasks and nothing gets canceled until one of the tasks does not have the materials required.

[Frogwarrior]

When a repeatable order is completed, it gets cycled to the bottom of the list and everything else gets bumped up.

Really? If you put repeatable orders in a list, it gets cycled? So, if I queue up a bunch of gem encrusting jobs, they won't do all of one gem first but will do one of each?

Yup!
Better then that, you can mix in some non-repeating jobs, and they'll get done well before you run out of materials for your repeating jobs. So you can queue up a repeating smelt coal and smelt iron job:

Code: [Select]

Queue:
Smelt Coal [R]
Smelt Iron [R]And then a coal gets smelted:

Code: [Select]

Queue:
Smelt Iron [R]
Smelt Coal [R]Then an iron gets smelted:

Code: [Select]

Queue:
Smelt Coal [R]
Smelt Iron [R]But then you decide you want a couple copper bars, so you queue those up:

Code: [Select]

Queue:
Smelt Coal [R]
Smelt Iron [R]
Smelt Copper
Smelt CopperCoal smelted:

Code: [Select]

Queue:
Smelt Iron [R]
Smelt Copper
Smelt Copper
Smelt Coal [R]Then iron:

Code: [Select]

Queue:
Smelt Copper
Smelt Copper
Smelt Coal [R]
Smelt Iron [R]
Then your copper get smelted, and you're back where you started:

Code: [Select]

Queue:
Smelt Coal [R]
Smelt Iron [R]
I learned this a long time ago. makes job management SO easy. You can, for example, put a couple smelt coal jobs on repeat, then request a bunch of bars through the manager and it'll just fit them in between the repeating jobs.

[GhostDwemer]

I mention the gem jobs because that has ramifications for how I set up encrusting. They won't put the same gem on the same thing twice, right? So, if they do all of one gem first, then the next and so on, the gems would tend to get spread around more, but if they do one of the first, then the next, wouldn't the gem setter tend to pick the exact same item to encrust with the next gem? So, if you queue up all your gems you have and let it run through once, you'd tend to get one object with every single gem, right?

[GhostDwemer]

And by the way, thanks you guys. I can't believe I never realized this is how repeating jobs worked. I thought it just did all of one until it ran out of material, then the next, and so on.

[Lagslayer]

I think they choose a new item each time they set a gem, but I haven't studied it that closely.

[NecroRebel]

I think they choose a new item each time they set a gem, but I haven't studied it that closely.

Technically they do, but they choose the closest valid item, and in most cases the last thing is in the middle of the workshop, as is the gem setter, so they do strongly tend to decorate the same thing over and over again.

If you've got a stockpile somewhere that accepts the item type that was last decorated, sometimes the decorated item will be tasked to be taken to stockpile between the time the gem setter finishes one encrusting job and the time they start the next, so that will tend to spread decorations around somewhat more. The decorator will also choose a different item after every time they go to eat, drink, or sleep, as they choose the item closest to themself (as the mole digs) when they take the job.

In other words, if you really want to spread decorations around, you'll decorate with one material at a time, not with multiple on repeat.

[celem]

wow....

i'd noticed the reordering but never realised this was how it worked.  solid intel.  Its bugged me for months that kitchens i set 'lavish meal R' on generally are rendering fat when i check back with the meal below in the queue...i can stop caring now:p

[Frogwarrior]

wow....

i'd noticed the reordering but never realised this was how it worked.  solid intel.  Its bugged me for months that kitchens i set 'lavish meal R' on generally are rendering fat when i check back with the meal below in the queue...i can stop caring now:p

if you REALLY don't want them rendering fat, then you should learn the neat trick that if you Suspend an auto-queue task like fat rendering.... it won't auto-add another job, so fat rendering just won't happen until you unsuspend it!
This is especially nice for getting rid of "Durrr I can't find the webs!" spam.

[pixl97]

This feature of the repeat function is really nice in making steel (at a magma forge for me)

Make coke (R)
Make iron (R)
Make pig iron (R)
Make iron (R)
Make steel (R)
Useless task (S)
Useless task (S)
Useless task (S)
Useless task (S)
Useless task (S)

Since I'm not really a stock pile user, I quantum stockpile the iron, coal, and flux right beside my steel smelter. Before the smelter gets too cluttered I quantum dump the steel beside my forges. When too much coke starts to build up I'll suspend the task for a while.

[duckInferno]

This is one of those things where to you it's obvious and not worth mentioning in a "tips and tricks" kind of thread, where in reality it'd actually benefit a large chunk of the player base... and you'd never know you were sitting on a gem until it comes out accidentally, as it did in this thread.