We have tons of different materials, items and workshops to work with. And it is absolutely great, that this number will increase even further. However the sheer amount of possible products outgrew the current system. It is still great for quick orders like make 30 rock doors. But when you want to make those 30 rock doors out of marble and encrust them with moonstone, you are soon caught in a tedious stockpile/workshop linking process. And that's an easy example. Many more elaborate products exist e.g. the musical insturments. Also you constantly need to monitor manually whether you have enough kangaroo leather gloves available.
So how do you think could be the ideal way to assign orders to the various workshops to create exactly what you want? Based on the current system, I think some "extensions" will be cool. I would like to share my thoughts with you. They might not be perfect, but a start.
1) Where can you assign orders?- directly at workshop
- at job-menu / manager
2) select amount- add a specific number of that order (ranging from 1 to X)
- add an unlimited number of that order (set on repeat)
You can now finish the order assignment, which handles them like now (jobs assigned to a specific workshop will be done there and jobs assigned via the job/manager menu will be assigned on multiple workshops which deem to be available)
But there is also an option to enter a customization menu
3) define criterias- no specific criteria: will be done once a dwarf is ready
- set priority similar to the designation menu - 1 (do it now) to 7 (do once all other jobs are finished).
- define wether a specific priority is for the whole number of orders e.g. when set on repeat all job orders will have set priority untill you cancel it or amend the job order
- set a specific number for jobs with specific priority (e.g. you want just the first 20 of smelt iron ore done on high priority (1) to cover an urgent need and the rest at normal priority(4)) - do it once a specific good reaches a certain limit (like already possible with the dfhack workflow plugin) - e.g. once there are only 20 unused leather cloaks left, the job order kicks in and there will be produced more leather cloaks till you have a total of 50, then the job order is set on break till the amount of unused leather cloaks falls again below 20. Of course numbers can set by you according your will. If I rembember right with the workflow plugin that does only work with main categories like leather and not with specific panda leather or so.
- do it as long a specific number of items is available (when number of available leather falls below 40, set the leather cloak production on break to keep a reserve of leather for other things, like a possible urgent need for leather bags or whatever)
- do it once a specific or multiple other jobs are finished - e.g. once the smelter finished the smelt iron ore task, the forge starts with the production of an iron short sword. (might help to improve the timing of production and reduce the spamming of job cancellation messages - "Urist cancels Construct Silver Throne - needs 3 Silver Bars"
- multiple criterias can be selected
4) selection field for assigning orders to workshops- no specific assignment: will be automatically assigned to workshops as they appear to be available
- select specific individual workshops
- select specific workshop groups (e.g. you want to group together all Craftdwarf Workshops in the Paper Industry floor and create another group for all the craftdwarf workshops in the tool or musical instrument or whatever production area.)
- can of course be mixed
- mark specific workshops as forbidden (e.g. a workshop within a group you assigned)
5) selection field for used materials (either raw material or goods made of/including that specific type of material)- no specific material: uses whatever available
- select a specific type (e.g. any wood, any stone)
- select a specific group (all non-economic stone or customly defined groups containing e.g. only stone of a specific colour like Brimstone, Orpiment and Orthoclase which are all yellow, but not gypsum which is yellow, but you want to use it elsewhere).
- select a specific material (e.g. amethyst only)
- select a specific quality criteria (e.g. exceptional and masterful items only)
- select a specific item (e.g. use those three very specific instrument parts of masterful quality for assembling)
- mark specific types, groups, materials, items as forbidden (e.g. you can use everything except that finely crafted bag)
- can of course be mixed
Additional Things- the possibility to manually set those order structures on break/inactive and reactivate them instead of cancelling and setting them up from new
- assign specific dwarves to the order structure or forbid specific dwarves to work on those.
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Topic: more detailled order assignment menu (Read 639 times)