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Author Topic: Changing the order of subtasks taken during the Pickup Equipment job  (Read 473 times)

anewaname

  • Bay Watcher
  • The mattock... My choice for problem solving.
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Currently the "Pickup Equipment" job's subtasks follows this order.
- drop old item
- walk to new item
- equip new item

What if it were ordered as this?
- walk to new item
- drop old item
- equip new item

I see these effects.
a) Dwarfs would no longer drop the 'old item' on the refuse stockpile because the Pickup Equipment job started in that tile. *
b) The 'old item' will be worn longer, leading to fewer concurrent Pickup Equipment jobs. **
c) Players would no longer have to imagine their dwarf walking 200 z's to get new trousers, without trousers. ***

* Refuse stockpiles are my main source of xSuperiorx and xExceptionalx metal armor.
** If a squad's uniform includes "iron helm" and the squad currently has three different quality levels of iron helm equipped, the production of a higher-quality iron helm currently causes three Pickup Equipment jobs to be triggered. Some of these are likely to be concurrent, meaning up to three dwarfs in that example squad are tasked with jobs that they will not untask when you need them to respond to a squad Move/Kill order. It also means that they are still wearing their old item if the new item is misplaced (the locked bin effect or a player forbidding the new item because McAxeman is needed pronto).
*** Shouldn't dwarfs want to wear the old item right up until they get their hands on that new item?

This post is about the order of the subtasks for the Pickup Equipment job, not about other aspects of the job.
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