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Author Topic: Manager job queue suggestions  (Read 1504 times)

billybobfred

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Manager job queue suggestions
« on: December 28, 2017, 09:45:16 am »

-Ability to check things other than items, such as buildings and units
-Ability to check more than one thing per condition
-Ability to compare things to other things, instead of a constant number

This would lead to such things as "if unclaimed coffins (item) + unclaimed coffins (building) < citizens without assigned tombs, build 3 stone coffins".

-Ability to reset conditional orders

If I set an order such as "if brewable plant > 10 and empty food storage container > 10, brew drinks from plants x10", and we somehow run out of brewable plants mid-job, the dwarfs start cancelspamming at me, and currently the only way to stop it is to delete the order. But an order like that is clearly meant to be perpetual, so I then need to re-create it. A single button to just reset it and have the dwarves stop until the conditions are true again would be better.

Actually, this particular example is most often caused by the condition checking items for a job that consumes stacks, so...

-Ability to compare to stacks of items instead of individual items

And lastly...

-Ability to customize or disable a job's announcements

If I go to a kitchen and set it to "make easy meal x∞", I don't want cancelspam when the dwarves run out of ingredients. If I set a job like "if chairs = 0, build chair x1", I don't want to be told "build chair x1 is complete" every time this happens. If a job is really important, I might want its completion to be a super visible announcement, like "HEY THAT THING IS DONE", or even a pop-up box.
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Qrox

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Re: Manager job queue suggestions
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2018, 07:57:35 am »

Quote
-Ability to check things other than items, such as buildings and units

Yes, it would be nice if the manager can check for livestocks' milkable/shearable status. Currently I set the milking/shearing jobs to one per month/season, but it's hard to have a good estimate of the frequency so as not to waste a chance or have too much job cancellation.

Quote
-Ability to reset conditional orders

If I set an order such as "if brewable plant > 10 and empty food storage container > 10, brew drinks from plants x10", and we somehow run out of brewable plants mid-job, the dwarfs start cancelspamming at me, and currently the only way to stop it is to delete the order. But an order like that is clearly meant to be perpetual, so I then need to re-create it. A single button to just reset it and have the dwarves stop until the conditions are true again would be better.

Actually, this particular example is most often caused by the condition checking items for a job that consumes stacks, so...

This also happens when you have two orders with a common material, and one task depletes the supply after both are queued. My suggestion is to rather not only activate the order when the conditions are met, but also automatically reset it when the conditions turn false, whilst also revoking any tasks previously queued for the order.

Starver

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Re: Manager job queue suggestions
« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2018, 09:47:48 am »

After a check that it hasn't been mentioned already, for which my Forum-Fu attempt may have rolled a critical fail, I have my own set of related suggestions:

It would be really useful to have:
* the ability to unlink workshop-linked Manager/Profile Work-Orders,
* link previously (or newly, as part of a transfer) unlinked M/P WOs,
*..and/or a form of duplication of currently defined jobs.

Link/unlinkability would serve the useful function of saving time recreating something, under various circumstances you could imagine. A single hotkey (lower-case-L would do as toggle, but u/l are both unused, otherwise) at either/both WO levels could control it. (Something like a pasture/burrow-style assignability would even allow several specific workshops to service it, a grade of levels between General and Single-Workshop WOs. Other choose-one-only selection routines are also possible to just re-Manage the current situation.) It could be push or pull (job-detail looking for a 'home' or workshop/general level looking at jobs), or both. The biggest issue would be identifying specific workshops/jobs to link to the job/workshop, but the mechanism-linking zoom-to-building is already a thing, so plenty of pre-existing code is there to adapt/re-use/copy-and-change.

Duplication only within a single location (or, locationless, within master Job Manager) is also useful for different issues. (Can we have another 8 statues of the same style and with the same preconditions of the ones already ordered? Yes we can!)  unfortunately, the Hotkey can't be (c)opy or (d)uplicate, lowercase at least, due to clashes with (c)onditions and (d)etails, but there's still scope. No obvious code already existing to perhaos save development time (but still relatively trivial, I'm sure).

Duplication with the option (or enforcement) of between General and Workshop levels, then (r)emoval of the origional would also serve for the transference process. Awkwardly if all you want is to ^X/^V something across, but I could live with that.


Perhaps as an alternative to the in-situ Duplication, editing of the Quantity required (any new Y not less than X in an X/Y, or reset to X=0 when you specify the new Y going forward) with switching into or out of ∞/∞ mode as well. Clashes with "(q) New Order" at the WO level  and "(q) Change inequality" in the Conditions one means the Hotkey there isn't the obvious one, as well as avoiding "change (n)umber" in the latter, but there's virtually free reign within the Details dialogues of various kinds.


Extending this to moving things in and out of (local/General) Work Order lists from the front-end Building Tasks (de-Oing a Work Order in the list, especially an active one, might reduce it to effectively just 0/1. 'Promoting' (not "(p)romote task", of course) a casual job to Work Order would put it into the Profiled lists as a 0/1 (or ∞/∞ if it was on Repeat), and then it'd be very useful to be able to set(/set anew) the quantity.


You get the idea(s). Plenty to work with, with plenty of options as to how to work it. Never let it be said that I constrain anybody's capability for creativity. ;)
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Shaostoul

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Re: Manager job queue suggestions
« Reply #3 on: August 11, 2018, 09:21:13 pm »

Necroing cause it's still relevant enough...

I'd like to further reinforce the need for being able to disable/hide job completion spam. I use the job manager extensively as it's a fantastic tool for taking a lot of the tedium of Dwarf Fortress out and making it a much more enjoyable experience. This however does present me with tons of announcement spam of things that are useless knowledge but, I can't set the announcements to be hidden. I'd like to be able to hide masterwork creations, job completions, and possibly other things. Additionally some extra configurable announcements would be nice, such as when a dwarf gets into combat. I love using SoundSense as it really helps build atmosphere for the game and it has the additional benefit of playing combat sounds and this alerts me to pause and find out what's happening.

On a side note, after playing again after a long while, I found out about the "planning tool" for constructions like beds, cabinets, etc. and being able to set it to be exclusively certain construction level. This makes build large arrays of rooms or complex dining halls a whole lot easier. The only downside is that while keeping my job manager running dutifully, I do get the job completion spam from completing one table. I don't want to have 10 tables waiting in my stockpile, so I like being able to create repeat jobs with only 1 job being created while checking conditions.

Is there a way to configure job manager items to check requirements of items made of a certain quality?
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Fleeting Frames

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Re: Manager job queue suggestions
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2018, 03:40:52 am »

That's already in game. Though no distinction between periodic and one-time order fulfilment.

Planning tool is dfhack feature, though.

Shaostoul

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Re: Manager job queue suggestions
« Reply #5 on: August 14, 2018, 02:45:40 pm »

Oh hey, thank you! I appreciate it. :)
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I mod games and educate others how to do so as well, if you'd like to learn join my Discord and you can join a bunch of like minded individuals. (Presently modding Space Engineers and No Man's Sky.)

Looking into modding DF? This forum guide & wiki guide may still be a good start!