Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[UristMcPea]

Almost every dwarf in the fortress having the need of regularly crafting something is a pain in the ass nice and interesting challenge with fortresses beyond 50 cititzens so I was looking for a rather permanent solution - and I think I've found one which I'd like to discuss.

So here's what I do:

First I select my regular crafting dwarves and limit their workshops to them, personally. Next, I build a room conaining five distinct stockpiles (stone, wood, cloth, leather, bone) and make sure they're filled all the time. I don't use bins for cloth and leather as I just need something - not a lot.

For every five dwarves with an unfulfilled crafting need, I build a Craftsdwarf's Workshop restricted to those individuals. Then they each get a different crafting labour assigned and finally every workshop gets a work order "Make 1 <material> crafts" for every material that's repeated seasonally or monthly - I'm not sure which is better.

That way every dwarf gets a single crafting job once a month/season without any adverse effects that I'm aware of. I haven't found a proper solution for military dwarves so their needs are ignored at the moment. It is some effort to set up, but after that it should run without further maintenance.

Any ideas, hints or other suggestions?

[mikekchar]

That's pretty much what I do.  Although I tend to run fortresses with low populations anyway.  It occurred to me that having a workshop for every dwarf is not *actually* that onerous (a bit of a pain to set up, though).  Why not have a clothier shop each for socks, shoes, hats, gloves, etc, etc.?  Like you said, one job a month.  Shops are only 3x3 tiles.  I was thinking about the world gen fortresses with their inevitable 15 forges and 15 leather working shops and I thought, why not?  Lately I've been attaching 6x6 workshop rooms (big enough for 2 workshops and some small stockpiles) next to each family dwelling.  It works fine -- again, with the proviso that it takes a really long time to accommodate new immigrants.

[Saiko Kila]

I do something similar as OP, except I don't build separate stockpiles. I have a long factory hall with craftsdwarf workshops built in a line, with access from south. Each workshop has four orders (make bone crafts, make wooden crafts, make rock crafts and make scroll), and is restricted to four dwarves, each with a respective job enabled. Each order except scrolls is to make one item (scrolls are made in two, because they are both used up and also use up rollers made elsewhere), repeated monthly. This is for dwarves whose needs to craft is to be fulfilled, but their main job is elsewhere - for example soldiers or farmers.

Additionally I have order to make several silver (I've got lots of silver) rollers in one magma forge, but without restrictions to any dwarves, because there are not too many of metalcrafters.

There are also separate "proper" workshops which have permanent orders, mostly for bone bolts, totems and horn crafts, but only one of them is restricted for quality (skill level), not for particular dwarf. So one of the soldiers or hobbyist crafters sometimes do something there. But only these proper workshops do have stockpiles linked, the factory ones do not. There's no reason to complicate it too much.

After I ran out of easy adamantine (i.e. couple of hundreds of raw stones) I repurposed two workshops previously used by strand extractors, they make bone bolts now. For this reason when another dwarf without crafting skill needs a fulfilment I usually make him a bonecrafter.

[anewaname]

I avoid any sort of dwarf-specific assignments, instead the workshops are limited by skill ranks and the shotgun approach of hoping each dwarf gets enough of what they need each year.

Otherwise, the setup is similar. Three or more workshops; monthly job triggers for different crafting jobs to force a change of dwarfs at at the workshop, and the forges queue extra jobs for weaponsmith because I have a greedy tendency to assign weaponsmith to migrants who arrive without a crafting skill (like weapon/crafts/weapon/furniture/weapon/armor).

The military dwarfs manage to get some crafting done during their off-duty four months, but some have been getting skipped some years.

[Sarmatian123]

I was thinking about pity wasting leather on crafts, when you need every year 420-660 leathers for civilian cloths.

How about bee wax? Pottery? Glassmaking? Even metal crafting with copper bars? You can set some of the crafts for ornamentation, specially you have already stockpiles linked to do it safely?

13 jobs in total/1 craftdwarf's workshop.

[Stench Guzman]

Wax working is completely useless for anything practical.  You could build 200 craftsdwarf workshops and set each of them on a repeat order to make one wax good every 6 months, and assign each workshop to a single dwarf.

Does making paper count as making a craft?  It has a quality level so I'm inclined to think so.  You could do something similar with screw presses.  You can grow all the pig tails you need to make pig tail slurry and then have your 200 dwarves make one sheet of paper every six months or whatever.

[Sarmatian123]

220workshops/13 jobs= 16+2/13, so =~17. 17*9=153 tiles.
vs
220 screw pressed/1job = 220 tiles (11x11+10x10?) (each using master quality component, which dwarves admire during work?)

Automated empty barrels, for alcohol too, like 500, every season check +something?
Automated slurry. 500 slurry in stock and for each season check +220 slurry?
All you need is to grow some pigtails or hemp/cotton and have log stockpile. Automated ash/fertilizer. With 3x5 plots using 4 bars, 100-200 fertilizer, on season check +20/+40 more?

[Sanctume]

With that many, I would just invest in magma glassmakers. 
Gather sand is infinite resource.  Make large pots from green glass. 

How long will "making craft" need last though? once a year? 

I would start with 3 magma glass furnace above near sand using magma-filled minecarts. 

Profile one orfew selected dwarf to a glassmaker to make 1 furnace to gather sand, and 1 furnace to make green glass to not deny the dabbling skilled to produce glass pots.

And set profile the last glassmaker to min & max Dabbling with 1 make pot, 1x per day. 

It takes 9 glass jobs to reach Dabling to Novice. 

So around 40 dwarfs with dabbling glassmaker skills can be satisfied by the 3rd glassmaker shop in a year. 

[Bumber]

Which need was carving tracks and then re-smoothing them supposed to fulfill? Was it just "staying occupied"?

[Sanctume]

Which need was carving tracks and then re-smoothing them supposed to fulfill? Was it just "staying occupied"?

Possibly creating art / dreams of creating art someday? 

[Saiko Kila]

How about bee wax? Pottery? Glassmaking? Even metal crafting with copper bars? You can set some of the crafts for ornamentation, specially you have already stockpiles linked to do it safely?

I won't answer in general, but will say why these are not feasible in my case.

1. bee wax is very slow in production, I have about 30 hives, and it is a rare occurrence bee was is produced. There is a maximum number of hives (40?), so production cannot be increased. One worker is enough, and it cannot be really automatised, because of lack of substrate.

2. pottery needs source of clay, which is rarer in my forts than sand. In fact I import it. But if there's clay, and magma kiln, they sure, why not. But magma kiln can be used only for pottery and quicklime, so making many workshops rarely used is kind of waste.

3. glassmaking is too important to me. I make crafts fulfilling needs only for the sake of fulfilling needs. I don't need stone crafts, or wooden crafts, I even mostly destroy them, not bothering with selling (to remove items from the world and not clutter item lists). I do need glass items - blocks, pots, pump parts or trap parts, and it would be hard to separate their production from production of throw-away "items of art", only to fulfil a singe need. I have a small number of glassmakers, but they are very skilled, no need for amateurs. Also creating more magma workshops only for this, kind of waste again.

4. metal crafters are rare, and I prefer only two or so trained in it to continue, and not dilute the experience amongst many others. Assuming there is a source of copper (or other cheap metal, which is not always the case, I had embarks without any military metal), there is also a need for processing ore - long and arduous task. I don't need every magma forge I have, but I need every magma smelter, to smelt worse item, goblinite and trade items (because my site is low in good quality metals). This makes metal much faster than from ore, but not really fast enough to have permanent orders, except maybe for metal bolts in one forge.

Also establishing magma forges just to fulfil needs is even more resource and space consuming than ordinary workshops. Still, I do make some small orders (for example for rollers) to fulfil needs AND train a crafter or two, but use general forges, without personal limits, so they can be used for other things.

I'd like to point out that dwarves making metal items, or glass in my case, also have needs, and these needs are fulfilled just by running the forts. The point of designating workshops used only to fulfil needs is to make some use of resources which you have plenty of and which doesn't compete with "real" production, hence the woodcrafters, stonecrafters and the like.

13 jobs in total/1 craftdwarf's workshop.

I don't get the number.

[anewaname]

How long will "making craft" need last though? once a year? 

It varies based on the importance of the need to that dwarf. Consider that some dwarfs consider craftsmanship to be valueless; would they care if they have not crafted after five years?

See the Diversity section of the Needs wiki page where it mentions that once the need it met, the value is fully refreshed. I think that does mean that once a year is enough if the dwarf is typically dwarfy in holding craftsmanship in high regard.

[Sarmatian123]

13 different professions per 1 craftdwarf's workshop. However there is a point about resource availability like wax.

1 crafting job per 1 year? Nice info digging. This could be very useful.

Screw press seems the king for crafting need satisfaction then. Papermaker skill for all dwarves then and a large field of tightly one by one constructed master quality screw presses to add to "job well done" satisfaction.

[Urist9876]

On a side note: if you want to train your adventurer in writing skills you need a lot of scrolls or quires. Like hundreds. So paper making to fulfill needs is not all wasted maybe ;-)