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[obsidian razor]

Also, how can I produce it faster?

I'm still trying to build my crystal fortress in the desert, the painfully painfully slow process of making clear glass is taking away my motivation.

I already stopped using crystal for most floors and walls, using marble instead, since I have it in ungodly huge numbers.

So yeah, how can I optimize the creation of pearlash and crystal blocks?

[Shades]

I used the job manager last time I tried this sort of things to queue sets of; wood -> ash, ash -> pearlash and make clear glass.
I also made extra ash and pearlash to start with so I didn't need to care about what order they did the jobs in.

The only real limitation is then is the number of workshops and workers, and raw materials of course.

[Pukako]

YOU CAN MAKE CRYSTAL GLASS NOW!!!???  0.o

When was it fixed? I can stop killing nobles that like crystal?

Wow!

[obsidian razor]

There is a binary patch, but I'm not using it.

I meant clear glass

[Sphalerite]

To make one clear glass item, you need one piece of wood.  Burn the wood to ash, then process the ash to potash, then bake the ash to pearlash at a kiln.  Then you use a bag of sand and that pearlash to make clear glass.

So the limiting factor on how much clear glass you can make is your wood supply.  If you're in a desert, you're probably not getting wood from the surface.  So set up an underground forest.  Pierce the caverns, then mine out large areas of soil layers and then leave them unoccupied to grow trees.  If you can, flood water into cleared stone rooms to grow trees there, as well.  Kill the creatures in the caverns and cut down the underground trees there.  And of course you should be using magma to power every fuel-requiring industry so you're not wasting wood on making charcoal.

[obsidian razor]

Yeah, I do all that, broke into the caverns (and had loads of FUN with Owlmen and trolls running through my fortress till the miners butchered them just for looking at them) and dug out a huge patch of underground soil (lot's of it in the desert!) so I know have 2, maybe 3 underground forests I plunder for all they are worth.

I have glass magma furnaces and magma kiln. I have make Ash R -> make potash R -> make pearlash R -> make clear crystal blocks R

Still, my glassmakers are only able to pump around 30 blocks per year, which is pathetic and the job get's constantly cancelled because "not enough pearlash"

[Shades]

I have glass magma furnaces and magma kiln. I have make Ash R -> make potash R -> make pearlash R -> make clear crystal blocks R

Still, my glassmakers are only able to pump around 30 blocks per year, which is pathetic and the job get's constantly cancelled because "not enough pearlash"

That is why I used the job manager. The repeat tasks only really works well if the whole pipeline is in a single workshop, otherwise you end up with the cancellations you speak of.

[obsidian razor]

The problem is that the job manager only let's me order batches of 30 of any product, and to build a fortress I'd like to place a standing order for a 1000 crystal blocks

[Shades]

Can't help with that, I ended up requeuing another 30 of each every time the glass batch finished. A pain, but seemed to be the only way I could get decent production going.

[Tevish Szat]

I use an "overcompensation" strategy to handle job cancellation with multiple shops: have a "resource pyramid"  For two (magma) glass furnaces on make clear glass blocks/r, have three shops processing potash to pearlash/r, four making potash from ash/r and six making ash/r.  You'll end up with an overflow of base materials at every stage, preventing job cancel spam even if you suffer an interruption in tree-fells or have a legendary glassmaker feeding off a novice potash maker's work.  Have some close-by dedicated stockpiles for your intermediary steps to prevent clutter.

You may have to set up fifteen total workshops (rather than eight for two straight-line productions) and it'll use more dwarfpower (disabling hauling is your friend), but stone for workshops, magma for fuel, and dwarves to run the furnaces are a LOT easier to get ahold of than dwarves smart enough to manage a streamlined production system.  If you REALLY want to be sure, you'll stagger starting the steps: only order up the potash once ash production is online, pearlash once you have a small stash of potash, and clear glass once you have 10 units or so of pearlash lying around.

[Shades]

I suppose that is self limiting with the overflow too as the workshops will slow down production as they fill up and speed up again if the next stage starts to use up the supply. Obviously that only helps with raw resource usage and not dwarfpower, but dwarfpower is cheap.

[tj333]

Would Dwarf Foreman help?

Aside form that I would create extra glass workshops that only have collect sand on repeat.

[Girlinhat]

Forman is a godsend for this.  Set the forman to produce, say, 10 ash, 10 pearlash, and 10 crystal glass blocks.  But set "all except" on the blocks.  This causes it to NOT USE that amount, and leave enough materials for 10 glass blocks.  Doing this, you've effectively put it on repeat even if it cancels.  And turn of job cancel spam via the "o" menu.  You'll get it a lot.

[Psieye]

Yeah this sounds like a case of not enough workshops. Think 10~20 workshops for each step.

[Girlinhat]

As this same person also had only 2 masons working on the whole thing, OP seems not to understand the concept of "this is your labor sinkhole".  At least 5 workshops of each (kiln and wood burner) if not closer to 20.  Once you've got your production up that high, then forman helps with the repeat tasks.