One of the things that new players are likely to tire from having to do is constantly go back to your workshops to add work orders. While early in the game it's quite easy to keep track of what you need you will quickly grow to a level when you wish someone else could do it for you.
So that's how the game is actually meant to work.
While in-game you can actually promote yourself a Manager Dwarf. He will keep a list of all the things you want created and make sure that your workshops work to fill your work orders.
This is a built in feature of the game... so this is quickly how you do this.
Press 'n' then 'down' until Manager is highlighted.
Press 'enter' and select a dwarf. Ideally use one with some skills.
You will need to make an office. Do this by making a small room with a desk, chair and chest (container) in it.
Once the room has completed click your mouse on the chair.
Press 'r' to create a study.
Press 'enter' to set the size of the room.
Press 'a' to assign the room and assign it to your manager.
Now at any time from the main menu you can press 'j' then 'm' to access the work order screen.
Here you press 'q' to create a new work order.
Now start typing keywords for what you want to do.
For example type: 'brew' and click enter on 'Brew Drink'. Enter 1-30 for the quantity.
You manager will now ensure 30 drinks are brewed.
Now for most people this is an awesome system. But it gets tiring eventually having to keep on top of your work orders so a new system has been added in with DFHack using a tool called Workflow.
Mod: Workflow
This amazing little tool allows you to setup repeat work orders. You set the min and max levels for the item you want create and basically click go. The dwarves will then simple keep working to make sure you always have the minimum amount of the product you require.
For example: Please ensure I always have min 50 beers and max 100 beers in stock.
This is game changing and is going to make it ALOT easier for new people to get into the game!
The first thing you want to do is ensure the mod is running. With Dwarf Fortress running go to your DFHack window and type: 'workflow enable'. It should return with 'The plugin is enabled'.
Now back in game click on a workshop to display the following menu:
Press'a' to open the 'Add new task' menu.
Select the object you would like to setup a work order for. I have selected 'Construct Bed'.
Once the work order is in the workshops job list press 'r' to set the order to 'repeat'.
Ordinarily this will task a dwarf with making the object as long as their are materials to do so.
This is where we activate the Workflow tool.
With a work request highlighted press 'alt-w'.
Press R (shift-r) to set the range (min-max).
Press A (shift-a) to add the work order to the Workflow Order List.
A pop up menu will open asking you to specify the details of your request such as what materials to make the object out of.
You dwarves will now ensure there are always a minimum amount of the items you set-up as long as it is possible for them to do so. i.e. you need to make sure you keep your stocks up of the key materials such as wood, rock, etc.
You will notice a new red 's' appear on many of the work orders you set up. This signifies that the job has been suspended likely due to the min order being filled at that time.
You do not need a Manager Dwarf for this to function although personally I think you should. It would be nice if they could have added this functionality to the manager so that the game still have a small challenge to setting this up.
Another feature of this mod is the Advanced Inventory window. This displays all of the items in your fortress and displays various information about those items.
You can access this window by:
Press 'z' to access the stores window.
Press 'right' until the Stocks is highlighted and press 'enter'.
Press 'e' to enter 'Enhanced View'.
You can then press 's' and type keywords to search for items (I have searched for piglet in the screenshot above).
With items highlighted you can use the key combinations to set orders for dump, forbid or mark for trade.
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