Hello I from time to time unexpectedly hit situations where I find that production has stopped despite available resources and I think I've worked out why. The minimal amount order actually works in practice as a maintain this number of finished goods order, where I would expect based on the wording to see that any such order currently below minimum would be prioritised and then continually produced so long as (a) no other minimal order was below minimal level in the workshop and (b) there were enough raw resources. I think a wording tweak would remedy this, but I also think having both options would be even better, for situations where you would never really want to stop production, such as bread making.
You're exactly correct. "Minimum #: 40" means "ensure the colony has at least 40 finished breads, if not make more breads." So I guess the question is: a) how to change this wording? b) do people want/need other options here? c) Why did I say this was one question?
Such wording should also mention that priority is implied by the order jobs have in the workshop queue, and that the queue positions can be changed.
I don't quite understand what the misunderstanding is, if that makes any sense. What else would the minimum orders mean?
That means what Nicholas said earlier, right? If you have less than 40 of item X, start making item X until you have at least 40? So what's the other meaning?
Do the "Minimal" orders have priority beyond their placement in the list? From my observations this does not seem to be the case, nor should it (imo). If maintenance orders did have an elevated priority, then you'd have to abandon them all in order to interject a quick bucket of brass cogs. Also, it would be great to have the ability to queue up the following (have not tested but will tonight. Hopefully)... Say you ideally want 10 of each bar stockpiled, but want at least a few of each on hand at all times. If you just put 10 of each in sequence, it might be a long wait before you get any bras bars at all. Iron Bars x3 Copper Bars x3 Nickel Bars x3 Brass Bars x3 Iron Bars x10 Copper Bars x10 Nickel Bars x10 Brass Bars x10
I was thinking that the workshop should use a round robin queue, which would basically do one of each until complete, if the order is completable. So for that queue you'd get: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,1(complete), 2(complete), 3(complete), 4(complete), 5,6,7,8,5,6,7,8,5,6,7,8.... And any further orders take slots 9 and beyond. But really that level of design detail seems better suited to the devs than me armchair designing it. Maintain implies reach and stay at. Maximum implies reach and continue beyond, Bascially one is an exact target and the other is the lowest acceptable target
In my last playthrough, I set my metalworks to make a minimum of 10 coal at all times, and then just plopped the orders for everything else as needed, and that seemed to work farily well. They'd make whatever I ordered until they ran out of coal, then they'd switch to making coal till they hit the standing order requirement, then back to the custom order. (Which I suppose would be fine, unless your standing order is some huge amount, in which case you're borked.) Also things seem to work as long as you don't bog the shops down with long lists of things they don't have Like i'd asked the metalworks to make 10 bayonets and 20 of these plates and smelt 10 of these and so on, and all they had was coal at the moment. The orders stand there till they're done, but it seems like it takes them longer to fill those orders than it does just asking for a few of these and a couple of these. Its like they're continually checking the shop orders and comparing it to inventory over and over each time, and it takes them that much longer to process it.
