My understanding is that setting the minimum production level on an item is that my workers will create that many and then stop, and then make more when it dips below. Take, if you will, a moment to gaze at the screen shot I have uploaded: Spoiler J'accuse! A bug? perhaps! Or is it something more... sinister... brewing in your hearts?
The Basic Food and Basic Drink both do this... Probably because there's no single item it outputs. (Others like Make Bread don't have this issue) Looking at your stockpile and order list, I can tell how you got to that spot. (Colonists ate all your maize chowder, your kitchen should be busy trying to make that now)
Basically: The system only accounts for how many of something you CURRENTLY have when queueing a job; other queued jobs and production amounts are ignored. So you can have 9 planks, have your min set to 10, and then 4 people will all independently queue to make that last plank. Nicholas has a ticket to fix it.
Double outputs seem to cause all sorts of output explosions in this situation. For example in 47D I set basic cooked food to 10 units, farmers stew to 20, idea being to create a excess of around 15-16 or so basic food, then the rest goes into higher classed meals when raw food allows. What ended up actually happening was my kitchen just kept churning out more and more basic food until I had around 35-40 units and noticed the overflood, this with only 1 overseer and 1 worker. Ended up having to shuffle the higher classed food to the top of the list to even get them to stop just producing basic food. Never did figure out what exactly was going on there as given the workforce was only 2 workers getting 3-4 times the stated amount ordered really shouldn't have been possible. But only times I've had it happen to that extent before was way back when Kitchens had double output before.
No, this isn't related, it happened before doubled cooked food was put in as well. You may not have observed it, but I did due to overproducing maize (and thus maize chowder) in order to build up buffer. The difference was your colonists were probably eating it at a similar rate so it didn't build up. You should be able to put your Farmers' Stew etc at the top with a minimum order, and then Basic Food below that. If your total raw food production is sufficient (which it surely is now...) then it will work swimmingly.
So Kitchens are indeed sticking to a specific order and producing beyond minimum levels and not just in situations where more workers start a order at the same time and give a small excess and as a result sometimes do not move to the next order in the list even though the stated minimum requirement is less than the amount in your stockpile. Meaning the way it should work that @MOOMANiBE mentioned is not how it's really working? As I've had layered kitchen orders for ages now, and kitchens have typically always moved on to the next when order minimum is >= Stockpile amount even when intentionally setting the minimum higher than was needed, except way back when kitchens used to have double output when I'd notice my kitchens would often get locked just doing the topmost order ignoring the stated minimum. But if you're saying Kitchens (or perhaps even workshops in general) have a bug where the minimum is being ignored and colonists just do the topmost order indefinitely, OK then.
It's been documented, the Basic Food goes forever, as does Basic Drink. Well we've speculated it's because it makes things like Stew, Maize Chowder and not a single specific item. I've definitely been at 100 Maize Chowder despite a minimum 10 order. In quite a few versions before the doubled food. Make Bread does not go forever though. Which is a pity, it would be helpful.
Aye, but it does at least stop making it when something higher in the priority list becomes craftable, but it's a bit of a pain when all my maize is going to chowder and chicha when I want some doggone farmer's stew.
Hmm, did they change it? I thought Maize couldn't be used for Farmers' Stew Anyway I just treat a Minimum for Basic Food as being set at infinity (similarly for Basic Drink, but I tend to use a straight number for that and put a massive "distill" order to upgrade the result.
Hem hem hem, or whatever else it is you use maize for. Actually now that I think about it it's pretty much just chowder and chicha isn't it?
Maize -> Cook Basic Food -> Maize Chowder Maize -> Brew Basic Drink -> Chicha Wheat -> Make Bread -> Bread Wheat -> Brew Basic Drink -> Beer Pumpkin -> Cook Basic Food -> Stew Pumpkin -> Cook Farmers' Stew -> Farmers' Stew
As long as they stop producing as soon as they are finished, and there are more than the minimum set, I don't see a problem with the over-production. It says 'minimum' after all.
Yes, it's only the Basic Food and Basic Drink that do this, I think. Just gotta watch out for Basic Drink sucking up your raw food.
Also I'm not saying that I got an extra 3 or 4 extra food/drink items because I had a large work group,I had an order for 30 basic drink and later in the game I ended up with about 115, which is more than three times the amount I had requested.
Oh, well one 1maize/wheat produces like 3 Chicha/Beer each. You cooks will however take 100 wheat and make 300 beer if you are careless though...
Yeah, I've started turning off minimum production for basic foods and am I'm about to try just saying "make 8" to see if it has a similar problem with job management.
