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v0.34:Manager

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This article is about an older version of DF.
Manager
Room requirements  
Office Meager Office
Quarters None
Dining room None
Tomb None
Furniture requirements
Chests None
Cabinets None
Weapon racks None
Armor stands None
Other
Mandates None
Demands None
Arrival conditions

Appointed on the nobles screen.

Function
  • Allows large production orders.
  • Allows workshop profiles to be set.

The manager is a noble that allows players to create multiple production orders. Players can rapidly dispatch any number of jobs from a single screen, without having to add tasks to individual workshops. The manager also lets a player set up profiles for workshops.

Relevant Skills[edit]

A certain set of skills are relevant for any Manager. Furthermore, certain personality traits influence whether any experience is gained in the skill. There are soul attributes that affect the skills, and other skills that affect the same attribute’s cross-training. The ones relevant for a Manager are as follows:

Skill (relevant for Manager) Personality Trait (needed to gain Social Skill) Attribute (affected by Social Skill)
Body Soul
Administrator Organizer Analytical Ability
Creativity
Social Awareness
Social - Other Consoler Straightforwardness (Honesty) > 39 Linguistic Ability
Empathy
Social Awareness
Pacifier Cooperation (Compromising) > 39 Linguistic Ability
Empathy
Social Awareness

The better match with the table Skills, Traits and Attributes the better Manager the Dwarf will be. Try to avoid Traits that halt experience gain for a relevant Skill, otherwise time will be lost training a Dwarf who will never get better at that Skill.

Office[edit]

A manager only performs his duties in his office, so it is absolutely necessary to assign one. Since only a meager office is required, a single chair in the dining room will suffice.

To set up a dwarf to be the manager and give him an office:

  1. Hit n to enter the Nobles screen
  2. Select Manager and hit Enter. Assign a dwarf to be the manager. If nobody is particularly suited to the job, picking the Expedition Leader is a reasonable choice.
  3. Build a Chair somewhere or locate an existing chair.
  4. Use the q command and place the cursor on the chair. Select the option to make the area into an Office and assign your manager as the owner of the office.

At this point the red stuff under "Manager" should have disappeared from the nobles screen and you should be able to queue up work orders.

Work orders[edit]

Creating a work order works like this:

  1. Hit j-m or u-m to enter the Manager screen.
  2. Press q to create a new work order
  3. Start typing (part of) the name of the item you want to produce. This will cause menu options that don't match the string you type to disappear from the menu.
  4. Use the directional keys to select the specific type item you want.
  5. Enter the quantity of items you want to produce. The maximum quantity is 30. To make more items than that you'll need to create another work order.
  6. Your work order will appear in the list. You can remove it or raise its priority.

If there are at least 20 dwarves total then the manager will need to go to his office to "validate" each work order before it is acted on. If a manager is somehow occupied with other things then this might take a while, so in larger forts you might want to make sure your manager is not overly burdened with other labors. (For example, disabling hauling and cleaning for the manager might be a good idea.) The manager will also not perform his or her duties if on break, drinking, attending a party, asleep or otherwise incapacitated (perhaps due to wounds).

To see if an order is approved, check the manager screen — approved orders will have a green checkmark, while unapproved orders will have a red X. Job orders will remain enqueued until the manager is once again in his (or her) office.

After a production order is approved, corresponding tasks will be automatically added to applicable workshops until the production quota has been met. It is useful to note that managers will not allow more than 30 tasks per work order. However, multiple work orders for the same items can be requested separately with a few keystrokes.

An announcement appears when each order is completed.

Setting workshop profiles[edit]

The manager also allows players to change a workshop's "profile". To edit a workshop's profile, select a workshop with q and press P.

The workshop profile enables players to restrict dwarves can use it and the minimum and maximum skill level required to use the workshop.They can choose who specifically can use the workshop by pressing enter on their name to permit/forbid their use of the workshop.

Dwarves with strange moods seem to able to claim a workshop even if they do not meet the profile criteria.

A note of caution: workshop profiles persistv0.31.12 even if the manager is killed, which can lead to workshops becoming unusable if the manager is killed and the dwarves permitted into the workshop die or are reassigned. Furthermore, workshop profiles seem to be slightly buggy. Adequate (rusty) weaponsmiths have been seen using a forge with the skill min/max both set to "Dabbling". This may be somewhat irritating if peasants are undergoing training.

Disadvantages[edit]

A disadvantage of overusing the manager menu is that the jobs requested will be fulfilled mostly in the order they were requested. This means that if you choose to make 30 barrels and 30 bins, the bins may not be produced until all of the barrels are done. Additionally, should another order be given at a carpenter's workshop, the existing tasks may need to be canceled or suspended. These problems are avoidable as long as the manager is not used too heavily, and if production orders are of relatively small amounts.

A useful trick to quickly clear the queue of a workshop is to slate the workshop for removal and then cancel this action.

A second disadvantage is that if there is more than one workshop which can fulfill a particular job set (such as several ordinary glass furnaces dedicated to sand collection, plus several magma glass furnaces for actual glass production) then the manager will distribute the jobs amongst all those workshops. While this can be an advantage (for example, if you want to speed up the work orders by having multiple workshops), this will make it difficult to dedicate different workshops to different tasks. To circumvent this, one solution is to fill a workshop with repeat or suspended tasks to prevent it from accepting manager orders.

Appointed Nobles
Military Ranks
Elected Nobles
Aristocrats
BaronCountDukeMonarch
Other