40d:Workshop

Workshops are where objects are created, refined, altered, and decorated.

Building workshops

Most workshops are quick and easy to build, requiring only a single piece of stone, wood, or other common materials (although there are a few exceptions). To build a workshop, open the build menu and select workshop, then choose which workshop you would like to build and the materials you would like to use in its construction. Your cursor will now change into a floor plan of the workshop. Attention: dark green locations in the plan that will be impassable in the completed workshop, while passable locations will be a bright green. Plans cannot be rotated, so it is important to ensure that the impassable squares do not block a door or otherwise cut off access to the workshop.

Once the plan has been placed in a satisfactory location, you must have a dwarf with the appropriate labor enabled to build the workshop (view dwarf-preferences-labors). For instance, to build a a carpenter's workshop, you must have a dwarf with the "Carpentry" labor enabled. Some workshops (such as the furnaces) must first be designed by a dwarf with the architecture labor enabled. To see what labor is needed to build a particular workshop, press q and move the cursor over its floor plan.

To build a workshop, a dwarf must first clean the area of loose rock and other items lying on the ground by moving them to neighboring squares. Items already claimed by other tasks (such as "Bring Item to Stockpile" cannot be moved and will cause the dwarf to suspend construction of the workshop. If this happens, you will need to wait until the interfering tasks are finished (for instance, rock has been cleared away to a stockpile), and then manually un-suspend construction with the q menu. The dwarf will also suspend the construction when he can't find a proper neighboring square to move the items to. This is usually caused by active construction sites on neighboring tiles.

Using workshops

Once a workshop has been constructed, you will need to assign a queue of tasks at which the dwarves with that workshop's skill will henceforth toil. To edit the queue, hit q and move the cursor over the workshop. Jobs are completed in order from top to bottom; a job set to 'repeat' will be labeled 'R' in the list, and will be be sent back to the bottom after it is done. This allows you to set a workshop to do a series of tasks repeatedly. The job labeled 'A', if any, is the currently active project.

Most jobs require materials. Any dwarf that starts a job in a workshop will automatically retrieve the necessary materials from the appropriate source, even if they don't have the hauling jobs for those materials set. Dwarves work more efficiently if the materials for their workshop are nearby.

Dwarves will not automatically haul things away from workshops once they've been completed. These completed items will pile up in the workshop where they were finished, and if no haulers or storage space is available, they can eventually clutter the workshop to the point where productivity is drastically slowed. A workshop labeled (CLT) at the top of its room display is considered to be cluttered to this point. The brighter the label, the more drastic the effect on production. Even the least severe, dark grey (CLT) will increase production times by a factor of two, and each additional level of clutter thereafter increases the multiplier by an additional one.

Note that the items causing the problem will not be visible in the fortress itself, and that there is no way to notice a cluttered workshop without looking at the items in the room with t or the production and general room information with q.

Workshop profiles

Each workshop has a profile menu (q-P) which allows you to specify which dwarves are allowed to use the workshop (either by name or by a range of skills).

Types of workshops

The workshops used in the game include the following:

• Alchemist's laboratory: Used to make soap.
• Ashery: Used to make lye and potash.
• Bowyer's workshop: Used to make Crossbows
• Butcher's shop: Used to turn some corpses and livestock into usable materials.
• Carpenter's workshop: Used to make many items from wood.
• Clothier's shop: Used to make numerous items from cloth.
• Craftsdwarf's workshop: Used to make a number of items from a plethora of materials for trading purposes. Also useful to make bolts cheaply.
• Dyer's shop: Used to dye clothes and thread.
• Farmer's workshop: Used to make thread, milk, syrup, and leaves.
• Fishery: Used to process raw fish into edible meat and bones.
• Jeweler's workshop: Used to cut gems.
• Kitchen: Used to cook food to decrease needed storage space, and expand the types of edible food.
• Leather works: Used to make leather into armor and clothes.
• Loom: Used to make cloth from threads.
• Mason's workshop: Used to make furniture from stone.
• Mechanic's workshop: Used only to make mechanisms from stone.
• Metalsmith's forge: Used to make a plethora of items from trading items to furniture and trap components from metal bars and fuel.
  • Magma forge: Same as above, but with lesser amount of fuel consumption.
• Millstone: Used to make dyes and food ingredients.
• Quern: Same as above, but with muscle power instead of water or windmill
• Siege workshop: Used to make ballista arrows and catapult and ballista parts.
• Still: Used to make alcohol drinks from plants.
• Tanner's shop: Used to tan hides into leather.

Types of furnaces

Furnaces behave the same way as workshops, except that they need some form of fuel (charcoal, coke, or magma) to operate. To build a furnace, open the build menu and select e.

• Glass furnace
  • Magma glass furnace
• Kiln
  • Magma kiln
• Smelter
  • Magma smelter
• Wood furnace