40d:Economics

Overall Economic Flowchart

Each process on the economic flowchart has the following components:

• Inputs (on left) - the process will use up these raw materials.
• Means/Job - either a building where the process is assigned, or (if in italics) a tool which the worker must have to carry out the process. Following the slash is a job title - this job must be enabled on a dwarf or that dwarf will not participate in that level of the economic path.
• Outputs (on right) - These are the goods that are produced by the economic activity in question.

Note: an article is desperately needed to cover the concept of happy thoughts.

Raw Materials

assign these jobs through the designate or zone options.

Walls -> Pick/Mining -> Stone, some of which is also Ore or Flux or Gems or Coal or Lignite

(designate -> Mine)

Trees -> Battle axe/Wood Cutter -> Wood

(designate -> Chop Trees)

Walls -> none/Stone Detailing -> Room Quality

(designate -> Smooth Stone) and (designate -> Engrave Stone)

The reason you do this is to give your dwarves happy thoughts, which has a beneficial effect. Also with economy the rent rises with room quality

Water -> none/Fishing -> Raw Fish

(designate -> Fish, do this at the level above the water)

Animals -> Weapon/Hunting -> Corpses

(assign any dwarf the hunt job)

Bushes -> none/Gather Plants -> Crops

(designate -> Gather Plants)

Crops -> Eating -> Seed x 2

Seed -> Farm plot/Farming(fields) -> Crops

(note that the Farm Plot while it is a building is not a workshop)

Second Tier Materials

(only raw materials needed as input)

Raw Fish -> Fishery/Fish Cleaning -> Fish

Corpse -> Butcher's Shop/Butchery -> Meat (which is Food), Fat, Skin, Bones, Skulls

Stone -> Mason's workshop/Masonry -> Furniture, Blocks

Stone -> Craftsdwarf's workshop/Stonecrafting -> Craft, Short Sword

Stone -> Mechanic's workshop/Mechanics -> Mechanism

Wood -> Carpenter's workshop/Carpentry -> Furniture, Blocks, Barrels, Bins, Beds

Wood -> Craftsdwarf's workshop/Woodcrafting -> Craft, Bolts

Wood -> Carpenter's workshop/Trapping -> Animal Trap

Wood -> Bowyer's workshop/Bowyer -> Wooden Crossbow

Wood -> Wood furnace/Wood burning -> Charcoal, which is Fuel

Wood -> Wood furnace/Wood burning -> Ash

(note - the Wood Furnace is a Furnace, not a workshop)

Higher Tier Materials

Animal Based

some Fish -> Eating -> Shell and/or Bone

Wild Animals, Animal Trap -> none/Trapping -> Captured Animals

Captured Animals -> Kennels/Animal Training -> Tame Animals

Tame Animals -> Kennels/Animal Training -> Trained Animals

(note that the Kennels while it is a building is not a workshop)

(also animal training only works for dogs right now, unless you care to edit the raws)

Tame Animal -> Butcher's Shop/Butchery -> Corpse

(Z-Animals-Ready for Slaughter)

U->Select the Animal Unit->Set "Ready for Slaughter" to (Y) if there's a specific animal you want to set for slaughter.

Fat -> Cooking?/Kitchen -> Tallow

Tallow, Lye -> Soaper/Alchemist's laboratory -> Soap

The documentation on other wiki pages is inconsistent on this one but Soap doesn't do anything yet, so it's not critical.

Skin -> Tanning/Tannery -> Leather

Leather -> Craftsdwarf's workshop/Leatherworking -> Armor, Bags, Craft, Clothing

Bone -> Craftsdwarf's workshop/Bonecarving -> Craft, Bolts, Armor, Decoration

Bone -> Bowyer's workshop/Bowyer -> Bone Crossbow

Shell -> Craftsdwarf's workshop/Bonecarving -> Craft, Decoration, Armor

Skull -> Craftsdwarf's workshop/Bonecarving -> Totem

Totems can't be used for anything right now. They can be sold, though...

Metal

note - the various "Magma" variants all require Magma, and use less Fuel - no Fuel at all if you don't make steel.

The reaction table for which Ores make which metals and/or alloys is complex and beyond the scope of this article. see Ore for details.

Metals can be used to make different sorts of things, see the article for a given product to see which metals are suitable.

Ore + Fuel -> Smelter/Smelting -> Metal Bars

Ore x 2 + Fuel -> Smelter/Smelting -> Various Alloy

Ore -> Magma Smelter/Smelting -> Metal bars

Ore x 2 -> Magma Smelter/Smelting -> Various Alloy

Lignite + Fuel -> Smelter/Smelting -> Coke x2, which is Fuel

Lignite -> Magma Smelter/Smelting -> Coke x2, which is Fuel

Iron Bars + Flux + Fuel -> Smelter or Magma Smelter/Smelting -> Pig Iron

Pig Iron + Iron Bars + Flux + Fuel -> Smelter or Magma Smelter/Smelting -> Steel Bars x 2

note - this means, to stay in steady operation, smelt iron ore twice, then pig iron once, then steel bars once. The four operations together produce 2 steel. Magma halves the fuel cost but does not eliminate it.

Metal Bars + Fuel -> Smelter/Smelting -> Alloy

it's generally a better idea to make the alloy directly from ore, I believe.

Metal Bars + Fuel -> Metalsmith's Forge/Metal crafting or Blacksmithing -> Furniture, Crafts, Coins

This obviously needs to be fleshed out.

Metal, Fuel -> Metalsmith's Forge/Armorsmith -> Armor

Metal, Fuel -> Metalsmith's Forge/Weaponsmith -> Weapon

Metal, Fuel -> Metalsmith's Forge/Trapping -> Animal trap

Misc

Empty Bags -> Glass Furnace / Item Hauling?!?! -> Sand

You need to assign the collect sand job to a glass furnace, AND

use Zones -> Collect Sand

FWIW I can

Sand -> Glass Furnace / Glassworking -> Furniture

It is presently impossible to make glass weapons because those require glass bars, which you cannot make.

Vermin, Traps -> Kennels or Butcher's shop/Trapper -> Wild animal -> Kennels/Animal training or Animal stockpile/preference or Farmer's workshop/

milking -> Tame animal or one meal or cows milk/purring maggot milk/liquid fire

As far as I know camels cannot yet be milked...

Barrel, Crops -> Still/Brewing -> Alcohol, Seeds

Crops and/or Meat and/or Alcohol and/or Fish and/or Tallow -> Kitchen/Cooking -> Prepared Meals

IMPORTANT NOTE - Cooked Crops do *not* produce seeds, so it is generally a bad idea to cook crops unless you have plenty (Z->Kitchen to disable cooking of crops). Instead, brew or otherwise process your crops and cook the product.

You can also set your kitchen to cook seeds

Crops -> Farmer's workshop/Threshing -> Thread + Seeds

Thread -> Loom/Weaving -> Cloth

Cloth -> Clothier's shop/Clothesmaking -> Clothing, Bags, Decoration

Economic Management

Stockpiles

Due to the way the interface works, the key to maintaining flow in your workshops is to have properly positioned and well-maintained stockpiles.

Clutter has a *huge* impact on your productivity, so minimizing the dwarf-labor required to clear finished goods out of your workshops is key to maintaining their productivity.

It is also important, especially in a mature fortress with a division of labor, to have goods close at hand so that your legendary dwarves don't have to walk all over the fortress to get what they need.

The best way to achieve this is to locate small stockpiles (about 3x3 works best) near the workshop to hold the raw materials needed. By keeping the stockpiles small, you don't have to worry about every hauler in the fortress dropping what they're doing and spending an entire month filling a large stockpile with marble; but if you make them too small, you risk not having enough when the legendary furnace operator gets to work!

Specific guidelines follow.

Stone

Stone is so abundant that you almost never need large stone stockpiles. If you want your stonecrafters or masons to use a choice variety of stone (such as obsidian), and have plenty of excess hauling labor, place a 3x3 or 4x4 stockpile near to the workshop, and restrict it to only a few high-value varieties of stone.

Flux, Fuel and Ore are covered below.

Flux and Ore

A handy flux stockpile is absolutely key to maintaining efficient throughput in making steel. Steel is very labor intensive to begin with and if your furnace operators have to go a long way to get materials, you're over and done.

On the other hand, if you have any flux at all, it's probably marble and you probably have lots of it.

So a large flux stockpile will divert all hauling labor into filling it up.

Generally speaking, a 3x3 stockpile should be plenty, but keep it absolutely as close to your furnaces as possible.

The same considerations apply with ore and furnace fuel, but larger stockpiles are generally less of a problem, because there aren't 800 units of ore to haul. A skilled furnace operator can smelt direct-use ores *very* quickly, so consider a large stockpile for ore once a high skill level is achieved.

In general, a full time wood burner will produce more Charcoal and more ash than a set of magma furnaces (even making steel) will actually use, so you may want to allow the wood furnace to get cluttered and then shut it off; but you should still build a fuel stockpile.

If you don't have magma you're going to burning fuel like crazy.

Lumber

Lumber takes a long time to haul down from the surface, so lumber stockpiles should be quite a bit larger, as this can introduce a significant lag in refilling them, you'll want some cushion.

There's also a big labor input issue - either it takes even longer to haul from the surface, or it takes your intermediary dwarf a long time to get the lumber.

In general, I recommend placing your lumber stockpile near the surface, and placing the lumber using workshops or furnaces as nearby as possible.

This means it may take a long time to haul your ashes or charcoal to your forges for use, but that hauling job can be handled by an Peasant, while the Wood Burner has to haul the logs into the furnace himself.

Finished Goods

Firstly, life without bins is unlivable. If you have to make them out of metal, I suggest copper or lead. But few start locations are so wood deprived that one log is harder to come by than 3 metal bars.

You'll want to make more bins than you can possibly make, so make as many as you can.

Once you have bins, it becomes much easier to haul finished goods to your trade depot, since the dwarves haul the bin with them.

However, goods have to be hauled one at a time from the workshop and then placed in bins. I'm hoping that this is a high priority for change, since it's a major pain in the arse, but there you are.

So, your finished goods stockpile should be as close to your workshops as possible, and you should only haul items to the trade depot once they've been placed in bins.

Material Classifications

This is to help you find stuff in the stock pages

Fuel of every kind, as well as Ash and Potash, are classified as Metal Bars for some mysterious reason.