How do I force craft object needs?

[Sophtopus]

I have a ton of dwarves needing to craft something. I tried making multiple craft stations but I think it auto selects the best person for the job. Another problem is 'acquire objects'. I have a ton of trinkets lying around but they're just not picking it up.

[Diarmuhnd]

Didn't you click that button to assign a worker to the Workshop? Rinse repeat.

Have you encrusted your trinkets with ivory, bones, shells or cut gems? Dwarfs are not very interested in cheap trinkets, they want $bling$ and many dwarves like specific items only.

[Other]

For getting them to claim trinkets, it helps to have a dwarf haul it somewhere. My normal way to get them to do that is to create a dump zone one tile away from the stockpile they normally go in, dump the stuff, and reclaim it. putting it back away doesn't take long, but with >100 things to haul all at once, usually everyone gets into the act, and has a chance to claim something.

Acquire objects (and "be extravagant") can also be satisfied by new clothes. I think it takes a $100 price to hit extravagant, and since masterwork clothes of almost any material hit that even without decoration, I don't normally have to worry much about either need once I have my clothing industry going. I do produce stuff for every slot dwarves can make, so you may have more trouble if you are trying to just give them shirt, trousers, and shoes.

[Holyvision]

Are you using work orders? Did you allow said orders to use more than 1 station per request?
Are your station set to allow a min amount of work order jobs?

[Jorn Stones]

It's not forced by any means, but I've set up 2 magma kilns. These are set to:
1 collect clay (repeat)
2 make clay crafts (repeat)

While normal jobs would often make the same dwarf repeat the work over and over again, collecting clay is a cycle-breaker, and this instead ends up being done by a different dwarf rather than the one who just make clay crafts, subsequently when the craft job is up again, the original dwarf that did it is now not available to take it, and another does it instead.

out of 51 dwarves with labors including pottery, 34 of them are now novice or dabbling potters. (and pottery is not something a dwarf will ever get a strange mood for either!) so it seems to serve the purpose well where a lot of different dwarves get a chance to meet their 'craft object' needs. At the same time, the trickle of crafts will help get dwarves meet 'aquire object' while hauling them, and give me a stockpile of stuff that I can easily drop on the elves.

to actually force it, would require assigning a workshop to a single dwarf, and make it craft anything with highest priority, but you should not rely on doing this for sure.

[Sophtopus]

Originally posted by Jorn Stones:

It's not forced by any means, but I've set up 2 magma kilns. These are set to:
1 collect clay (repeat)
2 make clay crafts (repeat)

While normal jobs would often make the same dwarf repeat the work over and over again, collecting clay is a cycle-breaker, and this instead ends up being done by a different dwarf rather than the one who just make clay crafts, subsequently when the craft job is up again, the original dwarf that did it is now not available to take it, and another does it instead.

out of 51 dwarves with labors including pottery, 34 of them are now novice or dabbling potters. (and pottery is not something a dwarf will ever get a strange mood for either!) so it seems to serve the purpose well where a lot of different dwarves get a chance to meet their 'craft object' needs. At the same time, the trickle of crafts will help get dwarves meet 'aquire object' while hauling them, and give me a stockpile of stuff that I can easily drop on the elves.

to actually force it, would require assigning a workshop to a single dwarf, and make it craft anything with highest priority, but you should not rely on doing this for sure.

My embark had no clay unfortunately. Only sand. Is there any alternative? I do have a lot of bone from chickens though.

Originally posted by Holyvision:

Are you using work orders? Did you allow said orders to use more than 1 station per request?
Are your station set to allow a min amount of work order jobs?

Yes I did, and I'm not going to assign 50+ dwarves individually to every station. That is madness lol.

Originally posted by Other:

For getting them to claim trinkets, it helps to have a dwarf haul it somewhere. My normal way to get them to do that is to create a dump zone one tile away from the stockpile they normally go in, dump the stuff, and reclaim it. putting it back away doesn't take long, but with >100 things to haul all at once, usually everyone gets into the act, and has a chance to claim something.

Acquire objects (and "be extravagant") can also be satisfied by new clothes. I think it takes a $100 price to hit extravagant, and since masterwork clothes of almost any material hit that even without decoration, I don't normally have to worry much about either need once I have my clothing industry going. I do produce stuff for every slot dwarves can make, so you may have more trouble if you are trying to just give them shirt, trousers, and shoes.

Knowing the minimum value helps a lot. I thought they'll claiom anything because I see a lot of people walking around with random trinkets. Does hauling to a trader counts as Acquire item as well?

[Jorn Stones]

Originally posted by Sophtopus:

Originally posted by Jorn Stones:

It's not forced by any means, but I've set up 2 magma kilns. These are set to:
1 collect clay (repeat)
2 make clay crafts (repeat)

While normal jobs would often make the same dwarf repeat the work over and over again, collecting clay is a cycle-breaker, and this instead ends up being done by a different dwarf rather than the one who just make clay crafts, subsequently when the craft job is up again, the original dwarf that did it is now not available to take it, and another does it instead.

out of 51 dwarves with labors including pottery, 34 of them are now novice or dabbling potters. (and pottery is not something a dwarf will ever get a strange mood for either!) so it seems to serve the purpose well where a lot of different dwarves get a chance to meet their 'craft object' needs. At the same time, the trickle of crafts will help get dwarves meet 'aquire object' while hauling them, and give me a stockpile of stuff that I can easily drop on the elves.

to actually force it, would require assigning a workshop to a single dwarf, and make it craft anything with highest priority, but you should not rely on doing this for sure.

My embark had no clay unfortunately. Only sand. Is there any alternative? I do have a lot of bone from chickens though.

Originally posted by Holyvision:

Are you using work orders? Did you allow said orders to use more than 1 station per request?
Are your station set to allow a min amount of work order jobs?

Yes I did, and I'm not going to assign 50+ dwarves individually to every station. That is madness lol.

Originally posted by Other:

For getting them to claim trinkets, it helps to have a dwarf haul it somewhere. My normal way to get them to do that is to create a dump zone one tile away from the stockpile they normally go in, dump the stuff, and reclaim it. putting it back away doesn't take long, but with >100 things to haul all at once, usually everyone gets into the act, and has a chance to claim something.

Acquire objects (and "be extravagant") can also be satisfied by new clothes. I think it takes a $100 price to hit extravagant, and since masterwork clothes of almost any material hit that even without decoration, I don't normally have to worry much about either need once I have my clothing industry going. I do produce stuff for every slot dwarves can make, so you may have more trouble if you are trying to just give them shirt, trousers, and shoes.

Knowing the minimum value helps a lot. I thought they'll claiom anything because I see a lot of people walking around with random trinkets. Does hauling to a trader counts as Acquire item as well?

Sand works for glass, surely. just make green glass. Glassmaker is a moodable skill though .
Is there no clay in any cavern layer either?

[Helios]

Originally posted by Sophtopus:

I have a ton of dwarves needing to craft something. I tried making multiple craft stations but I think it auto selects the best person for the job. Another problem is 'acquire objects'. I have a ton of trinkets lying around but they're just not picking it up.

try building a dirt road on grass outside and try the clay zone on it.

[Sophtopus]

Nope. Zero clay embark. The site I wanted only had sand.

[Helios]

Originally posted by Sophtopus:

Nope. Zero clay embark. The site I wanted only had sand.

desert or steppe?

[Sophtopus]

Originally posted by Helios:

Originally posted by Sophtopus:

Nope. Zero clay embark. The site I wanted only had sand.

desert or steppe?

Strangely, a freshwater marsh

[76561188078797539]

I'd suggest using a forge for clearing those needs. Assuming you can either set up a fast magma forge, or can generate abundant charcoal.

With default settings you'll have plenty of mostly useless ore (copper, silver) that you can turn into weapons. Even with limited initial metal access, you can always smelt anything that's not masterwork with no side considerations.

Let the "needy" dorfs make some useless weapons. The Urists that aren't highly skilled in any mood-related profession will then end up making you artifact weapons when the mood strikes them (they do need their Weaponsmith higher than any other related skill).

Those are generally worth all the effort.

[LastChime]

Make a custom labor that's metalcrafting and set the needy dorfs to do it, make coins and melt them.