(Solved) Runaway Work Orders

[ToucheRabbit]

Hi! I was wondering if anyone else had run into this issue. I've been running into a problem with my last couple forts where work orders set to activate on a condition refresh/repeat regardless of whether or not the conditions are met. Am I misunderstanding something, or is this a bug (Edit: looks like a bug. Kylorian found a temp fix in the mean time!)? I've tried simplifying the work orders to single conditions, in case any condition being met activates them, but they activate even then, with a singular unmet condition.

The current example being, my dwarves are addicted to coke: My dwarves have been told to produce coke from lignite when we fall below X coke, with the next condition being that we have at least 10 lignite. Regardless of the fact that we have hundreds of units of coke, my dwarfs have spent the last several weeks producing coke instead of their other tasks. Even whittling it down to* the "<X coke" condition, which has been untrue for years, doesn't stop them from spending weeks producing the stuff. This doesn't seem to affect all orders, just some.

Anyone got any ideas? Thanks for reading!

[Kylorian]

would need to see the actual order in a screenshot to really help. If its set up right they shouldnt be making it unless all conditions are met.

[Kylorian]

Also make sure you dont have a different order going for making refined coal/coke that might be kicking in.

[mr_pan7s]

Seems to happen to me too so i wonder if there is a fix and i'm not a new player. i originally thought maybe my bookkeeper wasn't good enough or wasn't counting but even after doing it for years on only bookkeeping they still over produce items. i always have so much ale and everything else and i condition everything. was maybe thinking it was because when they pick up say the bin of coke they lose the numbers in the menu and think they need more but if what you say is like what i have then there is that much coke still laying around regardless of a bin of it missing for a few

[graalGGTV]

Originally posted by mr_pan7s:

Seems to happen to me too so i wonder if there is a fix and i'm not a new player. i originally thought maybe my bookkeeper wasn't good enough or wasn't counting but even after doing it for years on only bookkeeping they still over produce items. i always have so much ale and everything else and i condition everything. was maybe thinking it was because when they pick up say the bin of coke they lose the numbers in the menu and think they need more but if what you say is like what i have then there is that much coke still laying around regardless of a bin of it missing for a few

In the case on drinks, specifically, it's really easy to overproduce with work orders, depending on how you set them up and how good your farmers are, though.

1 plump helmet is turned into 5 drinks, and a stack of 5 plump helmets is turned into 25 drinks. So, if you are consistently getting 5+ plump helmets per stack and you tell your dwarves to produce 50 if you have less than 200, for instance, you'll end up with over 1k drinks before you know it, since they will produce 50 x 25 when the order goes through

[ToucheRabbit]

Originally posted by Kylorian:

would need to see the actual order in a screenshot to really help. If its set up right they shouldnt be making it unless all conditions are met.

Sure! Lets see if steam will take this link. https://gyazo.com/24d4f2915447e993d804cd5032cd02dd
In the case that it doesn't: Right now it's an order to make 10 coke from lignite on the condition that there is less than 20 coke available. This is checked monthly (this is a switch from daily. My hope was that it would refresh less often, but both daily/monthly checks seem to tick w/o updating the task.) The condition is recognized as unsatisfied, but the task remains active. There is currently 400+ coke in the stockpile. Tasks attributed to this order continue to dominate my smelters.

Originally posted by mr_pan7s:

they still over produce items. i always have so much ale and everything else and i condition everything.

I've actually been getting this too! I've switched to leather production after this borked my pigtail cloth in the last fort. Drinks I've at least been able to limit with barrels, even though it would be nice not to have cancelled tasks spamming the sidebar. (Quick edit: This actually seems to be the same issue. Activated food production orders with unmet conditions have been running for years.)

[ToucheRabbit]

Temporary fix for anyone else having this issue: Let the runaway orders go to your crafting stations, and pause them at the workbenches. It's not pretty, and definitely won't work if this starts happening to more and more stations, but if you don't mind a bit of manual management this seems like the best thing I can sort out of yet.

[Kylorian]

Originally posted by ToucheRabbit:

Originally posted by Kylorian:

would need to see the actual order in a screenshot to really help. If its set up right they shouldnt be making it unless all conditions are met.

Sure! Lets see if steam will take this link. https://gyazo.com/24d4f2915447e993d804cd5032cd02dd
In the case that it doesn't: Right now it's an order to make 10 coke from lignite on the condition that there is less than 20 coke available. This is checked monthly (this is a switch from daily. My hope was that it would refresh less often, but both daily/monthly checks seem to tick w/o updating the task.) The condition is recognized as unsatisfied, but the task remains active. There is currently 400+ coke in the stockpile. Tasks attributed to this order continue to dominate my smelters.

Originally posted by mr_pan7s:

they still over produce items. i always have so much ale and everything else and i condition everything.

I've actually been getting this too! I've switched to leather production after this borked my pigtail cloth in the last fort. Drinks I've at least been able to limit with barrels, even though it would be nice not to have cancelled tasks spamming the sidebar. (Quick edit: This actually seems to be the same issue. Activated food production orders with unmet conditions have been running for years.)

I mean yeah the order is set correctly. And with having that much in stock even with something like an unaccounted bin or the like it shouldnt start but clearly is. Could try removing the order and making it anew, changing coke to refined coal, or lowering the priority on the list down to the bottom so they will focus on other crafts. All three even just to see if anything works. Strange but ive had my share of terrible bugs for no real reason so yeah no idea.

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

So I think I figured out the issue with dwarves making tons of coke (and snorting it hehe) in my fort, in my general work orders I set the make coke task to 50/50 on the actual number of times it had to be done, once I switched that to 10 or a lower number the actual smelting of steel or other jobs became far more common.

I believe the reason why they are constantly making fuel every time you check is because they have a large order to fill on them and in turn this takes up the vast majority of the tasks your preforming at each smelter so its not that your not actually smelting steel/gold/etc things at smelters its just that its being done very slowly in comparison with the job with more production units assigned to it.

Edit: I would also say this, if you have a specific task assigned to a workshop that is supposed to only produce x type things in an attempt to increase the skill of its assigned dwarf you basically can't make a general task for the same workshop type.

Essentially in my example I had 3 magma forges, one for furniture, armor, and weapons each set to a different master in order to train their skill and make masterworks specifically. Problem was I caught them making billon crafts after a time and realized that because the order was general it was worming into their jobs too. I hope in the future they add an option to exclude a workshop from general orders.

[Kylorian]

Originally posted by Googley Eye'd Bastard:

So I think I figured out the issue with dwarves making tons of coke (and snorting it hehe) in my fort, in my general work orders I set the make coke task to 50/50 on the actual number of times it had to be done, once I switched that to 10 or a lower number the actual smelting of steel or other jobs became far more common.

I believe the reason why they are constantly making fuel every time you check is because they have a large order to fill on them and in turn this takes up the vast majority of the tasks your preforming at each smelter so its not that your not actually smelting steel/gold/etc things at smelters its just that its being done very slowly in comparison with the job with more production units assigned to it.

They only have it set to 10 per production. witch per day is a decent amount but with over 400 in stock it should not be starting in the first place even if was set to say make 100. because the condition of having less then 20 isnt met.

[ToucheRabbit]

Originally posted by Kylorian:

Could try removing the order and making it anew, changing coke to refined coal

I'll give these a shot, good idea!

[Googley Eye'd Bastard]

Originally posted by Kylorian:

Originally posted by Googley Eye'd Bastard:

So I think I figured out the issue with dwarves making tons of coke (and snorting it hehe) in my fort, in my general work orders I set the make coke task to 50/50 on the actual number of times it had to be done, once I switched that to 10 or a lower number the actual smelting of steel or other jobs became far more common.

I believe the reason why they are constantly making fuel every time you check is because they have a large order to fill on them and in turn this takes up the vast majority of the tasks your preforming at each smelter so its not that your not actually smelting steel/gold/etc things at smelters its just that its being done very slowly in comparison with the job with more production units assigned to it.

They only have it set to 10 per production. witch per day is a decent amount but with over 400 in stock it should not be starting in the first place even if was set to say make 100. because the condition of having less then 20 isnt met.

It could be that each smelter still has some part of the task that isn't complete yet in their orders like 7/10 complete, other then that I'm not sure.

[ToucheRabbit]

Remaking the order worked, the same order/more complex orders seem to be working as intended now. Thanks! Must be a bug still needs to get squashed, but for now this seems the best solution available to us.

[Kylorian]

Originally posted by ToucheRabbit:

Remaking the order worked, the same order/more complex orders seem to be working as intended now. Thanks! Must be a bug still needs to get squashed, but for now this seems the best solution available to us.

Cool glad there was an easy fix in game! The barracks issue i was having required me to fully remove the game from my PC and start over. Not that big of a deal considering the nature of this game is to Die a glorious dwarfy death have fun. Also on the issue of canceled orders, if you can get past the dread of having that symbol up that is. I leave fails in my orders to help up production needs for things like consumable ores like flux. It gives you a heads up instead of randomly noticing it or wondering why steel stuff you order isnt being made 3 seasons later, just to run down the list of needed stuff.