Trouble keeping my drink quantity up?

[manollette]

Bit of a dumb question, but I've gone through every solution I can find. I have a fort of about 200 dwarves, with three stills and a standing work order that applies to all of them to brew 100 drinks from plants when there's less than 400 drinks total, and 50 from fruits when there's less than 250. I consistently have a ton of plants and fruits, gather more regularly, have a 6x12 and a 4x8 farm for plump helmets specifically, and have them restricted from cooking.

Despite all of this, I routinely hover around 40-50 drinks at most, and haven't been back in the triple digits in over a year. I don't suppose anyone has any ideas on what else I could check?

[TTV.Scrumpetsheep]

I think maybe because you need to make the "when theres less then x drinks" less.

Mine are all set to Brew 50 drinks when less then 25 and i havnt had issues yet.

they are probly drinking the drinks as fast as they are being made. Make more breweries.

[manollette]

I've made additional stills twice now, the issue was identical with one to what it is now with three. Will try the 'X' drinks requirement adjustment, though I'm not hopeful on that - the problem isn't that the condition isn't being hit, the work order's been active.

[TTV.Scrumpetsheep]

Originally posted by manollette:

I've made additional stills twice now, the issue was identical with one to what it is now with three. Will try the 'X' drinks requirement adjustment, though I'm not hopeful on that - the problem isn't that the condition isn't being hit, the work order's been active.

Make sure the stockpiles are close to your still, too. Give each still its own work order so the orders arnt spread out between multiple workshops. check how many brewers are active in your fort.

[Strurbury]

What kind of job cancellation spam are you getting?
No empty food items?
No unrotten plants/fruit?
... in linked stock pile?

If your still is set to take plants and fruit from a specific stockpile, it must also take empty barrels from a designated stockpile

Try assigning your still to a single worker and restrict their labor to only brewing through the workshops menu.

[manollette]

All the foodstuffs are right by the stills, with the drink storage also pretty close by. Not getting any job cancellation spam, and the workers *are* consistently working - at least 3 of the 4 stills are active at all times.

[Harmonica]

I think you're probably just outdrinking their ability to produce. With a population that size I would have more brewers.

More dedicated skilled brewers, larger stacks from dedicated skilled farmers, and centralised storage above and below the stills in a vertical stack to reduce travel time. If you want to go further you can burrow the brewers into the brewing factory complex and build their quarters right next to their dedicated stills :)

[manollette]

I'll give that a go. Only just now with this being said have realized you can add custom labor settings to the menu. Thank you!

Unrelated note, but two other things that have been ongoing if you have any idea:

I've got a dwarven child who keeps throwing tantrums, getting into fights, etc. I've been trying to figure out how to deal with that. I've convicted him for every "disorderly conduct" occurrence, even tried falsely accusing him for a murder that a (now arrested) vampire did. Dude just keeps going around kicking peoples' teeth in.

And on a more general note, I've seen a lot of neat advice and tricks that seem to involve either settings that I can't find or micro managing. Stuff like sending dwarves to your holdings when there doesn't seem to be an option. Someone suggested chaining your vampire up in a tower somewhere on the map so they can act as an immortal watch-tower, but there doesn't seem to be a way to choose what chain to tie them to or to move them once they're in place. One suggestion that you scout deep holes by pushing a dwarf into them, but I can't for the life of me figure that out. Is there actually a way to do all of these things? Or are these the kind of tricks that involve a lot of manipulating the game's systems in abstract or otherwise convoluted ways.

[Other]

"sending a dwarf to another holding" is either an option when expelling the dwarf (button on their card with a dwarf face and a big red arrow pointing away from it) or what happens to the squad leader when you successfully conquer a new site.

The vampire is probably a citizen, so you don't need to use the justice system to put him in place. As long as he has recently fed, or you isolate him from all potential victims (likely with a private hall to where he is going, and locked doors along the way), you can put him in a squad and give him a station order, or build a lever where you want him, put his name on it, and order it pulled. After he is in place, you can lock the nearest door behind him, and optionally build a wall in front of it, Cask of Amontillado-style.

Depending on what you put in his prison, he can be your bookkeeper, manager, lever-puller for defenses, or you can have him train combat skills forever (and let him loose on invaders). Lever-puller may require some fiddling to get him away from the lever room if you need to install something new, and endless training works better if you have two of them, since sparring is much faster training than individual combat drill.

Dropping a dwarf down a volcano likely involves using a station order to get them to stand on a bridge, then retract the bridge out from under them.

[Doctor Zalgo]

Originally posted by TTV.Scrumpetsheep:

I think maybe because you need to make the "when theres less then x drinks" less.

Mine are all set to Brew 50 drinks when less then 25 and i havnt had issues yet.

they are probly drinking the drinks as fast as they are being made. Make more breweries.

Drinks don't spoil so you might as well make it "if less than 200, brew 50". You can add a second rule for "if less than 10 empty barrels make 10 barrels" and before you know it you'll have a nice healthy reserve of booze.

Prepared meals don't spoil either (as long as they're in a stockpile) and they're really good money (a bin of masterwork lavish meals is enough to buy out an entire human caravan, including all the raw food ingredients, which you can immediately turn into more masterwork lavish meals).

[The Trashman]

The amount of time it takes to complete a brewing job depends on the brewing skill. If you have stills open to anyone, then low-skilled dwarves can brew so slowly that they can't keep up with demand. I'd suggest assigning at least one still to a dedicated brewer, whoever has the highest skill, and limit the other labours your brewer performs.

I had a similar issue, three stills and drink supply was dwindling despite them all being constantly in use. I added a dedicated brewer and they worked significantly quicker, clearing the backlog. You could also just keep adding stills, but that takes more labour than having a dedicated brewer

Anecdotally, to demonstrate the difference skill level makes, I had a legendary gem cutter and a novice gem cutter in adjacent workshops. The legendary jeweller cut 11 gems in the time the novice cut one. That's the extreme, but even if skilled brewers are only twice as fast, it makes a difference

[clockworklemon]

Originally posted by TTV.Scrumpetsheep:

I think maybe because you need to make the "when theres less then x drinks" less.

Mine are all set to Brew 50 drinks when less then 25 and i havnt had issues yet.

they are probly drinking the drinks as fast as they are being made. Make more breweries.

BUILD MORE PYLONS

[manollette]

For anyone who wants confirmation, it looks like it was a combination of "not enough stills" and "creating a dedicated brewing labor force" that did the trick. Three stills with regular dudes of varying skills wasn't doing the trick.

And thanks for the tips on the micro management! No idea why I never thought of just making a squad.

[Grumpulus]

One other issue you're probably seeing. A stack of '1 plump helmet' will be a job putting 5 units of wine in a pot. When you're farming, you may not get stacks of more than 1 depending on whether it's fallow or fertilized etc.
I have stills are dedicated to making drinks from dwarf plants - which can run almost constantly... then others that have a 'fruit' or a plant that doesnt grow in my biome i buy from those above ground freaks.
I'm careful with those though - the little buggers go for 'different alcohol' given a choice - and i dont want them standing around in the drink stockpile (if you use higher pathing costs in front of the stockpiles it will discourage this, but not if that's where you keep the good stuff)

[manollette]

Originally posted by Other:

"sending a dwarf to another holding" is either an option when expelling the dwarf (button on their card with a dwarf face and a big red arrow pointing away from it) or what happens to the squad leader when you successfully conquer a new site.

If the arrow is missing, is it missing because he's a child, or is there another problem, possibly related to his CONSTANTLY being a ♥♥♥♥?

[Teemo]

You're probably cooking all your drinks into meals. Go into your labors -> Kitchen and turn off cooking for all your drinks.