autolabor

Tags: fort | auto | labors

Command: autolabor

Automatically manage dwarf labors.

Autolabor attempts to keep as many dwarves as possible busy while allowing dwarves to specialize in specific skills.

Autolabor frequently checks how many jobs of each type are available and sets labors proportionally in order to get them all done quickly. Labors with equipment – mining, hunting, and woodcutting – which are abandoned if labors change mid-job, are handled slightly differently to minimize churn.

Dwarves on active military duty or dwarves assigned to burrows are left untouched by autolabor.

Warning

autolabor will override any manual changes you make to labors while it is enabled, including through other tools such as Dwarf Therapist.

Usage

enable autolabor

Anything beyond this is optional - autolabor works well with the default settings. Once you have enabled it in a fortress, it stays enabled until you explicitly disable it, even if you save and reload your game.

By default, each labor is assigned to between 1 and 200 dwarves (2-200 for mining). 33% of the workforce become haulers, who handle all hauling jobs as well as cleaning, pulling levers, recovering wounded, removing constructions, and filling ponds. Other jobs are automatically assigned as described above. Each of these settings can be adjusted.

Jobs are rarely assigned to nobles with responsibilities for meeting diplomats or merchants, never to the chief medical dwarf, and less often to the bookkeeper and manager.

Hunting is never assigned without a butchery, and fishing is never assigned without a fishery.

For each labor, a preference order is calculated based on skill, excluding those who can’t do the job. Dwarves who are masters of a skill are deprioritized for other skills. The labor is then added to the best <minimum> dwarves for that labor, then to additional dwarfs that meet any of these conditions:

  • The dwarf is idle and there are no idle dwarves assigned to this labor

  • The dwarf has non-zero skill associated with the labor

  • The labor is mining, hunting, or woodcutting and the dwarf currently has it enabled.

We stop assigning dwarves when we reach the maximum allowed.

Examples

autolabor MINE 5

Keep at least 5 dwarves with mining enabled.

autolabor CUT_GEM 1 1

Keep exactly 1 dwarf with gem cutting enabled.

autolabor COOK 1 1 3

Keep 1 dwarf with cooking enabled, selected only from the top 3.

autolabor FEED_WATER_CIVILIANS haulers

Have haulers feed and water wounded dwarves.

autolabor CUTWOOD disable

Turn off autolabor for wood cutting.

Advanced usage

autolabor list

List current status of all labors. Use this command to see the IDs for all labors.

autolabor status

Show basic status information.

autolabor <labor> <minimum> [<maximum>] [<talent pool>]

Set range of dwarves assigned to a labor, optionally specifying the size of the pool of most skilled dwarves that will ever be considered for this labor.

autolabor <labor> haulers

Set a labor to be handled by hauler dwarves.

autolabor <labor> disable

Turn off autolabor for a specific labor.

autolabor reset-all|<labor> reset

Return a labor (or all labors) to the default handling.

See autolabor-artisans for a differently-tuned setup.