As a newbie I found it quite difficult to learn all the ins and outs of production and dismantling queues.
 
 
I thought it might be useful to summarise what I have learnt with much help from the discussion forum, in case it helps other newbies like me.
 
 
The guide currently has no graphics, which I hope does not detract too much from the guide’s usefulness. I do intend to update the guide in future.
 
 

CONTENTS

• Production Jobs

• Dismantling Jobs

• Queue Management / Changing the Order of Jobs in a Queue

• Obtaining Items to Dismantle

• Improving the Quality of Items by Repeated Dismantling and Construction

 
 
 

PRODUCTION AND DISMANTLING QUEUES (THINGS LEARNT BY NEWBIE)

Production facilities (campfires, workbenches, stations etc.) can have several jobs queued, of the following types:
 
 

PRODUCTION JOBS

 
There are 3 kinds of job, each of which can have a specified list of allowable resources (materials, fuel etc.).
 
 
*Produce Amount (3, say): this example will produce 3 items, when resources are available, and then go inactive (idle) with the amount reduced to 0. While resources are not available this job is inactive (waiting for resources).
 
 
*Produce Until You Have (4/10, say): this example will keep trying to maintain 10 items in storage. The “4” is not input by you, it is the game telling you the number of items already found in recognised storage areas (stockpiles etc.). Note that items currently EQUIPPED by settlers (weapons etc.) are NOT included in this count. While there are items to be produced, and any resources are available to this job, and if there are no active jobs ahead of it in the queue, this job is active (or waiting for worker).
 
 
*Produce Forever: similar to Produce Until You Have, but with no upper limit to the number of items to be produced, limited only be resources available.
 
 
For all production jobs involving armour, weapons, shields or clothes, the quality (Flimsy to Flawless) will be somewhat randomised around a mean value that seems to depends on the skill of the worker. From my experiments a settler with carpentry skills of 38 is capable of occasionally producing a weapon of Flawless quality, and will quite often produce a weapon of Superior quality.
 
 
The hitpoints of those items produced are always set to maximum for that item/quality.
 
 

DISMANTLING JOBS (ARMOUR, WEAPONS, SHIELDS, CLOTHES)

 
There are 2 kinds of job, each of which can take a variety of conditions on type of item, hitpoints and quality:
 
 
*Dismantle Items Amount (1, say): this example will dismantle 1 item that meets the conditions (see below) and then go inactive (idle) with the amount reduced to 0. I haven’t found a use for this kind of job, but others may have.
 
 
*Dismantle Items Forever: this job will keep dismantling items as long as there are any that meet the conditions (see below) – if there are none then the job remains on the queue but goes inactive.
 
 
Depending on the production facility, a job may allow an item to be dismantled for cloth, or to be dismantled for metal, or to be dismantled for wood (only one of these per job, choices depend on the production facility).
 
 
A dismantling job may specify what items are eligible (which kinds of armour, say), what quality range of item is eligible (Flimsy to Good, say), and what hitpoint range is eligible (0% to 49%, say).
 
 
For various reasons you might want 3 dismantling jobs queued at a production facility, e.g.:
 
 
* First job in queue dismantles all items in a quality range.
 
* Second job in queue dismantles all items in a hitpoint range.
 
* Third job in queue dismantles all items of type(s) that you never want anyway (various hats and hoods, say).
 
 
Link:
 
https://steamlists.com/going-medieval-how-to-set-up-a-proper-disassembly-line/ – [steamlists.com] 
 
 

QUEUE MANAGEMENT / CHANGING THE ORDER OF JOBS IN A QUEUE

 
Only one job at a production facility at a time can be active. Jobs are considered for activation in queue order.
 
 
If you want to change the order of jobs in a queue, just click the up or down arrow at the left of the job in the queue.
 
 

OBTAINING ITEMS TO DISMANTLE

 
A common way, of course, is to defeat a raid, leaving a pile of stuff on the ground (each item needing to be “un-forbidden”).
 
 
A more interesting way is to replace items equipped by settlers that have become worn out. For instance, in the Manage tab, column Manage Weapon, you could have a new profile called “Crossbow”, which specifies the ranges of quality and hitpoints of the crossbow to be equipped. If the hitpoints were to fall below the specified range the settler would (should) drop that weapon and auto-equip a new one (if available) – but it is not desirable that this should happen (in combat, say).
 
 
A better approach is to occasionally check the current hitpoints of each settler’s weapons, and before they fall too low, get that settler to drop their weapon (preferably when they are asleep). The dropped item will be “forbidden”, so the settler won’t simply re-equip it. Instead, the settler should auto-equip a new weapon which meets their weapon profile.
 
 
The discarded weapon will later have to be found (hopefully in the sleeping quarters) and “un-forbidden” so that it can be dismantled.
 
 

IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF ITEMS BY REPEATED DISMANTLING AND CONSTRUCTION

 
A way to do this is to repeatedly dismantle unequipped items of insufficient quality, and use a skilled-enough settler to construct the same items, until the new items are of sufficient quality not to be dismantled. If the settler has a * or ** rating against their skill, then doing this may also eventually increase their skill level.
 
 
For efficiency, my own suggestions for doing this are:
 
 
* For the job involved (carpentry, say), have only the highest-skilled settler assigned to this job, with maximum priority, the other settlers having no priority at all for this job [right-click their priorities in the JOBS tab until the number goes blank]. Note that this may be good in the short term, but you will also need to develop the lesser-skilled in the same job at some point.
 
 
* Close together in a workshop, have the following:
 
– a small high-priority stockpile with resources (e.g. wood) needed for the construction part,
 
– the production facility or facilities used for repeated assembling and dismantline, and
 
– storage facilities (e.g. weapon racks) for holding the produced items.
 
 
Having all these close together will stop the skilled settler from doing long-distance hauling, while less skilled settlers (ideally hauling animals) can keep the stockpile supplied.
 
 
* Consult the Almanac (top right of screen) to see how much quality improvement in the item being produced is worth the effort.
 
 
For each level of quality, the Almanac indicates the various attributes for the item of that quality (e.g. for a ranged weapon, Hitpoints i.e. longevity, Value, Damage, Precision, Precision falloff with distance, Armour penetration, Armour damage, Range and Attack Duration i.e. time between shots).
 
 
You may find that the top few levels of quality don’t make enough difference to matter to you.
 
 
Anyway, I hope some people find this information useful, and I would like to thank all those on the discussion forum who helped me to learn it.
 
 

 
 
Hope you enjoy the Guide about Going Medieval – Production Job & Dismantling Queues, if you think we should add extra information or forget something, please let us know via comment below, and we will do our best to fix or update as soon as possible!