0013303: Brewer not randomizing ingredient selection - Dwarf Fortress Bug Tracker

ID	Project	Category	View Status	Date Submitted	Last Update

0013303	Dwarf Fortress	Dwarf Mode -- Jobs, Cooking and Food	public	2025-10-07 12:42	2025-10-07 12:42

Reporter	SeanTheSheap	Assigned To
Priority	normal	Severity	minor	Reproducibility	always
Status	new	Resolution	open
Product Version	52.05

Summary	0013303: Brewer not randomizing ingredient selection
Description	When executing brewing tasks at stills, brewers do not randomly select ingredients, even between ingredients with the shortest and equal path lengths to the workshop. This makes it unnecessarily difficult to reliably ensure a variety of drinks, without creating a separate still, a separate stockpile, and a separate order for each desired type of drink.
Steps To Reproduce	Set up: I had 1 still and, nearby, 6 single-tile stockpiles, each configured to store a single type of brewable plant. Further, I placed these stockpiles in a small room with one single-tile entrance such that each stockpile was the same distance from the entrance. This was done to ensure that a) the path from the still to each stockpile was the same length (as the still was not in the room) and b) the path from the brewer to each stockpile was the same length. Test: I repeatedly ordered that drinks be brewed from plants, and with enough executions, it became clear that the brewer would fetch a plant from the stockpile that he was spatially closest to when starting to execute the task. This meant that, the vast majority of the time, he selected from only 1 of the 6 stockpiles, since he was most often spatially closest to that one. (This is bound to happen unless you can somehow ensure that, over time, your brewer will be evenly positions in all directions relative to the stockpile room.)
Additional Information	I realize that this isn't necessarily a bug, and initially, I wasn't going to report it. Having read the wiki, some forum posts, and so on, it's my understanding that, when a dwarf executes a workshop task, he will consider not only the paths between the workshop and the materials but also which materials are closest to him. Thus, once valid paths and therefore valid materials are identified, he will simply go to the closest material. For many tasks, this makes perfect sense. However. I noticed that this is not how my cook executes prepare meal tasks: Using the exact same "equal-distance-paths" method, and repeating the same prepare meal task over and over, he very obviously takes from any of the available stockpiles in a random order. This leads me to believe that, at least for these tasks, something extra happens between a) finding valid paths (and therefore valid ingredients) and b) fetching those ingredients. It would be lovely if this would also apply for stills so that one still can easily and reliably produce diverse drinks from one still, one order, and several stockpiles.
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Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2025-10-07 12:42	SeanTheSheap	New Issue