Town Dispatcher

alaindustrial:town_dispatcher

UtilityLVImplementedtier-lvutilitysettlementconstruction

Summary

The Town Dispatcher is the desk from which a settlement restores and builds its buildings. It is where the town hall's Restoration Plan is put together from three sheets, it holds the queue of orders — which buildings the drones mend and build and in what order — its buffer holds the materials, and Construction Drones take their blocks from there and only from there. The town hall is restored first, then the shift workers' houses.

Quick example: the core in the town hall is lit and the settlement is yours. Place the dispatcher inside the town hall, put the three town hall plan sheets into it (each into its own slot) and press "Assemble plan" — the plan stays in the dispatcher. Place a nest over the town hall and put a construction drone in it, fill the buffer with the blocks of the stage and press "Start" on the "Task" tab. Once the town hall is restored, pick a house on the core's "Construction" tab and press "Restore" — it joins the queue on the "Orders" tab.

How it works

1. Its own settlement. The dispatcher finds by itself the settlement whose territory it stands on (if the territories of two settlements overlap — the one whose core is closer), and never changes it after that.
2. Only in the town hall. The dispatcher works only if it stands inside the town hall of its settlement — within its bounds. Outside it says "Not inside the town hall". Its own spot. The intact town hall of both styles keeps one cell for the dispatcher: a corner of the ground Standing there, the dispatcher never gets in the way of the restoration and counts as in place. On any free spot of the floor it is in nobody's way either. On a cell where the plan has another block (a bench, the counter, a carpet of the drone pad) the dispatcher can stand, but the chat says at once that it will block the restoration there, and where its spot is: when the drones reach that stage, the work stops with "In the way: Town Dispatcher".
3. One per settlement. A second dispatcher of the same settlement does not work and says "The town already has a dispatcher". The one that started working first is the one that works.
4. The town hall's plan. The three town hall plan sheets go into the three sheet slots, sheet N only into slot N (1 → 1, 2 → 2, 3 → 3), Shift-click included: an empty slot shows which sheet is still missing. The "Assemble plan" button takes one sheet from each slot and puts a "Restoration Plan" into the plan slot. The sheets must be of one style — this settlement's style; if something is wrong, the reason is written under the button (a sheet is missing, a sheet is repeated, the sheets come from different styles, the style is another town's). A finished plan can also simply be placed into the plan slot. The assembled plan stays in the slot — that is the active plan, and there is no need to take it: a plan taken out (or a broken dispatcher) stops the drones on the town hall, and the work stands with the reason "No restoration plan" until the plan is put back. Neither sheets nor the plan go into the buffer.
5. House plans. A House Plan also goes into the plan slot, but it does not stay there: the settlement learns it and the sheet is used up, and the chat says "the settlement has learned House Plan (type N)." The settlement knows a learned type for good, and houses of that type can be ordered. A plan the settlement already knows is taken by the slot too, with no message. A house plan of another style stays in the slot.
6. Orders. The settlement's work is an order for a particular building. An order is placed with a button on the building's card on the "Construction" tab of the Settlement Core ("Restore", "Build", "Repair"), and for the town hall also with the "Start" button here. An order covers everything the building needs: clearing, if there is anything to remove, a road to the settlement's network for a house not yet connected to it, and the building itself. A free drone takes the first order in the queue that no other drone has taken yet: one building — one drone, so with N nests up to N orders go on at once. A finished building leaves the queue by itself.
7. A cancelled order. Cancelling removes all the building's open jobs; what is done stays in the world. The settlement does not place a cancelled order again on its own. A cancelled town hall is carried on with the "Start" button (the "Task" tab says "The order was called off. Press Start to go on"), a cancelled house — with the "Resume" button on its card in the core. The drones go on from where they stopped.
8. The queue does not lose buildings. If an order has ended but the building is still not restored and has no jobs, the settlement places the order again by itself after 10 seconds — no more often than once every 5 minutes per building. If the drones still have nothing to do, the "Task" tab names what is in their way.
9. Material buffer. 27 slots. The drone takes blocks from here and only from here: it does not open the settlement's chests. An item is used up at the moment the drone places the block — not when it takes off. The drone also puts here the dirt and stone it removes on the site of a new house and along a road's course (whatever does not fit drops on the spot).
10. Status. The dispatcher's face shows a radar: at rest — a quiet screen, while the settlement's drones are working — rings of signal spread out from the centre.

Why construction stands

No job waits silently: a stopped job always has a reason and a hint on what to do.

If the town hall is not restored and the drones have nothing to do because a block with data stands where the plan has a block, the "Task" tab says in red "X stands at x y z where the plan wants Y" and "Drones never touch blocks with data: take it away yourself, then press Start". Once it is removed, the work goes on by itself.

Who is in charge

The plan, the materials, the order and cancelling of orders, and starting construction belong to the settlement's restorer only. For a player who is not part of the settlement the dispatcher does not open at all: the chat says "The core does not recognise you: you are not part of this settlement." An operator in creative mode opens the window and sees everything, but cannot put in or take out an item, assemble a plan, change the queue or start construction. Anyone the settlement recognises can select an order to look at. While nobody has woken the settlement, anyone can manage it.

Interface

The window is 256 × 240 pixels — it fits a 1280 × 720 screen at GUI scale 3; the tabs are icons along the left edge, as on the Settlement Core: "Task", "Orders", "Buffer", "Materials", "Journal". All text wraps onto the next line and never runs onto the inventory.

• At the top — the block's name (on the other tabs — the tab's name), and below it on its own line the status: "No town around", "Not inside the town hall", "The town already has a dispatcher", "Waiting for work", "Drones at work" or the reason the plan did not assemble.
• "Task" (opens first) — the plan row: three sheet slots, the "Assemble plan" button, the plan slot and the "Start" button; below it, in a frame above the inventory, a list of four steps for the selected order (by default the first in the queue, and with no orders — the town hall). The list never goes past its frame: if it is taller, the mouse wheel scrolls it and a scroll bar appears on the right. Each step has a tick or a cross, and an
  1. "Restoration plan" — for the town hall: "Put the 3 plan sheets above and press “Assemble plan”"; once assembled — "Keep the plan here, no need to take it"; a plan of another town hall — a cross and "This plan is for another town hall". For a house: "The settlement knows the house plan of type N" or "This house needs the house plan of type N";
  2. "Nests with a drone: N of M" — how many nests with a drone stand over the town hall and work, and how many the core's tier allows;
  3. "Stage materials in the buffer" — everything the current stage of the selected building needs is in the buffer;
  4. "Construction" (with the name of the selected order) — while the jobs are going, "Work is under way: Start is not needed" and below it the building's jobs with their state, and for a stopped one the reason in red and a hint; for a town hall with no job — "Press “Start”" or "“Start” opens once the plan and a drone are ready"; after restoration — "The town hall stands whole, the drones look after it".
• The "Start" button is for the town hall. It is inactive while something is missing; its tooltip lists exactly what. Required: the settlement's restorer, a town hall that can be restored and has no job yet, the plan of this town hall in the plan slot, and at least one nest with a drone over the town hall. Materials are not required: clearing comes first and needs no blocks, so short materials are only a warning in the tooltip ("Materials are short: drones start with clearing"). If the drones have nothing to do — "The drones have nothing left to build: see the note under Construction". The server checks the same things again when the button is pressed. "Start" puts the town hall's order first in the queue. Once the town hall is restored the button is inactive for good ("The building is restored, the drones look after it themselves"): the drones mend a damaged town hall themselves, and a repair is placed without the button.
• "Orders" — the settlement's queue of orders in its order, each on a light card: the building's name (for a repair — "Repair: …"; green while a drone holds the building) and below it where its job stands: the kind of job and "a drone is at work", "next for a free drone", "waits for a free drone, all are busy" or "no drone, put a nest with a drone over the town hall" ("Building: a drone is at work"), and also "Waits for its road: the house is built after it", "Put the town hall's plan into the plan slot", "This house needs the house plan of type N" or the reason it stopped (in red). On the right the restorer has three buttons: ▲ "Earlier in the queue", ▼ "Later in the queue", ✕ "Cancel the order". Clicking a card selects the order — the "Task" and "Materials" tabs show it, and the selected card is highlighted. The selection is not saved: after rejoining the first order is shown again. An empty queue says "No orders: pick a building in the core's “Construction” tab or right-click a house's inlet".
• "Buffer" — three rows of nine slots and a hint that drones take blocks only from here.
• "Materials" — the current stage of the selected building ("Capsule house (type 1): stage 2 of 5, Walls") and a grid of the stage's item icons, like in slots. For a house that still needs its road, the first stage is "Capsule house (type 1): stage Road, N road blocks to go": Town Road blocks and earth fill for the raised spots. The dirt under a house's foundation counts in the same "Earth Fill" line: Dirt, Coarse Dirt, Cobblestone, Cobbled Deepslate, Stone and Sandstone all do. Under each icon — "have/need": red while short, with a green tick once there is enough. Hovering shows the usual item tooltip; the mouse wheel scrolls a long list. For a house of a type not yet learned the tab says "Capsule house (type N): the settlement has not learned the house plan of type N yet". Shift-clicking an item in your own inventory while this tab is open puts into the buffer exactly as many as the stage is still short of (needed minus what is already in the buffer), the rest stays with the player; an item the stage does not ask for is not moved. On the other tabs Shift-click is the usual one.
• "Journal" — what the drones have done, newest at the top, with the in-game time on every line; the mouse wheel scrolls it. A finished stage, the restoration of a building, damage to and mending of the town hall, and missing materials get lines of their own.
• Below — the player's inventory.

Chat messages

Construction news comes to the settlement's restorer while they are online, with the [Ala Industrial] tag. Every line starts with the header "Settlement No. N (core at x, y, z):" and is coloured: the header white, the coordinates grey, the names of buildings, stages and plans yellow, what is done green, what broke or stopped red, the player's next step gold.

• A town hall stage is done: "stage Walls is done. Next is Fittings: put its materials into the dispatcher." — or "Next is Fittings; its materials are in the dispatcher, the drone goes on."
• A house stage is done: "Capsule house (type 1), stage 2 of 5 (Walls) is done." and the same "Next is …".
• Clearing is over: "the drones have cleared the site of … and the ground round it."
• The first restoration of the town hall — one line together with the house plan it gives: "the town hall is restored. The settlement wakes up. Received: House Plan (type 1)." There is no separate line about the last stage. If the restoration share is met before the drones have finished the last cells, the line comes once the work is done and the order has left the queue.
• A house is restored: "a capsule house is restored, a home for one more shift worker." A new house: "a new … is laid. The drones clear its site, lay its road and build it." and "the new … is built, a home for one more shift worker."
• A house plan is learned: "the settlement has learned House Plan (type N)."
• Construction stopped because of something the drone will not remove itself: "work on … has stopped. In the way: X at x y z." and, in gold, what to do. "In the way", "The drone cannot reach" and "cannot be built" come this way — once per building and reason; the same reason comes again only when the spot has changed or the job has ended.
• A repair of a restored town hall is not counted in stages: one line when the repair is placed ("the town hall is damaged, the drones are mending it.") and one when it is whole again ("the town hall is mended."); both also go into the "Journal".
• The dispatcher is put on a cell where the plan has another block: "the dispatcher here will block the town hall's restoration. Planned here: Spruce Trapdoor." and in gold "Its place in the hall: x, y, z." This line goes to whoever put the dispatcher there.

Inventory

Energy

The dispatcher takes no energy: the drones charge from the Settlement Core through their nests.

Block Properties

Recipes

Crafting table: a Machine Casing, two Electronic Circuits, a Battery, a Copper Cable (the antenna) and four Copper Plates.

Progression

• Needs the Settlement Core of its settlement and the town hall's restoration plan made of three sheets.
• Gives work to the Drone Nests on the town hall's roof.
• After the town hall — the shift workers' houses: House Plans, the House Inlet, the Charging Bed and the Town Road.

Related

• Drone Nest — the drone takes materials from the dispatcher's buffer.
• Settlement Core — the building cards, the order buttons and the "Construction" tab.
• House Plan — learned in the plan slot.

Crafting

Shaped Crafting

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Town Dispatcher