Bill

First, regular fine meals are cooked. Next are vegetarian fine meals.
If there's no meat for fine meals, vegetarian meals are cooked first.
Simple meals are made last, and only made if the current supply is eaten.

A bill is used to:

• request work to be done at a workstation, such as those under Production.
• request an operation on a pawn

Selection

Pawns assigned to the correct Work type will attempt to work at production buildings and similar buildings that have active bills. For information on which work types correlate to which production benches and the priority order within those work types, see Work.

Bills are attempted from the top of the list, down.

Bills that cannot be worked by the current pawn will be skipped. Reasons for this skipping include:

• The ingredients for the bill are not available, either at all, or within the set ingredient radius.
• The pawn working the bench does not have the requisite skills to perform the bill
• The bill is suspended, either manually or because the conditions to suspend the bill have been met.
• The bill creates an item with an author, such as items with quality, another pawn has started but not completed the bill leaving an unfinished item, and the pawn currently working the bench is not that author.

If no bills can be performed, the pawn will not work that bench.

Bill management

Bills at workstations and on pawns can be managed with the following general commands:

• Delete a bill: Click the red X.
• Suspend or resume a bill: Click the yellow S.
• Change the order of bills: Click the yellow up or down triangles.
• Hovering over a bill with a restricted ingredient radius will outline the limited area (if small enough to see on screen).

Bills at workstations

Dusters will be created until there is 1 duster that is:
1. Made out of devilstrand or hyperweave.
2. On the ground - i.e., not being worn by a pawn.
3. Not 50% HP or lower ("tattered apparel")
Automated tailoring when pawns are assigned to take off < 50% HP clothing.
Pawns auto-wear dusters if they aren't wearing one, activating the bill again.

Besides general commands, bills at workstations have these additional commands:

• Change the quantity or repetitions: Click -/+
• Change the mode: Choose 'Do X times', 'Do until you have X', 'Do forever'.

Modes

• 'Do X times'   (The remaining repetitions is shown to the left.)
• 'Do until you have X'   (The quantity you currently have and have requested is shown to the left.)
  • This mode has an option to 'Pause when satisfied' which pauses the bill when the set quantity is reached. (Items not in a stockpile are not counted.)
  • 'Unpause at: x' will automatically resume a paused bill when the quantity drops to that number.
  • These settings allow you to keep from having too much or too little of a given product, with little or no further management.
• 'Do forever'
  • Work will only stop when there are no materials left.
  • Useful for bills such as 'Butcher creature,' 'Disassemble mechanoid' or 'Burn (tainted) apparel.'

Details

Click [Details] to change the bill's default configuration.

• Set location to take completed product: 'Take to best stockpile' or 'Drop on floor'
  • 'Take to best stockpile' is ideal when your goal is to produce a certain amount of items and make sure they are all counted.
  • 'Drop on floor' saves a great deal of time for everyday production, so pawn spends more of their time working instead of walking back and forth.
• Set ingredient radius: Sets the maximum distance at which pawns will get ingredients.
• Allowed skill: Sets the minimum and maximum skill level, usually to prevent pawns with low skills from making poor products.
• Hit points: Sets the minimum and maximum percentage hit points for ingredients.
• Ingredients: Sets which resources can be used on this bill.

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Bills on pawns

Besides general commands, bills on pawns have these additional commands:

• To add a bill to a living creature click Health, Operations, Add Bill.
  • Note: this only applies to colonists, pets, prisoners, downed friendlies, and downed animals.
• To add a bill to a downed mechanoid, click Health, Modifications, Add Bill.

Notes:

• Certain body parts can be harvested and sold or transplanted to another pawn. However, damaged body parts cannot be harvested.
• Any bill for an operation requires medicine. By default, the best allowed medicine (see Health|Overview) for animals and non-colonists is herbal medicine. If the appropriate medicine for that pawn is not in stock, doctors cannot carry out prescribed bills. Attempting to prioritize the operation will state 'Cannot operate (need material)'. Either ensure the right medicine is in stock or adjust the pawn's allowed medicine.

Gallery

Assorted bills on a machining table.