I see a lot of questions in the forum about staff not picking up dishes, losing dishes and just general dishwashing problems. I found a system that works for me and I wanted to share it to hopefully help others.

Crossroads Inn runs on a system where the staff constantly check their priorities against available jobs and if something isn't available, they just won't do it and probably not tell you why. This guide will help you understand priorities as they relate to dishwashing.

• At least one servant
  
• At least one drudge
  
• Two shelves
  
• A counter
  
• Dishwasher

Build two shelves; one designated for servants to drop dirty dishes in and one designated for drudges to put clean dishes in.


Dirty dish shelf setup. Check only dirty dishes and dirty mugs.


Clean dish shelf setup. Check only clean dishes and clean mugs.


Next up, go into your dishwasher storage settings and un-check clean dishes and clean mugs. You don't want clean dishes just sitting in there, right?


Go into your counter storage settings and check only clean mugs. This will ensure that only clean mugs end up in your counter. You could have plates here too if you want but I think it's better to keep those in the kitchen.

Setting your clean shelf as a higher priority will ensure that your drudges pick up the dishes out of the dishwasher and carry them over as soon as they are available. Soonish. 🤷‍♂️

Since I set my clean shelf as high priority, I need to set my counter to max priority to ensure they get moved from the clean shelf to the counter. I don't really need my drudges constantly hauling mugs though, so I will occasionally dial the priority down to let them do other things when I'm good on mugs.

I set my servant's priorities to high 'Waiting tables', medium 'Cleaning', low everything else. I think picking up dirty dishes probably falls under 'Cleaning', but my tables are in relatively good shape, so I think this works for me. If you're having problems with dirty dishes on tables, max out 'Cleaning' and see if that helps.

If dishes are still piling up on tables, you want to ensure that your servants can path to them, which is why I leave some space around my tables. Wedging a table against a wall looks cool and packing tables means more customers but your servants might not be able to get to those dirty dishes.

I set my drudge's priorities to high 'Cleaning' and high 'Carrying'. In our little dish supply line, drudges do most of the work as carrying. Washing the dishes counts as 'Kitchenwork'. This setup works for me but if your drudges are sweeping too much, lower that a bit and raise 'Kitchenwork' if they need to scrub some dirty dishes.

I should note that in the game, the servants pick up the dirty dishes and put them wherever you designate. In our case, they're going to the dirty dish shelf. The drudges do most of the work here though. The drudges move the dirty dishes to the washer (using 'Carrying'), then they and the kitchenhands will wash the dishes (using 'Kitchenwork') and finally the drudges pick up the clean dishes out of the washer and take them to their destination (using 'Carrying'). If you're having dishwashing problems, breaking down the steps might help you troubleshoot where the problem is in the supply line.

That's all I got. I hope this helps!