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Author Topic: Refuse handling + balancing  (Read 1404 times)

PatrikLundell

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Refuse handling + balancing
« on: November 19, 2014, 03:38:09 am »

A fair number of questions here:

1. After finding out sentient corpses on the refuse pile spooks both sensitive dwarves and caravans, I tried to set up one sentient refuse pile, and one non sentient one, and failed. It's a lot of work to set up, since there are so many sentient creatures and a lot of body part sections as well, and in the end it didn't work anyway, because the buggers hauled the perfectly butcherable forgotten beast corpse to the sentient pile, rather than the closer non sentient pile (settings reversed, i.e. everything allowed except sentients). The sentient pile was newer and to the NW of the original one, though. My conclusion is that you have to Dump sentient corpses and body parts manually, for further manual disposal. Also, I think you need to Dump all the corpses from the goblin invasion FIRST and then unforbid their equipment. Otherwise sensitive citizens with a preference for bloody troll fur loincloths over high quality locally produced clothing will go to the battlefield and get horrified again and again (has happend to me). Is there a way to get the desired refuse separation to work with refuse piles?
2. The wiki claims tattered clothing, damaged furniture, etc, should go to the refuse pile. However, my dwarves carry tattered clothing to ordinary clothes piles (in as far as they carry the stuff at all), but I've never seen it in the refuse pile. Is there any way to designate unwanted stuff as refuse?
3. I've tried to set up tattered clothing stockpiles for trade collection, but the only separator I find is based on value, and high quality worn (and discarded) clothing is still worth more than basic quality factory new stuff. Is there a way to collect worn stuff? I have so far periodically scoured the map and Dump marked all the dropped stuff (tedious and unfun), and have set up the Garbage pile 1 tile from the trade depot, and have also experimented with a lowest quality clothes stockpile with bins just beside it, but as indicated, higher quality discarded stuff still gets sent to the new stuff pile. Obviously, this usage would seriously conflict with Dumping for corpse disposal.

4. I have a serious over production of booze and food. Is there some kind of info on how many farm tiles you need to fulfil your booze, food, and clothing needs?
5. It seems the dorfs clothing needs are infinite. How much do they need/want?
6. I must be doing something wrong in my clothing production mix when dwarves prefer blood soaked low quality goblin stuff before local high quality production. I thought their need would be covered by producing Tunics, Cloaks, Trousers, Hoods, Gloves, Socks and Shoes, but obviously something is missing. What I'm looking for is a repeat production mix (max 10 items, since that's the queue length) that will keep them satisfied.
7. Given the clothing demands, I can't slaughter enough animals to get the leather for clothes production (to complement pig tails), but that results in an over production of meat. Is there a way to get rid of unwanted meat other than just let it rot and THEN be discarded? I try to use up as much as possible by production of Lavish Meals.
8. I can't seem to find a working labor mix. I've had several instances of unexpected (and unwanted) egg hatching because the dorfs just couldn't be bothered with collecting them in the very long time it takes before they hatch. I also have lots of instances of crops withering in the fields due to lack of harvesting (90% of the harvesting seems to be done by children, except when there is a time critical task, such as a medical emergency or tanning of raw hides, when harvesting suddenly becomes a top adult priority). Dropped clothes are rarely collected, workshops get cluttered despite (infinite) storage space in quantum stockpiles. I assume it comes down to getting hauling set up properly, but I can't seem to find a working mix. Dwarves with proper labors to do cannot be tasked with hauling, since they then never get around doing their job, so I try to switch hauling on and off on these dwarves (need a lever set up? Disable hauling on a mechanic (or all of them, then see who got ready first), wait until the job is done (the mech's idle), enable hauling again). However, hauling is a bunch of categories, and my experimentations haven't resulted in any kind of balance. Either everyone is flat out hauling stuff (or performing proper jobs), but some jobs never gets taken care of, or some haulers sit idle much of the time (I've mostly given up trying to combine farming with anything else, so farmers plant, pull occasional levers, and the TOP dwarven priority: destroy stuff, do nothing, and STILL fail to harvest). Any ideas on how to get a healty hauling mix?
9. What hauling category does raw gems fall into? Stone or Item? The reason for the question is that I've tried to come up with hauling categories divided into "near" and "far" jobs, where wood and stone collection are potentially remote ones, where the worker may take quite some time getting the job done. I don't want to task dwarves with "far" jobs if they may be needed for a proper job (like a doctor).
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Brewster

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Re: Refuse handling + balancing
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2014, 09:02:35 am »

Googly! That's a lot of text, I used Ctrl-F to find the ?'s.

1) -pass-
2) I use the Stocks screen, and "dump" those items. Can't make them refuse to my knowledge (think I had in one fort it was EXTREMELY damaged and it went to refuse, but typically I have clothing industry so they get replaced w/ new before it gets really bad), but you can throw them down your trash shoot to a smasher.
3) same answer as #2
4) no
5) enough to stay warm, try to an article on each limb (including tootsies), body, head
6) -no question mark found-
7) similar to answer #2 and #3, try using your Stocks screen. You can dump/forbid/hide/melt from that screen. Let the bookkeeper organize and find the stuff for you. There's no way in vanilla DF. Maybe DFhack but I don't use that so I don't know.
8 ) tl:dr
9) Not 100% sure, do some science and find out, I would assume 'Item' though.

hope I helped some, too long to read gotta go to work, enjoy DF!

ptb_ptb

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Re: Refuse handling + balancing
« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2014, 09:18:58 am »

For 'horribly complicates stockpile settings' have a look in the mod forums. I believe that someone is working on a dfhack script that can save / load stockpile settings.
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Larix

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Re: Refuse handling + balancing
« Reply #3 on: November 19, 2014, 09:38:05 am »

2 - while you'll have to dump or sell your old rags to get them out of your clothing piles, you can simply paint a refuse stockpile (set to only accept from link with no links) under your garbage dump. That removes rottable items fairly quickly without need for atomsmashers, and such rotting away doesn't anger crafters of masterpieces.
3 - you can reduce the mixing of old and new clothes by setting up specific new-clothes stockpiles: clothing stockpiles linked to take from your clothiers' shops, set to only accept from links. The piles for old clothes would not be linked anywhere and preferably placed where many dwarfs hang out. Dwarfs still manage to get old rags into new-clothes piles on occasion or abduct fresh clothes to the old junk pile, but there'll be much less mixing this way.
5 - dwarfs start to look for replacement clothes once theirs show the first sign of wear, which takes about two years of use. Basically, you need a full set of clothing per dwarf every two years.
6 - dwarfs want one item for every "layer" in every slot. Standard queue would thus be
dress (upper body - "under")
robe (upper body - "over")
cloak (upper body - "cover")
trousers (lower body - "over")
gloves (hands - under/over?)
mittens (hands - cover)
cap (head - under/over?)
hood (head - cover)
sock (feet - under?)
shoe (feet - over?)

Not sure of the exact layers of the various non-upper body pieces, but they all occupy different layers, so a dwarf will go and get one each whenever possible. Upper body "over" and "under" items are somewhat randomised; iirc, tunic, shirt and dress are "under", toga, vest, coat and robe are "over". Forts won't have all of them available and you may miss dresses and/or robes, so use other items in the same layer as substitute. Dress and robe are preferred because they cover most of the body (and have the highest monetary value).

The regular rushes of dwarfs running out to grab used loincloths are an effect of this "cover each layer" policy - loincloths are lower body, under layer, and dwarven civs cannot produce any items for this layer/slot themselves, so whenever fresh imports arrive, everybody will run to grab some.

7. leather can't reasonably be self-sourced; slaughtered animals mainly give meat (and bones), but only a single hide of leather each. It's just not practical. The only sane way to get enough leather is by imports (order leather from the dwarven civ).

8. Looks like you're producing too much stuff and don't have enough haulers. Get more immigrants, tone down your item production.
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taptap

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Re: Refuse handling + balancing
« Reply #4 on: November 19, 2014, 11:05:11 am »

1) you could try to go a) without goblins (kind of happens nowadays even if you don't want it), b) fight goblins in a way that produces less clutter (magma, ice-melt) or c) produces the clutter in a place where it can be removed easily by such means. personally I came to see and dread invasions as potential hauling jobs and after you have seen half a dozen dwarves wipe out entire sieges including cave dragon squads etc. often enough the charm wears thin - especially if you try to run a long time fort.

4) you can simply reduce the size of your fields if they produce too much - if you have withering despite harvesting kids they are either way too large anyway or set up inefficiently with long hauling between agricultural stockpiles and plots. you can also let them lie fallow for a few seasons or years. 1 tile per dwarf is already too much in my fort.

7) try slaughtering always the young animals for some years, less meat still one leather. thus the popularity of kitten leather. but admittedly I use leather mainly for lasting items (no shoes but leather high boots, leather armour, leather helm) assigned by militarising the fort, also I succumbed to the temptation of livestock management by DwarfTherapist. still i sit on a respectable cave crawler leather stock (and production) by now, which would be sufficient / sustainable for at least shoes and gloves for my dwarves if run on civilian lines. you can also sell meat, it has less value, which may be just what you want to feel less exploity.

9) i don't care for gems, but in general customized hauling increases efficiency a lot. a dedicated planter not running around doing other stuff, woodcutters that do not carry wood, miners that do not carry stone, doctors that don't go around etc. (i also crosstrain my haulers as hammerdwarves and put them in their job only after increasing strength, endurance and agility -> makes them better haulers and helps in an emergency.)
« Last Edit: November 19, 2014, 11:11:41 am by taptap »
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Refuse handling + balancing
« Reply #5 on: November 19, 2014, 01:55:02 pm »

Thanks, this goes some way to answer the questions:
1-3: So, Refuse doesn't really work for either sentients or worn stuff. Atom smashing masterworks makes the creator annoyed (but I think that's been fixed for bolts. I haven't seen any complaints about bone/wood bolts being used, and thus destroyed). Dumping on garbage seems like a smart move, but I'd really like to be able to differentiate between what I dump, especially since it can take literally years between things being designated for dumping and someone actually does something about it.
3: Linking production to "new stuff" stockpiles seems smart.
4: I've got 27 indoor tiles and 26 (I think) outdoor tiles in my 220 dwarf fortress.
6: If you've got caravans, then you ought to try to buy whatever "lower body under" stuff the can sell? Thanks Larix for your explanation! I'll consult the Armor wiki page.
7: That is a thought: the smallest, animal that still yields a hide when slaughtered as a newborn.
8: The largest production is probably clothing... Trade junk and gems do not seem to generate much of a problem, since these things just sit locally. Stone hauling is an issue, though, as I can't really figure out why they are fetching those stones to that stockpile. I've also had some rather weird issues with block stockpiles intended to feed frontline stockpiles for things like securing caverns. They kept working on block stockpiles for years after I stopped block production.
9: Gems are essential to handle moods, but otherwise I have just used them to finance the early fortress. I basically have dedicated workers, plus 20 or so peons for hauling (where I've tried to specialize them somewhat), but the workers cannot really be employed full time (some exceptions, like bone carver and gem cutter, but a full time butcher just doesn't work) when you've produced the stuff you need. Having two full time doctors for the treatment needed every two years seems rather impractical, although I'm seriously considering a couple of lever pullers. Having someone walk from level 140 to pull a lever during an invasion isn't really enjoyable.
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Loci

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Re: Refuse handling + balancing
« Reply #6 on: November 19, 2014, 02:27:03 pm »

1. After finding out sentient corpses on the refuse pile spooks both sensitive dwarves and caravans, I tried to set up one sentient refuse pile, and one non sentient one, and failed. It's a lot of work to set up, since there are so many sentient creatures and a lot of body part sections as well, and in the end it didn't work anyway, because the buggers hauled the perfectly butcherable forgotten beast corpse to the sentient pile, rather than the closer non sentient pile (settings reversed, i.e. everything allowed except sentients). The sentient pile was newer and to the NW of the original one, though. My conclusion is that you have to Dump sentient corpses and body parts manually, for further manual disposal.
I use one refuse pile with an attached quantum-minecart-trash-chute set to automatically dispose of sentient remains. You only really need to enable the creatures that actually appear on your map (goblins, kobolds, kea men, etc.) which can save a significant amount of setup time.

4. I have a serious over production of booze and food. Is there some kind of info on how many farm tiles you need to fulfil your booze, food, and clothing needs?
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:How_large_a_farm_do_i_need

5. It seems the dorfs clothing needs are infinite. How much do they need/want?
6. I must be doing something wrong in my clothing production mix when dwarves prefer blood soaked low quality goblin stuff before local high quality production. I thought their need would be covered by producing Tunics, Cloaks, Trousers, Hoods, Gloves, Socks and Shoes, but obviously something is missing. What I'm looking for is a repeat production mix (max 10 items, since that's the queue length) that will keep them satisfied.
They prefer to wear one item for each layer. If you limit production, they will raid invaders' corpses for missing articles. Several mods address this issue by giving invaders less clothing. You can just go directly into the entity_default.txt raw file and disable/remove excess clothing for invading races. If the goblins don't wear loincloths, your dwarves won't rush the battlefield to claim them.
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Refuse handling + balancing
« Reply #7 on: November 19, 2014, 05:03:04 pm »

@Loci:
1. I tried to use exactly that refuse pile setup strategy, but as mentioned, the buggers also haul potentially valuable FB/titan corpses there, which destroyed it for me. Valuable = source of stuff not otherwise available, such as e.g. shells to cater for moods (haven't yet suffered that one, fortunately).
4: Excellent link! Thanks!
5/6: I'll use the Armor wiki page to check up on layers. I don't have a problem with dorfs rushing out onto the vermin disposal tunnel battlefield while the enemies are eliminated since I use civilian alerts, but the new mood system severly spooks some of them while the bodies are strewn about (must be a shock for the baby that grew to a child while there, and another child is still in therapy after having abandoned the attempts to get some bloody underwear about 5 times due to fright, but I think she nabbed some in the end). Since it seems dorfs haven't invented underwear (not even metal ones!), it's probably only fair that the goblins pay for the nuisance they cause by providing some underwear imports.
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Refuse handling + balancing
« Reply #8 on: November 30, 2014, 03:22:00 pm »

I've found the answer to the Forgotten Beast remains going to the wrong refuse pile on the bug tracker, so I thought I'd copy it here:

Quietust: "The problem is that while the stockpile settings interface hides "inappropriate" creatures (namely, Forgotten Beasts), it still tracks their settings, and selecting "Allow All" or "Block All" will set/clear those invisible settings - if you don't want forgotten beast remains to be stored in a particular refuse stockpile, you must select "Block All" and then individually enable your desired categories (whether by using "Permit XXX" or by selecting each entry individually)."

It also seems to work: a dorf just picked up an inappropriate FB piece from my Raw Hides stockpile (it didn't have any hide, so that test will have to wait).
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