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[qalnor]

The lockup method is best, unless you want to spend a lot of time forbidding shit.

I'm pretty sure it does pick the closest one, but strictly as measured by sqrt(x^2 + y^2 + z^2) not by steps or anything.

[Torak]

quote:Originally posted by Torak:
<STRONG>Whatever happened to [Make Dark stone xxx] [Make light stone xxx] [Make rock xxx]?</STRONG>

No, really, why is it gone.

[Mechanoid]

quote:Originally posted by Torak:
No, really, why is it gone.

If you'll remember, the 2D versions had ore and stone as seperate materials; you couldn't smooth ore walls. Nor could you make "Gold Ore Statue" or similar crafts and furniture from the 'raw' ore. In essence, if you hit a ore vein in the middle of your fortress plans, you'd have a gaping hole in your defenses if you dug it out, and even if you didn't it would look very ugly to have your smoothed walls interupted by these square blocks.

So, in order to let the player smooth ore walls, Toady had to combine the ore raws with the stone raws, in essence turning the "This is a rock wall, and this is a ore wall" environment into a "This is a stone wall, and this is a stone wall with ore" As to why light/dark stones no longer exist is also likely similar to that, likely being along the lines of smelter reactions and other stone types. If you've failed to noticed, there are many new types of stone that do not apply to the light/dark paradigm, as they are completely different colors. [So, in order to reduce the problems have having multiple raws again to deal specifically with all the different stone types, and as a part of future plans with geology, reactions, and workshop-related plans, Toady did away with the light/dark designations.
At least, that's my guess.]

...
As well, there is a designation that helps you to stop using your "light" and "dark" stones; 'd'esignate -> 'f'orbid

[ December 05, 2007: Message edited by: Mechanoid ]

[Lord Dullard]

Yeah. There still definitely needs to be a way to specifically select the type of material you want to use, though.. I wouldn't even care so much that my mason decided to walk halfway across the fort to grab a rock if it was the right *kind* of rock. Is there any reason the masonry menu can't be set up exactly like the smelting/smithing menu?

Addendum: Although, on an aside, distance calculation obviously needs revamping as well..

[ December 05, 2007: Message edited by: Lord Dullard ]

[hactar1]

I buried my mason's shop deep within the mountain to get the hundreds of gabbro blocks I wanted for my temple project.  They cleared out a pretty neat cube of loose rock from multiple z-levels, over time.  So I think the "nearest stone" calculation doesn't involve travel distance, only absolute "as the mole tunnels" distance.

I used workshop profiles to limit the work to a few masons, and then disabled all other jobs for them.  That way they're less likely to go do another job, then grab a stone near them and get back to work.

But yeah, I miss the ability to specify even light-gray-dark stone for work.  That (or a fully-featured material selector) would definitely be an improvement.

[Alfador]

To sum up:

Options on workshop we'd like: [Use closest stone] [Use closest of custom stones]
Where the latter brings up a material menu much like a custom stockpile, where you can select/forbid stone types on a workshop-by-workshop basis.

This way, you could make a mason's workshop specifically for making blocks out of microcline for a beautiful cyan road, while another churns out rock crafts out of whatever, and still another makes specific rocky things out of valuable ores you don't yet have the resources to smelt (native platinum mechanisms, mebbe).

[varsashi]

What about a workshop function that allowed you to associate it with one or more stockpiles? That way, when you set a task for a dwarf, he would do 2 extra checks: "Stockpile associated with Workshop?" [YES/NO] and if YES than "Material needed(rock, finished good, animal) in associated stockpile?" [YES/NO]

That is truly hypothetical. I don't know enough about coding to know if this would work or not.

[ERoberts]

Toady could make an option in the shop's profile menu that would allow you to change the material gathering behaviour of a shop, (I think someone mentioned something like this already.) One of the options should be to use a "Construction" style interface, where you can see how many of each material is available, and can choose from the list.

[Scotty]

in my latest fortress i've been setting up several garbage dumps near my workshops, i set one of the dump sites active and the rest inactive and as i mine i dump certain rocks into each garbage pile, changing the active pile for each type of rock, then when i want to make something with a certain material i just reclaim that stone i want.

though this really only works if you have 1 workshop using stone at a time so i would wait for my craftsdwarves to finish making microcline mugs before i have my mason make diorite coffins.

[Vengeful Donut]

quote:Originally posted by qalnor:
<STRONG>I'm pretty sure it does pick the closest one, but strictly as measured by sqrt(x^2 + y^2 + z^2) not by steps or anything.</STRONG>

Taxi cab geometry or something similar is more likely. I've seen some really wierd stuff that isnt consistent with either though.