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[The_Hawk]

This has a lot to do with the other corpse-rather-than-junk-collection threads, but I figured it belonged under separate cover.

I've got a dragon camped out in the forest, and he's making my life a living hell.  Generally I could keep the dwarves away from him until he started killing elephants.  Then, they constantly started getting tasked to collect the elephant bones.  This might not be so bad if the elephant bones were worth something, and if, to get to them, they didn't walk past fresh butcherable elephant corpses, and piles of weapons and equipment from old caravan guards, and the huge amount of meat I purchased from the last caravan that they allowed to rot.  It got so bad that I turned off gathering refuse from outdoors, and then gathering refuse altogether; neither  actually stopped these jobs from being created.  (I guess maybe that's a bug report, if it hasn't been reported before.)

I have two suggestions.  First, make bones the last thing that any dwarf gathers if there's anything else to pick up.  Second, we've got the Dwarves Save Bones/Dwarves Chasm Bones switch on the Refuse Orders menu.  I assume this pertains to bones removed from corpses during butchery.  How about a third option -- "dwarves don't gather bones"? With "Dwarves Save Bones" they try to get them all; with "Dwarves Don't Gather" they're discounted as gatherable refuse but the ones created in the butchery process are kept (I don't know if that sort of distinction is possible), and with "Dwarves Chasm", they don't gather them and chuck all the ones they get from butchery into the chasm.

[Aquillion]

The thing about it not stopping jobs:

Are you sure that the jobs were still being created?  Remember, any jobs from before you turned off outdoor refuse hauling would still be around waiting for a dwarf.  Specifically, this means that every single bone that was lying outside your fortress before you turned outdoor refuse hauling off probably already had a job attached to it, and would therefore attract dwarves anyway.

[bloodyfool]

I've seen craftdwarves go out into the middle of nowhere to try and pick up bones for bolts with outside refuse handling turned off.

[Aquillion]

...honestly, I often want them doing that.  I find the limited range of the butcher's shop to be extremely annoying, so I wouldn't want craftdwarves to work the same way.

[FunkyWaltDogg]

quote:Originally posted by bloodyfool:
<STRONG>I've seen craftdwarves go out into the middle of nowhere to try and pick up bones for bolts with outside refuse handling turned off.</STRONG>

I lost my legendary bone carver in precisely this way.  

[The_Hawk]

quote:Originally posted by Aquillion:
<STRONG>Are you sure that the jobs were still being created?</STRONG>

Yes.  I had the same thought, but not only was I doing Remove Cre every time one of the dwarves tried to go collect elephant bones (so as to keep them from becoming charred piles of bones themselves), but I have anecdotal evidence to suggest new jobs were being created.  Specifically, at some point after Gather Outdoor Refuse was turned off, a stray kitten wandered into the dragon's blast zone.  Next job I saw was Store Item in Stockpile: cat bones [2].  They tried to do the same thing with some elephant bits that were torn off later.  So, I have reason to suspect turning off refuse gathering doesn't work properly.

Still, it doesn't address the greater problem, which is that my dwarves shouldn't be going to gather elephant bones while walking past otherwise butcherable elephant corpses, particularly when starvation is an imminent threat.  Or, at the very least, I should be able to tell them not to.  

[Aquillion]

One suggestion I made a while back was to seperate carron hauling from refuse hauling...  a corpse is really worth a lot more than any other refuse, and generally needs to be hauled quickly.