Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Derakon]

Based on my observations while trying to cool some magma to obsidian, here's the process dwarves use to fill a pond:

1) Retrieve bucket from stockpile
2) Go to water source, fill bucket
3) Carry filled bucket to designated pond
4) Pour water into pond
5) Drop bucket, go about other business (typically storing something else in a stockpile)
6) (Later) Retrieve bucket, return it to stockpile
7) Go to (1)

I had a natural pond right next to the designated pond, and my dwarves could easily have cooled that magma in a twentieth the time it actually took, and with much less wasted walking back and forth, just by not returning the bucket to the stockpile between every trip. It looks like each "fill pond" task is a single trip, and once the dwarf completes that trip he gets to choose a new task, but the next "fill pond" task either isn't on the job board or has too low of a priority compared to other available tasks.

[Drakale]

Pfeh real dwarves cool magma using only the content of their bladder  

[Sean Mirrsen]

DF has yet to reflect on that particular aspect of dwarven nature though.  

Actually, the moment the bucket's dropped, it is tagged for hauling back to the stockpile, and that's the only reason why the task isn't immediately resumed.

The only solution I know is to disable buckets for all furniture stockpiles when you are filling a pond. Then the dwarf will drop the bucket, realise the closest task is right next to him, and the needed item is right at his feet, so he will probably just pick it up and do another round.

[Areyar]

would designating a furniture-bucketonly stockpile next to the pond work too?

[Nesoo]

That's what I did. My well room in one fortress had a bucket only furniture stockpile in it, so any dwarves doing health care would have a bucket *right there* when they needed it (or, rather, the water was right where the buckets were). Obviously, having multiple buckets on it helps so they can grab another while the first is tasked for hauling back to the stockpile, and you have to make sure no other furniture stockpiles allow buckets...

Edit:
I had also used this to fill an artificial pond from a natural one, about 10 tiles apart. It still took a year or two to do (including a winter when they were frozen), but that was largely due to the size.

[ March 17, 2008: Message edited by: Nesoo ]