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[chevre]

Can anyone explain the settings/conditions necessary to pick up stuff from the battlefield, as well as suggestions on how to manage the settings?

I got really frustrated yesterday because an elven caravan leader and one of my people died. I really don't know how it happened and I know how to check announcements/reports...

So, their stuff was laying out there. I figured why not make the most of it and at least grab the goods, but my people wouldn't. I had just gotten some huge amount of migrants and they were all idling.

I toggled o> r> o to have dwarves not ignore refuse outside. I tried setting the items to dump or not. I tried forbidding and unforbidding. I checked the stocks menu for forbidden items. I did the same things with Designations> Set Building/Item Properties. I tweaked the Forbid settings under orders. None of this worked. I made sure there is space in a refuse pile and I added new open stockpiles that accept everything, just to make sure. The stuff just sat there. There was no civilian alert or burrow restrictions.

I was having a problem with thieves coming into my fort. Were the gatherers just scared to go out? This was only part of the time though. I wanted to close off my fort but I also needed to leave it open to see how I can get people to go out... I know I would want some of these settings off usually so people aren't running out to pick up a rusty shield in the middle of a battle, but how do I get stuff when I want it?

[Victor6]

By default a dead mans stuff is forbidden - the suicide dwarves are only interested in the corpses.

Do you have a garbage zone designated? You may have reclaimed the items after marking them to be dumped, in which case no-one will touch them unless there's a dump active, since dumped items don't go in the refuse stockpile.

[smakemupagus]

If the stuff is neither forbidden nor dump marked, dwarves have a physical path there, and have appropriate stockpiles they should pick it up, it is that simple. 

If for some reason you really want them to treat it as dumping (not recommended), you need a garbage zone.  Not a refuse stockpile.

[weenog]

Do you have stockpiles that accept the item types you want collected?  Do those stockpiles have empty space available that could be filled with those items?

[chevre]

Yes, I had made a dumping zone near the refuse pile inside my castle. I don't use the single pile dump thing because I don't get how it works and it is kind of an exploit anyhow.

Yes, I made a fresh stockpile set to accept everything and they still wouldn't pick it up. At first I figured the open stockpile thing was an issue. One of the items the caravan dropped was a caged raptor. I knew that I was being pretty specific with managing my stockpiles and still didn't have one for animals, so I added one. When that didn't work, I made a stockpile and just set everything on.

I have seen stuff like goblin corpses and their items be auto-forbid, but this stuff wasn't initially. I'm thinking it must be a bug because I still don't know how the caravan leader and one of my guys died. I just forbid/reclaimed because I searched and saw it as a suggestion.

There was like 5 fairly benign monsters in the area, Satyrs or something. I think they were around the top or right of the map and the caravan was coming in and died in the far bottom left. I know how to look at reports and announcements showing battles. There was none about this. The caravan announced arrival, then maybe 3 of my guys who were in a squad  of 7-10 got into military appearance even though I didn't order them to and ran out toward the caravan. 1 of my guys died along with the caravan, and whenever whatever was over the two who didn't die just ran back and at some point became civilians. I didn't order them to be active or anything.

Anyhow, I quit this castle and will just pay attention when a caravan dies the next time. I will see how tweaking the settings works in this new game once some stuff dies.

[weenog]

Don't quit.  You learn a lot more (problem-solving especially) cleaning up your mess than you do fleeing from it.