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[vindicate]

If I put a bunch of stone in a garbage dump, and then reclaim it my dwarfs should use it correct?  Or do I have to un-designate it as a garbage dump?

I tried reclaiming it and my mason walks accross the map and to another level to get stone instead.

[tehc]

If they still dont use anything in the stone dump, try doing Remove Dump (d>b>D) aswell, you might of designated all the stones in the dump for dumping. Reclaim them again after that.

Chances are the cause is that dwarves are unbelievably stupid and want that lump of microcline 4 levels underground halfway across the map next to the pool where the carp are and where the unicorns walk about.

[thijser]

Sometimes dwarfs seem to walk to the other side of the map no matter what.

[Internet Kraken]

I tried reclaiming it and my mason walks accross the map and to another level to get stone instead.

This is just dwarven stupidity. Dwarves will ignore nearby stone in favor of picking up stone 10 z levels below the surface. I've found that sometimes they will take stones that are nearby, so I still make stone stockpiles. But they're unreliable to say the least.

[JmzLost]

Make sure the stone is marked for general use.  z->stone, find the type of stone, make sure it's highlighted in green, not red.  Your dump may just have a bunch of economic stone in it.

And yes, dumping and reclaiming should work the way you want.  I do this all the time to clean out new bedrooms and any water/magma project areas, and it's always worked fine for me.

JMZ

[Lemunde]

From what I've noticed about dwarves selecting stone, they'll pick the stone that is nearest from a heuristic perspective.  That means they pick the nearest stone no matter how far they have to walk to get to it.  So if you have a rock two z levels down and another rock 5 tiles away on the same z level, they'll grab the one two z levels down.

Some people consider using garbage dumps in this way cheating.  I'm not sure what to think about it.  The way I see it you either cheat or you suffer having your fortress look like crap with stone all over the place.  I think of it as working around the absence of features that haven't been implemented yet.

[Hyndis]

You can use catapults to have stone automatically quantum stockpiled. Make sure projectiles are not forbiddden and have the catapults fire against a wall with a drop right before the wall, so the stones will fall down, piling on top of each other.

While its not nearly as efficient as just ordering mass dumping and reclaiming the stones, it can be done all the time, automatically, with no micromanagement needed. Also trains up your siege operators.

Why haul a boulder when you can just fling it through the air halfway across the map?

[blazzano]

Some people consider using garbage dumps in this way cheating.  I'm not sure what to think about it.  The way I see it you either cheat or you suffer having your fortress look like crap with stone all over the place.  I think of it as working around the absence of features that haven't been implemented yet.

I often try to use an informal gentleman's compromise, of sorts: I try to limit the number of stones piled on a tile to about 10-15.  I'm not sure exactly how large a tile is supposed to be, but it seems acceptable to say that each tile can easily hold two or three tons of stone, which is about what 10-15 regular stones weigh.

[albatross]

Yeah, dwarven stupidity at work. I think the first stone they fetch can be pretty far away but the ones after that, those should be really close to the work site.

ALSO, I believe (not 100% sure) that the concept of "Nearest stone" to a dwarf ignores the actual path to the rock in question and the distance is measured purely in a straight line. Therefore, if there's a stone directly one z-level above or below, the dwarf will attempt to get that first, even it takes him 1000 steps to get there, as opposed to a pile that's merely 50 steps away in the same z-level.