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[Niddhoger]

Its just plain silly to think that a dwarf would make 5 separate trips down a 50+ Z levels to snag up 5 gems lying next to each other (mined from the same cluster).  The things are light as a feather! While holding 5+ small items at once is tricky, bags and backpacks already exist in the game! They can even hold things! So instead of trudging up/down that mining shaft 5 times to pick up 5 gems lying right next to each other, Urist McLazybutt grabs ONE bag and makes ONE trip to pick up those five ADJACENT gems! That wasted time is time he could have spent getting drunk in your legendary dining room! Or having FUN with goblins! This would also be huge for plant gathering.  Why travel 50+ squares one way to drop off a single sunberry only to trudge right back and harvest from the bush directly next to it? Urist McHippy would be bettery off equipping his backpack and harvesting all bushes in a zone/filling up his backpack before dropping them off.  Those good-fer-nothing fisher dwarves could even -gasp- carry their entire haul back the fishery instead of leaving them to rot by the river!  Legendary Cheesmakers could spend one afternoon combing a battlefield for reclaimable bolts, isntead of spending the entire season bringing them back one at a time.  The possibilities are endless!

Its not like dwarves can't grasp the concept of using containers to carry things- they already haul entire bins of useless fodder.. er "finely crafted mudstone trinkets" to the trading depot, and hauling dwarves already carry around containers... but the poor things just have it all backwards.  The dwarves will drag an entire barrel through the swamp and up that steep hill just to pick up one whip vine before repeating that whole process again... after returning hte barrel and picking the bush next to the first for some prickle berries.  They don't even store multiple items next to each other after lugging hte barrel/bin all the way to the middle of nowhere!

The backpacks could even be considered required equipment for certain labors (or at least preferred if available/configurable).  Item hauling, food hauling, fishing, etc could all require a backpack to pick up multiple small things.  Bags could fill this role as well.  Each time the dwarf picks up an item, he could check near him for another (unclaimed item) and pick that up too.  Once hes filled his backpack/nothing left to pick up, he'll return to base and drop off the contents in the appropriate stockpile.   Weight already affects carrying speed based on strength, so dwarves would only pick up enough small objects that they could comfortably carry, or only so much that would slow them down to half speed.  Containers already have size limits as well, as you can make roasts too large to fit in barrels/only so many trinkets/bars go into a single bin, etc.  The only problem I foresee, is when a dwarf picks up more items than will fit into a stockpile- especially if many dwarves try to haul for the same stockpile.  In that case, whatever can fit will be dropped into the stockpile.  The remainder can stay in the bag and dropped on the nearest open tile.  This would ideally generate an announcement proclaiming that the stockpile was full/items dumped. 

[GavJ]

The required bit doesn't make sense -- just use it if it's there don't if it's not. But otherwise yes, this is a good suggestion to go on the pile for general hauling and pathing problems. Along with stuff like "using barrels intelligently -- bring single items to them, bring them to multiple items" etc.

[Larix]

Using bags or backpacks for item collection (and preferably keeping bins stationary in the stockpile, apart from trading) sounds like a great idea to me, although the examples aren't too well-chosen.

- ammo and gems are already collected with bins, if possible. And _rough_ gems are definitely not "light as a feather" - they're better imagined as clusters of rock with a few crystals in them: they weigh in at 6-11 dwarfpounds each, and a bin can hold less than ten (while it can hold well over a hundred cut gems).
- herbalism and fishery produce single, perishable items and there's no saying that the job will continue until it's time to drop off the goods (a dwarf could get hungry, thirsty, sleepy, aware of a better sock or wanting a break or party). Delaying storage would greatly increase the risk to lose food to rot. It might help if these jobs weren't inherently linked to the storage job, i.e. you could let your fisherdwarf fish and let others deal with hauling the catch.

[Niddhoger]

Its late and I'm tired... not thinking entirely clearly.  Could have sworn I saw my dwarf going up/down the stairs to pick up gems one at a time, but maybe that was because I didn't have enough bins.  I HAVE seen a dwarf continuing to fish as his catch rots under his feet, however.  As far as plants rotting, perhaps keep the # low (under 10?).  This could also be linked to his herbalism level (at low levels he'll only keep 5, at higher levels 20).  That should still be enough time to get back to the stockpile, but still not be so silly as to make separate trips to harvest adjacent shrubs.

[Deepblade]

Perhaps a good way to control who uses backpacks in their day to day life is to add equipment assignment &/or use in the Labors screen of the dwarf. An option in preferences for all civilians to equip backpacks if possible would be nice in case you wanted everyone to have a backpack, in which case everyone who had it set in their labors would get priority on the backpacks.

[Niddhoger]

Ah- I double checked the wiki.  Food being carried by a dwarf is immune to rotting.  So as long as the food in the backpack is properly listed as being "carried" and not "stored," it won't matter how long the hauler is picking up fish or plants.