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[sunhear]

everyone,

I have several stockpiles set up for specific things such as barrels, sand bags, metal bars ect... but my dwarfs are not stocking them. there are dwarfs with hailing laborers but the dwarfs are not stocking them. I don't know why how do i get them to stock them?

thanks,

[PatrikLundell]

Stockpiles are only stocked with goods that are currently not stockpiled. Moving items from one stockpile to another is guided through stockpile links (and there are bugs preventing stockpiles using bins from giving to stockpiles without bins).

[Leonidas]

Stockpiles in DF are tricky and counterintuitive. Think of a stockpile not as a place for items to end up, but rather as a job generator.

To test a new stockpile, you don't need to wait to see if items get hauled. You can create a stockpile, wait a few seconds, then go immediately to the jobs screen [j] to see if the stockpile generated the jobs you wanted it to.

[YetAnotherLurker]

Another common mistake is accidentally setting a stockpile to take from links only, but then failing to link a source stockpile or workshop.

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

As PatrikLundell says, if you need to move items out of a stockpile into another stockpile, out of the temporary initial general storage into a dedicated stockpile for example, use a link.  Another option would be to disallow the item type in the old stockpile after building the new stockpile.

To add to what YetAnotherLurker has said - If the item type has configurable material and quality properties, make sure you set those up as well.  If you have a stockpile beds, but haven't specified the allowed bed qualities, no beds will be allowed at all.

Yet another thing to watch out for, and this one has caught me off guard and caused quite a bit of frustration on multiple occasions - Some item types have an option to allow usable and unusable items.  Off the top of my head, this will apply to weapons and armor.  Make sure that this setting is set where appropriate.

In the case of a stockpile that stores liquids, such as drinks, make sure that allow barrels in the first stockpile settings screen and not in the custom stockpile settings screen.

Past these issues, we would probably need to see a save or some screenshots to diagnose the exact problem.


Tangentially related -
Wheelbarrows should only be used on stone and wood stockpiles.  They do not do exactly what you probably think they do, and you should check the wiki for details on how to use them correctly.

Some items can be stored in bins or barrels, and a lot of items cannot.  You don't want to enable bins and barrels on stockpiles that don't actually use them.  Doing so will make the dwarves put an empty bin/barrel in the stockpile, wasting both the bin/barrel and a stockpile square.  It will probably take you some trial and error to figure out what is what.

[Kametec_Housen]

Another stockpile problem which had me scratching my head for a while is that when setting a custom stockpile you disable everything except what you want to store. Seems right, doesn't it? But no. If you disable everything under "Additional options" (plant/animal and non plant/animal) as well, the stockpile won't accept anything.

Also, the problem with wheelbarrows is that they limit number of concurrent hauling to a stockpile as dwarfs will use wheelbarrows only and you can assign only 3 of them per stockpile. I make lots of small, 6 or 12 tile stockpiles if I want stuff moved by wheelbarrows on large scale. There seemed to be some problem with 3 tile stockpile with 3 assigned wheelbarrows though, they weren't moving any stuff at all.

[PatrikLundell]

Wheelbarrows probably take up a stockpile slot (although they can also sit in a stockpile with the hauled item inside, causing them to be loaded into mine carts, even if the mine cart doesn't take wheelbarrows).
Also, DFHack allows you to set the number of wheelbarrows to a larger number than 3.

[sunhear]

All

Ok I tried testing the ideas on my barrel stock pile. I linked the shop where they were made and still where. changed the custom setting on the pile to specify what quality level of barrels. only one barrel was placed there. I even tried dumping the barrels and reclaiming them. they are still not in the pile. any other ideas?

Sunhear

[Kametec_Housen]

To get dwarfs to stockpile barrels, you have to create a stockpile which accepts furniture and set it so that it accepts Furniture/Siege ammo and allow type: barrel, allow material: whatever material are you using, you cannot go wrong by allowing all materials. Wood is listed in Other materials. I always allow all options in both quality settings. You also need to have both items under Additional Options enabled. (Okay, maybe only one is required, but I am not sure which) Links are optional and shouldn't make any issues when used. In furniture stockpiles, you don't need to allow barrels in q menu. I set 0 barrels there, because those barrels serve to store various stuff in themselves, but barrels don't accept barrels, so that option is more useful in food stockpiles.

This should make dwarfs to store barrels in the stockpile. If they are not, is it possible that other places such as food stockpiles are also missing barrels and dwarfs are bringing them there first? Or are the barrels accumulating in the workshop they were made in without any use? If you press t and check the workshop, are there barrels in there? If so, are they marked by TSK?

[PatrikLundell]

Yes, Kametec_Housen has a good point in that barrels as stockpile containers is completely different from barrels as stockpiled items. Stockpile containers are "owned" by the stockpile (they have a suffix in their name indicating the stockpile they belong to), and dorfs generally haul another storage barrel to barreled stockpile only when the last one gets full. "Owned" barrels are hauled back to the owning stockpile if moved e.g. if you try to use minecarts to transport barrels to other stockpiles or if you dump them (movement due to linked stockpiles does work, however: ownership gets transferred. And empty "owned" barrels do become eligible for getting used for booze once emptied).

[shmup]

The only stockpile of mine not being used is the one for stone.

I can't quite figure it out. So I just stopped bothering and let the dwarves fetch the stone from wherever it lies when building/constructing.

Any suggestions on things I'm probably overlooking?

edit: probably later I will just try everything in this other active thread http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=170168.0

[Kametec_Housen]

More useful advice has accumulated in this thread, so I'd choose to keep this one instead.  Have you gone through it? It has common problems covered. Could links, wrong selected stone types, disabled advanced options or accessibility issues be to blame?