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[Bob69Joe]

So I haven't moved all this stone yet and I want to do this legit like with bins or whatever is best. I read that I should use wheelbarrows to move the stone to the stockpile, but afterward, how do I make my dwarves place bins there and put the stones in?

[Ulfarr]

Stones (as in boulders) don't go into bins or any other container. You can proccess your stones into blocks (at a mason's workshop) that can be stored inside bins in a Bar/block stockpile.

[Fleeting Frames]

Yup. The only way to compact stones is with a QSP.

It's listed as exploit in wiki, but it's also the only possible consequence of minecart with items meeting track stop set to dump, marking multiple items for dumping, river water flow pushing multiple items or even channeling dozen z-levels. YMMV on how legit that is. Many go without, instead deciding to use just-in-time hauling and production, with the workshops themselves taking the functional spot of QSPs.

[mikekchar]

You can process them to blocks, store them in bins and sell them to caravans.  This is probably the most storage efficient method of getting rid of stone that doesn't use an "exploit".  I've also started building external city walls with stone rather than blocks and making roads with stone floors.  That eats up a fair amount of stone.  But if you are mining a fair amount then there is a stupid amount of stone.  I still don't use QSPs, but it's hard to deal with.

One of the problems I tend to have in older fortresses is unemployment.  You really don't need more than 1 or 2 dwarfs for each job and there are *lots* of dwarfs that want to craft, so setting up a whole wack of craft workshops to make random stuff to sell to the caravans is another option.  Making instruments is an interesting challenge if you want to play with workflows as well as getting rid of stone.

To be completely fair, I use an atom smasher for things that don't rot and you can't sell, or build into anything, so in my mind QSPs are just a choice.  The game is not balanced and so you use what you can use.  Make your own house rules to make it more challenging.

[PatrikLundell]

The easiest way to get rid of stone is probably to make a floor where the stone lies. No hauling, so it's quick. I use that method only sparingly, though, as I typically have the opposite problem: I keep running out of stone. A high  mineral scarcity means I usually don't have any ore to mine, so the only digging I have a reason to do is for fortress spaces, and a decade or so later that stone is used up so I have to dig some just to keep my mason going (it take a huge amount of stone to just give everyone a masterworks stone cabinet and chest, as well as to provide masterworks furniture to the library and tavern, and I also want masterworks coffins for the humies that die of old age all the time [well, only once each, but that's enough ]).

[anewaname]

If you decide you want to use the stone but not use a QS, consider having 4 large stockpiles off to the side, and near the workshops you have small stockpiles that 't'ake from the large stockpiles. The large stockpiles take any sort of stone and the small stockpiles only take the types you want to use.

[Starver]

I tend to plan ahead. Apart from 'junk stone' (and non-junk stone that will need moving and can be reclaimed later) that I might set up Dump make-work once I have enough unskilled hands to eat away at the problem, I tend to get a big area ready for ores (first all-in-one then reclassified to distribute to separate stockpiles) closer to where I will eventually need them and thematic craft/masonry/other-workshoppable stones where they will be needed. Say I have a suit of four 5x5 rooms (sitting in an 11x11 area with partial walls between) with four 3x3 workshops (or stockpile-reunmarked spaces) in the middle of each, that might (eventually) be a Mechanic, a Craftsdwarf and either two Masons or a single Mason and another suitable workshop, the stockpile accepting only granite and the workshops built of granite (maybe built/rebuilt of granite blocks).

I do this before I need the stone-type things (blocks for the huge granite walls I'm building on the surface, the diorite mugs that I'm going to specialise in trading away, the orthoclase levers that I will need for visual cues as to their purpose, etc) and then I get the handy visual guide of where I need to quarry (or get moved from the quarry) extra stock to let the initial rush of completions go smoothly as possible.

I've done this for a long time, so the currently enhanced workshop (re)order systems are a relatively new thing I've yet to fully fine-tune for, but I quite like the swathe (or occasionally chequerboard¹) of intersticial rocks waiting to be used.


¹ Set an 11x11 area of one-ore-specific stockpile, useful to a purpose. Manually unstockpile every other tile. Write over a second different-ore-specific stockpile to re-use the gaps you have just created. Well, it looks good to me, and is useful when you need to keep an 1+1 alloy-smelting operation running smoothly by visual inspection of the feedstock levels.

[Bob69Joe]

Thanks for all the useful tips, folks!

[Saiko Kila]

I don't use bins (which are useless for stones), use quantum stockpiles (for both stones and blocks), but there's also a quantum stockpile which occurs naturally: if you build catapults close to a wall, make a trench along the wall, and put stockpile for stone on the bottom (will be one level down), then stones fired from these catapults will land on the stockpile, and this will be a natural QS.

I build my catapults in such a way that they can be redirected to the normal wall (without a trench/stockpile), and to the wall with stockpile. If I need to remove stones (rarely, usually I'm running out of stones) then the catapults shoot at the normal wall, if I need to conserve stones, they shoot at the one with stockpile underneath. It can be hard to force dwarves to bring the stones from outside stockpiles if they don't do it, but they seem to prefer it anyway. Outside stockpiles should use wheelbarrows, regardless if quantum ones or standard. And it's better to have more than one such stockpile, to increase number of handlers and wheelbarrows.

[Fleeting Frames]

Just got to make nobody gets hit by falling rocks on z-level beneath with that, I guess? Well, should be faster than hauling them all those tiles, albeit I haven't tried catapults.

Though I'd say it is no more/less natural than every other kind of qsp (barring maybe the undump? I wasn't around then).

[NTJedi]

So I haven't moved all this stone yet and I want to do this legit like with bins or whatever is best. I read that I should use wheelbarrows to move the stone to the stockpile, but afterward, how do I make my dwarves place bins there and put the stones in?

If you're planning to play an embark for a long time, I would recommend storing all the stones as blocks inside bins for use later and storing some of them on two squares as a dump stockpile and dump option.  For example the stones would be very important for catapults and the bricks very important for building your castle... and if you have LOTS of stone then you can build a maze with many traps and gates outside your castle which adds extra protection against dangerous enemies.  Just make sure to leave paths for the trading caravans.

[Saiko Kila]

Just got to make nobody gets hit by falling rocks on z-level beneath with that, I guess? Well, should be faster than hauling them all those tiles, albeit I haven't tried catapults.

Though I'd say it is no more/less natural than every other kind of qsp (barring maybe the undump? I wasn't around then).

I say it's natural because it is not created specifically to make a QS, more like it's a side effect (the stockpile is there to prevent removing the stones to distant areas), and it was in the game for ages (before the hatch-based QS were invented).

As for the danger, I assume it is there, but so far this setup never resulted in injury in my forts.

The other "natural quantum stockpiles" would be dump-zones and trade depots. What they all share is inability to use wheelbarrows, so are quite bad for particularly stones, which are heavy. That's why I use minecart quantum stockpiles, tied to a bunch of several stockpiles with wheelbarrows, and see no reason to not use them. Wheelbarrows are kind of must for effective management of stones, unless someone just destroys them with catapults on site.

[Fleeting Frames]

Eh, if being a side/unintended effect makes it more natural (rather than less but YMMV...), then hatch-based QSPs are more natural than dump zones or dumping track stops, which produce QSPs as the only possible consequence of inputting any more than a single item. Though naturalness doesn't really matter much on whether something is exploit, as raising bridges show.

I haven't considered depot as explicit stockpile to haul to much, but it might be decent idea for periodic decluttering (as 14 workshops can be single tile away from depot, not just 2, with casting).

[Miles_Umbrae]

(before the hatch-based QS were invented)

Wait.
What?
"Hatch-based QSP"?
Could you explain how such a device would work?

[Fleeting Frames]

It's called the Undump; a pre-minecart era design. Basic schema: ^S¢s, surrounded by walls on every side but the plate side. Idea is that dwarf comes to store item on stockpile s, triggers the plate, opening the hatch - and then dwarf drops the item on stockpile S, like all previous items.