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[Noble Digger]

I have a desert just outside the front door of my fort, a huge yellow sand desert with tons of saguaros.

I cut a bunch down about 2 seasons ago and I haven't really given my main population any work to do, aside from hauling trade goods to and from the depot.

The wood is still sitting out there, which is unfathomable--it was only 8 or 10 logs and I have -plenty- of accessible, properly-designated stockpile. I decided to watch the dwarves head out to haul wood, as I frequently saw jobs generated to grab those logs.

Three craftsdwarves in a row walked all the way across the wilderness, reached the log, then cancelled the job to Sleep, Eat, or Drink. This reminds me of the joke about the blonde girl who tried to swim across the english channel, but halfway across she got tired so she swam back.

This is a major pain in the dick for gameplay, as I now realize my dwarves are interrupting jobs just as they reach the job site about 30% of the time. They spend almost a third of their time walking around the fort without accomplishing even one tick of the job they were trying to, and another 40% on eating, drinking, sleeping, attending parties, checking chests in the unused bedrooms, laughing at the elves caged in the statue garden, and otherwise sucking.

Can I alleviate these problems? My fortress population is ecstatic, well-fed and well-watered, own proper beds and bedrooms, a great dining room and meeting hall, possess a wide variety of food and drink, haven't had to suffer the loss of loved ones (a friendless immigrant died of a failed strange mood a year ago, and one cat died during the elven siege).

I know Toady has scheduled a fix for this down the line, but I wanted to see what others' experiences have been lately and possibly bring greater attention to the issue if it's really as bad as it seems to me.

Screenshot of the wilderness in question. Fortress is to the southwest and the wood is on screen, except for one last log. Three dwarves have run out here to get these 3 logs and not brought any back.

[Chrispy]

Make beds/drink/food closer to the wood? 

Put the [NO_EAT][NO_DRINK][NO_SLEEP] tags on the dwarven creature entry then create a new world?

Is there anyway you can make the path more direct, ramps and such?

Train up the civi's via pumping until they get superdwarvenly agile?


There's no easy solution, it's a logistics problem. 

[numerobis]

Tough and agile workers are pretty much the only way out of this mess.  The quickest way to train them is to make sure they don't have any private rooms, and they're all unemployed.  Then they'll mill around common areas and train up their speaking and grimacing muscles, which builds cardiovascular strength like nobody's business.

[Hyndis]

If you don't mind modding you could also add [SPEED:1] to dwarves, thus making them zoom around incredibly fast.

But I do agree interrupting tasks for eating/drinking/sleeping can get rather aggravating, particularly if its a task in a remote area.

It would be nice if the check for eating/drinking/sleeping would happen before taking a new task rather than during the middle of one. Thus, if the dwarf gets hungry while doing a job, he'll finish up the job and then get a meal, which greatly reduces the pointless hauling.

It can get particularly bad for the metal industry, when some items can take 4 items to produce. 3 metal bars + 1 fuel for most furniture. The dwarf gets all four of the items into the forge before he gets hungry and heads to the dining room. Now there are four hauling jobs, requiring four dwarves to put all the material back. Then when the dwarf is back from the dining room, he puts all four items back into the forge...then he gets sleepy. Now those items are all put back again...

[Noble Digger]

I used to play with SPEED:400, but I don't want to anymore because it makes your dwarves fundamentally better than other units in every way. It gives them extra attacks in combat and makes them outrun absolutely anything, finish jobs too quickly, etc.

Toady already plans to do what you mentioned, only interrupt jobs if there's a real need--drowsy, dehydrated, starving--otherwise wait until finished if you're just thirsty, hungry, or tired.

Thank god dwarves don't have to go to the little dwarves' room--and that we don't have to think about PLACING one.

Overall i think DF is better off without fecal affairs.

[Dwaref]

the dump could generate compost

just designate another zone for trash

[Neoskel]

Forbid and unforbid it every time no one is hauling it (check the jobs screen) to get their attention.

That way you can pull them across the map more continuously.

[Hyndis]

On the other hand, dwarven outhouses could provide hours of amusement.

Create one large room for your nobles. Once they're all in that single large room, lock the door. Channel down into the ceiling of that room from above. Designate that pit for dumping. 

[Noble Digger]

I've come to realize that toughness and temperature (and cave adaptation) were a big part of my problem.

It's a !!Scorching!! biome, the dwarves in question didn't even have the Toughness stat displayed at the time, and were badly cave adapted due to being indoors for 3 years.

I built a glass cathedral and made it into a zoo. Green glass skylights. It was full of puke for a few weeks but I did some spot checks around the fortress and nobody is irritated by the sun anymore. Logging proceeds somewhat more normally, and I have a room with 10 green glass screw pumps for the dwarves to ☼BEEF UP☼ on.