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[Tael]

Is there a particularly dwarven way of dropping prepared food down several z-levels, without risking significant rot?
My thoughts were to build a floor hatch(? Grate, something?) over a channeled shute for foodstuffs, then place a food stockpile which only accepts prepared meals or drinks ontop of it.
Hook it up to a pressure plate so that when the hauler is returning, boom, dropped food. Place a foodstockpile under it of corresponding type.
Only thing I'm not sure of: what if walking over the plate on the way in, causes him to cancel job (whatever the foodpile was on dissapears)

Also: does this kill a stockpile, such that I'd have to remake it every time?

I'd love for other dwarven inputs for this idea -- though I can't say I'm gonna try it in my current fort unless I know it will work.: too much OCD in creation (re-genned the world 3 times because my farms couldn't all fit in the area I had them dig into; move it around.)

[ein]

I've never tried using hatches or something.
I always dump the food down a chute with a food stockpile at the bottom.

[Martin]

Out of curiosity, why would someone want to do this?

I understand just general dwarfiness and automation and all that, but hauling food never seemed to be a big problem for me. I just set my cook/brewer/grower to only haul food and it always seems to get taken care of.

And you can't put a stockpile on top of a building, so it won't work. (Consider for a moment what you'd get with the 'q' menu - the settings for the stockpile or for the hatch?)

[Tael]

Basically I'd rather not have my food haulers clogging up the main stairwell (4 down, 4 up, around a central column), especially when its already going to have obscene levels of traffic from all housing, grand dining hall, misters, workshops and stockpiles.

[Argonnek]

I would suggest a second stairway. It's less dwarfy, but it won't be likely to fail

[Martin]

Or a better layout to minimize hauling on the stairwell, but for efficiency, you really need more than 4 stairwells (would you require all your hauling to go down a single 4-wide hallway?). I normally put 16 stairwells in mine, and put stockpiles to minimize use of those.

Hauling prepared meals is really cheap, btw, since they come in such large stacks, so it's really only the prep foodstuffs that need to be made hauling efficient.

[Tael]

Er. No I don't expect all my hauling to go through there.
I do however expect all the prepared food to be hauled through there as it currently is.
Otherwise the only hauling which should pass through there is: Depot hauling, and at various points, mass material hauling for the great red road I'm building (preferably entirely bauxite) the only pathway into the depot will be a LONG bauxite floor+paved road with the exception of right before the depot, where there is a bauxite drawbridge. And bauxite walls all along the sides too.

But back to the point:
the production levels have their own individual level of both input and output stockpiles. Output stockpile on top, workshop below it, input on bottom, in various forms of design.
Specifically:
Butchers, and breeding locations (probably going to begin with dog-breeding, see what elves bring me, if they don't bring anything cool in a couple years they might have an incident with my underground river water) go on bottom, with extensive stockpiles both above and below; some for rotting, others for bone, leather ect. Also on this level will be bonecarving and stone carving. Above the upper piles (output stuffs) will be cloth piles/leather, along with metals. That level will have another pile above it for output goods. Above such will be the prepared food/drink locations, above which comes grandhall, and mister system. Then 160 houses most of which are 1x3 +door (4 2x3 2 doored, and 4 22 tile + 2 door rooms per floor) between two floors, that then leads to the four towers I'm going to be carving out of the mountain (possibly rebuilding out of four different color stones, one for each of the four directions, which will each be quite tall probably housing dwarven sniper posts to deal with any flying creatures which might wander onto the map (10% megabeast dead for stoppage, begin check year 2; or giant eagles, or stuff from the bottomless pit.)
The real fun will be once I get my towercap farm set up, I'll need much more hauling so I can begin the glass-web between the spires.
Dwarven tribute to the GCS here I come (I really REALLY hope I have a GCS in my bottomless pit -- capture will be a must)

[Stromko]

Out of curiosity, why would someone want to do this?

Well clearly it's to make possible the concept of an inescapable prison pit or labyrinth. At least it's clear to me, for I've been touched in the head by Armok.

I think the best course for this would be to just make a garbage pit, dump selected foodstuffs and booze down it, have them land on a food stockpile down in the labyrinth, and then un-forbid the foodstuffs so they can be used. So long as they're unforbidden and sitting on a food stockpile, they shouldn't even rot. If they're in a barrel, they don't rot, period, as far as I can tell.

I've never deliberately left food in barrels lying all over a living fortress, but once I come back in adventure mode the food and booze in barrels is still all usable. So dropping food barrels down and then unforbidding them so they can be eaten would eliminate the need for a stockpile and not create any hauling tasks down there, but you'd have trouble getting the barrels back of course.

Anyway, I know this isn't perfectly automated, but you could dump a lot of food and booze down there at once, and depending on how good you are at remembering to restock it every now and then, probably much more dependable than a stockpile.

(e) Oh, you just want to move prepared food to the depot or whatever. Meh, well. You can set up a prepared food stockpile and designate the entire thing to be dumped down the pit at once, and then when they're done un-forbid them. If there's a food stockpile (set to always be empty) down there, they won't even rot.

[Hagadorn]

Out of curiosity, why would someone want to do this?

Why Not?

[Foa]

Out of curiosity, why would someone want to do this?

Why Not?

He has a point, dumb waiters are awesome, but what if you found a kobold in you barrel, drinking all your booze.

[Atlas]

Out of curiosity, why would someone want to do this?

Why Not?

He has a point, dumb waiters are awesome, but what if you found a kobold in you barrel, drinking all your booze.

Better yet, a dwarven child...

[Lord_Shadow]

Out of curiosity, why would someone want to do this?

Why Not?

Separate his nobles from the main population, happy nobles, happy hammerer, screw everyone's mandates and nobody will care! (Happy player!)

place a dump on a hatch cover over a food stockpile. dump food to square pull the lever

[Atlas]

Out of curiosity, why would someone want to do this?

Why Not?

Separate his nobles from the main population, happy nobles, happy hammerer, screw everyone's mandates and nobody will care! (Happy player!)

place a dump on a hatch cover over a food stockpile. dump food to square pull the lever

it would be great if you could have levers unforbid stuff...