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[Crioca]

I seem to remember a post about a quantum stockpile method that involved dwarves carrying items to a stockpile, only to stop onto a floor switch that would block access to the stockpile, causing them to drop the item involved. Couldn't you set this method up so they drop the item onto a floor hatch instead? And then have the hatch hooked up to a lever?

[Nil Eyeglazed]

It doesn't work very well for food, and by its nature, it's not bidirectional.  (In fact, it's somewhat flawed even for non-food items, unless you're willing to put in more complexity than most people want.)

The biggest problem with the undump (which is what I called that stockpile machine you're talking about) with regards to food is that about a third of the items don't actually make it to the stockpile square-- they instead get dumped on the pressure plate.  With most goods, that's not a big problem.  But with food, that means rotting.

[mathzip]

Hey,
I think I ve found the solution. I haven t tested it yet but i don t see why it wouldn t work

           www
           wg w
wwwwwwG wwsss
          p xxx   sss
wwwwwwwwwsss

s food stockpile
w wall
x floor hatch
g goblin
G window or grate or whatever lets the dwarf see the goblin
p pressure plate

1)the dwarf comes to store the food in the stock pile,
2)steps on the pressure plate
3)sees the goblin
4)the food hauling task is canceled, the dwarf drops the food on the hatch and flees
5)the floor hatch opens (good pressure plate/mechanism timing is needed)
6)the food drops on the stock pile below

multiple hallways might be used to increase the droping frequency.

there might me some task canceled message spam but it should work.

I wish I had time to test it but dont... please let me know what you more experienced players think about it

[Nil Eyeglazed]

I wish I had time to test it but dont... please let me know what you more experienced players think about it

1) When testing the use of a scarecrow like you have, I found that dwarves would take a few steps further beyond where they SHOULD get scared before actually getting scared and dropping their items.  When I instead tried to make a longer distance, so that it wouldn't matter if it took longer to get scared, what I found is that the dwarves stopped getting scared at all.  (That was with a critter behind vertical bars.)  Not that something like this is impossible, but the devil is in the details, and it really does require testing.

2) Hatches open exactly when they're triggered.  In your design, they would block access to the stockpile the instant the dwarf stepped on the pressure plate, and the dwarf would probably stop what he's doing and drop the food right on the pressure plate, or maybe on the next tile.  The food would rot.  It's possible to make a delay for the plates, but you have to keep in mind the diversity of dwarf movement rates-- it can take one dwarf 5 ticks to move 1 tile, while another dwarf can take 48 or more.  That makes timing delay systems like this problematic-- I'll just go ahead and say impossible.  (Plus, making precise delay systems is really involved, and can involve a lot of machinery for something that seems like it should be easy.)

However, this problem can be worked around quite easily by giving the dwarf a one-way path via the use of hatches that open behind the dwarf.  That way, you know when the dwarf is leaving the system, and you can open the drop hatches at that time, rather than earlier.  The bigger problem is with the use of a scarecrow, which people have tried but not yet ever made practical.  (I know I've tried.)

[Sadrice]

Have you determined why some of your dwarves do not scare?  I suppose you could use something like I showed above to trigger the hatches to drop on the way out, if you could only get the dwarf to drop their load reliably.

[Nil Eyeglazed]

Actually, it's interesting, because I'm doing some research right now on the subject.  I may have a working design, but it needs a wee bit more testing.

The predominant problem was distance.  Dwarves scared less reliably with a distant attacker.  But you need a distant attacker, because you need to be able to raise a bridge to access the stockpile, and you need a fortification or something to prevent violence.  But by using a goblin on the ceiling, standing on a floor grate, my dwarves are scaring much more reliably; and by dropping the goods through hatches, the goods themselves are retrievable by dwarves who don't get interrupted by the goblin.

The design I'm testing now has four hatches, and a one way entrance (although that's mostly just because I want to test the safety for stockpiling into magma, which is nice for autodump functions).  With fewer hatches, dwarves don't necessarily scare before they reach the stockpile.

In other words, mathzip's design was very, very close to a working one.  As a bonus, it also makes a decent vampire identification device if you use undead instead of goblins.

[mathzip]

New disign once again not tested.
It should help not having another dwarf following the first one and falling through the hatches and also give for fluidity to the mechanism

r hallway with restricted passage
x wall or floor
p pressure plate
g goblin
h hatch
G grate
s food stock pile

top view
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
                   rr sxx      exit hallway
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxsxx
 dp        hhhh   psx    hallway 1
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

side view hallway 1
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
       Gg
xxxxxxx
d        1               
xpxxxxxxhhhhxxxxxx


1- the dwarf hauling the food to the stock pile passes the door steps on the pressure plate which locks the door (or any other mechanism preventing another dwarf from following him and falling through the hatch)
2- the dwarf passes position one and sees the goblin. In this position the goblin is now above and behind the dwarf so the the dwarf should drop the food on the haches and flee forward
3- the dwarf steps on the plate opening the hatches
4-the dwarf's only exit is now through the restricted pass area so he will take it (while other dwarfs wont prefering the other pass over this one)

I dont know if the door is necessary. I dont know the pass finding algorythm but if a dwarf in a 1 tile wide hallway prevents passing (in a pass calculating sense) the door at the beggining isnt needed.

the restricted area should work if another pass is open so there should be 5 or 6 entry ways for 1 exit.
Limiting the number of dwarf hauling should help also.

Once again, I havent tested anything (damn exams...) but i think we are on to something.
Let me know if I was of any help

[Nagidal]

Dumping works, if you're willing to unforbid at the bottom of the chute.

I wouldn't be willing to undump and unforbid the food for the nobles. I would try to set up a pitting zone and designate the food to be pitted. The dwarves would through it down the chute. Although I don't know whether pitted items aren't marked as dumped and forbidden as well.

[mathzip]

can you pit items ?

[Nagidal]

can you pit items ?

Sorry for the confusion I caused. No, you can't pit items. I forgot that the zone I was talking about wasn't a pitting zone but an ordinary dump zone. If the dwarves see that the dump zone is at a cliff, they throw the things down the cliff. In that case you'll only find dumped and forbidden items down there.

[Nil Eyeglazed]

My scarepile research was useless.  No matter how I design it, dwarves always find a way to make through to the lure tile.

[Sadrice]

Do they at least drop their item first?  If so, after the goblin but before the stockpile you could set up a pressure plate linked to a hatch to keep them out of the stockpile, possibly opening a side escape door so they can return to the fortress without passing the goblin. 


If it could be made more reliable, you could keep the pressure plate stockpile blocker, that would then redirect the vampires into a sealed room.   This would slowly filter all of the dwarves with the relevant hauling job, which should include new migrants.

[Elf Lover]

I wish we could stockpile over bridges and open spaces. Toadyyyy!

The awkward moment when you end up placing the stockpile on a raising bridge.
At least the gobbos will be well fed this winter.

[Nil Eyeglazed]

When I say they make it to the lure tile, I mean that they find a way to drop their item on top of the lure tile.

Building a pressure plate before the lure tile means that objects will sometimes get dumped on the pressure plate instead of the lure tile.  While this is okay for an undump with a take-from stockpile, with a scare system dwarves want to stockpile the item on the pressure plate, and then they get scared again, over and over.  Building a take-from stockpile doesn't help-- they still get scared.  Plated goods like this bring the system to a standstill.  (Never mind the rotting.)

While I had high hopes for a while, it's simply too painful to use.  The only way I could see of making it work would be periodic flushing of the lure tile to knock objects off.  For anything other than refuse or food, I would use an undump, maybe with a latch if ungunking the undump is unacceptable.  If you have to have to have to have food transfer between z-levels, a flushing scare-style food drop would work, although it's ridiculously complicated for what you want to do (have to have a counter or a calendar to flush, have to have a flush system, which needs an infinite water source, probably want an infinite drain as well).

The airlock system discussed previously is probably a better option, but even in its strongest incarnation, its going to break sometimes.  All that has to happen is a dwarf decides that the airlocked food is the best source for his dinner, and he'll take a bite off the stack without moving the stack, and the system will come to a halt until the stack is depleted.  Of course, a flush system for the airlock is also possible.

I think for food delivery between isolated z-levels, a livestock dropper is best, with butchers on every floor.  The amount of food can be controlled and scheduled fairly easily, it's no big deal if you make a little bit too much, and its fairly simple.  Alternatively, caged livestock could be transferred via a latching undump.  I think booze transfer is the real problem-- after all, if you have booze, you have food, and undumps can't deal with anything in a barrel, at least, not without a carefully controlled barrel supply.

EDIT: While being able to stockpile on top of buildings would make all of this easy, I guess I wouldn't find it fun anymore.  The fun comes from the system's limitations.  However, if Toady ever wants to implement potable rivers of booze, I think I'd be pretty happy about that.

[DuckBoy2]

I think the only way to properly solve the undump's problems are to find external ways to get dwarves to drop their hauled item, external meaning they cant be standing on a pressure plate, since getting junk off a pressure plate either requires flowing water or a door/floodgate immediately underneath the pressure plate which was originally created on a now destroyed wall.  Flooding is a pita, and will never work on heavy objects, and its impossible to get dwarves to path through unsupported pressure plates. 

So lets list out ways to make dwarves drop what theyre doing.

1.  No path -- this is what the undump uses, and what some of my earlier science worked off of, its major downsides are reduced stockpile size if the whole thing gets blocked off, or major lag if its a repeating trap.  Eyeglazed's work on creature timings has pretty much convinced me its impossible to make a pressure plate hallway that will make all dwarves drop their stuff while still allowing dwarves outside to continue pathing towards the stockpile without a repeater, and to me that means heavy lag. 

2.  Scaring -- So I think the scare dump is a definite move in the right direction.  It seems quite conceivable that every dwarf heading towards a stockpile with a chained creature sitting on it will drop his stuff, assuming proper window placement.  Then its just a matter of setting things up so that the tiles dwarves drop food on are all hatches or bridges, preferably controlled by the exit of all dwarves from the hallway.  Unless youre dropping into magma, you can always have my patented Duck Duck Goose failsafe system, where stupid dwarves who fall in the chute land on fluffy ducks and gooses instead of exploding, and yes, pastures and stockpiles can be placed in the same place.

3.  Dangerous Terrain: a dwarf who finds himself in an unpathable tile will cancel his job and try to path out of it if he can.  Unfortunately, they dont always remember to drop their stuff immediately.  Dwarves can be put on unpathable tiles by making them fall onto wall grates, vertical bars, or (iirc) fortifications.  You can also flood the tile theyre in/about to walk into.  Since making them fall has many of the same problems as method 1, maybe we should look into repeating mist machines to cancel their jobs?  I dont know if water forces pathing to be recalculated, or if its more of a OH NO IM DROWNING moment, so im not sure of fps woes from this... 

4.  Does combat make them drop things...?  I know Ive had a marksdwarf drop her baby to the carp while reloading, ( the carp was 3 zlevels to low to attack, and carp cant fly, she had only herself to blame that time). If so, we could just put a bunch of repeating training spears in the hallway, then dwarves will dodge fall down a level, creating a one way path and making their original job inaccessible, more so they drop their junk and head towards an accessible meeting hall, except whoops, they trigger more spikes, to drop them back to fortress proper, and then a plate that dumps their junk.  All the falling, hopefully none of the recalculation of pathing that kills fps. 

5.  I dunno, what else makes dwarves drop things?  How long does it take before they notice theyre on fire?  Are there any syndromes to make them pass out that we can then power wash off them to wake them back up?  Ideas peoples!!