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[Raging Mouse]

Having the dwarves pick up a bin and bring it to the item being collected is awesome -when there are multiple items to collect, and when nobody else wants any of the items already in the bin.

If a dwarf picks up a nearly full (and therefore heavy) bin to pick up a single item, this is likely slower than picking up the item and bringing it to the bin.

The more annoying scenario is when what's being collected is an intermediary product in a longer production chain -I learned this in my clothing industry. I'd collected pig tails in a stockpile close to a farmer's workshop next to the looms. Binned, of course, since I was mass-producing clothing for both domestic use and export. As soon as pig tails got to the stockpile I'd set up a plant processing job on repeat at the farmer's workshop. Then more pig tails mature over at the farms, leading to some Urist mcHelpful running over to the pig tail stockpile and picking up the bin with the existing pig tails (which is nice and efficient -much fewer stockpiles full of half empty bins), bringing it over to the farms to snatch up the fresh ones... Only, this means that my thresher, hard at work, finishes his current job and looks around for additional idle pig tails to process and, finding none, cancels the job.

So. Ideal scenario: There's somewhere in-game where you could have stockpiles switch between the new and the old collection method, and I'm just stupid and blind for having missed it?

[Sadrice]

Wait, raw plants go in bins?  Since when?

EDIT: oh you actually meant barrels/pots, didn't you...

Try putting a plant stockpile next to the farms, with no barrels allowed, and another stockpile next to the farmer's workshop, taking from the first and giving to the workshop, with barrels allowed.

[Raging Mouse]

My apologies, I meant barrels. It's the same functionality, though. Regarding your suggestion, wouldn't the dwarves keep snatching barrels/pots from the stockpile my thresher is using? If I did it the other way around, though, and maybe put a bigger storage next to the farms with pots, that would feed to a small one not using barrels, next to the farmer's workshop...

Still, that means I need to work around the new collection method.

[Martin]

So. Ideal scenario: There's somewhere in-game where you could have stockpiles switch between the new and the old collection method, and I'm just stupid and blind for having missed it?

I've been experimenting with this too. I have something which is closer, with some pros and cons. So for pigtails, for example:


Staging stockpile A: 5x5, no wheelbarrow, no barrels allowed, gives to stockpile B right next door.
Final stockpile B: 5x5, no wheelbarrow, barrels allowed.


Generally what's happening is the farmers no longer hoover up the pigtails in the fields with bins, because stockpile A doesn't take bins. So any long trips to the farms don't involve removing a bin. Because stockpile B is right next to stockpile A, when they do pick up a barrel, it's very briefly, and they tend to aggregate jobs better. You still have the possibility of there being no pigtails because the ones in stockpile A are on the job queue to be hauled, and the only ones in stockpile B are in the only barrel now being carried around. But it happens less often, and because the farmer isn't pulling the plant, then running for a barrel, then running back to the farm, then taking the barrel back to the stockpile, it's faster.


You might be able to minimize the cancellations further by having two final stockpiles that the staging stockpile gives to. Since the cancellation happens because the barrel is being picked up, by having two final stockpiles with pigtails distributed fairly evenly, odds are that only one of the two partially full barrels will be grabbed, leaving the other available for the workshop task. Further, the workshop can also take from the staging stockpile if there are any pigtails there not yet queued for hauling.


A difficult variable to nail down in all of this is the magnitude of jobs relative to dwarves. At certain points in the game, I have enough haulers that every job can fit in the queue, so a lot of things get tied up. At other points, only a fraction of the jobs fit on the queue, so there are lot of opportunities for the farmers to do something before the haulers would get to the job.

[Raging Mouse]

Thank you; I hadn't considered placing two stockpiles like that. If I'll end up using two stockpiles then that is probably optimal.

[Martin]

Another stockpile tip:


If you are tired of the planter spam when they can't plant because the seeds are gone, change your seed stockpile to use no barrels. It'll need to be bigger, but the problem is that you can fit all of your seeds of each type into one barrel, which they take when they do a cleanup. So instead have several bags of each type. They'll only take one bag instead. You'll still get a lot of spam in the beginning, until you have enough seeds of each type to keep multiple bags around.

[TheCoolSideofthePIllow]

All these new stockpile options, but there's one big thing missing: the ability to link to farms plots. :/

[Martin]

Yeah, but I think that's really only helpful if you have farms separated by distance growing the same stuff. You have quite good control over where your seeds are located with the food stockpile menu. You can fit all 200 seeds of a given type in one barrel or in a handful of bags, and in the past when I had large farming operations, I gave each seed type its own 1x2 stockpile.


That said, the one place where I wish I had that link is for rock nuts so that I could do 'make paste' jobs without worrying about destroying all of my seeds, but I think I now have that:


Press seed stockpile: takes only rock nuts, no barrels, gives only to press, takes only from links
Farm seed stockpile: takes only rock nuts, no barrels to prevent no seed spam, takes only from links
Staging stockpile: takes only rock nuts and gives to both farm and press stockpiles.


The staging stockpile is the only place rock nuts can be placed and should give out rock nuts roughly evenly to the other, and by making the press stockpile a limited size, should ensure that rock nuts are always going to the farms, preventing you from running out. Alternatively, you could set up a chain/overflow situation, where the farms take from the press stockpile until full (say 3 bags of seeds) and then the seeds pile up at the press stockpile. The press can only take from the press stockpile, so if you are low on seeds, they should get prioritized for hauling to the farm stockpile. I need to experiment with how the 'give' order balances out when giving to two stockpiles and where the 'take' order gets balanced out against the give orders.


But this wasn't easily possible before this change because the only way to limit the press was by using a burrow, which was sort of a pain to get working right for both the press and the overflow hauling.

[slothen]

seed problem is that with max 200 seeds, they'll still all fit in 2 bags, so if you have 2 guys picking up seeds, all your seeds will be hung up.  Of course, if both seed bags are busy, they'll start putting seeds in a third bag, which should be good.  Is max seeds an init parameter?

with plants and threshers, only 10 plants fit per barrel, so if you just grow more and more plants, your threshers should be okay.

One problem I do see with this is that a dwarf may pick up the container to place an item in it, but that container could be 99% full, which defeats the purpose.  Dwarves carrying individual items should prioritize placing them in near-full containers.  Dwarves using items for repeatable jobs (seed planting, milling) should prioritize grabbing full containers.  Dwarves going to collect a single item should decide not to use a container at all.  Dwarves going to collect multiple items should then take a container and prioritize mostly empty ones.

On the last two points, every job is to collect a single item, so the job assignment engine should count the number of similar jobs that need the same container when a dwarf decides to take a container or not.  I do believe a dwarfs location or distance to the job item will increase the chance the job will be assigned to that dwarf.  The point being, its reasonable for a dwarf to exhibit different behavior for the same job (50 seeds at the millstone = take an empty bag vs 1 seed at the millstone = don't take any bag  EVEN THOUGH the job is the same).

[Martin]

Well, it's even hackier, but you could limit the number of haulers per seed stockpile to 1 by requiring a single wheelbarrow. It shouldn't slow things down any, but you do need a wheelbarrow everywhere.


Max seeds isn't an init parameter, but there is this:

Alter these options to control how aggressively your dwarves place objects in a container with like items (rather than an empty container).  The default options are very aggressive.  STORE_DIST_ITEM_DECREASE controls the cap on objects it will consider -- for each object it finds in a container, one tile is removed from its apparent distance to the dwarf, up to this cap.  The others control how many tiles are removed for each combination type for any match at all.  For instance, if ITEM_DECREASE is set to 20, and SEED_COMBINE is set to 100, a dwarf carrying seeds will see a seed bag with 15 seeds as 115 tiles closer than it actually is (and thus pass up any empties within that distance), whereas a seed bag with 30 seeds would be treated as 120 tiles closer (because it hits the ITEM_DECREASE cap).  Values from 2 to 1000 are permitted.  Before these init options, the behavior was roughly ITEM_DECREASE 2, SEED_COMBINE 2 and the rest at 1000.

I'm not sure how this is treated now that they take the bag with them, but it's possible this could be tweaked to get a more balanced behavior. I wonder if you could modify the raw seed template to have fewer fit in a bag. That's even hackier though.

[i2amroy]

I'm not sure how this is treated now that they take the bag with them, but it's possible this could be tweaked to get a more balanced behavior.

Certainly possible. Just decrease the numbers and dwarves will be more likely to start new bags. You would need to decrease the fairly substantially before you saw any major difference though.

I wonder if you could modify the raw seed template to have fewer fit in a bag. That's even hackier though.

Hardcoded sadly, and therefore not possible.

[Kumis]

I was thinking that maybe dwarf or stockpile assigned hauling baskets or bags would be fine.
The barrels stay in the stockpile, but the dwarfs take the stockpile wicker basket (or use their own assigned bag) to hoover up whatever goods need to be hauled and then take them to the immobile barrel.

The whole barrel disappearance is especially irritating for smaller fortresses.

However, I do notice far fewer hauling jobs in the jobs menu, so success there!

[Bilanthri]

I find that this particular change really shines when butchering. Watching a single dwarf grab all available meat and stuff it in a barrel is rather gratifying...leaves my other haulers to keep at moving all those blocks I've been cutting.

[Martin]

I find that this particular change really shines when butchering. Watching a single dwarf grab all available meat and stuff it in a barrel is rather gratifying...leaves my other haulers to keep at moving all those blocks I've been cutting.

For me it's going to be the cleanup following the first major siege. Man, with 100 dwarves that used to take a full season, at which point I'd just get sieged again. I'm really looking forward to seeing that take days instead of months.

[slink]

The aspect I am enjoying is the giving and taking from particular workshops.  I see all kinds of setup possible there, the least of which is being able to dictate the type of stone used on furniture, etc.  I can at last prevent my usually limited number of bags getting used to hold milled dyes because the miller hauled some hide root from a stockpile across the fortress when he was called to mill cave wheat, and make sure that the brewer, thresher, and miller share nicely on certain crops.