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[Nameless Archon]

I'm not at home at the moment to fire it up and check, but I've noticed that the new hauling changes cause some undesirable (to me) behavior with respect to herbalism.

To wit, the default behavior is now thus:
1. Herbalist picks a plant.
2. Herbalist drops the plant.
3. Herbalist goes for a barrel.
4. Herbalist brings barrel to plant, stores plant in barrel.
5. Herbalist stores barrel.
6. Repeat.

I recognize that I can create an 'intermediate' or 'primary' stockpile that has no barrels and takes plants and gives to a larger "destination" or "secondary" stockpile that has barrels, but when I was messing around with a test fortress, I was seeing this behavior:
1. Herbalist drops plant on primary pile and goes back to work. (yay!)
2. Someone else brings a barrel to the primary pile and stores teh plant in the secondary pile (yay!)
3. A third someone brings plants from the secondary pile (or farms) and walks them all the way out to the primary pile, creating two hauling jobs for farmed plants. (Boo!)

Obviously, the second model is closer to where I want to be, but I must be doing something wrong in setting up the new (and more complicated) stockpiles. I recognize that I could do things to mitigate some of this (like making the primary pile surface-plants-only) but I will eventually farm surface plants too, and then I've created the second case (farm->primary->secondary). Is there a way to supply chain only the surface plants picked by herbalism, without creating a situation where I get people hauling plants to a stockpile that's further away, just so someone else cna go haul a barrel and THEN haul the plants again?

Suggestions on what to look for in troubleshooting this problem?

---

Secondly, I've started evaluating my usual "pump the volcano magma into a holding chamber for forges" methods, and I have concerns about the structure and safety needs involved.

Crude diagram:

- => Open space above magma
O => Wall Tile
. => Unobstructed floor tile
(Volcano left, fortress to right)

----OOOO
----O...
----OOOO
Ordinarily, I would just channel the wall tile left of the hallway, slap in a pump and a grate, and then seal up the volcano with the use of walls and floors constructed. However, in the new version, doing this results in clouds of magma mist, which burns the miner alive, because the boulder of the upper floor drops into the lower floor (of magma).

I can't test at the moment, but since I can plan, I must ask: Is it safe to dig out the upper wall (on this floor) and then channel the lower floor (two steps, but not onerous) or does the creation of the boulder on the lower floor (from any channelling designation) always create magma mist?

[kendo]

The bringing barrels halfway across the map thing is really a major annoyance. Especially after sieges when they bring the bin containing all your masterwork weapons outside to pick up a copper whip. Maybe you can counter this with stockpiles but I've always believed and seen it stated several times over the years,that the more stockpiles you have the worse it is for fps. This later version seems to make any .10 fortress become a clusterfuck of stockpiles

[iofhua]

Could you get around this by assigning wheelbarrows to every stockpile? Or will there still be stupid dwarves that run around holding barrels?

[Nameless Archon]

Could you get around this by assigning wheelbarrows to every stockpile? Or will there still be stupid dwarves that run around holding barrels?

From what I remember of my test fort, wheelbarrows make the hauling potentially faster (for stones, mainly) but do not improve the poor choice of job algorithm. Basically, they'd still haul the barrels, only possibly faster, I'd assume. Why would you expect wheelbarrows to change this?

The bringing barrels halfway across the map thing is really a major annoyance.

I'm really on the border of reverting to 34.07 - the changes in 34.08 add a huge amount of complexity and unintentionally pervert several systems that shouldn't require so much player input, IMO.

I've always believed and seen it stated several times over the years,that the more stockpiles you have the worse it is for fps. This later version seems to make any .10 fortress become a clusterfuck of stockpiles

I've never heard of stockpiles causing FPS issues - source? AS for the other part, well, that's a big reason I'm asking. If this is the way hauling will remain for the foreseeable future, I'll revert to 34.07 and call it a day.

[WealthyRadish]

If you want to avoid the extra hauling with farming and herbalism, create a food stockpile that only accepts plants and has 0 allocated barrels. Have this stockpile 'give' to the main food stockpile, and set that stockpile to only accept from links. Keep in mind that if you do this, you'll also need to set up a stockpile for other food sources (such as butchered meat, cheese, prepared meals, etc) and link them to the main stockpile. For the other stockpiles, restricting barrels shouldn't be needed.

I'm guessing that your problem is leaving the 'secondary' stockpile able to accept from anywhere, when it should only accept from links... kind of unclear though. You're saying a dwarf is taking plants from the destination back to the intermediate stockpile?

[greycat]

Could you get around this by assigning wheelbarrows to every stockpile? Or will there still be stupid dwarves that run around holding barrels?

I'm still learning the new system, but it seems that the wheelbarrows only get used when doing a "Place Item in Stockpile" job, not when doing a "Place Item in Bin/Barrel" job.

So under the new system, let's say you have a food stockpile with barrels allowed, and 3 wheelbarrows assigned, that isn't restricted on where it takes from.  You have a bunch of barrels in it already, and someone harvests a plant.  This will generate a "Place Item in Barrel" job, so someone will take one of the barrels out of the stockpile, bring it to the farm, put the plant in it, and drop the barrel on the ground.  This will then generate a "Place Item in Stockpile" job, to bring the barrel back.  Someone (maybe the same dwarf, maybe a different one) will then go to the stockpile, grab a wheelbarrow, take that to the farm, put the barrel of plants in the wheelbarrow, and the finally bring the whole thing back to the stockpile.

That's my current understanding, anyway.  Note that using the wheelbarrow for half the job actually does help if it's a bin full of gold bars, or something else that's super heavy.

Maybe in a future version dwarves will be a few notches more clever, and will use the wheelbarrow when taking the bin OUT of the stockpile in the first place....

[Maklak]

This is counter-intuitive, but works:

Disable 'food hauling' for farmers and herbalists.
Disable 'wood hauling' for woodcutters.

That way your specialists work uninterrupted and your haulers carry that stuff to where it belongs.

[Nameless Archon]

I'm guessing that your problem is leaving the 'secondary' stockpile able to accept from anywhere, when it should only accept from links... kind of unclear though. You're saying a dwarf is taking plants from the destination back to the intermediate stockpile?

I can't be certain of that. I have noted cases of non-surface plants ending up in the 'intermediate' stockpile, then getting a barrel hauled to them from the 'destination' stockpile, etc. I assumed they were from farms, at first, but I'd have to really watch it closely to see the difference, as my fortress is very vertical and has a decent-sized population of haulers.

I can, of course, set up 'intermediate' pile(s) for all food products with no barrels, and then move everything to the 'destination' stockpile (main stockpile) with barrels on. I'll try setting the destination pile only to accept from links and see if that fixes the problem in new testing.

---

Anyone got a comment on the volcano tapping issue?

[Nameless Archon]

Disable 'food hauling' for farmers and herbalists.

Unless it was fixed, the act of picking plants and carrying them to a pile is not controlled by food hauling. Farmers and herbalists will always carry harvested plants to a pile, if there is a pile space available. I am resonably certain I had food hauling OFF for the herbalist, but will check.

(Further hauling, and hauling of non-harvested food items appears to be controlled by this labor correctly.)

[WealthyRadish]

Oh, in that case, have two intermediate stockpiles, for the herbalists and farms, for surface and underground plants, and them link them both to the main stockpile. Having the main stockpile only accept from links is needed to prevent them from skipping the intermediate stockpiles, but will require a stockpile for every type of produced food. Unfortunately you can't link farms to stockpiles yet, though, so you'll need to specify which plants go into which stockpile.

[slink]

Secondly, I've started evaluating my usual "pump the volcano magma into a holding chamber for forges" methods, and I have concerns about the structure and safety needs involved.

Crude diagram:

- => Open space above magma
O => Wall Tile
. => Unobstructed floor tile
(Volcano left, fortress to right)

----OOOO
----O...
----OOOO
Ordinarily, I would just channel the wall tile left of the hallway, slap in a pump and a grate, and then seal up the volcano with the use of walls and floors constructed. However, in the new version, doing this results in clouds of magma mist, which burns the miner alive, because the boulder of the upper floor drops into the lower floor (of magma).

I can't test at the moment, but since I can plan, I must ask: Is it safe to dig out the upper wall (on this floor) and then channel the lower floor (two steps, but not onerous) or does the creation of the boulder on the lower floor (from any channelling designation) always create magma mist?

I have been tapping into magma tubes, which are essentially underground volcanos in structure, by channeling out the final tile to connect a reservoir to the magma.  I have had no problem with magma mist, but there isn't any magma under the spot until after the boulder is already there.  If I understand your diagram correctly, the same thing is true in your case.  I can't see how the boulder would fall into magma.  I may not be understanding properly.  Is that a topview?

[greycat]

Unless it was fixed, the act of picking plants and carrying them to a pile is not controlled by food hauling. Farmers and herbalists will always carry harvested plants to a pile, if there is a pile space available.

I don't know if "fixed" is the right word, but this does seem to have changed.  I see herbalists and farmers do their job and leave a plant just sitting there -- not every time, but fairly often.  And this is with a plant stockpile that has plenty of room.

[Nameless Archon]

I don't know if "fixed" is the right word, but this does seem to have changed.  I see herbalists and farmers do their job and leave a plant just sitting there -- not every time, but fairly often.  And this is with a plant stockpile that has plenty of room.

Oh! That would be 'fixed', aside from the addition of current hauling woes. It seems I'll have to consider my initial design a little more thoroughly than before, and see if I can get this working the way I'd like (herbalist to primary, haulers to secondary, farmers to secondary (possibly via a third stockpile).

I have been tapping into magma tubes, which are essentially underground volcanos in structure, by channeling out the final tile to connect a reservoir to the magma.  I have had no problem with magma mist, but there isn't any magma under the spot until after the boulder is already there.  If I understand your diagram correctly, the same thing is true in your case.  I can't see how the boulder would fall into magma.  I may not be understanding properly.  Is that a topview?

It is. The right end of the corridor typically ends in a magma pipe to the reservoir, and there's usually another hallway (not pictured) for dwarf access to the pump (not pictured).

When I made that channel (on the middle tile of the wall shown), I lost two miners - presumably to magma mist. (fat melting, bleed to death, etc.) Now, I cannot affirmatively say it was the channeling (didn't observe it, only saw where miners were after death, no combat report) but this setup was designed as a pumped installation, so there was no automatic magma flood or the like to occur. My thought was that liquid settling might have occurred prior to the falling boulder from one/both channels. (I'm aware that falling objects now generate magma mist.) If the bottom channel (where the ramp was) did have magma prior to the falling object - that would explain the miners, but I'll have to see if I can replicate it for !!SCIENCE!!, as I certainly didn't/wouldn't expect the liquid to settle that quickly. (It's possible I've misremembered, too. Channelling after digging out may have been the cause, or it might have gone down differently - but certainly not a flood to cause it.)

I've just gotten home, so I'll find a suitable embark and test these again (more thoroughly, with savescumming) this weekend. The herbalism change cost me huge amounts of food production time critical in the early fortress with my embark choices (lots of stone and raw goods to make gear quickly - straight to bronze and a stone block castle is dirt simple with the current embark points) and the miner deaths (like two seconds after hitting dirt) really soured me on the embark. I was hoping there was an obvious explanation I'd overlooked, but it seems like either I goofed something or I've misremembered the circumstances.

Thanks, guys. I'm going to lock this under the assumption that I'm succumbing to encroaching senility, and perhaps reopen it later if there's something useful I can add.