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[Garfield]

Hello,
Sorry if the answer to this is obvious, but I've been googling and searching the forums for days and I'm a bit confused.
With the new version of DF, I've noticed you mine out a lot less material than usual. These "rocks" or "boulders" can then be cut down into blocks, used for building.
I'm just a bit confused, because say I'm trying to make hundreds of rock crafts or rock pots, do I really need to use a giant boulder for each rock pot? I don't think I'm able to use the blocks for crafting.. Please let me know if I'm missing something here.
Thanks a lot.

[blue sam3]

Yeah, it's weird at the moment. You do indeed need an entire boulder to make some little craft, and you really can make four walls from that same boulder. Go figure.

[Garfield]

Wow, that sucks! I'm tempted to go back to the old version, the wheelbarrows are kinda annoying me also. Thanks for you help.

[Cthulhu Inc]

Oh whew, I'm not crazy.

[Bordellimies]

So wait, you can use a bigass boulder to materialize 4 walls, but it can only be used to make one mug or something like that?

[wuphonsreach]

Rock crafts are basically useless now as a source of export income.  Turn your stones into blocks, use those to make buildings / walls / constructions.  Learn how to hunt/fish and how to setup a cook making high quality prepared foods for export income.

Wheelbarrows are wonderful for the stockpiles which contain heavier items (stones are the prime user, but also heavy furniture and a few other odds and ends).

[krenshala]

If you have a sufficiently large tree* farm you can export wood crafts ... just not to the meat-eating-hippies.

[Snaake]

I can usually import all I want by selling bone crafts (including horn, hoof etc.), maybe an occasional prepared food barrel or trap component or something.

Then again, I might import less stuff, especially end products, since I prefer to have as much as possible be fortress-produced (due to my dislike of the ()tags for imported stuff). Don't be a primary producer, be an industrialist!

Oh, and you can of course farm obsidian, the highest-value renewable craft material (not counting sea serpent farms and such).

[Laserhead]

If you've assuming access to magma magma anyway, wouldn't stoneware be higher value? Not to mention much simpler to farm.

[krenshala]

I keep forgetting about glass and clay.  Those are, effectively, infinite resources if you have fuel/magma.

[ledgekindred]

Even though you only get 25% the number of stones now, as others have said, crafts aren't the best use of them.  Make crafts at the beginning, when all you have are stones, but you should quickly get a farming/food industry going.  The rock crafts initially should be traded for more food, which you can have your cook make easy meals to skill up, then as he gets better, up the quality of meals he makes.  With a legendary cook, you can make a barrel of prepared meals that can buy out a whole caravan. 

And lest people think of this as an exploit, on an individual basis I've noticed that even the finest meals are still only worth 100-200 urists a piece.  It's just that there may be a stack of 50 or more in a pot.  If you were to go to a really fancy restaurant in real life, with an internationally famous chef cooking gourmet meals, you could easily drop a couple hundred bucks on a meal.  I think of this as the same thing.

I'll still keep a supply of crafts for the pointy-eared tree-huggers, but human and dwarf caravans typically get a pile of old clothes and some lavish meals in exchange for a good chunk of what they brought.

[Xenos]

For export income just bring some copper nuggets, cassiterite, bismuthinite, and coal on embark and build a few serrated discs to buy out the first caravan.

[Flying Fortress]

My legendary stone crafter put out 1-3 crafts per boulder just now when I ran a test, do lower skills produce less more often?  I don't make enough stone crafts to ever worry about them or trade with them though.  I just use a few logs and make spiked wooden balls, they sell for a ton and carry me through every single trade caravan (they're really all I ever trade, a masterwork ☼spiked wooden ball☼ goes for around 1k iirc.)  Since I found that out I don't see a point in trading anything but my spiked wood lol.
As far as the hippies go, I trade them my spare mechanisms from training a legendary mechanic, since he needed to be trained anyway I'm not going out of my way to make other crafts.
It does seem odd though that 1 boulder could be used to block off 4 tunnels the size of a full grown dragon, but only make 1 ☼ring☼ 

[Snaake]

If you've assuming access to magma magma anyway, wouldn't stoneware be higher value? Not to mention much simpler to farm.

IIRC Stoneware is value 4, so yes, it's better, but fire clay isn't available everywhere. If earthenware is value 3, it's the same value but easier, yes.

Even regular clay isn't available everywhere though. Magma is found on every embark, and I suspect most people will require a river, lake/ocean, or aquifer for water.

[Snaake]

Even though you only get 25% the number of stones now, as others have said, crafts aren't the best use of them.  Make crafts at the beginning, when all you have are stones, but you should quickly get a farming/food industry going...

A yak/water buffalo/what have you has a lot of bones, 2 horns and 4 hoof, and you only need 2 workshops to make crafts out of them.