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[Hyndis]

I've actually yet to properly weaponize minecarts. I much prefer handling invaders with large armies of well trained and well equipped dwarven soldiers. No tricks, no traps, no fortifications or pits of doom. Just an empty, open field with blood and honor.

Then my fortress memorializes the deeds of those dwarven heroes in all forms of art.

[WJLIII3]

DF is immensely entertaining, particularly considering the game is only 34% through alpha, and it is also completely free.

Its on its 34th pre-release build. That doesn't mean its 34% complete. Game versions are just iterative sets, they aren't actually decimals.

[Sutremaine]

I tend to limit wheelbarrows to very particular items like stone because trying to get bins to behave with wheelbarrows has been a nightmare for me.

For example, a dwarf wants to put one brick into a stockpile.  The stockpile has a bin with 4 blocks and room for a fifth.  The dwarf will grab the bin full of bricks by hand, carry it allll the way over to the single brick, and THEN run back and get the wheelbarrow.  But... my haulers usually aren't very strong and a bin full of 4 bricks is pretty heavy, so it takes for-fing-ever.

The bins should ideally all be filled once they're in a position to be hauled by wheelbarrow, or there should be no more blocks to put in the bins by the time wheelbarrow hauling starts. For this to work 100% you need to have all the building materials available and sitting wherever the construction site stockpile is drawing from. If you don't, or are just plain annoyed by stragglers dragging nearly-full bins around, then it's probably a better idea to move four blocks per wheelbarrow in the form of raw stone.

The only workaround I can think of is to only use bins on ONE stockpile for that type of item, ever, if you want to make absolutely sure your items don't get shuffled about by dwarves with BIN MADNESS.

Yeah, it looks as though one stockpile in a chain is allowed to take bins, it becomes a black hole from which no unbinned item can escape. It's nice to see dwarves going outside after a siege and hoovering up the socks in an orderly fashion, but the parts of the new hauling system that require a complete change to your item storage and transportation techniques are rather annoying when you're trying to get things done instead of figuring out the latest dwarven obsession. There is still the old quantum stockpiling method, in which you make a dump zone over a stockpile tile and manually pile everything onto the tile, making sure before you start that there are no other dump zones for the items to go in. This causes the dumped items to be forbidden, which when dealing with hauling loops is a good thing.

I've noticed that quantum stockpiles are a bit strange when using bins and barrels.

It's any stockpile. Quantum stockpiles are the same as normal stockpiles as far as the game is concerned -- it's the player that makes the distinction.

[WJLIII3]

It's nice to see dwarves going outside after a siege and hoovering up the socks in an orderly fashion, but the parts of the new hauling system that require a complete change to your item storage and transportation techniques are rather annoying when you're trying to get things done instead of figuring out the latest dwarven obsession.

Well, you should get used to entire mechanics changing and throwing off your whole gameplay model. The game isn't finished. Most likely every single mechanics will be at least as dramatically changed before the end.

[Sutremaine]

I am used to it. It's still annoying, at least until I find a way around it.

[Rutilant]

What annoys me about it is how he moved on to a different arc without a couple more bugfix patches to this one.  I really think it deserved a few more.

[Sutremaine]

Nah, Toady is always more interested in adding new stuff than fixing old stuff, although sometimes old stuff is fixed by overwriting it with new stuff. The healthcare system is a good example of this. Before .31, injured dwarves were put in any free bed (preferred over beds in rooms) and left to heal naturally, which depending on the injury and the constitution of the dwarf could take years. Throughout that whole time, the dwarf would have to be kept fed and watered. Instead of this base being improved upon, it was thrown out and replaced with a system in which actual medical care was provided and injured dwarves could work and take care of their own needs once their flesh and bones were stuck back together.

I find a lot of fun in finding out what the game can do this time, though less so when I wanted to do something else.

[Rutilant]

Nah, Toady is always more interested in adding new stuff than fixing old stuff, although sometimes old stuff is fixed by overwriting it with new stuff. The healthcare system is a good example of this. Before .31, injured dwarves were put in any free bed (preferred over beds in rooms) and left to heal naturally, which depending on the injury and the constitution of the dwarf could take years. Throughout that whole time, the dwarf would have to be kept fed and watered. Instead of this base being improved upon, it was thrown out and replaced with a system in which actual medical care was provided and injured dwarves could work and take care of their own needs once their flesh and bones were stuck back together.

I find a lot of fun in finding out what the game can do this time, though less so when I wanted to do something else.

Oh, I know.  I started playing 40d.  (As if that hasn't been said so often that it's lost all credibility it granted!)

I still disagree with that particular style of development however.

[GreatWyrmGold]

DF is immensely entertaining, particularly considering the game is only 34% through alpha, and it is also completely free.

Its on its 34th pre-release build. That doesn't mean its 34% complete. Game versions are just iterative sets, they aren't actually decimals.

If that's the case, it was released on its 21st pre-release build, the 33rd was never released, etc.
I'm pretty sure Toady explained that there are something like 100 basic goals he wants to achieve by DF 1.0, and each time another is added he adds another number to DF 0.X.?.

Nah, Toady is always more interested in adding new stuff than fixing old stuff, although sometimes old stuff is fixed by overwriting it with new stuff. The healthcare system is a good example of this. Before .31, injured dwarves were put in any free bed (preferred over beds in rooms) and left to heal naturally, which depending on the injury and the constitution of the dwarf could take years. Throughout that whole time, the dwarf would have to be kept fed and watered. Instead of this base being improved upon, it was thrown out and replaced with a system in which actual medical care was provided and injured dwarves could work and take care of their own needs once their flesh and bones were stuck back together.

I find a lot of fun in finding out what the game can do this time, though less so when I wanted to do something else.

I still disagree with that particular style of development however.

I like it. It also works well with the whole not-even-half-done, still-going-to-add-more-stuff thing DF has. Imagine if you had a choice between a couple months of nothing but bugfixes, which would have to be repeated every time a big change to the game happened (e.g. 3D--imagine if Toady did a huge bugfix back before 40d, and then wound up having to redo all of those bugfixes EVERY time he made a major change).
The change to 3D was an earlier major change; the personality update coming soon(ish) will be another. At this rate, there'll probably be  major, game-changing update every few years. Do you want Toady to spend a few onths each time that happens, to make sure everything's working right until another big change happens, or do you want him to wait until the game is mostly finished (or at least has its basic features in a more-or-less complete form) and THEN spend a few months to fix bugs, once?

[Reese]

I don't have the game I did it in available at the moment to check if it was actually working the way I think it was, but I think I had a setup where a bin using stock pile gave to a non-bin stockpile that gave to a minecart stop, and it managed to not put bins in the cart... ah well, I can check it when I get home and can start up that game to confirm what I had it doing.

(either that, or I had it set to move no matter what after 28 days so the binned blocks would be dumped in my building stockpile)

[Sutremaine]

Oh, I know.  I started playing 40d.  (As if that hasn't been said so often that it's lost all credibility it granted!)

Oh, okay then. I thought from not seeing your username before and your 'why aren't they doing what I want?!' reaction that the joys of dwarven AI were new to you.

Bugs and badly-working features might get better as the game gets more joined up. I do think they've improved in recent release cycles.

[Rutilant]

....
which would have to be repeated every time a big change to the game happened (e.g. 3D--imagine if Toady did a huge bugfix back before 40d, and then wound up having to redo all of those bugfixes EVERY time he made a major change).
...
 Do you want Toady to spend a few onths each time that happens, to make sure everything's working right until another big change happens, or do you want him to wait until the game is mostly finished (or at least has its basic features in a more-or-less complete form) and THEN spend a few months to fix bugs, once?

It doesn't automatically reintroduce all the old bugs every time he changes the verson number, you know.

[GreatWyrmGold]

No, but big changes mean old fixes won't work right. Example: When the z-axis was added, pretty much everything needed to be changed. This would include most old bugfixes. Add in the bugs inherent i adding a big, new feature like that and you're back where you started, at best.

[Reese]

I don't have the game I did it in available at the moment to check if it was actually working the way I think it was, but I think I had a setup where a bin using stock pile gave to a non-bin stockpile that gave to a minecart stop, and it managed to not put bins in the cart... ah well, I can check it when I get home and can start up that game to confirm what I had it doing.

(either that, or I had it set to move no matter what after 28 days so the binned blocks would be dumped in my building stockpile)

yeah, nope, It looks like I just set it to accept no bins with the standard three departure conditions present.  Sorry.

[greycat]

Its on its 34th pre-release build. That doesn't mean its 34% complete. Game versions are just iterative sets, they aren't actually decimals.

For most games you would be correct, but Toady's version numbering scheme actually does reflect his rough estimate of the percent of the features that he wants in 1.0 which have been implemented.  He's got amazingly long range planning ability.