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[xcorps]

Ok, I'm spending waaaay too much time worrying about what my 109 or so dwarves are wearing.  I'm trying to keep them in a tunic, trousers and shoes for now. It seems like I've hit a roadblock in the development of this peaceful fortress where almost all my time and effort are spent getting cloth to make stuff and cleaning up the x(item)x that's left lying around. I've got dozens of bins full of worn items that I trade away for cloth, I've got a quantom dump assigned next to my trading post where the stuff gets sent on (cleanowned scattered), and all my spare laborers spend seasons hauling worn items back and forth around and around. I have 5 clothing workshops and 2 leather shops. I've spent better than 2 hours this morning just on dealing with clothing scatter, and I've dug out maybe 60 tiles of fortress, made a little bit of furniture, and worked on food production for maybe 10 minutes.

This is not fun. I am really not interested in gathering socks and loincloths.

Here's my production plan right now:

Make rock crafts.
Trade for cloth and leather.
Produce clothing.
Sell worn clothing.

I have plenty of trade profit from this, so buying other stuff isn't really a bother. I've considered making farms for pig tail and rope reed, but browsing the industry pages on Wiki makes me think that will require a larger work force than I've got available, and will require dedicated haulers that I can't spare because of the need to move worn items out of my fortress. I've got about 30 bedrooms built that have cabinets and chests, but I don't see the dwarves storing the xitemx in them to rot away. The items end up in my clothing output stockpile bins or on the ground.

I haven't started with metals yet because I've spent 2 days trying to get this problem sorted out.

Any advice or "I do it this way" posts would be greatly appreciated.

[zooeyglass]

My first response (very much in the 'i do it this way' vein) was simply: why worry about this? If you're producing enough top/bottom/feet gear (my terms) to cover your dwarves and avoid the negative thoughts, then you can simply ignore, or even mass-hide, the worn clothing ('d'-'b'-'h' for the latter). If it's too much of a bore trading it, perhaps consider dumping it into a dump over magma, so that it's destroyed (particularly if it's not masterful / not even made by your clothiers).

If keeping up with production demands seems too much, consider fine-tuning who works on clothing production, maybe having a couple of designated clothier/dyers who have all other labours turned off.

If hauling is really causing such delays, consider your entire fortress layout: are there long routes that are crowded with dwarves that could be circumvented with shortcuts/ramps/stairways/more direct routes?

That's all I've got for now. I sympathise - you don't want to get bogged down with this kind of thing. The good news is, you don't have to let it get to you!

[smakemupagus]

just queue up "30 shirts, 30 trousers, 30 shoes" in the manager once a year.  farming pig tails would be a better use of your time/dwarfpower than stressing too much about cleaning up the worn stuff. 

cleanowned is a nice tool, but it makes the worn out clothes your problem to dispose of, and it doesn't have to be.  I usually just make a few boxes and cabinets, and whichever dwarf starts to collect too much worn out junk in their room gets a cabinet. 

[xcorps]

Hmm, I'm just a victim of my own pedantry?

Sounds about right!

[Em3rgency]

Huh... I've never EVER had to worry about clothes. My dwarfs usually either get new clothes from the waves of dead goblins. The military also always wears only their armor, so once someone gets drafted, yay more hand-me-downs! And then there is the odd death by dwarfism (the suicidal disease all dwarfs have).

I've run fortresses with over 300 dwarfs for over 20 years and never had a bad thought from lack of clothing... (Minus that one mishap where I accidentally forgot to make grieves so all my military ran around with suits of armor, minus the crotch area. Must have been... enlightening.)

[xcorps]

Well, I don't think I'm getting any bad thoughts yet. I'm trying to prevent it. It looks like I'm overthinking things.

[joeclark77]

One 3x3 plot growing rope reeds year round
--> a stockpile taking only rope reeds and pig tails
--> a farmer's workshop with "Process Plants" on repeat
--> a cloth stockpile
--> a clothier's workshop with "Make Cloth Trousers", "Make Cloth Shirt", "Make Cloth Sock", "Make Cloth Bag" on repeat

(optional: dye farm --> dye plants stockpile --> quern --> dye stockpile --> dyer's workshop near cloth stockpile)

Until your planters are skilled, and you have plenty of seeds, the repeat jobs may fail due to running out of inputs.  In that case, just go to the manager and queue up 30 of each job at each workshop.  Within a couple years though, assuming you're using dedicated dwarves, the whole thing should be able to run on repeat.

[Xinael]

I've often considered adding everyone to a squad purely to assign them a uniform that they wear even when off-duty that consists of poorer-quality output from my armorsmiths. Armor still covers them up and prevents bad thoughts, and never decays. I guess it's just a matter of how much metal you've got, but you could even make it from the metals that are useless militarily if you've got an abundance of them. I've always been scared off by the encumbrance penalty from 0 armor user skill that most of them will have. Thoughts?

[i2amroy]

I've often considered adding everyone to a squad purely to assign them a uniform that they wear even when off-duty that consists of poorer-quality output from my armorsmiths. Armor still covers them up and prevents bad thoughts, and never decays. I guess it's just a matter of how much metal you've got, but you could even make it from the metals that are useless militarily if you've got an abundance of them. I've always been scared off by the encumbrance penalty from 0 armor user skill that most of them will have. Thoughts?

The encumbrance isn't too much of a problem since you are only assigning them 4 pieces of armor (2 boots, a pair of greaves/leggings, and a upper body piece). Also if you are really worried about the weight problems or if you don't think you have enough metal you could simply make all of their armor out of leather. Do note that you won't be able to do this with hunters, miners, or woodcutters and you will also probably want to disable carrying food for all of your civilian dwarves to keep the happy dining room thoughts (booze doesn't give these, so it's up to you if you want them to carry it).

[joeclark77]

Also if you are really worried about the weight problems or if you don't think you have enough metal you could simply make all of their armor out of leather.

Leather armor doesn't wear out, I don't think, but I'm not so sure about trousers and boots.  Anybody know for sure?
Of course, leather is a much simpler supply chain than cloth, so it may still be a good idea.

[i2amroy]

Don't make trousers, since they count as clothing. Leather leggings on the other hand count as armor so shouldn't wear out, and neither should leather boots (since they also count as armor).

[Dunamisdeos]

Don't make trousers, since they count as clothing. Leather leggings on the other hand count as armor so shouldn't wear out, and neither should leather boots (since they also count as armor).

That is revolutionary. I never even thought of that. You just reduced the clothing issue by 66%.

[i2amroy]

Don't make trousers, since they count as clothing. Leather leggings on the other hand count as armor so shouldn't wear out, and neither should leather boots (since they also count as armor).

That is revolutionary. I never even thought of that. You just reduced the clothing issue by 66%.

Combined with leather armor (which covers the upper body) you can completely eliminate the clothing issue for everyone but miners, hunters, and woodcutters if you are willing to stick all of your dwarves into squads and order them to wear it all.

[joeclark77]

Oh, I didn't even know there was such a thing as leather leggings!  Good to know.

[greycat]

If getting rid of the worn clothing is an issue, you can set up a stockpile that accepts only clothing, and then enable "Refuse" on that stockpile.  This causes the clothing in the stockpile to degrade (fairly quickly) and eventually vanish.

"Clothing" isn't a single type of finished good.  It actually covers a few types: ... oh shit the wiki is  broken ... um, I think it's headwear, handwear, legwear, body armor, footwear.  This will encompass all NON-armor finished goods like socks and shoes and trousers and loincloths, but NOT armor (boots, leggings).

For the "Refuse" bit, you can disable every type of refuse.  You just need the category itself to be selected for the stockpile.  You don't need to actually store any refuse in it either.  Having the Refuse category highlighted is all that you need to make clothing disintegrate.