Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[crossmr]

this is an ongoing issue of frustration for many people. I can't remember when it was introduced, but the whole "take the container to pick up the item" schtick needs to die a horrible death in magma.

It works fine in very limited circumstances, circumstances which don't even happen in the new version. There are no more mass goblin sieges which require someone to run around picking up dozens of pieces of clothing.

What instead happens is broken mechanics leading to idiocy.

As an example I'll use my latest set up:

Pig tail farm
pig tail stockpile
workshop - processing
pig tail thread stockpile
2 weavers
cloth stockpile

flow runs from top to bottom

This works fine until the farmer starts processing.

There are currently 400 pig tail thread across 4 bins.

When the farmer processes a stack of pigtails instead of generating a single hauling request, he generates a hauling request for each thread, usually at least 4, which means all the bins get picked up and taken to the workshop to pick up 1 thread each.

in the meantime the weavers finish processing a thread and can't find another available thread. They can't wait 3 seconds so they cancel their repeated task and leave.

You queue up their job again on repeat, and after on iteration it cancels because he generated 4 hauling tasks again. There are multiple points of failure here.

1. one workshop creating multiple identical items should not generate multiple hauling tasks if the intent is to use the bins to pick up multiple items
2. Jobs shouldn't be constantly cancelled because an item is in transit, a dwarven delay mechanism should exist.

My suggested changes are this:

1. Dwarves do not take a bin to pick up any light single items
2. Dwarves do not cancel a job if an item is available but in transit, it can be delayed (this would reduce job cancellation spam 99%)
3. gatherers use no barrels. Right now it seems a gatherer goes out, generates the food item, then a barrel has to be brought to pick it up. Talk about the height of innefficiency. Let dwarves or the gatherers individually carry things inside. Only in the youngest forts are there no one available to carry these things. By the time a fort is going, you have haulers galore.
4. Workshops producing multiple items generate a single hauling order rather than many
5. Give us a toggle "dwarves use containers to pick up items" in the orders. Let those who want to use the old system do so. I'd kill for a dwarven cleanup swarm these days.

[dudlol]

It does need to be addressed. In a lot of cases it's more efficient to just not use bins, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Perhaps bins become shelves and immobile?

[Veylon]

One solution might be containers kept at the buildings. A barrel/bin is brought to the shop, the products go into it, and when it is full, it is brought to the appropriate stockpile and another brought in. The barrel can be considered a part of the stockpile even while at the shop so that dwarves who need the stuff before it gets stockpiled can still retrieve it.

A 'cleanup zone' might be a good idea as well: Mark an area where the carnage happened, mark a dumping off location, and have the dwarves bring bins, cram them full, and then dump them on the ground where you want. I do something similar using generic stockpiles and minecarts.

[Dorf and Dumb]

Hear, hear!  Watching dorfs run and go get the container, come back and get the whatever, run and go put the container away gets annoying.

[yobbo]

No matter how many delicious cooked meals are waiting right beside the dining room, dwarves still insist on stealing plump helmets from the brewery, carrying them all the way to the dining room, and leaving a single seed on the chair.

Queue some dwarf idling in the dining room:
* walk (directly past the seed) all the way to the seed stockpile
* steal the entire bag of plump helmet spawn
* carry it to the single seed
* put the seed in the bag
* leave the bag on the floor (wtf?)
* walk back to the seed stockpile
* steal the entire barrel of all the seeds
* carry the barrel to the dining room
* put the bag in the barrel
* carry the barrel back to the seed stockpile

This is ridiculous and infuriating for so many reasons.

[Bumber]

-snip-

I am now imagining the hilarity that must ensue when a dwarven banker finds a penny on the sidewalk. I almost feel the urge to draw it.

[yobbo]

Obviously we must transfer the vault to the penny! Then the penny will be in the vault.

*banker proceeds to haul ten tons of coins across the map*

[Bumber]

Obviously we must transfer the vault to the penny! Then the penny will be in the vault.

*banker proceeds to haul ten tons of coins across the map*

Not merely the coins. The entire bank structure (whether block by block or hauling the entire foundation.) And then putting it back again.

[MystRunner]

I agree this is defiantly a fix that needs to go into game. It's very annoying and I usually end up forbiding barrels in my seed stockpile and bins in other stock piles so that it's somewhat avoidable but my stock piles have to be HUGE! The only other option is little close by mini stock piles that forbid the barrels/bins and a larger stock pile that accepts the barrels and bins.

[loose nut]

What I want the dwarves to do is use a SPARE bin (and maybe the number of spare bins can be set somehow, or you can create a utilty stockpile where these bins go first) to collect items, and then transfer what they collect to the bins that are used to store things in the storage stockpiles.

[Ghills]

+100,000

I honestly don't care what method Toady uses to fix bins and barrels. But something needs to be done.

[yobbo]

What I want the dwarves to do is use a SPARE bin (and maybe the number of spare bins can be set somehow, or you can create a utilty stockpile where these bins go first) to collect items, and then transfer what they collect to the bins that are used to store things in the storage stockpiles.

Oh that's actually a really good idea. Maybe they could have something like "baskets", so a dwarf could go get a basket, put all the things to transfer in the basket, and then put the basket back (or maybe keep it if it's a dedicated hauling dwarf?)

Baskets would make a lot of sense for herbalists to carry too. In stead of doing their weird 3-trips-back-and-forth-for-every-plant shuffle.

Herbalism job:
* get basket
* pick herbs and put in basket
* pick more herbs and put in basket
* transfer herbs from basket to stockpile only when basket full or no more herbs to pick

[crossmr]

What I want the dwarves to do is use a SPARE bin (and maybe the number of spare bins can be set somehow, or you can create a utilty stockpile where these bins go first) to collect items, and then transfer what they collect to the bins that are used to store things in the storage stockpiles.

Oh that's actually a really good idea. Maybe they could have something like "baskets", so a dwarf could go get a basket, put all the things to transfer in the basket, and then put the basket back (or maybe keep it if it's a dedicated hauling dwarf?)

Baskets would make a lot of sense for herbalists to carry too. In stead of doing their weird 3-trips-back-and-forth-for-every-plant shuffle.

Herbalism job:
* get basket
* pick herbs and put in basket
* pick more herbs and put in basket
* transfer herbs from basket to stockpile only when basket full or no more herbs to pick

i think it's simpler than this:

if the target item weighs over X weight than the dwarf uses the wheelbarrow attached to the stockpile (you can attach one to any stockpile)

the game also then needs to change the way it generates jobs, if there is a pick up job generated, any like item within say 15 squares (horizontal) that is of the same type gets lumped into a job and generates the call for a wheelbarrow pick up. If a wheelbarrow job is generated and additional items are created before it gets there, they should get tacked on to the job.

[Morrigi]

+1,000,000
Toady, fix this ****. Please. Pretty please. With a kitten on top.

[Waparius]

Oh that's actually a really good idea. Maybe they could have something like "baskets", so a dwarf could go get a basket, put all the things to transfer in the basket, and then put the basket back (or maybe keep it if it's a dedicated hauling dwarf?)

Baskets would make a lot of sense for herbalists to carry too. In stead of doing their weird 3-trips-back-and-forth-for-every-plant shuffle.

Herbalism job:
* get basket
* pick herbs and put in basket
* pick more herbs and put in basket
* transfer herbs from basket to stockpile only when basket full or no more herbs to pick

Yes. Baskets and bags should be hauled around, and made somehow similar to buckets in the code so that we can get proper water-barrel production as well.

Baskets would also work to speed up some tasks (as may wheelbarrows) - instead of going and collecting individual ingredients for dyeing or cooking, a dwarf could fill their basket with them before going to the workshop instead. For smelting and similar replace "basket" with "wheelbarrow".