Print

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

[Bakaridjan]

This comes from another escaped lunatic so there's probably a really good answer to this seemingly simple question, but why is it impossible to make a refuse pit in the game or designate a refuse pile over an empty space? Having to create extremely complex systems to tell your dwarf to "throw refuse in that hole over there" seems kind of silly. As a newer player, maybe I'm missing some of the point of this game though. Is the point all about creating insanely complex processes to do inanely simple tasks?

[PatrikLundell]

One of the points of DF is to create insanely complicated ways of doing both incredibly simple things and incredibly clever stuff...

A refuse stockpile is a stockpile, which is a place to store stuff for (possible) later retrieval, i.e. one use of a general mechanic. In the case of a refuse stockpile you might not want to retrieve things (although the bone carver might be of a different opinion), but the mechanics don't know about that. Storing things in empty air is of course silly, which is why you can't try to do that. A lot of DF consists of fairly general mechanics that are then used for various purposes.

The dumping mechanism can be used to designate the tiles around a hole (and the air over the hole as well, but that tile serves no actual purpose) as a dumping zone, and everything dumped on the rim will fall down into the hole (Also check Loci's reply below). Using dumping for this purpose have two disadvantages, though:
1. Selection of things to dump is manual, so it requires micro management (there is a DFHack autodump feature, but I think that one is for worn clothing only).
2. Using dumping for garbage disposal locks the function up so you can't (easily) use it for other purposes (get rid of that boulder! It's in the way! [but it's often faster to just use that boulder to make a floor]). Clearing out worn clothing is my main usage of the dumping function, as well as getting rid of boulders from mine cart tracks (to avoid road kills when a dorf goes away to pick up a bounder lying on an active track. Can also be done by forbidding the boulder).

Finally, a Quantum Stockpile is actually fairly simple to construct once you understand how, but I readily admit it's definitely not intuitively obvious.

Edit:
Quote from a German mathematician (I've forgotten who): "Warum soll es einfach sein, weil es so wunderschönes kompliziert werden kann?" -> Why should it be simple, when it can be so wonderfully complicated?

[Loci]

...(Also check Loci's reply below)...

Well, I guess I'm obligated to reply now 

1. Selection of things to dump is manual, so it requires micro management (there is a DFHack autodump feature, but I think that one is for worn clothing only).

The standing orders refuse menu can automate the dumping for you. Most advanced players don't use this feature (and even tend to forget it exists) because "garbage dumping" is one of the most versatile ways to get your dwarves to put things where you tell them to. It's annoying when you try to clear a stockpile of stone, round up worn clothing, empty the trade depot, etc. and your dwarves automatically toss trash into your non-garbage dumps.

[Bakaridjan]

Maybe my question is more of a design one and maybe it should go in the wishlist forum, but it's sort of so simple I assume there must be a good explanation for why it's not in the game. I understand that it doesn't make sense to store stuff in mid-air and that the game is designed around pretty simple mechanics. But then I'm not really trying to store the refuse, I'm trying to throw it away. There is already a pit function that allows me to throw a live chicken into a hole, but as soon that chicken dies the dwarf looks at it and says, no way I could throw that in a hole now unless there's some other complicated rules (or minecarts) in play. A refuse pit would be an incredibly powerful, simple and useful function. Sure players would have to be careful to isolate the bottom of the pit so dwarves aren't continually throwing old garbage back in there etc, but that's very simple to do. If you want to get something out, forbid everything else and open the door.

[Eldin00]

If you create a garbage dump zone adjacent to a pit, dwarves dumping anything in that zone will throw it down the pit instead.

[Bakaridjan]

If you create a garbage dump zone adjacent to a pit, dwarves dumping anything in that zone will throw it down the pit instead.

Does that mean you go with one garbage dump in your fort? I haven't figured out the logic behind which garbage dump dwarves chose yet, but I know it's often not the closest one. The last thing I want is dwarves hauling stone all the way up to the top to dump them in the pit that I want to use to clean up all dead goblins on my front door and then hauling all the dead goblins down to a stone dump to rot and cause miasma in the fort. It seems like something my little drunks are prone to think is a pretty good idea.

[Eldin00]

I generally only have one permanent dump zone in my fort. On occasion I use the dump command to clear out an area, but when I do that, I set my permanent dump temporarily to inactive while the cleanup is in progress.