I am on a quest to find some sort of super efficient or automated hauling techniques, and I'm at a loss. I figured there are people out there smarter than me that could lay out some ideas.
I've tried water-pushing, but it is too inconsistant and it destroys items. I've pulled off a system that actually did manage to push objects quite a distance using water pumps, but it can only push downward on an angle (and it eventually destroys the objects it pushes). Every 10 tiles or so you must have a 1 z-level drop to keep the water flowing, so it ends up being a 'sloped' system. I've pretty much given up on this idea completely. If anyone has done this successfully at any level, I'm all ears as to how its done.
I'm now thinking about an idea of compartmentalizing the dwarves to keep haulers in a general vicinity and/or trade off some of the hauling work to the workshop owners as well. The general idea is to have a stonecrafter make crafts, put the crafts into a bin, and have a hauler come and pickup the bin... This is not easy at all. In general it would subdivide haulers into short-distance and long-distance haulers. Too much waste occurs when dwarves are running far distances to move a single stone bracelet from a workshop to the finished goods stockpile (whether it be 3 squares away from the workshop or 40, they still have to run that 40 tile distance to the job).
Heres what I have laid out, but I can't find a way to actually make it flawless and streamlined.
Lock the dwarves into the workshop area. It should have access to workshop, input resources, output stockpile, storage bins, food, water/alcohol, a bed, table, and chair. All the necessities for a workshop to be run. While the workshop is being worked, the area must be completely sealed. Once the workshop duties are complete the dwarf will have no other job other than to put what he created in bins. Once that is completed he will have the No Job order and head to the nearest meeting zone, where I can lock him out of the workshop and let the workshop have access to the rest of the world (eg the fortress). Dedicated haulers will then come by, pickup the finished goods and transport them to the stockpile location as well as drop off fresh new inputs (such as metal bars, more stones, thread, etc). Once the workshop is cleared the area would be reverted back to its original state, namely given back to the dwarf who runs the workshop to repeat the process. I could do this manually by forbidding doors periodically, but that is a pain. I tried to layout a series of pressure plates that toggle doors open/close (which I got to work very well), but I came to a problem where you cannot prevent a hauler from getting locked into the workshop when the dwarf decides to go back to work (also each workshop area would require massive amounts of mechanisms and furniture =] ) UNLESS you can guarantee only one hauler will ever enter the workshop at a time.
An alternative to the above is to have the dwarf locked in a room with an input chute and an output chute. I would designate a garbage dump and dump all full bins as they come, they will be thrown down the chute, reclaimed, and a hauler will come by and carry it to the depot. I don't want to do this because I have to constantly dump/reclaim items, and it may require some sort of compartmentalized 'sorting room' which has its own problems. If I could automate this, it just might work... Some ideas I had were to place stockpiles on bridges and retract the bridge periodically (dropping all the goods to the workshop), but you cant put stockpiles on anything that can open (hatches, bridges).
Any other ideas?