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[amade]

I'm sure most old players are already aware of the tendency for goblet/mugs to prevent bins from appearing in the move to trade depot screen, but so far my google fu haven't found any explanation for it. Well, now I've figured it out, I'm going to share it.

When you have a large fort, ergo lots of drinkers (especially if you have tons of visitors) and hordes of children, the bins get spammed with tasks to take/store goblets/toys, thus preventing them from appearing in the trade screen.

Some workarounds:

• Best method is to create separate stockpiles for goblets and toys, forbid the two item types from other finished goods stockpiles.
• Create shit tons of goblets and mugs so that you'll have several bins of it (therefore you'll at least have some tradeable bins that aren't being spammed by drink/play jobs if you want to trade mugs/toys.
• If you end up with a mixed bin and absolutely have to move it, pause the game and forbid the bin and its contents (use d>b>f, otherwise the contents won't be forbidden if you just use 'k' and forbid the bin). Then reclaim it (d>b>c) and go to the trade screen and move that bin before unpausing the game.
• If you don't care about the quality of life of your dorfs, don't make any goblets or toys. Make your dorfs drink booze straight from the barrel. Tell the kids to utilize their imagination instead.

Hopefully new players (or returning old players like me) who encounter this issue in the future will have less difficulty searching for the answer.

[anewaname]

I also find myself forbidding goblets and toys from the stone goods stockpile but I do not create separate stockpiles for mugs and toys... They are scattered wherever the booze stockpiles are or the kiddies were. There also is a separate stockpile for amulets but that is due to a certain mayor.

[mikekchar]

TL;DR: Bins and Barrels are annoying.  Easiest not to use them at all.  But if you need to use them, use them for things that will never, every go on to another workshop.  Be aware that anytime anything is added or removed, or if the bin/barrel is hauled, *everything* becomes "unavilable", leading to "mismatched equipment/item unavailable" spam.  Even worse, it will potentially cause you to build more of the things in workshop orders because the manager thinks you don't have the ones that are "unavailable.

Bins are really the main culprit here and it can happen with anything.  The main problem is that as soon as a bin is accessed (get something out, put something in, or hauled) anything inside of it becomes "unavailable".  This is very easily seen with work orders because you might say that you want at most 3 battle axes and you have a bin with 3 battle axes and assorted other weapons.  As son as someone gets one of the other weapons, you start making more battle axes.  If people are putting weapons in and out of the bin, you can end up with 10s of battle axes and wondering why.  If you haul the bin to the trade depot because you are thinking (I want to sell those stupid long daggers), then suddenly you are off building battle axes again).

There are a couple of keys for bins:

• When an item in a bin is used, the whole bin is unavailable while the item is being taken.
• If the item in a bin is being used by a workshop, the bin will be hauled to the workshop and then hauled back.  This can take a huge amount of time.
• When an item is in a bin, it can only be taken out of that bin to be used directly (by a dwarf or by a workshop)
• An item in a bin will never be removed to be put into another stockpile.  Ever.
• An bin will never be moved to a stockpile unless everything that happens to be in the bin is permitted in the stockpile, *and* bins are permitted.  In that case the entire bin is moved to the stockpile

There are a couple of results of this:

• If you want to ever sort items by type, you must sort them *before they are put in bins*.  Usually this means, creating a stockpile that does *not* allow bins and then making a stockpile which only accepts a certain kind of item and also contains bins.  This results in 2 hauling jobs, but will ensure that your items are sorted into bins.
• If you already have a mixed bin and you want to sort the items, you must forbid the items in the stock pile (or forbidding bins will work too), dump all the items in the bin and then after they have been dumped, reclaim them. 'd->b->reclaim items' is your friend!!!
• Generally speaking, you never want bins for items that are in the middle of construction.  But when you are truly finished constructing them and you just want to sell them, bins are fantastic.  Just make sure to set up the stockpile appropriately.
• The inability to move items in a mixed bin into a stockpile can be used to your advantage.  If you want to encrust finished goods with gems, you can create a stockpile that accepts finished goods, but *not* bins.  Then give this stockpile to your workshop.  Make a stockpile with finished goods that *does* accept bins and take from the workshop.  As soon as the item gets put in a bin, it will never be put in the stockpile feeding your workshop

.
[/list]

There are lots more tricks you can play with the current behaviour.  It is not simple, but I have come to the conclusion that it is not *completely* broken.  There are benefits to the way it works.

[amade]

Yeah, I use binless source stockpiles and quantum stockpiles for whatever intermediary items that get used by workshops. I only have bins for finished goods and whatever things that need to be traded (instead of having to mark each item in the trade screen). It didn't occur to me why my FG bins were unavailable until I started observing that kids play with toys (last time I played years ago, I don't remember them doing this), and dorfs looked for goblets outside the tavern if there's not enough goblets. Both of which only started being a problem after my fortress has grown large.

[anewaname]

That is a long post to start with "TL;DR".

Besides long-term storage for crafts/bars, I use bins for gathering and relocating stone blocks that need to be wheelbarrow'ed up for construction and junk that needs to be sent down for smelting. Maybe I still use them due to my point of view on quantum stockpiles.

[Thisfox]

A quantum stockpile is all very well, but forgive me: Doesn't it mean that things aren't able to be transported all-in-one-bin when you need them across the fort in a hurry? (For example when the traders have arrived and they have BOOZE!!!) I use bins and haven't yet had a problem with them, but I do keep a binless toy stockpile in my "playroom" and a binless goblet stockpile in the main food storage room. I've found the toy stockpile gets used (it is a room with beds assigned to kids, a private well, and a lockable door) but the goblet stockpile doesn't (there are goblets EVERYwhere in the food stockpile though) and I can still carry bins of other stuff up to the traders, plus I've got bin upon bin of metal ingots and coal downstairs in the main smithy without too much issue.

I still don't understand the hatred of bins. Now that I have enough trees to make them (luxury!) I'm enjoying making all sorts of things out of the everpresent trees...

[mikekchar]

That is a long post to start with "TL;DR".

Ha ha!  Usually I put TL;DR at the beginning of my long posts so that people don't have to read them.  I always thought it weird to see it at the end because by the time you get there, you've already read it. ;-)  Admittedly it makes little literal sense...

[PatrikLundell]

A quantum stockpile is all very well, but forgive me: Doesn't it mean that things aren't able to be transported all-in-one-bin when you need them across the fort in a hurry? (For example when the traders have arrived and they have BOOZE!!!) I use bins and haven't yet had a problem with them, but I do keep a binless toy stockpile in my "playroom" and a binless goblet stockpile in the main food storage room. I've found the toy stockpile gets used (it is a room with beds assigned to kids, a private well, and a lockable door) but the goblet stockpile doesn't (there are goblets EVERYwhere in the food stockpile though) and I can still carry bins of other stuff up to the traders, plus I've got bin upon bin of metal ingots and coal downstairs in the main smithy without too much issue.

I still don't understand the hatred of bins. Now that I have enough trees to make them (luxury!) I'm enjoying making all sorts of things out of the everpresent trees...

A QS means that you can't transport its contents in a bin across the fortress in a hurry, but a having the stuff in a bin means you can't transport the stuff across the fortress in a hurry because someone is either putting stuff into it or removing stuff from it...

Bins can be used, but they're swords with many edges (like a shuriken?), so you need to employ them with care (there's some similarity to stockpile linking here). Bins are good if you put stuff in them at one time and haul them to a destination at a different time, but they'll trash your workshop repeat orders if used as the source of materials while also being the target for deposit (such as raw gems hauled from mining sites while your jeweler is set to cut all gems of a given type). Your forge orders will probably get cancelled from time to time of coal/ingot hauling is performed concurrently with smithing, but if it's staged you can pull it off.
Goblets in bins are a nightmare because goblets are used all the time, including when all other hauling is paused by trade goods hauling.

[Thisfox]

Perhaps it's because i have at least 4 (and up to 20) bins at any one stockpile. They just walk to the next bin in the stockpile and use that one. I can imagine a 2-bin stockpile could be an issue. One being accessed to drop stuff in, one to take stuff out, and a third dorf standing around wondering where the bins went. But honestly, I've not had an issue. How strange.

[anewaname]

I think it can be said that bins are most useful when the OP is managing some series of actions (construction project, caravan arrival, or cleanup) that requires the concentration and/or sorting of similar items and possible the transport of those items, but bins are not useful when the OP wants it automated and just plans to take a look occasionally.

This is the current DF situation because
- the issues with access to a bin being intermittently locked
- stockpiles will "hold" more than one valid item per square (aka "quantum stockpile")

If bins or stockpiles change, the situation might change.

[PatrikLundell]

Perhaps it's because i have at least 4 (and up to 20) bins at any one stockpile. They just walk to the next bin in the stockpile and use that one. I can imagine a 2-bin stockpile could be an issue. One being accessed to drop stuff in, one to take stuff out, and a third dorf standing around wondering where the bins went. But honestly, I've not had an issue. How strange.

Haulers do not have much of an issue. As you say, they'll just drop stuff in the next bin. Users of items have an issue, though, because they select a particular item when they take up the job, so only the bin that item is in will do. In most cases you'll just get occasional spam when Urist can't pick up new clothes, or Urist can't find the selected piece of food, but if you're building something with blocks in bins the building project will be suspended, and repeat orders will get cancelled, as I mentioned above.

[mikekchar]

I wonder if this has improved recently.  I remember having all sorts of trouble with cancellation spam with blocks especially.  However, recently, I've been putting blocks in bins and have yet to have a single cancellation.  I'm being *very* careful to make sure that I only put blocks of the same type in a bin, so possibly that helps.  Similarly, I've been experimenting with sorting all my ammo and putting only ammo of the same type in a bin.  I have not gotten an "equipment mismatch" cancellation message yet.  If I have mixed bins, though, all bets are off.

[amade]

Doesn't the cancellation spam only occur when another dorf has hauled the bin itself? IIRC, multiple dorfs can take stuff out from the same bin as long as the bin itself stays on the stockpile. Otherwise I'd be neck deep in cancellation spams before I had even separated my toys/goblets.

[PatrikLundell]

No. Any access to put something into a bin or remove something from it will block access for a time around that access (i.e. a hauler bringing a raw gem from the bottom of the embark will not lock the bin from access until reaching the vicinity of the stockpile, but the locking occurs prior to reaching the bin itself. It might be that only the stockpile is targeted initially and the location within it is selected when approaching, as a possible (purely speculative) implementation).

[amade]

It might be that only the stockpile is targeted initially and the location within it is selected when approaching, as a possible (purely speculative) implementation).

That doesn't correlate with the item combine settings in d_init.txt though. There are values you can set for determining how dorfs will target containers it already contains similar items e.g. dorfs will store goblets into bins that already have goblets in it rather than a closer empty stockpile that accept goblets. In other words, they target the bins rather than the stockpile.