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[Caponimoq]

Im having a problem with the food stockpile, both with the one that only has prepared meals and the one with the "raw" food.
I have set the barrel/bins to max. I have put a separated furniture stockpile. I have made several small food stockpiles. None of this seems to work as dwarves keep putting the food on the floor rather than using my 50 large pots to store something...
Any suggestions?

[Naryar]

You shouldn't have to change the stockpile settings for them to use barrels ? They do so automatically, unless you changed your default stockpile settings somehow.

Bins are not used for food stockpiles, only in some other kind of stockpiles (anything but stone, corpses, food, refuse, and furniture - though you can store empty bins in a furniture stockpile, you can't use bins as storage in one). You should keep it to zero. Maybe it's that and dwarves are not using barrels.

And of course, it might be any of the standard problems such as : do you have a path from the furniture stockpile to the food stockpiles ? Are dwarves allowed the correct hauling jobs ? Do you have enough idle dwarves.

[PatrikLundell]

Also note that it's not unusual for dorfs to fill the stockpile before moving items into containers. There's only a single container active for reception of items per stockpile, which means there can be at most one "put into container" job per stockpile.

Not to mention the issues with using containers at all...

[Sarmatian123]

Also, make sure you didn't turn on "receive only from links" in stockpile menu or set "take from kitchen 2" instead of "give to kitchen 2".

I start embark with "gather all" single stockpile for everything, but refuse and corpses stockpiles, with max bins and max barrels.  So trust me, this works always, so this is not the issue for sure.

I make sure in orders there is "no-mix" (o->m). Mixed barrels and bins are a nightmare bug to fix and it is still allowed by default by some unimaginable reason. You need to mark them (and hope no fluids inside) with d->b->d and then tediously unmark dump from each and every single barrel and bin, so only insides get removed (alike stripping goblinite from goblins inside cages).

Also I never ever use bins! Horrible things. The red trail of "bin is inaccessible" messages is more then annoying. I would suggest checking on quantum stockpiles on wikipedia and making few light wood minecarts for the needed stops. Then sell bins to merchant and never ever do them again. Hauling route menu is a little an acquired taste in setup, but once you get used to tackling this fiendish gui, then your Dwarf Fortress' life can receive a miracle of automation. That makes this game a lot more fun to play, when you do not need tediously tend to every single micromanagement issue. Even with hauling route clearing off about 50 automated jobs, I still have 30 automated jobs in manager, because brewing 18 alcohols without automating them from fields to stills, would be a game-stopping harassment.

[Uthimienure]

Bins work for me for *many* types of stockpiles, the ones that don't work well I just try to remember to keep bins at "0".

Bins don't work well:
- ammo
- others I can't think of now

Bins work just fine:
- cut gems, next to the workshop saves tons of space
- finished craft items, perfect for quick hauling of bins full to the depot
- cloth
- thread
- others I can't think of now
- (edit: BLOCKS... couldn't live without bins for stone blocks)
- (edit: BARS ... ditto)

[Caponimoq]

You shouldn't have to change the stockpile settings for them to use barrels ? They do so automatically, unless you changed your default stockpile settings somehow.

Bins are not used for food stockpiles, only in some other kind of stockpiles (anything but stone, corpses, food, refuse, and furniture - though you can store empty bins in a furniture stockpile, you can't use bins as storage in one). You should keep it to zero. Maybe it's that and dwarves are not using barrels.

And of course, it might be any of the standard problems such as : do you have a path from the furniture stockpile to the food stockpiles ? Are dwarves allowed the correct hauling jobs ? Do you have enough idle dwarves.

I mean, they can walk into the storage room? I dont get the correct hauling Jobs thing. Last time i checked they had all the hauling Jobs enabled. I have lots of dwarves idling in the tavern. One lore thing there is a guy that say something about stockpiles getting filled too fast. I made several stockpiles to fight this, problem is that they have empty spaces in the stockpile next to the food which is laying in the floor

[anewaname]

Any suggestions?

Learn about the 'j'obs list. It will help when you are trying to find out what is happening.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You use 'q' or 'k' to find what the name or number is for the stockpile, then use 'j' to check the jobs list, where you will look for jobs associated with that name or number.

You may find a "Put item in barrel/pot" or "Put item in stockpile" for that stockpile number, and then you can hit 'j' to see the job details, showing what items are involved in the job.

There will be times when a stockpile appears to have nothing happening, but actually there is a job accumulating a list of items for one dwarf to collect and put in a barrel.

On the topic of food hauling, here is why and how it works.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Stockpiles that use containers will create two types of jobs, one type to put individual items on the stockpile, and one type to put items inside a container. They will create many individual jobs to fill the tiles, but only one job to fill the container, and these jobs will be done independently.

Food can rot. Because of this, it is a high priority job to haul food.

If you put these two things together, and you suddenly gain a lot of un-stockpiled food, you will see many dwarfs putting individual items on the food stockpile, and it will seem that the barrels are being ignored. But, there will be a job on the job list to "put item in stockpile" to place a new barrel there, or a "put item in barrel/pot" to add a bunch of stuff to a barrel. Long after the individual tiles of the stockpile were filled, there will be one dwarf compacting the items into barrels.

[Caponimoq]

Any suggestions?

Learn about the 'j'obs list. It will help when you are trying to find out what is happening.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You use 'q' or 'k' to find what the name or number is for the stockpile, then use 'j' to check the jobs list, where you will look for jobs associated with that name or number.

You may find a "Put item in barrel/pot" or "Put item in stockpile" for that stockpile number, and then you can hit 'j' to see the job details, showing what items are involved in the job.

There will be times when a stockpile appears to have nothing happening, but actually there is a job accumulating a list of items for one dwarf to collect and put in a barrel.

On the topic of food hauling, here is why and how it works.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Stockpiles that use containers will create two types of jobs, one type to put individual items on the stockpile, and one type to put items inside a container. They will create many individual jobs to fill the tiles, but only one job to fill the container, and these jobs will be done independently.

Food can rot. Because of this, it is a high priority job to haul food.

If you put these two things together, and you suddenly gain a lot of un-stockpiled food, you will see many dwarfs putting individual items on the food stockpile, and it will seem that the barrels are being ignored. But, there will be a job on the job list to "put item in stockpile" to place a new barrel there, or a "put item in barrel/pot" to add a bunch of stuff to a barrel. Long after the individual tiles of the stockpile were filled, there will be one dwarf compacting the items into barrels.

Hey, i just did that. I openened the job list and there was no task related to the stockpiles ongoing

[anewaname]

Then the issue is one of those posted by earlier by others; maybe related to links, not enough un-reserved barrels, or dwarfs unable to access the stockpiles.

With the problem food stockpile, if 'q' shows any links, delete them.

If you can see plenty of empty barrels or pots, then check 'p' for reserved barrels (most players keep that amount below 5).

If your dwarfs are willing to place individual food items on the stockpile, there should be no problem with access to place barrels, since dwarfs will obtain the empty barrels from anywhere they can find them.

If nothing else is working, try setting a new food stockpile with 'q' 'R' for max barrel/pots; and set up a job manager task set to "craft 8 wood barrel"; with a condition to trigger when less then 2 "empty plant barrel" ("empty" and "plant" are "traits"). If the job condition shows green, that means you did not have enough barrels and this task will fix that.

I rarely use an "empty barrel" furniture stockpile, since dwarfs find the empties quickly, but having one is not a bad thing.

[Dracko81]

Set bins to 0.

I know someone else mentioned not using them, but telling a barrelled stockpile to use bins has caused me issues in the past.

[Caponimoq]

Solved, i started flazing pots and they started using them. It doesnt matter whether they will be holding liquids or not, they dont use them if they are not glazed.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Solved, i started flazing pots and they started using them. It doesnt matter whether they will be holding liquids or not, they dont use them if they are not glazed.

They used to. What version are you on?

[Caponimoq]

Solved, i started flazing pots and they started using them. It doesnt matter whether they will be holding liquids or not, they dont use them if they are not glazed.

They used to. What version are you on?

Last version.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Solved, i started flazing pots and they started using them. It doesnt matter whether they will be holding liquids or not, they dont use them if they are not glazed.

They used to. What version are you on?

Last version.

Are your pots made of rock? Wiki says if you make earthenware (clay) pots they have to be glazed to hold liquids. So that's probably where you went wrong. Make rock pots. They don't need to be (and probably can't be) glazed.

Now, unglazed clay pots not holding dry goods is probably a bug (wiki thinks it should work) so maybe report that one.

[PatrikLundell]

And, by the way "last version" is a very poor answer to the question of which version is used. It's not that uncommon, for starters, that people think they're using the latest version, while they have, in fact, missed an update, and, secondly, the answer gets invalidated as soon as a new version comes out (which, for whatever we know, could happen minutes after posting).