Print

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

[Eater of Vermin]

Snakepainted is doing well.  190 odd industrious dwarves, a well-trained amy of 50 strong, the nobles have been weened of their more... "exotic" tastes and even the King doesn't fancy anything more flashy than lay pewter.  Basically, the economy is booming, living is easy and my masterwork is nearly completed.  (Next step is HFS, but I'm saving that for the end-game.    )

What's annoying me is the number of bolts littering the countryside.  With my economy as it is, some of them are worth 10,000* each.  Normally I wouldn't bother, but these are too valuable to leave lying around.  I also don't want any "one shot" marksmen.

I'm pretty sure that someone, somewhere posted about a mod or reaction to "restack" reclaimed bolts- in the smithy, I think but perhaps this could be changed to make the Bowyer's workshop more useful?   I've tried searching for this without much success.  Bad choice of keywords, I guess.  [shrug]

Anyone know what I'm talking about and can point me in the right direction?

[Jades]

Can't help with the stacking mod question, but have you considered trying to dump all of the spare bolts on the traders? I've started doing this and it does seem to help. Obviously it'll take a bit of time to get rid of them if there's a lot but overall it beats leaving them lying around or your dorfs wasting time stashing them in your stockpiles.

[ShadowDragon8685]

If you know what you're doing, in theory it shoulden't be too hard to make a reaction to stack loose bolts.

Let me have a look and see if I can figure it out, bearing in mind I've never futzed with a reaction before...

Okay, I sorta think I've got it down, but I'd probably be wrong. But still, this shoulden't be hard - the catch, however, is that you'd have to completely restart.

[numskully]

So dwarves never collect the bolts that are on the ground? Is there a way to force them to collect shot bolts?

[Dwarfu]

So dwarves never collect the bolts that are on the ground? Is there a way to force them to collect shot bolts?

They will, if:

They are marked unforbidden;
You have an ammo bin for them to be put in;
A dwarf is out of ammo and those bolts are the only ones left/closest;
You have marked them for melting.

[JujuBubu]

Also melting is the easiest way for now to restack them ^^

[PTTG??]

Actually, the reason bolts are forbidden on firing is because they can't be restacked. Until Toady one adds the code for stacks to be broken down or rebuilt, there is utterly no way to restack 'real' items. On the other hand, if you want to take ten iron bolts and have them combined into a stack of 10 iron bolts, that can be done- but the originals are destroyed in the process and loose any special value.

[numskully]

Ah, so don't claim them since they are bugged. Thanks!

[JujuBubu]

how is that done ?
this would be of great use for training ammo .

[Erom]

The restrictions on restacked bolts:

1) It must be done at a smelter. No way around that right now.
2) Bolts are recreated when they are restacked. That means they are set to a single material and base quality, and lose any quality mods or special value. So, for example, your furnace operator will run around picking up 3 crappy wooden training bolts, two bone bolts, a bronze bolt, a steel bolt, and 3 gem encrusted iron bolts, and produce one stack of 10 basic iron (or bone or whatever you mod it to) bolts.

So it's sort of a bad solution. For now, the best thing to do would be dump them on the trader. I like to unforbid and then dump them, that way they don't get used by your military, and they get moved to your central trash dump, where they are easier to find and unforbid when the traders show.

[ShadowDragon8685]

It's worth noting that you could probably make (multiple) custom reactions to handle this...

IE...

Make the following numbers of reactions:

Stack 5, 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, 500, 1000 (optimistic, I know)
Then you make the reactions only stock like to like - IE, making a stack of wooden bolts requires wooden bolts, making a stack of iron bolts requires iron bolts, etcetera.

You could also allow it to 'smelt' arrows into bolts, so you can reclaim the arrows those gobbers fire at you.

[Boomer]

One very important reason that fired bolts are forbidden, so that every fired bolt does not cause some idgit to try and stock it. A firefight between two squads could easily turn into a civilian slaughter as they rush to claim loot. Already bad enough they try and loot each body as it drops while the fight continues.

[Eater of Vermin]

I had a play with reactions - not that I really know what I'm doing  - and multiple reactions seem to be a feasible way to go.  I can reason away the loss of quality as rough-handling in the field, weathering, trampling, etc...  after all, many of my bolts have been lying out there for years.  Although, as I said earlier, some are almost artifacts in their own right. 

But what happens when all the loose 'uns have been collected?  If there's still a "restack bolts" job or two sitting in the smelter queue, will the dorfs start breaking down existing stacks to get the "raw materials?"

I like to unforbid and then dump them, that way they don't get used by your military, and they get moved to your central trash dump, where they are easier to find and unforbid when the traders show.

Perhaps a combination of both methods?  Recycle/restack the cheaper arrows and move the masterful ones to the traders?

Most likely, I'll just sell 'em all off as you suggest.  (I'm inherently lazy.)  But it's nice to think I have alternatives...

[corc]

if your economy is booming, why not just melt them and make more?

[Eater of Vermin]

'Cos bolt-making is a permanently queued job anyway.

Melting 'em down would only mean more bars in the stockpile.  (Pity that burning wood/bone bolts doesn't generate ash.  Hmm...)