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[adamantyr]

Hello, fellow dwarfers...

Love the game a lot, I've lost many hours of free time to this wonderful game. So far, though, I haven't had much luck playing past a few game years and around 30+ dwarves... the game starts to get away from me and I feel like I've lost all control.

In particular, though, is the problem of stone. Namely, too much of it. If I'm not down on the plains or next to a sea or ocean, stone just piles up way too fast. I'm trying to build storerooms for food, wood, etc. inside my fortress and my dwarves are spending 50% of their time just hauling stone! Not to mention it leaves a dreadful mess in stockpiles outside my fortress entrance.

So what to do? One solution is to carve out your large area needs (like stockpiles) in sand/clay areas, so that you generate no extra stone. They're ugly rooms with low value but practical, and you can burn up some stone building walls and floors later.

Another possibility is using up stone in civil/military projects. Maybe I could start building the great Dwarven Pyramid as a tomb for one of the nobles... but then again, that means my dwarves are essentially doing busy work to use up the stone, and any extra chambers/rooms that have to be dug just add more stone to the equation.

So how do you solve the stone problem?

Adamantyr

[Lormax]

I use this method and it works GREAT

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=19757.0

[Skanky]

You don't even need to go to that extreme. Just make a single dump zone (near your mason or craft workshops, for instance) and dump the stones on that single pile. Reclaim the pile every so often and your masons will have a nice close pile of stones to work with. Note that if you have no other stone stockpiles, the dump zone doesn't even need to have a stockpile under it - stones dumped there will only be moved by dwarves using them in constructions/workshops.

Just remember though that unless you specifically need to move the stone for a new room to be functional (like farms), you can just leave the stone there until you are ready to start dumping them.

[Skizelo]

And you can turn off stone collection from the orders menu if you want your dwarves to do other things.

[Cryten]

My personal recomendations on this problem are two fold:

Firstly if you cant stand seeing rock in your fortress section of your mine Id suggest using the demp method pointed out above.

Secondly If your willing set your dwarves to ignore minerals with the (o)ptions and have your stoncrafter working all the time to create wealth to trade away. Once you get a few ledgendaries youll quickly clear out the clutter in your living areas if you dont have many z levels near your craftdwarf shops.

What I normally do is the second option with intermitend activations of the collect minerals to store economic stones into custom stone stock piles or to move stone during an immigration to give them something to do while Im sorting out jobs.

[ShadowDragon8685]

What I do, in the beginning, is carve out some useful space, then create as many mason workshops as usable at once. Then I have all my dwarves running around, turning stones into useful things.

Bear in mind, I cheat my starting dwarves up massively, all dwarves have Speed 1, and my starting dwarves they tend to have ridiculously high stats, and they're all Proficient in most skills. And it still takes awhile.

The upside, however, is that you won't have to create furniture again for a long time.

[Shades]

Personally I don't like the quantum dump method, but each to there own. I'd have suggested either dumping in a chasm or magma. However I tend to only clear out stockpiles unless I have lots of inactive dwarves and am feeling bored.

The method of just producing a lot of crafts works well, even if you then just donated them to the caravan, keep a small stock pile of stones above or below it and it'll stay full and not generate overly many haulage tasks (although bare in mind dwaves fill stockpiles from the last mined materials for some reason)

[Deon]

Just don't make stone stockpiles, this will save a lot of time.
Also there's a dumping [d]esignation in the upcoming release, you just have to wait a few days.

[DJ]

I just leave it where it is. It gets used up eventually.

[FlexibleDogma]

The only stone I bother moving is stone on the floors of stockpiles and farms.  I just have the dwarves dump all of that in a dumping zone, and if that stone is all "junk" stone and I have access to lava I just have my dwarves pitch it into the lava so it can go to the big stone stockpile in the sky.

I also tend to put 3x3 stone stockpiles directly below my "high end" masonry workshops, and those are set to only accept a stone I particularly want to build stuff with (i.e. obsidian).

The rest of it I just leave sitting around, it will get used up eventually.

[jplur]

an easy way to clear space for stockpiles is to build a bunch of Trade Depots or Kennels in the room, then disassemble them all.  The stone is still there, but consolidated enough for a storage area. 

I would like a game feature where stockpiles are cleared of non stockpile items.

Another trick I use is to have the furniture stockpile only accept masterwork items, then periodically dump all the ordinary furniture from the workshop.

"Also there's a dumping [d]esignation in the upcoming release, you just have to wait a few days."

This will be awesome

[shadow_archmagi]

I just leave it where it is. It gets used up eventually.

[Deon]

Shadow, overquoting?

[Puck]

I try to come up with different solutions for excess stone. one thing they all have in common is ... they tend to work automatically.

First of all: I build a "normal" sized stone stockpile. it holds about 50 to 100 stones. once that is filled up,  a new "haul stone" job will only be generated, if a stone is used up. its managable workload.

imho the simplest way to get rid of stone is using catapults that fire at a close wall.
another option is to make stone crafts and store them in a stockpile that has 1/7 to 3/7 water running over it.

anyways, i bet you can think of something, its an interesting problem with tons of solutions. quantum stockpiling feels like cheating, imho, also it needs clickwork.

id rather have an automated chain of jobs/shops that take care of the problem.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

As an interesting side note, you can always do on-site production to minimize hauling jobs. It works like this:

Down in your mines you have lots of stone. So build 5 craft or mason or mechanic shops, and set 5 more dwarves to that skill. Suddenly they're churning out useful things that can get hauled up into stockpiles automatically.

To really be efficient:

Get your 5 dwarves down there with a stockpile of food and booze, and a bunch of free bins in a furniture stockpile that accepts only bins. Lock them in. When they're done, you should have no stone left, and bins full of crafts or blocks. Open the mines up again and delete the stockpiles. Your dwarves will happily drag the bins up with one hauling job per 10 items.

To be completely insane:

Do the above but put a planter down there making plump helmets for the mine crew. Set 3 miners to do nothing but mine out the level. Set up a magma forge on this level and a magma smelter, and have two dwarves working them smelting metal and making bins out of it. Move the workshops, farm, and stockpiles to wherever the work is happening.

When the level is clear of stone, stairs down and start on the next one. Eventually you'll get 10 levels down, and so you should have an entire level worth of stockpile holding bins full of crafts and blocks.

But quantum stockpiling is so much easier even with manual dump designations.