Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Author Topic: Conserve bags! Every seed doesn't need it's own!  (Read 826 times)

Aqizzar

  • Bay Watcher
  • There is no 'U'.
    • View Profile
Conserve bags! Every seed doesn't need it's own!
« on: July 21, 2008, 03:49:12 am »

I'm trying to start up a glass furnace, as I'm want to do, and I'm running into the same difficulty I always have when trying to maintain a robust glass industry or process quarry bushes.  I have no useable bags.

Oh, I've got lots of bags per se, but every last one of them and every new one I make is sucked into the bag devouring maw of my seed stockpile.  It's just a tile, marked to hold one barrel and nothing but seeds, and in that barrel is every bag I own, each holding one unit of plump helmet spawn.

And I know it's not dumb pathfinding either.  Sometimes, I can wring some bags loose and I'll see them wind up in the furniture warehouse.  It's on the other side of the fortress.  The seed tile is in the middle of the farm/kitchen area.  But when I brew some plants, I'll see another line of dwarves, each carrying one seed, going all the way across the fort to the empty bags, putting that one seed in, pausing, then carting the bag back to the farms.

Eventually I resort to dumping the seeds and filling them with sand, but every once in while the process goes back to normal and I have to do it again.  And I don't like having to exploit the game's logic to make my dwarves do something perfectly sensible, which they know and I know (and they know I know they know) they're quite capable of doing.  (Yeah, the seed stockpile is kind of an exploit, but it's a much more realistic one.)

In summation, my suggestion is that dwarves storing seeds always look for a bag already holding type-appropriate seeds that isn't full, before looking for an new empty bag to put seeds in.
Logged
And here is where my beef pops up like a looming awkward boner.
Please amplify your relaxed states.
Quote from: PTTG??
The ancients built these quote pyramids to forever store vast quantities of rage.

Alenth Eneil

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Conserve bags! Every seed doesn't need it's own!
« Reply #1 on: July 21, 2008, 04:03:51 am »

Reserved bags would be nice too.
Logged
Sometimes I just generate worlds and read all the funny names.
(|||)

Anjey aka PM

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Conserve bags! Every seed doesn't need it's own!
« Reply #2 on: July 21, 2008, 07:22:54 am »

Set maximum barrels for your seeds stockpile to 0. Then you'll have 1 bag for 1 stockpile square and it will be filled with seeds
Logged
he greatest programming project of all took six days; on the seventh day the programmer rested. We''ve been trying to debug the *&^%$#@ thing ever since. Moral: design before you implement.

Othob Rithol

  • Bay Watcher
  • aka Dark Snathi, Rain & Tom Bombadil
    • View Profile
Re: Conserve bags! Every seed doesn't need it's own!
« Reply #3 on: July 21, 2008, 11:39:12 am »

I think the easiest way to deal with this (as a placeholder until Toady wants to work on stack combining) is to to temporarily prevent seeds from being placed in bags. A barrel does just as well (actually better) and the # of barrels used is limited by the stockpile size.

However a reserve bags method might work just as well.

R1ck

  • Bay Watcher
  • Uninvited Guest
    • View Profile
Re: Conserve bags! Every seed doesn't need it's own!
« Reply #4 on: July 21, 2008, 01:37:08 pm »

You could also try setting different seed types to be cooked. Hopefully then your cookdwarves would come and grab that
one seed and make it into a +Plump Helmet Spawn Roast+.
Logged
BTEAMHOB-Year 10 - It's POI'd to the extreme

Mephansteras

  • Bay Watcher
  • Forger of Civilizations
    • View Profile
Re: Conserve bags! Every seed doesn't need it's own!
« Reply #5 on: July 21, 2008, 02:21:21 pm »

This falls into the stack management area, I think. Seeds of the same type should all be consolidated into one bag. Same way bolts need to be consolidated.

Hopefully Toady will get around to this sometime soon.

Logged
Civilization Forge Mod v2.80: Adding in new races, equipment, animals, plants, metals, etc. Now with Alchemy and Libraries! Variety to spice up DF! (For DF 0.34.10)
Come play Mafia with us!
"Let us maintain our chill composure." - Toady One

Techhead

  • Bay Watcher
  • Former Minister of Technological Heads
    • View Profile
Re: Conserve bags! Every seed doesn't need it's own!
« Reply #6 on: July 21, 2008, 03:12:59 pm »

The annoying bit is, there are no stacks of seeds.
Just seed. Seed. Seed. And seed.
Logged
Engineering Dwarves' unfortunate demises since '08
WHAT?  WE DEMAND OUR FREE THINGS NOW DESPITE THE HARDSHIPS IT MAY CAUSE IN YOUR LIFE
It's like you're all trying to outdo each other in sheer useless pedantry.

penguinofhonor

  • Bay Watcher
  • Minister of Love
    • View Profile
Re: Conserve bags! Every seed doesn't need it's own!
« Reply #7 on: July 21, 2008, 05:46:05 pm »

Set maximum barrels for your seeds stockpile to 0. Then you'll have 1 bag for 1 stockpile square and it will be filled with seeds

There's one problem, though: this will only stop them from taking the bags back to the stockpile. Now you'll have bags with a single seed in them strewn about your fortress.
Logged

LeoLeonardoIII

  • Bay Watcher
  • Plump Helmet McWhiskey
    • View Profile
Re: Conserve bags! Every seed doesn't need it's own!
« Reply #8 on: July 21, 2008, 06:40:30 pm »

My solution was to offer a seed stockpile that allows zero barrels, and is just large enough to accomodate one bag for every seed type. I don't micromanage it, so it's possible that I end up with all six tiles filled with plump helmet spawn bags, leaving the sun berry seeds lying around randomly. But it works better than you'd think. Typically almost all my seeds end up in there.

Oh and of course, forbid seeds from your food stockpiles.
Logged
The Expedition Map
Basement Stuck
Treebanned
Haunter of Birthday Cakes, Bearded Hamburger, Intensely Off-Topic