Print

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

[Jude]

I've started building aboveground castles to use up all my stone. It's sweet because I have less stone around to use up (since I have a lot of major rooms aboveground) and whenever I'm running out of stone I just dig out some more mine shafts to look for ore veins. I don't need any haulers - instead I just have every useless dwarf on masonry helping to build the next tower.

[Sinergistic]

Dump them into a chasm or into magma will get rid of rocks, or there's the garbage disposal/mandate processor/atom smasher plan - small square room with a door and a bridge (not the retracting kind). Open/close bridge and anything under it will be unmade.

Personally, I think keeping the fort clean is the right way to play. I'd swear it helps keep the game running smoothly too.

It might help with save times, but I don't think it affects FPS. Getting 70-80 FPS on a 130 zlevel fort with almost 200,000 stones now. Saving takes forever and a day.

[Skorpion]

I've started building aboveground castles to use up all my stone. It's sweet because I have less stone around to use up (since I have a lot of major rooms aboveground) and whenever I'm running out of stone I just dig out some more mine shafts to look for ore veins. I don't need any haulers - instead I just have every useless dwarf on masonry helping to build the next tower.

Have you been stealing my ideas or something?

I do pretty much the same thing to clear my upper levels of random stone, only I make a small above-ground stockpile of a certain rock, and enable stone hauling when it gets low or people get idle. It's really less stone clearance and more my love of elaborate earthworks.

[profit]

Melt the stone!!!

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=28585.0

Thousands and thousands of stone melted *at least 50,000 pieces in my game*
uhhh 20+ Legendary furnace operators. 

And some spare bars of metal even. (The odd metals are great for training armorsmiths, blacksmiths and weaponsmiths  with.)

[Peewee]

[SPEED:1]
mass dump
+pit
----------
quantum stockpile of lots of rock.

[Cajoes]

Catapult firing range.

Aim for the lava pool.

[Schwern]

* Make 1x1 zone (i) as a garbage dump near a bunch of stone.  Mass designate the stone to be dumped (d)(b)(d).  It will all be dumped in that 1x1 zone.  This is considered by some an exploit and it still involves hauling, so the net gain is just in space not time.

* Dump into magma, if available.  Same problems as above, but not an exploit.

* Use unskilled miners to dig out worthless rocks.  They will go slower, but generate less stone.  Pros:  Unskilled miners generate less stone.  Provide more skill to more dwarves for more attribute increases.  Cons:  They mine slower.  Unknown if it's faster in the long run to mine fast and haul the stone then to mine slow and haul less stone.  If they strike ore or gems or flux you have to switch out to your experienced miners to ensure you get the goodies.

* (My personal favorite.)  Plop down masonry and/or craftsdwarf shops in the middle of a freshly mined area.  Set to making blocks (pros: they stack in bins, useful for building smooth floors and walls cons: they're almost worthless for trade), statues (pros: most valuable base masonry craft, I believe, cons: they don't stack) and rock crafts on repeat.  Designate a nearby spot to take the results with bins.  Make the shops available only to some unskilled peasants.  Once the surrounding stone is consumed, tear down the shops and move on to the next pile of stone.  Your rock goes away and in its place you get skilled labor and a gianormous pile of trade goods for the next caravan!  Crafts in bins are particularly streamlined for trading.  Quantity makes up for quality, I've bought out whole caravans with the results of this.

* Similar to the above, but set up a few practice catapults firing into a wall.  Get trained siege operators and destroy your stone at the same time!  Alternatively, carve a channel next to the wall.  Rather than be destroyed, the stone will fall into the channel, neatly stacked.  Should you need it later just cut a ramp into the channel.

Code: [Select]

|_.CCC***
|_.CCC***
|_.CCC***

    | wall
    _ channel
    . floor
    C catapult (facing left)
    * stone

* Instead of smoothing rough floors, cover them with stone (b)(C)(f).  I also tend to mine out any sand or clay walls and replace them with stone walls.

* Wall in your above ground operations (farms, fishing pools, whole forests...).  Before construction, set up a stockpile to take bins full of stone blocks.  That way the blocks will be brought to the site in bins rather than one by one.

* Similar to the above, but make 2 story pillboxes to defend outside your fortress.  Here's a plan for a siege pillbox accessible only from below.  Putting the fortifications a level above the ground means enemy archers can't walk up and fire through them.

Code: [Select]

Ground Level   Upstairs
,,,,,,,,       ,,,,,,,,
,------,       ,--|---,
,|****|,       ,|CCC.|,
,|***X|,       ,=CCC<=,
,|****|,       ,|CCC.|,
,------,       ,--|---,
,,,,,,,,       ,,,,,,,,

,        Outside
.        Floor
*        Stone
X        Up/Down stair
<        Down stair
| and =  Fortification
C        Catapult

* Ignore it.  Designate individual stones which are blocking doors or stockpiles to be (d)umped and (d)(b)(h)ide the rest.  Turn off stone hauling on all dwarves.

[Splendiferous]

schwerm, I love you. 

[Sinergistic]

* Wall in your above ground operations (farms, fishing pools, whole forests...).  Before construction, set up a stockpile to take bins full of stone blocks.  That way the blocks will be brought to the site in bins rather than one by one.

How, exactly, does this work? Is there a special stockpile option I'm missing? I've tried this in the past (not with 40d) and it wouldn't work like you say it does. Instead of my dwarfs hauling a bin full of stone blocks, they would haul an empty bin, and then begin taking single stone blocks from one stockpile to another, filling up the bins there.

The only way I could get it to work (in the past) was entirely removing the stockpile the bins/stoneblocks I wanted moved where, and making the only other available stockpile the one I wanted them moved to. Then the dwarfs would take the entire bin. But this screwed over my masons at the same time. I ended up just giving up on the idea.

So, whats the trick? Or does simply asking a stone block stockpile to 'take' from another stone block stockpile now result in dwarfs moving entire bins?

[Schwern]

* Wall in your above ground operations (farms, fishing pools, whole forests...).  Before construction, set up a stockpile to take bins full of stone blocks.  That way the blocks will be brought to the site in bins rather than one by one.

How, exactly, does this work?

I may have been talking out of my ass on that one, I haven't verified it.  Using "take from" sounds like an idea, I'll experiment.

[Schwern]

schwerm, I love you. 

If you really loved me, you'd spell my name right.

[Splendiferous]

schwerm, I love you. 

If you really loved me, you'd spell my name right.

sorry, sweetie. I don't love you that much.

[JoshuaFH]

schwerm, I love you. 

If you really loved me, you'd spell my name right.

sorry, sweetie. I don't love you that much.

Splendiferous would do anything for love, but he won't do that.

[Splendiferous]

I think I watched that five times.
meatloaf is dreamy.

[TettyNullus]

* Wall in your above ground operations (farms, fishing pools, whole forests...).  Before construction, set up a stockpile to take bins full of stone blocks.  That way the blocks will be brought to the site in bins rather than one by one.

How, exactly, does this work? Is there a special stockpile option I'm missing? I've tried this in the past (not with 40d) and it wouldn't work like you say it does. Instead of my dwarfs hauling a bin full of stone blocks, they would haul an empty bin, and then begin taking single stone blocks from one stockpile to another, filling up the bins there.

The only way I could get it to work (in the past) was entirely removing the stockpile the bins/stoneblocks I wanted moved where, and making the only other available stockpile the one I wanted them moved to. Then the dwarfs would take the entire bin. But this screwed over my masons at the same time. I ended up just giving up on the idea.

So, whats the trick? Or does simply asking a stone block stockpile to 'take' from another stone block stockpile now result in dwarfs moving entire bins?

Use take from and stockpile just big enough to keep up with construction efforts, rather than a megapile (stick the huge pile next to the mason shops and take from there ), though mostly I just build using raw stones, slowly replacing it with blocks later in game as I get the crew to spare. And as for bins, they'll still try to stick bins there and fill it up, if they thinks it's close enough, but if the pile's small enough, it shouldn't happen too often, more likely pulling bins from the megapile next to the shops than taking blocks from the shop into the construction pile.

As for the stone littering. I ignore them after finding out the hard way that it takes forever and a day to haul 'em to trash piles, I just make stockpiles for faster labour movement (usually not too big for raw material, just big enough to not empty out at full tilt and a bit more for reserve ) and leave the rest of it around, as long as it seems safe enough (Occasional fire imps, chasm critters and so on don't helps when I've mined out the map  ).