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[GauHelldragon]

How about a stockpile where the dwarves take stuff out instead of putting stuff in? You could use it to clear out farming areas in advance, or clean out freshly dug out rooms of rocks. Or to clear out a tunnel for building a channel.. etc etc etc

[Gehn]

If it was a real stockpile though, you couldn't use it to get a rock out of a door though and you couldn't build on already cleared spaces. That, and you'd probably want something like this to automatically self-destruct once the entire area was cleared.

I'd suggest a designation instead, but designations clear as they're used and that would allow the Dwarves to just move a rock from one place in a room to another place in the same room.

A stockpile would work better than a designation, but it seems like a new mechanism would be more convenient and flexible.

[GauHelldragon]

You don't need to clear items out of the way of doors or buildings, that is done automattically by the builder. This would be for clearing out an area in advance, or clearing out a room where you want free space.

[Seryntas]

Yeah, but you do need to clear rocks out of a door to close it.  Like at the beginning of spring, when it's time to open the floodgates.

The ability to tell dwarves to clear one area free of stone before another would be nice, as would the ability to tell them to ignore stone and only haul ore from a particular location.  Right now I have dwarves grabbing grey stone from the deep mines (where I really only want them to drag iron ore and platinum nuggets), and yet the finely-engraved floors of my legendary dining room are still covered in the stone from its building.

[Zack Weinberg]

(necro!) I'd really like to see this too --

Builders don't always move things out of the way; sometimes they cancel the job and suspend construction.  And sometimes they don't move things far enough (rocks on farm plot -> door stuck open).

Also, in my current fort, I did a terrible job of organizing the workshops, and I'd like to tear them all down and start over, but part of the problem is that there are stockpiles in the way; with the amount of random stone and ore lying around in the underground forest I dug, they'll never get around to hauling *those* rocks.

[Turgid Bolk]

I'm pretty sure something like this is in the new version, but I could be wrong. I know you'll be able to forbid them from certain objects. Anyway, to deal with it now, you can build a mason's or mechanic's workshop nearby, and set them to churn out blocks or mechanisms on repeat; they'll use the nearest stones. Another option is to build a catapult nearby and set it to fire at will (aiming at the wall or wherever), they will eventually use up all the stones, too.

As another on the forum put it: stone stockpiles are made to punish dwarves. Just leave the stone where it lies, it doesn't get in the way, and saves a ton of dwarf-hours in hauling. Granted, it doesn't look that pretty, but just having a mason or catapult (eventually) take care of it is more efficient, if you must clean it up.

As for stockpiles being in the way, I'm not sure if I understand you correctly, but you can remove stockpiles using [p]

• and designating the area again. Hope that helps.

[BurnedToast]

just make a big channel wherever you want to be cleared. the miner will move all the rocks and whatnot away before he starts to build it, then the instant he starts cancel it.

works fine, just a bit annoying to have to sit there and babysit it.

[Tamren]

you can already do this by the way.

Make a large empty stockpile that accepts the object you want to move. Make a stockpile on the area you want to clear then set up a transfer order. The area will be cleared and all of the material moved to the big stockpile instead of the nearest empty space.

This is not foolproof because other objects will be dumped into the destination stockpile, but its okay for me because i usually store all loose stone in the corridors so that the rooms can remain empty.

[Zack Weinberg]

I guess I didn't explain the situation clearly enough -- I know not to make stone stockpiles in general, but I have a few specialized ones (for dark stone and limestone).  I also have a lot of heavy non-stone items in stockpiles, e.g. bins full of metal bars.  I want to undesignate all my stockpiles, demolish all my workshops, and then rebuild in a new layout.  In theory I could just do it and the dwarves would move everything as necessary, but in my experience, any construction operation on floor with stuff on it may get cancelled because of "Item blocking site", instead of the builder moving the item, and this seems to happen more often when the problem item is heavy.

I've definitely had this happen with channels, so I'm not confident in BurnedToast's trick.

From a roleplaying perspective, there are some areas where the dwarves wouldn't want junk all over the floor, like catacombs.  (I managed to clean up mine with a temporary mining stockpile right outside, but that only worked because it was the most recent thing mined out.)

[Turgid Bolk]

Oh, I see. Well usually they only suspend construction when they can't move the object. This is usually because it's already "tasked" for something else. So as long as you undesignate all your stockpiles first, then build the new workshops, they should be able to move everything out of the way. Then set up the new stockpiles to put everything back in place. As long as there isn't a stockpile for an item, it shouldn't get tasked.

If one of your buildings does get suspended, you can just wait for the task to finish, then unsuspend. Anyway, good luck with it, it will be a pain in any case.

[Fedor]

quote:Originally posted by Seryntas:
<STRONG>Yeah, but you do need to clear rocks out of a door to close it.  Like at the beginning of spring, when it's time to open the floodgates.

The ability to tell dwarves to clear one area free of stone before another would be nice, as would the ability to tell them to ignore stone and only haul ore from a particular location.  Right now I have dwarves grabbing grey stone from the deep mines (where I really only want them to drag iron ore and platinum nuggets), and yet the finely-engraved floors of my legendary dining room are still covered in the stone from its building.</STRONG>

Amen, brother!  I HATE open doors!  Among the work-arounds you might try until the problem is better addressed is to remove and rebuild the door.  If you devote enough labor to furniture haulage, this can usually be done in a week or two, tops.

As for clearing out stones in the prevent version:  I shift my mason's workshop and training catapults around to mop up.  Secondary stone consumers are stone crafts and mechanisms.  I wouldn't dream of hauling them all out.

quote:Originally posted by Zack Weinberg:
<STRONG>(snip)In theory I could just do it and the dwarves would move everything as necessary, but in my experience, any construction operation on floor with stuff on it may get cancelled because of "Item blocking site", instead of the builder moving the item, and this seems to happen more often when the problem item is heavy.</STRONG>

This is caused (as pointed out above) by items that need moving already being tasked.  The problem is that, too often, your new workshop will need a raw material - and therefore has tasked it - that's in the way of another project.  The least-worst solution I know of is to:
1) Undesignate any stockpiles in the area.  
2) Stop labor that would task the objects in the way of the new workshop positions.  Use the 'j' menu, option 'r' to remove job, for finer control or quick fixes.
3) Once the crap on the floor stops moving about, build the new workshops.  When you get a workshop suspended, either delete it and try again with another raw material, or wait for the object in the way to be moved.  In some cases where the floor is piled high it may be necessary to build a new workshop with at least 1 grid of space between it and its neighbors.

After reading some pointers from better players than myself, I've gotten away from using finished goods stockpiles nearly as much.  Like them, I nowadays often prefer to just let the output accumulate around the workshop, which is re-built as needed to shovel out the clutter.  This will hopefully not be quite as necessary in the new version...

[ October 05, 2007: Message edited by: Fedor ]

[mickel]

I thought this was the thread to suggest and discuss new features, not the thread to reiterate workarounds to known problems.  

I think a "clear area" designation would be really useful. The problem of designations disappearing as they are worked is really simple - simply have it not do that. The entire "clear" designation stays in place until the entire designated area is clear.

[Tamren]

Oh i could write pages and pages about how to fix this if i wanted to. Which i do, but the thing is, a lot is going to change in the next version and there is no point dreaming up ideas just yet because they will probably end up invalid.

Clearing of space has been suggested many times, well just have to wait and see.

[martinuzz]

quote:Originally posted by GauHelldragon:
<STRONG> This would be for clearing out an area in advance, or clearing out a room where you want free space.</STRONG>

What I do to create empty rooms is, plan my digging. If I want a clean room, I remove all other dig designations (if any) and then order the digging of the room.
Then I build a bridge or a road using the newly dug stones, since they appear at the bottom of the list of building materials (the raw stone part of it that is).
Depending on which is nearer, build bridges over the river or chasm, or roads outside.
Most of my forts have much of the river and the chasm bridged for this reason. Also provides more space for cave spider webs and prevents most of those stupid "fell into a deep chasm" accidents when a dwarf dodges a  hostile creature on a bridge.

[mickel]

quote:Originally posted by Tamren:
<STRONG>but the thing is, a lot is going to change in the next version and there is no point dreaming up ideas just yet because they will probably end up invalid.
</STRONG>

The next version isn't going to be the end of the development, though. I don't see why we can't discuss improvements just because yet another release is around the corner.