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[Elvin]

If an item is forbidden, and I set it to be melted, will the Dwarves smelt it down? I have so much stuff to melt down ( most of it armour), but there are hundreds of bolts that are all on their own and forbidden, if I just leave it will they get melted down or d oI need to reclaim them all?

Thanks

[Stargrasper]

If it is set to forbidden, the dwarves won't touch it under any circumstance unless you reclaim it.  Use the stocks menu.  It'll make life less tedious.

[Albedo]

zactly.

"Forbidden" is "FORBIDDEN", no exceptions.  (Would you want any?!)

Use the z-stocks menu.

[Elvin]

The problem with having lots of single bolts around is, I find, it messes up the marksdwarves- they always grab the single bolt piles for me, thus their training ios pretty useless.

Oh well, if its the only way to get steel back I guess i'll have to risk it and turn on more than one smelter for melting.

Thanks

[Stargrasper]

The problem with having lots of single bolts around is, I find, it messes up the marksdwarves- they always grab the single bolt piles for me, thus their training ios pretty useless.

Oh well, if its the only way to get steel back I guess i'll have to risk it and turn on more than one smelter for melting.

Thanks

Just use your z-stocks menu like we said and your dwarves will get the job done sooner or later.

And the idea of using multiple smelters, when you melt an item, 1/10th of the size is returned in metal.  When you get a full bar, it gives you the bar but not before.  If you have multiple smelters running, you're likely to end in a situation where one smelter has 5/10ths of a steel bar, one has 7/10ths, and one has 8/10ths of a bar.  If you did those at one smelter you'd have two bars already whereas with three you don't have any yet.  Just to forewarn.

Wiki article on Melting

[Albedo]

The problem with having lots of single bolts around is, I find, it messes up the marksdwarves- they always grab the single bolt piles for me, thus their training ios pretty useless.

Not so much in your case.  Training uses bone/wood bolts, not metal.

And if you use more than 1 smelter you most likely won't get the most out of the melting, as each smelter is separately additive re fractions recovered.  Up to you.

[HatfieldCW]

Don't forget, you can set your standing orders to reclaim fired ammunition, saving you a step.  It also lets dwarves pull embedded arrows out of themselves without you having to notice and manually reclaim it.

[Hyndis]

The problem with having lots of single bolts around is, I find, it messes up the marksdwarves- they always grab the single bolt piles for me, thus their training ios pretty useless.

Oh well, if its the only way to get steel back I guess i'll have to risk it and turn on more than one smelter for melting.

Thanks

Just use your z-stocks menu like we said and your dwarves will get the job done sooner or later.

And the idea of using multiple smelters, when you melt an item, 1/10th of the size is returned in metal.  When you get a full bar, it gives you the bar but not before.  If you have multiple smelters running, you're likely to end in a situation where one smelter has 5/10ths of a steel bar, one has 7/10ths, and one has 8/10ths of a bar.  If you did those at one smelter you'd have two bars already whereas with three you don't have any yet.  Just to forewarn.

Wiki article on Melting

Yes, but if you use only a single smelter odds are you will never get the job done. You have to balance it out, material efficiency vs time efficiency.

I usually stick with 4 magma smelters that I do all of my melting on. I never deconstruct these guys once they're built, and they do no other tasks besides melting things down.

Also, if you want to automate the process a bit, create two stockpiles. One is a weapon/armor stockpile for usable items. The other is a weapon/armor stockpile for unusable items. These are things that you dwarves cannot equip. Then you can simply mass designate the entire thing for melting every once in a while. Note that trap components will also be sent here, but if you're using glass or wood trap components you don't have to worry about this, as only metal items can be designated for melting.

[Grendus]

The problem with having lots of single bolts around is, I find, it messes up the marksdwarves- they always grab the single bolt piles for me, thus their training ios pretty useless.

Oh well, if its the only way to get steel back I guess i'll have to risk it and turn on more than one smelter for melting.

Thanks

Just use your z-stocks menu like we said and your dwarves will get the job done sooner or later.

And the idea of using multiple smelters, when you melt an item, 1/10th of the size is returned in metal.  When you get a full bar, it gives you the bar but not before.  If you have multiple smelters running, you're likely to end in a situation where one smelter has 5/10ths of a steel bar, one has 7/10ths, and one has 8/10ths of a bar.  If you did those at one smelter you'd have two bars already whereas with three you don't have any yet.  Just to forewarn.

Wiki article on Melting

Yes, but if you use only a single smelter odds are you will never get the job done. You have to balance it out, material efficiency vs time efficiency.

I usually stick with 4 magma smelters that I do all of my melting on. I never deconstruct these guys once they're built, and they do no other tasks besides melting things down.

Also, if you want to automate the process a bit, create two stockpiles. One is a weapon/armor stockpile for usable items. The other is a weapon/armor stockpile for unusable items. These are things that you dwarves cannot equip. Then you can simply mass designate the entire thing for melting every once in a while. Note that trap components will also be sent here, but if you're using glass or wood trap components you don't have to worry about this, as only metal items can be designated for melting.

The real issue, I think, was with the bolts, since you don't want a marksdwarf picking up a single bolt, firing it, then rushing in to bash the enemies. There's no real way to handle this, unfortunately, just mark them for melting and hope it goes away.

As for melting down large and small armor though, Hyn is spot on. The only thing that needs correcting is that you can change a stockpile's settings so it doesn't receive trap weapons anymore, so even if you use serrated steel disks you won't have to worry about melting them, since they won't be in that stockpile.

[Jim Groovester]

Dwarves won't equip items that are designated for melting, but they will stockpile them, thank goodness. I've seen it with weapons and armor, and I see no reason why it wouldn't work for single bolts.

[Jhoosier]

I did not know that about the equipping.

And the idea of using multiple smelters, when you melt an item, 1/10th of the size is returned in metal.  When you get a full bar, it gives you the bar but not before.  If you have multiple smelters running, you're likely to end in a situation where one smelter has 5/10ths of a steel bar, one has 7/10ths, and one has 8/10ths of a bar.  If you did those at one smelter you'd have two bars already whereas with three you don't have any yet.  Just to forewarn.

When I do this with single bolts, it's to get them all out of the way.  I could care less about getting any iron back, since I've usually got several hundred bars anyway from melting all the enemy armor down.

Somebody mentioned restacking bolts/arrows, which I hope has made it to Toady's ears.  It would make life a whole lot easier.

As for all those single bone bolts, go to z-stocks and set them all for dumping.  It works especially well if you dump them in magma (just watch out you don't have anything else marked for dumping).