Reading the whole thing at once is probably a bit of a stretch for you guys, so it would be better to just read and comment on one section at a time. If you have something to add go right ahead!
One thing that i noticed about the game is that there is a lot of material that simply goes missing in defiance of scientific laws.
A dwarf excavates a 4X4 room, half the squares produce a boulder. Where does the rest of the stone go?
When a dwarf cuts down a tree it becomes a single log piece that the dwarf can carry with no trouble when in reality the tree could easily be 50 feet long or more, where does the rest of it go? When that single log is used to make a chair there is nothing left even though you should end up with a pile of scraps and sawdust.
These situations do not make much sense, with a little extra effort we could put that wasted material to good use and more efficiently use and store materials of all types. Material types listed seperately along with new uses:
Stone:
When you want dwarves to mine out a section of rock the dwarves will carefully remove the stone in as big a piece as they can manage, this is used to extract ore and gem bearing rock as well. This has a 50% base success rate, the higher the skill of your best miners, the more likely you are to remove the square intact.
If your miners are successful you will end up with a more or less completetly intact boulder of stone. If not you will end up with a pile of chunky basketball sized rocks.
One factor that increases the chance of extracting the tile in one piece is how many sides of the tile are reachable. If you are trying to dig out a tile at the end of a narrow corridor, you will have a hard time getting it out intact. On the other hand, a single stone pillar standing in the open will be easy to extract.
From there the system works like this:
BOulder: the boulder is a large chunk of rock, some contain gems and metal ore. For easier storage, plain stone boulders can be carved into rough blocks, once shaped these can be stacked 3 to a square in a pyramid.
Boulders and rough blocks can be used for stone structures and furniture. For other applications they must be smoothed or broken up first.
Smoothed stone block:
With a little extra effort you can get your masons to turn a rough stone block into a smooth stone block. if this is used to make a structure it will be "smooth" instead of "rough".
Because they fit together so well you can store smoothed blocks in bins and stack them up to 3 levels high instead of 2.
Chunks: Stone chunks are large pieces of stone. If your miners fail to dig out a tile of rock in a single piece you end up with a pile of chunks instead of a single boulder, to move the chunks you will need cart or wheelbarrow of some sort. You can also order your miners to break up boulders into chunks if you need the stone in that form.
Chunks can be used for structures such as bridges but are not large enough to make furnature out of them. They can also be used to make crafts and ammo.
If a boulder or stone block is broken up, depending on the size of the item made there will be a few leftover chunks which can be used for other tasks.
Gravel:
Rock gravel is produced whenever a piece of stone is worked. Small amounts of gravel will simply clutter the ground where they were produced. This is usually not a problem. In some cases gravel can build up to the point where it impedes movement. If you want to smooth or tile a floor for example you need to gather all the gravel on the floor and take it away. In workshops that work with stone, gravel will build up and eventually clutter the work area. Gravel is stored in a bin but to collect it all you need is a bucket (shovels as well maybe?)
Rock gravel has a few uses so it is worth gathering it up and storing it. Valuable types are automatically set aside as limestone gravel for example can be used in the production of steel. Flint can be used to light fires.
Uses: Listed here are all the ideas i could think of for using stone in its new forms.
Walls:
Blocks of both types can be used to make walls. Walls are simply stone blocks stacked up in alternating order. These walls are not permanent unless you order the builders to mortar the blocks together. If just stacked into place it forms a handy fence that is impassable to most wildlife.
One block wide walls are easy to make, if you want to get more complicated you need the skills of an architect. Large fortified walls will require many stone blocks, wood bracing and possibly gravel and rock chunks to fill the inside of the wall. Later on you can get masons to carve arrow slits into the wall.
Fortified towers can be added to the walls if you wish, these can be topped with crennelations or an open platform fit for mounting a catapult or other sige engine.
Note that this is different from rewalling.
Dragons teeth:
Blocks of stone or boulders can be stacked in piles that form a loose alternating pattern. These small pyramids are used to slow enemy charges and repel large animals. These tank traps were used in world war two as an effective deterrent as a single tank would have to go around or spend much of its ammo blasting its way though. I imagine they would be of some use against elephants.
An alternate form that takes longer to build is small incline shaped piles with the slope heading away from your archers. Essentially a ramp that leads nowhere. It breaks up formations and slows down attackers much like the dragons teeth. The difference is that because of the shape they offer no cover to enemies attacking your fortress.
Because the stone is only stacked into place this is a handy form of storage that doubles as a defensive measure.
Roads:
Gravel can be used on roads, a proper non-concrete road such as the ones the romans built (are are in use to this day!) are constructed with layers of crushed rock and sand and topped with large paving stones. This provides the best surface. Drainage is not usually a problem unless you are playing on a wet map but stability is.
Gravel can also be used to upgrade a plain dirt road which improves the surface slightly and makes the road permanent.
Extracting minerals:
If a boulder or pile of chunks contains ore or gems it must be broken up before it is processed. For ore this means breaking up the boulder into chunks and trimming off all of the waste stone, the resulting pile is MUCH lighter and can be put into the furnace.
In the case of gems you will need a jewler to extract them. If the raw gems are still encased in a boulder a miner will go to the workshop and break it up before work resumes. The jewler will then carefully extract all the raw gems from the rock pieces leaving a pile of gravel and a small pile of gems. The amount of gems you get depends on the density of the gem vein, and the skill of both the jeweler and miner. Some gems invariably get broken or just turn up flawed, these can still be used for studding.
Ammunition and Crafts:
Ammo such as rock arrowheads and sling stones can be made out of any raw stone besides gravel. The same goes for crafts.
The more "intact" a piece of rock is, the more items it will yield.
Catapult ammo:
Single boulders can be smoothed and rounded in order to improve accuracy. Solid boulders will bounce on softish ground and can be recovered and used again. An alternate use is a boulder striated by your masons with cracks. What happens is the boulder shatters on the first impact and explodes into a cone of fragments affecting a wider area.
Rock chunks can be gathered up and used by a catapult, this requires a netted sling which your tailors can make for you. When fired the smaller rocks rain down on the area you aim at.
Gravel might not seem to be very useful for this, but gravel can be used as a counterweight if Toady decided to add trebuchets and other super-heavy siege engines.
If you make a large bag out of stiched leather or armour quality cloth you can fill it with gravel and fire it off liek a boulder. On a direct impact the bag will hit VERY hard. If the bag is starting to wear out it might break on impact, but will still do quite a bit of damage.
Because the bag is not a solid stone you can use it as practice ammo in a rocky setting where solid ammo would break on impact and you would not be able to use it again. Also, these bags will kill or knock out wildlife without mangling them giving the catapult some use in hunting.
Beaches and fields:
I doubt soil erosion is a problem but to deal with it you could pile rock chunks and gravel in the affected area to ward off the water.
As a defensive measure you can spread the gravel your fortress generates into a thick field. I dont know if any of you have tried running in thick gravel or sand but suffice to say it takes a lot of energy. In addition traction is hard to come by, a layer of gravel in front of your gate will make it harder for enemies to push the door in.
If you top the gravel with jagged chunks of stone the terrain changes from difficult to dangerous. Cavalry, horses in particular will have a hard time navigating such terrain and will get injured very easily. This also has a great impact on enemy infantry than a plain gravel field would.
The disadvantage of both is that the fields impede your own dwarves, but this is not a problem with careful planning.
Hmm thats about all i can think of for stone, anything to add?
Wood:
Right now when a tree is felled it yields one piece of wood. Instead felling a tree should give you an entire trees worth of wood. This would let us build a large stockpile without massive and ugly clearcutting operations.
Trees are a very valuable commodity, if you simply clearcut the entire area the air quality will grow steadily worse. In addition you will find that the amount of wildlife in the area will go down significantly.
Unfortunatly we do not have the patience to wait 50 years of game time to get an old growth forest and i doubt Toady has the patience to work out the specifics, at least not yet anyway. So lets say a tree in the DF universe takes 4-6 years or so to reach maturity and all wood species are effectively the same.
Once a tree is felled it yields a bunch of products. The raw log is useless in its current form and hard to move around without like... 20 dwarves carrying it at once. So the log is not taken anywhere it simply sits where it was felled.
From there a bunch of things happen. The lumberjacks trim off all of the branches and large limbs and set them aside. They then chop up the raw log into manageable section, these sections are then taken to a stockpile.
From the stockpile the logs go to the sawmill. The sawmill is run by your lumberjacks. The mill will not actually contain a saw until you make and add a giant saw blade.
At the mill the raw sections are debarked and the bark set aside. From there the log is split (or cut once you get a saw) into planks and some scrap wood. These planks are what you use to make wood products.
The uses:
Raw log: This is split up into sections once the tree is felled. In this form it is rather too large to use.
Raw Section: This is debarked and cut up into planks. It can also be left as-is, a few items such as balista bolts and catapults require complete log sections for constructions. Raw sections can be used to make roads and bridges although they will have a "rough" finish.
Wood planks: These planks are used to many any wood product. If used to make a bridge they will give it a smooth finish. Depending on the size of the object made it will consume a different amount of planks.
Wood bark: This bark is stripped off logs before they are cut into planks.
Wood branches: These are cut off a felled log.
Wood limbs: These are the large branches that are not suitable for making planks.
Scrap wood: The scraps left over after any building project.
Sawdust: The dust left whenever wood is cut.
The uses:
Fuel: Any kind of wood smaller than a section can be used as fuel. The furnace itself is dealt with later in the tools section.
Charcoal: Charcoal can be made out of any piece of wood bigger than branches. Sections will need an especially large furnace or they will not fit. The amount of wood you put into the furnace dictates how long the furnace burns for and how much charcoal you get.
Ash: Ash is made whenever you burn wood, most of it is not usable for glassmaking as it tends to get dirty, but a little is salvageable. To get large quantities of ash you simply burn wood.
Furniture: Furniture is mostly made out of planks. There are a few exceptions however. A log round is perfectly usable as a stool. In that case it would be reffered to as a "log chair" instead of a chair.
Crafts: Crafts like mugs and rings and the like can be made out of planks, limbs and scrap wood. This is a good way to use up excess wood that would normally just get burned.
Gardening/farming: I know bark mulch and wood chips can be used in farming but i dont know the specifics.
Seasoned wood: Seasoned wood produces higher quality. The problem is to season the wood you need to either, dry it in a kiln which uses fuel, or leave it out in the sun for a long time. Maps hot enough for sun-dried wood usually have few trees so a kiln is needed. Most kilns are pretty small so a large one would be needed to fit the logs inside.
Seasoned wood increases the quality of items produced with it, and the strength of its construction. This effect is amplified with some products. Instruments for example are mostly valued for the sound produced, not the material used. Barrels made with "green" or untreated timber has a tendency to contaminate water stored inside it.
Weaponry:
Most weapons requre a handle or haft made out of wood. Planks are mostly used for the long handles, scrap wood is suitable for making short hilts. For weapons with long shafts planks are split lengthwise to form a few of them.
To make bolt and arrow shafts you can use anything larger than scrap wood. The time it takes and the amount of bolts you get depends on the size of the piece used.
Siege weapons require full debarked sections of wood. The amount used varies greatly on the type of machine made and the strength of its construction. The stronger the machine, the more power you can put through it without it exploding on you.
Culinary:
Very few uses in this category. I do know that salmon is sometimes smoked with sawdust from specific trees. Salmon baked on a cedar plank gets mentioned every now and then.
Seeds: When you cut all the twigs and branches off a tree you can have your herbalists gather up any seeds so that you can plant new trees. Some seeds can be used as food such as pine nuts.
Nuts: In addition to seeds some trees produce nuts and these can be gathered by your herbalists. But i guess they would need a ladder or something to reach them.
Metal:
Once you have the extracted ore you need to smelt it. The amount of metal you get depends on the richness of the ore.
In order to accuratly represent the usage of metal we need different denominations.
Bar: A bar is about the size of a tissue box, quite a bit of metal. 4X4X8 inches
Ingot: an ingot is what you get if you cut the bar into 8 pieces. 2X2X4 inches
Half-Ingot: do i really need to explain this? 
Quarter-Ingot: Ditto with above.
Blank: A metal blank is a very small square piece of metal, in essence a raw coin.
The only size of metal that HAS to be one complete item is the bar. In all other cases only the total quanity of the metal matters. If you had 9 half-ingots in a box it would show up as 4 ingots and 1 half ingot.
When you first smelt a pile of ore you will yield AT LEAST 1 bars worth of metal, depending on the richness of the ore you may get even more metal. The richest legendary ore veins will net you 2 bars per load, but for the most part you will get 1 bar a varying handful of ingots and a couple blanks.
Bars are not often used, the only point in having a hunk of metal that big is convenience for trading and very large mechanisms/architecture. By default you will cast the smelted metal into ingots and smaller pieces.
When smiths needs to use metal they start with the smallest pieces they can find and throw them into a pot to melt them together. Any excess is simply tossed into a mold and added back to the stockpile.
Make sense? Its a little extra work but now a dagger will not waste the majority of a whole metal bar.
Tools: This new system requires a few changes.
Stretcher: A stretcher allows 2 dwarves to carry a heavy object, or one with an inconvenient shape such as a pile of rocks.
Wheelbarrow: Requires a lot more effort to build but serves the same purpose as the stretcher and only requires one dwarf to operate it.
Wood Kiln: This is a very large construction designed to dry planks and logs. Despite its large size it does not use much fuel because the heat requirement is not constant. You simply heat up the kiln and let it sit, compared to the constant heating and reheating required to work metal.
Furnace: The size of your furnace determines how much material you can process at once. If you required large amounts of metal bars you could construct a very large furnace so you could fit many bars worth of ore into it at the same time.
Once the metal is fully purified in the furnace you can do a bunch of things with it. Cast the metal into bars or ship it over to the foundry to make more complicated cast metal items.
If you tell the furnace to make ingots it makes as many full ingots as it can with the metal stored. The remainder can be left in the furnace if you are smelting another batch of ore, or you can pour it out into smaller ingot molds.
Foundry: This is a seperate building from the furnace. A foundry is a workshop deticated to metal casting. When ore is refined the molten metal can be brought directly to the foundry and kept hot in a crucible. Alternatly you can bring raw metal and melt it in the crucible, it just takes extra fuel.
Sawmill: In the beginning this is just a large open raised platform that provides a large solid foundation to work with large pieces of wood.
Later on once your mechanics are skilled you can add a saw to the mill which speeds up production immensly, it also affects the quality of the finished planks.
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Topic: More efficient use of materials (Read 1968 times)