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[Mechanoid]

Like forbid/reclaim, a dump and melt designation would be heavilly appreaciated -- with the 'remove designation' effecting it.

I know it's been suggested before, but it really is very(^9^9^9) necessary in order to stop your fingers from becoming arthritic. I have more then 18 pages of stone over 3 tiles (lots of vertical digging and previous dumping) and i believe my fingers would turn to dust if i tried to designate all that stone one-by-one for dumping.

The next version or the next one after that, but please, make it soon. Fingers are the only thing you can use to play DF, and once they get tired you have to stop. [   ]

[ December 09, 2007: Message edited by: Mechanoid ]

[PTTG??]

I agree, and not only for my fingers. I worry about my enter key!

[Align]

Can't you just leave the stone alone? Forbid anything that causes workshops to go stupid and run down 30 z-levels to grab a rock instead of from the nearby stockpile, but otherwise you don't really care.

[TeDDD]

Eh, it's a visual thing for me.  A solid door looks far more classy than a blinking one.

[Torak]

quote:Originally posted by Align:
<STRONG>Can't you just leave the stone alone? Forbid anything that causes workshops to go stupid and run down 30 z-levels to grab a rock instead of from the nearby stockpile, but otherwise you don't really care.</STRONG>

Excess stone isnt a "new" problem, there's always been amnity between a DF player and his massive stock of stone. It's a major hinderance in underground development because it completely blocks stockpiles, forcing you to setup huge stockpiles in the soil layers (1 or 2 Z axii into the ground). UNless you've got a massive stone toy making operation, it's of no use and it's an ugly obstacle.

 

quote:Originally posted by TeDDD:
<STRONG>Eh, it's a visual thing for me.  A solid door looks far more classy than a blinking one.</STRONG>

Also that door's not closed anymore, it's wide open to any titan/elephant that decides to wander by it.

[ December 10, 2007: Message edited by: Torak ]

[Torak]

Ugh.

[ December 10, 2007: Message edited by: Torak ]

[Ratha]

It would be great to have a option similar to chop down trees, but instead be a selector for dumping items. The problem is that i dont think a single tile dump square is supposed to hold a thousand dumped stones. The way its handled may change in the future since it is fairly realistic to have tons of stone needing to be dealt with when you dig a mountain fort.

A bit of a trick ive started using is designating a garbage dump, and then surrounding it with a fairly large stockpile of rock, 7x7 tile actually. A dwarf will haul to a stockpile quicker than dumping ive noticed. (It puts more items in the job queue so theres more chances of stones being moved faster seemingly.) Anyway, let the dwarves move the stone to the stockpile, and once its full, dump all of the rock in the stockpile to the garbage zone a few squares away.

This saves you from having to scroll through entire fortresses to find all that spare stone, and also puts it all in one location for easy dumping so you can just hit the arrow and then "D" which is a lot easier than having to hunt around for each stone individually.

I still make sure to dump stones that are blocking doorways or stockpiles first though, but using the stockpile method, gets rid of tons of excess stone fairly quickly, and with minimal hunting. It might actually be more work overall, but its a lot easier on the wrists, and has a positive benefit of being placed near my stone mason's shop.

I may also use it as a quick way to change the types of stone in my stockpile too. Normally set my stockpile to allow all stone, but when you want to build with a certain stone type, change the stockpile setting, dump all the stone thats in it currently, and unforbid a few pieces of the stone you want from the dump. Will then fill the mason's stockpile with the new stone type. In theroy, anyway, i havnt tested it, but it should work.

[fleacircus]

Yes I would love this, and I was going to suggest it but I was sure I would not be the first one to do so.

Other possibilities to deal with excess stone rattling around in my head:

1. Lower rate of generation of stone when mining, whether just as a lower percentage, or perhaps different kinds of stone e.g. there being "high grade microcline" and "low grade microcline" where the latter doesn't produce usable stone when mined. Probably not very realistic.

2. A "break stone" designation, where raw stone objects will be chipped away into nothing by dwarves with picks. (Dwarf chain gangs?)

3. Designation UI seems a bit full, but this could be implemented with stockpile designations. Perhaps a "(c)lean" command on a stockpile would generate hauling jobs to get rid of all objects that don't belong in the stockpile. Perhaps could work for other rooms too, but usually you have another stockpile pulling away the stuff that isn't stone...

4. Or, going with a stockpile idea, maybe there could be 'auto-forbid' stockpiles. They auto-forbid items that are added to them. To make them useful, objects could also be stacked in them, with perhaps a settable limit. So you mine out a new area and increase the stack limit of your stone auto-forbid stockpile from say 10 to 15 so that it will suck in all the generated stone... Really you don't even need an auto-forbid if you have the stack size going..

5. So perhaps maybe all stockpiles could have a stack size limit, with the restriction that all things in a stack be identical; two chunks of gabbro will stack, but two felsite mechanisms of different quality will not. But I'm sure this is an unworkable bad idea for some reason.

Oh well I'm sure I'm just Nthing what has been said before. Cheers.

[Krash]

quote: I worry about my enter key!

True.  My keyboard has been making strange plaintive noises ever since I started playing DF.

[Fedor]

quote:Originally posted by Mechanoid:
<STRONG>Like forbid/reclaim, a dump and melt designation would be heavilly appreaciated -- with the 'remove designation' effecting it.

I know it's been suggested before, but it really is very(^9^9^9) necessary in order to stop your fingers from becoming arthritic. I have more then 18 pages of stone over 3 tiles (lots of vertical digging and previous dumping) and i believe my fingers would turn to dust if i tried to designate all that stone one-by-one for dumping.

The next version or the next one after that, but please, make it soon. Fingers are the only thing you can use to play DF, and once they get tired you have to stop. [   ]

[ December 09, 2007: Message edited by: Mechanoid ]</STRONG>

Agreed wholeheartedly (I even suggested the same thing some weeks ago).  But what DF needs more generally is an internal macro system.

Until dumping is made a little less carpal tunnel syndrome-prone, you can reduce the problem by:
1.  Having your bookeeper update the stocks enough to list the rough stones.
2.  Going to The wiki utilities page and downloading AutoHotKey.
3.  Going to this page for a dump script.  

After installing AutoHotKey, put the macro text into a .ahk file.  Double-click to activate it.  Right-click on the AutoHotKey icon in the task bar to turn it off.  You can do all this automatically with some tweaking.

Other scripts can easily be written to handle many other keyboard-intensive tasks, such as digging diagonally or in fancy shapes.  

----------

Unfortunately, rewalling doesn't work so well - unless you don't care what gets used as a material or stockpile it.  Lots of people have requested easier rewalling/flooring and I'd like to thump my head on the ground in front of the great Toady along with them.  Pretty please?

[Fedor]

There is now a macro/keymap how-to in the wiki.

[Tyrion]

quote:2. A "break stone" designation, where raw stone objects will be chipped away into nothing by dwarves with picks. (Dwarf chain gangs?)  

This is known as a "catapult."