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[PhilbertFlange]

I took a look around the forums and can't seem to find anything like this, so I decided to suggest it.

Similar to the mass designate for dumping, reclaim, melting, etc... I think there should be a mass designate to destroy stone. It would require a dwarf to move to the rock and destroy it, removing it from the game.

This effect is already performed by people by atom smashing excess rock, but requires either a lot of hauling trips to a distant atom smasher, or the setup of a nearby one for every large group of rocks the player wishes to destroy. By designating to destroy, the trip to and from the stones are removed and the time taken to destroy the stone is closer to the time it took to mine it out in the first place.

Additionally, since it's a mass designation you could specify destruction by area, and remove the rarer stones you wanted to use for other projects quickly, through either the stocks menu, or the mass designation menu.

Thoughts?

[Derakon]

Designate for dumping accomplishes the same task and is more general.

[groo]

How's that? Designating a huge field of rocks for dumping can take years, even with an army of haulers. Having dwarves just destroy the rocks where they sit in place would take about the same time as designating a room for stone smoothing.

[PhilbertFlange]

For a 9x9 room, it will take as few as 81 steps for a dwarf to mine or destroy rocks (provided it paths efficiently).

Even if a 1 tile dump is placed in the center of the room (most efficient), it will take as few as 480 steps for a dwarf to dump it all.

Code: [Select]

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The shape above adds to 240, the number of steps required to transport the stones TO the dump in the center. It will still require the dwarf to move back to another stone-occupied place, which approximately doubles the number of steps (except for the first and last stones).

So destroying is still far more efficient.

[Derakon]

I still object to this philosophically for two reasons:
1) It involves creating a designation that is only relevant for stone items.
2) It involves unmaking items, which shouldn't be possible, period. Currently we have three mechanisms for unmaking, two of which I expect to go away:

 * Bridge-smashing: my suspicion is the game only works this way because Toady hasn't decided what the proper method is yet. It even unmakes units, for crying out loud!
 * Dumping into a bottomless pit: again, my suspicion is that pits will eventually all be bottomed, just very deep.
 * Dumping into magma: for items that burn, this should always work; for items that melt, I expect eventually they'll increase the volume of the magma flow.

Basically, suggestions which violate conservation of mass bug me. If you want an efficient way to deal with large amounts of stone, designate-hide and designate-forbid. Or lobby for wheelbarrows.

[Astramancer]

I see nothing wrong with making a designation for "I don't want this to exist anymore" and there's no reason it should only apply to raw stones.  The only reason why I use atom smasher or quantum stockpiles is because I want room to store my stuff without having to haul stupid rocks everywhere or set up craftdwarves shops in the middle of the room and set crafts on repeat just to get rid of stone.

I support this suggestion.  Even if it's just a stop-gap measure to get rid of atom smashing and quantum stockpiling.

[groo]

Basically, suggestions which violate conservation of mass bug me. If you want an efficient way to deal with large amounts of stone, designate-hide and designate-forbid. Or lobby for wheelbarrows.

This isn't just an aesthetic thing, though; I'm pretty sure having vast amounts of objects for the game to track also contributes to the horrible slowdown you get in the latter stages of a fort. And hauling it all just isn't practical beyond a point, I'm not kidding when I say I've had stone hauling tasks that took years for my dwarves to complete.

[silhouette]

* Dumping into a bottomless pit: again, my suspicion is that pits will eventually all be bottomed, just very deep.

in next version this is yes.

[Bacu]

SOLUTION: Flood fortress with magma, eliminating rock.

[Momaw]

I agree that there needs to be some way to permanently delete arbitrary items.  Items consume memory and computation by existing, and especially for long running fortresses you just need things to go away.

[PhilbertFlange]

This isn't just an aesthetic thing, though; I'm pretty sure having vast amounts of objects for the game to track also contributes to the horrible slowdown you get in the latter stages of a fort. And hauling it all just isn't practical beyond a point, I'm not kidding when I say I've had stone hauling tasks that took years for my dwarves to complete.

That's the reason behind my suggestion. I currently have well over 15000 stones that I'm trying to get rid of (after having atom-smashed another 10000), and the process of building a bridge and dumping everything is tedious.

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

Rock-smashing as punishment labor. They do it in real-life.

Not to mention, it could train Strength and Toughness pretty fast, as well as the mining skill.

Possible certain rocks, when pulverized, could be used as fertilizer. If left outside, the rock dust will blow away in the wind.

[Fossaman]

Turn it into gravel, yeah. Then let the gravel be used up for roads and stuff like that.

Of course, you're still going to run into the problem of where to put the stuff, but that's absolutely true to life. Enormous tailings outside of an active mining fortress are very appropriate.

[Talanic]

Adding my vote to this also.  The ability to reduce stones to gravel already exists in-game; it's called amateur mining. 

Actually, I'd go one step earlier.  Allow players to order miners to treat specific stone types as debris.  Right now an amateur miner will often obliterate stone, ore or gems that he's trying to dig into, but a legendary miner will always leave the stone behind.  Ordering miners to treat a type of stone as debris would reverse the percentages; a legendary miner would always pulverize the rock because he doesn't want to keep it, and a dabbling miner would leave plenty laying around because he's not as thorough in his work.

If you want a work-around right now, check which stones are most prevalent in your fort that you don't want to use and set their boiling point to room temperature in the raws (not lower than that or you'll freeze your dwarves).  Note, however, that any objects made from those stones will also boil away, including workshops, crafts, and artifacts - so use this work-around carefully.

[zwei]

b-C-f

Simply build floors out of stones right where they lay. It is fast with decent mason, it gets rid of stone with no hauling needed, it makes everything prettier, it requires no setup.

And best thing: should you discover you DO need those stones afterall, you can remove flooring and recover them.