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[mrbaggins]

A thought occured whilst making a large wall on the surface. Why does Urist McMason go all the way down to the ground level himself? Surely a hauler would be better for hauling all that nice gleaming rock to the surface?

So why not add another hauling labor (or incorporate into the Rock/Wood hauling) the function of carrying materials to where construction is scheduled?

Say you set Construction of a wall or floor at the top of the world, and all your rock is at the bottom. When you assign it, Urist McMason checks to see if there's rock close to the area at hand, if not, he goes and grabs some himself. In the same time, any idle dwarfs with hauling enabled see that McMason needs rocks upstairs, so start moving them to the spot as close as possible to the construction site. Then once McMason has done the first one (which he lugged up there himself) he looks to the next one, which will ever-so-conveniently have a lump of rock sitting next to it.

He might (depending on skill, available haulers, etc) have to fetch more than just the first one, but the entire process would be WAAAAY quicker.

I realise it's also possible to set a custom stockpile for the particular stone, which would quickly get everyone to bring the stuff up, but counts would be out and it requires 3 extra steps.

Dunno. I think it's worth a look anyway.

[zwei]

This would be great if it became generalized for workshops (hauler sees tasked iron bar and decides to haul it to destination forge in which weaponsmith would be already waiting with piece of coal).

IIRC, this was suggested several times.

[612DwarfAvenue]

It's always annoyed me that when building bridges, paved roads, weapon traps etc. the Dwarves only bring one item at a time. Having other Dwarves bring up the other items at the same time would make thing a heck of a lot quicker.

[Twi]

This is indeed a really good idea. Me likey.

[Waparius]

This would be a very good use for the upcoming wheelbarrows.

[orbcontrolled]

Maybe this could be one of the functions of the manager or a similar noble: Planning out the requirements for a job, and then parallelizing them as much as he can (Better skill = more parallelization?).

The individual personality of the dwarves might even be able to be brought into it, with a skilled or egotistical artisan insisting that only he can pick just the right rock for that new chair, and maybe rejecting the one that was hauled to his workspace (With varying degrees of violence depending on his mood of course ).

[irmo]

Maybe this could be one of the functions of the manager or a similar noble: Planning out the requirements for a job, and then parallelizing them as much as he can (Better skill = more parallelization?).

Dwarf behavior is stupid enough just because of limitations of the AI without deliberately simulating stupidity. They should optimize jobs as much as the game engine possibly can.

[Maklak]

Yep, this would be good.

I generally try to use custom stockpiles to speed up constructions: set up a stockpile for just one type of rock (for a big wall this usually means making a few stockpiles with a lot of selecting / deselecting stuff). After that I wait till it is filled up, and remove all temporary stockpiles (if I don't dwarves will bring more rock, which I don't want), and then place the wall. Waay to much micromanagment.

What also irritates me, is that stones for construction are selected during wall placement, and mason will go for preselected rock, even when there is a new rock stockpile of appripriate type nearby.

I'm all for Your solution, but for me something simpler would also work: When mason is about to build something, he could path to the nearest free rock of the type you are using for construction (or if you are using blocks, the nearest block). When combined with some way of copying and pasting settings for stockpiles, this would be almoust as good as Your solution. (That is setting a few small stockpiles along the sonstructed wall, copying and pasting their setting, and letting haulers fill them repeatedly while masons work.

[Neowulf]

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=71132.0 Tossed this idea out a couple weeks ago. I am all for queued/construction jobs spawning a hauling orders for every component it needs.

[MrWiggles]

Nah, you can't have live reselection of materiel, it would produce a lot of conflicts.

[Maklak]

Nah, you can't have live reselection of materiel, it would produce a lot of conflicts.

I don't think, there would be. There is only one thread, so all things are computed sequentially. I think in the current system, materials are labeled as "busy", so one rock is selected for only one construction. An easy way to make live reselection of materials work, would be to look for an appropriate rock while pathfinding to previously selected. If such a rock is found and it is closer than the currently selected and free (not selected for something else), select it, and deselect the old one. No conflicts that way.

[qoonpooka]

Just so we're clear, you can already do this yourself.

Set a stockpile to feed from your main and declare the construction work after the stockpile is filled up.  Delete the stockpile when you're done.

[Lungfish]

I like the idea of "paralleling jobs" being the job of a noble and I always thought there should be more settings in the Nobles screen to play with than just the one for record keeper.

Another solution would be if you could assign an assistant dwarf in the same way you can assign a work animal to a person. Children could automatically fulfill that role for the parent until they mature, in the same way war dogs follow their trainer until they are assigned to another dwarf. Then someone could be assigned, maybe to multiple dwarves, so masons, carpenters, crafters, etc., could just tell the dwarf which stone/wood/whtvr to get.
This could be a cool opportunity for the personality traits to come into play - if they're good observers and/or students they could learn a bit about the job they're assisting, if they're lazy, have a bad sense of direction, or get confused easily, it could take them awhile to do their job, or if they have a big ego they could get unhappy thoughts from the work.
Nobles could demand a couple assistants, who would fetch food and drink and maybe even do useful things like putting a noble's scattered possessions away, or at least under the bed. 

[Truean]

Add a stone stockpile on the surface, specifying stone type if you wish. Problem solved.

[slMagnvox]

Stone stockpiles are nice, but if you really want efficient hauling have a gang of masons making blocks and then store all those blocks in a nearby stockpile with plenty of free bins. When you are ready to build your tower, you can designate a new block stockpile with "take from" orders near the construction site and dwarfs will haul the bins full of blocks. Then designate your first stage of construction, let the blocks reload and designate the second phase, etc... Block walls make more valuable constructions too.

Although I really liked this idea:

Nobles could demand a couple assistants, who would fetch food and drink and maybe even do useful things like putting a noble's scattered possessions away, or at least under the bed.