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[Ipwnurmom221]

For reasons beyond my comprehension, my dwarves refuse to take any stone from the stockpile directly next to the mason's workshop. My mason goes all the way down to my mine system, or to the unused stone in the useless crap stockpile, and then brings it all the way back up to the workshop. The stone next to the workshop is in a proper stone stockpile and is not forbid. Any ideas, bay12?

[NecroRebel]

There are 2 issues that I see as likely here.

The first is that you're mistaking dwarves as choosing the stones that they would have to walk the least to get. They don't. If there's a stone 10 tiles away and on the same z-level, and another 20 z-levels directly below the dwarf, the dwarf is going to pick the stone 20 z-levels down, even if they have to walk 300 tiles to get there. If your mines or useless crap stockpile is directly below your mason's shop, that's what's causing this behavior.

The second possible issue is that you've stockpiled valuable stones and they're set to economic in the z-stones menu. This makes your masons and crafters ignore those stones, because the stones are reserved for specific uses that don't include furniture and such. To solve this problem, simply go into the stones menu, find the appropriate stones, and toggle them off.

[ZCM]

There are 2 issues that I see as likely here.

The first is that you're mistaking dwarves as choosing the stones that they would have to walk the least to get. They don't. If there's a stone 10 tiles away and on the same z-level, and another 20 z-levels directly below the dwarf, the dwarf is going to pick the stone 20 z-levels down, even if they have to walk 300 tiles to get there. If your mines or useless crap stockpile is directly below your mason's shop, that's what's causing this behavior.

I think you got 10 and 20 backwards there. Dwarves measure distance as the mole tunnels, so they would go to a 10 tile away stone before a 20 tile away stone.

[obeliab]

There are 2 issues that I see as likely here.

The first is that you're mistaking dwarves as choosing the stones that they would have to walk the least to get. They don't. If there's a stone 10 tiles away and on the same z-level, and another 20 z-levels directly below the dwarf, the dwarf is going to pick the stone 20 z-levels down, even if they have to walk 300 tiles to get there. If your mines or useless crap stockpile is directly below your mason's shop, that's what's causing this behavior.

I think you got 10 and 20 backwards there. Dwarves measure distance as the mole tunnels, so they would go to a 10 tile away stone before a 20 tile away stone.

What a great way to put it.  I've never been able to get it shorter than "you know, like in 3D, your dwarf, he, you know, picks stuff, like, closest to him, regardless of how long the path is to get to that object, as long as it's, like, the closest usable object to him in, you know, 3D space, you know, across z-levels."

[vogonpoet]

You know what would be awesome? A spherical designation option which worked with mining and stockpile creation. I mean sure, its possible to manually designate a fortress of interconnected underground spheres one 'z' level at a time, but its a pain in the ass. And then having to make for instance 7 separate stockpiles around your workshop floor, thats even more of a pain.

All you would need is a 'select centre of sphere' + 'input radius' designation, and all sorts of awesome things would be simpler.

Edit. Huh, at least I have an idea now for the layout of my next fortress .  Its gonna be a pain though. I will need a lot of z levels too.

[devek]

Or an option to connect a workshop to a stockpile, it might even help fps

[Keldane]

Correct me if I'm wrong, and can't you designate burrows across z-levels in one go? Aren't they the only thing that can be designated in such a manner? It may still be a lot of work, but at least it's something, right?

[Dutchling]

I just assign my mason to a burrow covering the food stockpiles, his bedroom, his workshop, the stockpile and the diner hall.
I will inly build the stockpile after the mason has cleared the dining hall though. I don't use quantum stockpiles if I can solve it otherwise.

[Ethicalfive]

Another possibility could be that if you've started building alot of walls/floors/etc, all those stones may be reserved already for those constructions.

[Ipwnurmom221]

I think its the dwarven pathfinding. My useless crap stockpile probably has stones directly below the dwarf, which is just as likely to be used at the stone 1 tile away from the workshop.

This was a rather frustrating yet useful lesson in dwarven behavior.

[Raging Mouse]

When dwarves choose job materials, they choose whatever is nearest to them, not the workshop. If you have two stockpiles, one as a ring around the workshop and another directly beneath the workshop, a dwarf standing in the workshop will empty the stockpile directly below before choosing anything from the stockpile surrounding the workshop, as that's one tile further from the dwarf (as the mole burrows -I'm stealing that expression).