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[PommeDeTom]

I am relatively new to dwarf fortress and a I am still learning my way around. Anyway, almost all the time I have a large number of idlers (over 10). I have no idea what to do with them all. Any tips on how to make them busy?

[restricted]

Unless they're highly skilled at useful professions, such as masonry or weaponcrafting, it's good that they're idle.

[person012345]

They haul shit, stand around taking up space and being a cat-death away from causing a tantrum spiral at any given time. Sometimes I randomly completely re-designate stockpiles just to get my 100 or so idling dwarves to actually do some work.

[King DZA]

Idlers aren't always bad, it's nice to have people to hull all of the crap left by your enemies into the fort after a siege, or to dump all that stone from your dining hall.

If it's really bothering you, you could always give them jobs like farmer, engraver, mason, and the like. Jobs that normally require a large workforce to get done in a timely fashion.

[drilltooth]

assign stockpiles to all your work rooms feeding off the mains, Set farm to allow non-farmers to help harvest, churn out crafts from replenishable resources, expand your military, if only to reconnoiter further down.

[Eidolon]

I have a custom profession in Dwarf Therapist called "Draft Mason". Basically, it's the grunt position that takes care of all hauling, masonry, and smoothing/engraving. If my entire fortress is smoothed and engraved, I have them work on some project, like building a cistern, aboveground quarters or whatever megaproject comes to mind.

Either that, or I draft them into the military and then use genesis mod's Training Dummy and Weight Set workshops to skill up their weapon and shield user skills. It works great if you restrict labors in the Training Dummies to only those specific military folks.

[Fedor]

Idlers tend to eventually find jobs in my forts through the following process:

1.  Those with interesting physical or mental attributes, or favorable preferences, get specialist positions.
2.  I like a tidy fort.  I also like to dig and build.  There's more stuff to move than I have dwarves to move it.  So almost everyone's a hauler at least sometimes.
3.  The military can always use more recruits.  If a siege eviscerates your field army, it's nice to have at least partly-trained replacements.
4.  Dwarves die.  Jobs open up.

[Kearn]

i usually do absolutely ridiculously huge outside farms (aka 30x30) and make everyone farm/brew/process

[EveryZig]

You can also use copper and magma forges to train the unskilled idlers with a small amount of armorer or weaponsmith (just enough so that it is higher level than their other moodable skills), so you have a much higher chance of getting artifact armor/weapons.

[acetech09]

I'm drafting all my migrants coming into my fortress into one of 3 professions:

1. If they're good in attributes and traits, they go into my militia.
2. If they have modest attributes, they go into my soil mining team.
3. If they have bad attributes, they go into my fortress-smoothing team.

My dwarves with decent skill are all working most of the time - rock pots, iron armor, drinks, cabinets & doors, beds, jewel-cutting, smelting, shearing & spinning...

EDIT: BTW Kearn - nice pic. I can do better though.

[geail]

I keep my hauling class in my militia with active training 3 months of the year.  This way, when they are inactive and without a job, they do individual combat drills

[Urist Da Vinci]

Having a large crowd of idlers can kill your fps if your fort is badly designed, due to their pathfinding. Remember to put the location where the idlers gather (often a meeting/dining hall) as close as possible to the booze stockpile, food stockpile, eating area, and bedrooms. Use wide hallways and at least 2-tile wide doorways. Since all they do most of the time is eat, sleep, drink, party, and idle, you prevent them from being a drag on your cpu. This is essential if you are building a megaproject and need 150 masons/mechanics on standby.

[restricted]

Having a large crowd of idlers can kill your fps if your fort is badly designed, due to their pathfinding. Remember to put the location where the idlers gather (often a meeting/dining hall) as close as possible to the booze stockpile, food stockpile, eating area, and bedrooms. Use wide hallways and at least 2-tile wide doorways. Since all they do most of the time is eat, sleep, drink, party, and idle, you prevent them from being a drag on your cpu. This is essential if you are building a megaproject and need 150 masons/mechanics on standby.

Baa. It's always more FPS friendly to have your food and booze stockpiles 50 Z levels above your main meeting areas.

[SharpKris]

im also relatively new but i think that the actual placement of items on apecific Z lvls has little effect on your FPS forgive me if im wrong 
might there be any programs that help smooth out the FPS, i recently reached 150 dwarfs at my fort and wish with all my heart that they would move a tad faster. (incase of lack of fps useless bee keeping dwarves shall be given a one way fun time dive into my "=+!!DOOM PIT!!+="

[Oaktree]

My idler/low skill dwarves are generally given engraver and set to smoothing sections of the fort to make it look nice and/or prep it for the high-skill engravers to work on later.  If I have a project going building walls, etc. a lot get given mason to work on that, or mechanic to link up things, etc.

I also have just about every dwarf assigned to a militia squad so that instead of idling they go do combat drills.  Most of the squads are made just for that, they do not have active training schedules.  That way all the civies end up eventually with a few levels of weapon training, some dodge, and hopefully some shield skill.  This makes them better able to defend themselves (or run away) if ambushed, and also easier to incorporate into the military units as replacements.  And since they are not partying and sitting around they don't develop as many friendships.