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[tolkafox]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I know about the orders menu.  But flipping that switch brings micromanagement problems of it's own.  If something dies actually outside, then you have to manually stop your dwarves from running out to grab corpses.  (The UI fix for that would be simple -- we just need a way to override the games determination of inside/outside for Orders purposes.  It would fit nicely under the burrows menu.)

Burrows, m-a-v-v-v-enter. 6 presses. You can also assign which dwarves pick up dead animals through their labors, and the above suggestion.

I'm concerned that with two valid stockpiles at once, dwarves may haul single crafts to the wrong one.  Only full bins (and possibly one partial per caravan) should make the long haul.

They'll haul to the closest stockpile unless it's full. This includes vertical direction.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

To consolidate them so that empty bins can be returned to general use.  I sell off the cheapest crafts first so I have a concentrated supply of value remaining if I want to splurge next caravan.  So post-sale many bins could be partially full.
Also I need to forbid them all to prevent them from being long-hauled back to the workshop's consolidation pile.  (The pile I'm deliberately hauling to is next door.) If they are pulled out of the depot it's easy to use d-b-f to do that.

It's still a waste of dwarf time and your time. You can set up a stockpile to accept certain quality crafts, setting two up next to your workshop so that one accepts low grade crafts and the other accepts high grade crafts solves impartial bins. Forethought and planning trumps any other methods.

Toady did add a filter for the units list if I remember correctly. Awesome.

New discussion! Is footkerchief human? I'm under the assumption that we are dealing with a cyborg, and if not that then a full blown AI.
Or maybe an alien. A cyborg alien.

[Michael]

Burrows, m-a-v-v-v-enter. 6 presses. You can also assign which dwarves pick up dead animals through their labors, and the above suggestion.

There's no 'm' suboption under burrows... Oh, you mean defining my own all-indoors burrow (using many keypresses you aren't counting), turning off all Orders restrictions, and then using Military restrictions to emulate those disabled Orders.

That's still inferior to a way to edit the intrinsic "Indoor" pseudo-burrow.  It's already correct for nearly all tiles -- it just needs a few small changes.  Using a regular burrow means keeping it up to date with fortress growth.

[Sutremaine]

You don't need to update the 'indoors' burrow as the fortress expands. Start by selecting the whole map, all the way from top to bottom, and then remove the areas that aren't safe. The burrow designation will be on all the areas that haven't been mined yet, you just can't see them because everything about the tile is hidden. You'll have to sort out cavern spaces yourself, but I'm not sure there would be a way to automate that (maybe use presence of plants and trees to separate fortress-underground from cavern-underground?).

This is for the most part a one-time thing. If you start with a small palisade and then wish to expand at ground level you'll need to expand the burrow to cover the tiles you wish to make part of the fortress, but the old 'Indoors' pseudo-burrow wouldn't help you here either.

[MrWiggles]

As for the orders/refuse/outside concern, I once tried putting a butcher and tanner in a quarry -- at the level of the rest of the workshops but open to the sky to prevent miasma. (Within a fenced-in area, of course).  Butchering didn't work properly as a result, because the dwarves considered many of the products to be untouchable "outside" refuse.

This is something, that can't really be fixed by the game. As its a matter of intent, and no game can really judge your intent within it.

Thats something, you're going to have respect, how DF internal logic works. Ergo, things on tiles marked as outside, are outside, even if the tiles are exposed to the outside, due to a sun roof, or intentionally open pit.

[Michael]

As for the orders/refuse/outside concern, I once tried putting a butcher and tanner in a quarry -- at the level of the rest of the workshops but open to the sky to prevent miasma. (Within a fenced-in area, of course).  Butchering didn't work properly as a result, because the dwarves considered many of the products to be untouchable "outside" refuse.

This is something, that can't really be fixed by the game. As its a matter of intent, and no game can really judge your intent within it.

It may not be fixable on a purely automated basis, but allowing the heuristic of sky exposure to be overridden for specific small areas would improve playability a lot.  It would also still be an improvement over defining an "indoor" burrow entirely by hand.

[Urist Imiknorris]

It would also still be an improvement over defining an "indoor" burrow entirely by hand.

But that's incredibly trivial. Burrow designations work over multiple levels and hidden tiles are flagged as part of the burrow too, so you can just designate the entire map under the surface and be done.

[MrWiggles]

As for the orders/refuse/outside concern, I once tried putting a butcher and tanner in a quarry -- at the level of the rest of the workshops but open to the sky to prevent miasma. (Within a fenced-in area, of course).  Butchering didn't work properly as a result, because the dwarves considered many of the products to be untouchable "outside" refuse.

This is something, that can't really be fixed by the game. As its a matter of intent, and no game can really judge your intent within it.

It may not be fixable on a purely automated basis, but allowing the heuristic of sky exposure to be overridden for specific small areas would improve playability a lot.  It would also still be an improvement over defining an "indoor" burrow entirely by hand.

Respect the game. Make sun roofs.

[Murphy]

1. Constructing:
Why do I have to scroll through 5 pages of materials and select the one I want for EVERY SINGLE wall or floor designation!? And again, and again, and again as if it couldn't just remember the last materials used... This is tens of keypresses wasted for every designation and for me is the worst thing in the current UI.

Just press Shift-Enter and it will build the whole designation with the same material.

[UristMcFan]

1. Constructing:
Why do I have to scroll through 5 pages of materials and select the one I want for EVERY SINGLE wall or floor designation!? And again, and again, and again as if it couldn't just remember the last materials used... This is tens of keypresses wasted for every designation and for me is the worst thing in the current UI.

Just press Shift-Enter and it will build the whole designation with the same material.

Shift-Enter. I did not know you could do that. And I once built a tower above ground.

This is a bad as the day I learnt that you can dump multiple objects at a time.

[Rafal99]

1. Constructing:
Why do I have to scroll through 5 pages of materials and select the one I want for EVERY SINGLE wall or floor designation!? And again, and again, and again as if it couldn't just remember the last materials used... This is tens of keypresses wasted for every designation and for me is the worst thing in the current UI.

Just press Shift-Enter and it will build the whole designation with the same material.

Have you actually read my post? This is not what I was writing about.
With the next designation you need to browse the whole list of materials again to find the same material. And if you want a chessboard patern in your dining room you need a lot of designations. And while pressing 'f' then 'Enter' for each floor is not a problem, wasting tens of keypresses to find the material is.

[Brackev]

Try this.  Make 1 pile of one kind of stone you want for the checkerbaord.  Make another pile of the other stone for it.  After dwarves fill up those piles (make them big enough to hold stones for the full job) you will find that the two stones you want for your dining room are the first two on the list.

[Rafal99]

In many situations this won't work. For example when there are other materials stockpiled 1 z-level below. Or if your contruction is big or long enough (like the castle wall for example) that you can't make one stockpile that is always closest.

Also my point is that lack of such simple thing as remembering the last used material makes the constructing anything a much more tedious task. It is a major flaw of the UI. There are complex ways to workaround it but this is not the point.

[MrWiggles]

You can filter out materiels for constructions jobs. Then press shift enter to keep selecting the same materiel.

And the checker board, as your example, be it arbitrary, isn't as many key strokes as it looks like.

Mark out the first block, then go through it, and make the checker board pattern, by canceling those construction jobs. Then for the alternative set, just mark over the area, like the first block, and it'll fill in all the wholes.
----
I do something similar all the time for my dining room. One checker board for food, and one checker board for drink.

[tolkafox]

In many situations this won't work. For example when there are other materials stockpiled 1 z-level below. Or if your contruction is big or long enough (like the castle wall for example) that you can't make one stockpile that is always closest.

Also my point is that lack of such simple thing as remembering the last used material makes the constructing anything a much more tedious task. It is a major flaw of the UI. There are complex ways to workaround it but this is not the point.

Use the stocks screens to remove all materials that you aren't planning on using, mind you this will also forbid any workshops made of the same materials. That can be worked around by building workshops out of blocks. Then the above suggestion of designating the entire floor, removing the tiles for a checkerboard, etc.

This probably doesn't work for everyone, but my workshops have to be built of out marble or microline blocks.

DF community: Finding workarounds for problems since 2006.

[Rafal99]

Ehm, guys...

It is a major flaw of the UI. There are complex ways to workaround it but this is not the point.

And I know all these workarounds already.
Every single fortress I make ends with some big construction project so I had a chance to try many different ways. And all of them have major flaws. Since the discussinon went that way, I will point them out:

And the checker board, as your example, be it arbitrary, isn't as many key strokes as it looks like.

Mark out the first block, then go through it, and make the checker board pattern, by canceling those construction jobs.

Problem here is when you use some rare material and don't have 2x too much of it to make the whole designation.
But generally it is a good approach, I use it when possible.

Then for the alternative set, just mark over the area, like the first block, and it'll fill in all the wholes.

It won't let you place a construction designation if some of the tiles are occupied. So it won't fill the holes. It will say "Construction present" in red, tried it just now. It is another flaw of the UI btw.

Use the stocks screens to remove all materials that you aren't planning on using, mind you this will also forbid any workshops made of the same materials. That can be worked around by building workshops out of blocks.

This is a no-go. Yeah I build all workshops out of blocks too. But the list of costruction materials includes all logs, stones, blocks, metal bars, coal, soap etc. You will have to forbid all except the one you are using. This will stop all queued jobs involving carpentry, masonry, crafting, wood burning, smithing, smelting etc. It will also stop all hauling of these material and make dwarves drop them on the way. And now THE WORST: It will cancel all your designated constructions using these material! Not immediately but when the dwarf gets the corresponding job you will get: "<Dwarf> cancels construct <object>: Job item lost or misplaced".


Workarounds for the workarounds anyone?