(( 15th Sandstone in the 258th year of the Mythic Age: Amor and Indigo visit Virtue ))
The Autumn morning sun illuminates the central dormitory. The room in south-western corner belongs to Indigo. Its door opens and a pair of unicorns leave yawning. They walk up the stairway to get a decent overview of Dawnpick from the roof. As the ponies go to their work, Amor and Indigo admire the sight, they rarely ever observe. Amor yawns again, from sharing Indigo's exploits throughout much of last night and this morning. Indigo made an appointment with the Baroness today, but they ate breakfast first. "Alright, let's do this." says Indigo, and they go to see Virtue. They knock, enter the keep and greet her. Amor held mixed feelings about seeing Virtue again; but since Indigo was using some of her proposals, it was for the best.
Virtue turns to face them from the things she was organizing. Indigo and Amor?
This... probably isn't going to be a pleasant conversation. "Oh, um, hello, you two. How can I help you?"
Indigo casts a short look at Amor and speaks. "Let me begin," he turns to Virtue.
How best to start this? "As you know...
Some ponies' time is more important than others'... No, let me rephrase that, using an example. A master and an apprentice mason can both go fetch some blocks for a wall in about the same time, but the master can build the wall much faster, and that's not even getting into the quality. If the master focuses on building and the apprentice just fetches him blocks, both the total sum of work done and the quality increase..."
(( "As you know" is the polite form of "I don't know, if you know." ))
This has taken an interesting direction. Virtue nods slowly, unsure of quite where this was going. She can't see an accusation about anypony coming of it at least. Actually, maybe she can. Is he going to suggest that she demote somepony? Is this somehow related to Stiletto again?
Indigo stops to see, if Virtue is following him so far and upon seeing her expression asks. "Excuse me, has something happened? You look sick."
She perks up and shakes the daydream from her head. "Oh, no, sorry, I'm fine. I think I follow you so far."
"Alright then..." Indigo opens his saddlebag, pulls out a stack of papers made into a book and puts it on Virtue's desk. "I did this in my spare time and evenings and double-checked it with Amor. I think you'll find it interesting." As Virtue looks at the papers before her, her guests wait.
Virtue gives the cover a quick glance, noting the title of "Notes on placement and management of stockpiles, workshops and the allocation of labour as well as economy of work" by Indigo Swiftdined. She flips a few pages filled with notes, rectangles, arrows and numbers. This is all quite comprehensive, and she is impressed by the effort put into it.
"We're still here, if you want to ask us something." says Indigo. "And those are just some suggestions, team leaders should look over them and approve, if this is going to be put to use."
Every glance of Virtue's eyes makes Amor's stomach tie itself in knots and makes her guts feel tighter, but the mare hides the sickening feeling well. Worse yet, this meeting feels akin to a reverse interrogation. Indigo is the interrogator, but instead of extracting information, the stallion is feeding it.
Old Master would like him, thinks the unicorn mare. She occasionally points out ideas, that she helped the most on, but she is mostly silent, not to steal her friend's spotlight.
After taking a moment to look through the suggestions, Virtue calms down considerably. She feels a bit guilty of expecting trouble now. "Oh, yes, um... let's see..." These notes are well organised and detail various improvements to crucial industries of Dawnpick. Much of it is about some general principles of saving space, which will come in handy, whenever Dawnpick grows. The key industries have schematics on how to place workshops and stockpiles with several variants, and the trade-offs between them. There are even some notes about refuse and something about a trash compactor (no schematics provided, though).
The three of them spend the next several hours looking at the notes.
Amor proposes a watchtower close to the gate and presents a floor plan for it. When they are done, the two masons say their goodbyes and leave for lunch. This time Amor eats instead of filling her whole day with work. In the afternoon they go to their daily tasks.
When the two leave, Virtue tucks the notes away into her drawer and decides to give them a more thorough look the next morning. She feels more than a bit relieved that there was nothing else to the meeting. Maybe all of the trouble really is behind them. And all of the information looks good, and she would try to put it to use soon.
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(( I used the 261 save to make screenshots, so some things are outdated. While the conversation above happened in 258, Indigo and Amor continued to make suggestions and updates to previous suggestions in-RP. To make them sound better in-RP I'd have to add some fluff to them and make them more muddy. Therefore assume, that while the suggestions were similar, in-RP they were worded differently. Even doing this took me over a month, so I just publish it as is, without trying to make it as good as possible. ))
First Rule: Distance from any workshop to input stockpiles is important, while distance to output stockpiles much less so. Therefore input stockpiles should be as close to related workshops as possible. This is because craftsponies fetch their own materials to workshop, while haulers refill stockpiles and carry away produce.
Second Rule: Stockpiles are made so that they can be walked through. This means completely surrounding a workshop by stockpile is a good idea. It also saves much space. Therefore something like this is desirable: (W - workshop, p - stockpile with input for that workshop).
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pppppppThird Rule: Work time of specialists counts, so let the haulers do their jobs.
Note: Clutter starts at 15 large items (furniture, stones, meals) or 45 crafts. It is important only for abattoir and if there is no room in output stockpiles. This is not meant as an excuse to put related workshops on the other sides of the camp and, for example, smelters should still be reasonably close to the forges. These rules are meant just as a pointer to what should be prioritized: putting input stockpiles close to workshops. While work time of specialists is about a factor of magnitude more important than hauler time, you should optimise for both in the end.
Note Stockpiles using bins or barrels are filled top to bottom and left to right. Therefore it is best to have your workshop close to the NW (upper left) corner of such a stockpile.
Metal Industry:
Metalsmith's forge: Place between charcoal and metal bar stockpiles.
Smelter: Uses pig iron/iron; charcoal; flux; iron ore stockpiles.
Wood furnace: Inside the main wood stockpile, obviously.
The fuel stockpile is between smelters and forges, because both use fuel for each job, and this way it is close to both types of workshops without creating two separate fuel stockpiles. 1 tile wide and directly adjacent to both forges and smelters would be best, I think.
The Flux and iron ore stockpiles should be 2-wide and without the 1-wide gaps.
The metal bars stockpile easily overflows, so maybe it should be bigger.
The 2 3-tile iron and pig iron stockpiles are there to accelerate the production of steel.
Unless you want to make thousands of steel bars, all these optimisations, except a plant stockpile next to wood painting workshops and a much bigger wood stockpile, matter little at this point.
Food Industry: 
I would place the butcher outdoors, together with tannery and surrounded by a refuse pile, accepting only corpses and body parts (It only accepts corpses of untamed non-sentient animals, so for fine-tuning you may want to disable diamond dogs and badger ponies). At the very least expand the refuse stockpile next to the butcher and change its settings to only accept corpses and body parts. Keeping all of this outdoors wouldn't produce miasma, but the distance to food stockpile would increase.
Kitchens: They are reasonably close to other stuff, and you have too much food anyway, so not much to improve here.
Carrot, celery and star stalk stockpile could be next to the kitchens as those plants are processed.
Maybe put liquid (royal jelly, dwarven syrup) stockpile next to the kitchens too. Or just add royal jelly to the stockpile with items to d->b->d->atom smash.
Bakery: place next to kitchen and experiment with making various breads and cakes. You need flour, booze and oil/tallow. Eggs and sugar and syrup are useful for more advanced recipes. I don't see royal jelly being used for cake. On the plus side: bread and cake is treated as cheese and the bakery allows to make cheese figurines and statues. Therefore you can make a cake statue, which is funny! I think it works by first making dough and then baking bread or making it into a statue or figurine. In either case, worth trying out.
Millstone (or Quern, but Millstone is preferred.) It could use a Bag stockpile and Plant stockpile with: Blade weed, Cave wheat, Dimple cup, Hide root, Longland grass, Rock nut (optional), Sliver barb, Sweet pod (optional, better put it close to farmer's workshop), Whip vine and a dozen of plants introduced with wood painting workshop.
Screw press: Jug stockpile (finished goods) and Honeycomb + Rock nut paste stockpile.
Stills: Barrel and pot stockpile, honey and brewable plant stockpile (Honey, Plump helmet, Pig tail, Cave wheat, Sweet pod, Muck root, Bloated tuber, Prickle berry, Wild strawberry, Longland grass, Rat weed, Fisher berry, Rope reed, Sliver barb, Sun berry, Whip vine, ...)
Farms: Add 1-tile stockpiles for seeds of whatever you plant in that plot.
Disable cooking booze. Enable cooking carrot seeds or atom smash them or something.
Farmer's workshop: Have 1 or 2 of those. Place them inside the pasture, and surround it with a plant stockpile with: pig tail, rope reed, quarry bush, milk, wool, yarn.
Give it another stockpile with bags (used for quarry bushes) and barrels (used for sweet pods), if needed. (You don't farm these crops, so they can only turn up by plant gathering in the caverns.)
Orchard workshop: Obviously place inside the pasture as well.
Place the butter making workshop near the farmer one, and close to milk stockpile.
Fishery: Currently not needed as there are no fish, but to the left of the dining hall, surrounded with raw fish stockpile would be good.
Other workshops with high or medium throughput: 
I moved all the finished goods into the central stockpile, added another floor over it for half-products (thread, cloth, dye, leather, gems) and put workshops on the roof. I also added extra doors and staircases to the warehouses.
Carpenter: place inside the central wood stockpile, together with 2 or 3 wood burners.
Clothier: place on top of the main warehouse. Make the top level stockpile the only one to accept cloth and not accept finished goods.
Dyer's workshop: place on top of warehouse, along with Clothier, and enable dye in the topmost stockpile. (Indigo makes these suggestions and he is a Dyer and wanted one of those for years.)
Leather's workshop: place on top of the warehouse, make only the top stockpile accept leather.
Loom: Either on top of the main stockpile OR close to it. On top is good for plant fibre, but bad for spider silk. Not that we use a lot of spider silk.
Mason and Mechanic: inside the main stone stockpile, obviously. Consider disabling marble as economic stone and using that instead of normal stone.
Craftpony's workshop: Build 2 of them close by, surround with stone stockpile and bone (refuse stockpile, but only bone allowed) stockpile. Optionally add a small wood stockpile. This will make making stone pots as well as crossbow bolts faster.
Jeweller: only one is needed. Surround with a stockpile for both cut and uncut gems. I use gems to encrust furniture and place a stockpile for high quality furniture (that takes from all other stockpiles) accepting only beds, chairs, tables, and whatever else I need, but not barrels, bins and the like.
Alternative: Move gems to the central stockpile and jeweller to the roof, but if you want to encrust furniture with gems this is worse.
Glass Furnace: Needs four stockpiles: bags; sand; fuel; glass.
Wood painting workshop: Surrounded by 2-wide stockpile with all plentiful plants (carrots, berries, whatever).
Out of the way workshops:These are hardly ever used, so it is fine to place them somewhere where they won't get in the way, disregarding efficiency.
Ashery and Soap maker: together, surround with lye and ash stockpiles. Since it is too time-consuming to separate tallow from fat, keep all your tallow and fat close to the kitchens.
Bowyer: put a small wood stockpile close OR place it not far from craftponies' workshops, so it uses the same wood and bone piles.
Siege: This is barely used at all, move it out of the way. It only uses wood and balista arrowheads if you want to give it a stockpile. Stockpile for finished balista arrows should be close to a balista, if any.
Kiln: I don't think you do much with it, but close to the glass furnace would be good.
Kennel: Good to have, even if you hardly ever use it.
A stockpile for shells: a few are good to have for moods. Maybe skulls, horns and ivory too, but shells should be enough.
Handling refuse:Default refuse stockpiles don't work well, especially as small as those close to your butcher's shop. Some things categorised as refuse are corpses to be processed by butcher, some are half-products and some are useless and only take up space. Worse yet, cartilage doesn't rot and can completely clog a refuse stockpile. It is therefore prudent to sort refuse into different stockpiles.
Butcherable: Corpses, body parts and skeletons of wild animals. A good approximation is all corpses and body parts. This should be next to the butcher's shop. If you have a tannery nearby (highly recommended) add raw hide to this pile. Only corpses and skeletons of wild animals will be processed. Everything sentient will just lie there, rotting.
Meat, fat, organs -> food stockpile close to the kitchens.
Bones -> Craftpony's workshop, make bolts for crossbows on repeat.
Skin (Raw hide) -> Tanner close to the butcher.
Wool -> Spin into yarn by farmer's workshop.
Get rid of those(D) Hair -> Thread, but can only be used in the hospital.
(D) Skull -> Totem, but obsoleted by other industries.
(D) Cartilage, Nervous tissue, Feather, Scale, Chitin -> nothing
(D) Vermin remains: rot by themselves, but with almost no cats and no order to gather vermin refuse, these can be ignored.
(D) Horn, Hoof, Teeth, and other such items,
except bones and shells.
Mist generator / pony auto shower.Use wooden parts to make water pumps. This is much faster and cheaper than green glass.
Move exit from the dodge-me trap, see SCREEN with z-1! Second water reactor is unnecessary, but see how I make them. Place social zones over and under the 4 grates, it will make ponies train swimming. You'll have to turn one of those social zones into a pond until you'll have 7/7 water. Grate over the area around well, otherwise the well is going to be full of dropped buckets.
In-RP the design is provided by Flux.
Miscellaneous. Small, specialised stockpiles, vs bigger, generalised ones. Small, specialised stockpiles have two benefits: Firstly, it is easy to see at a glance, how much of something is available. Secondly, they will never have only one type of needed resource to the exclusion of everything else.
Bigger stockpiles have the benefit of wasting less space. For example if you have 3 input stockpiles for some workshops, one may be full, while two others have a lot of empty space.
A hybrid solution is possible, where workshop has a big pile with all its inputs enabled, while surrounded by smaller piles with all types of commonly used items. This has the downside of being more complex, less FPS-friendly and wasting some space. It is also only possible to implement correctly with 0.34.08+ version, where stockpiles can give items to more than one stockpile.
Building a wall can go faster with a temporary stockpile of stone or wood or blocks. That way haulers do most of the work and masons don't have to go as far to fetch building materials.
GZ on building a room around the trash compactor. It is much safer that way.
Moving the armoury to the second story, next to the gym, would free up some more space in the barracks.
Smooth much more of the iron mine. 5k tiles or something like that.
Pasture should encompass the workshops.
Dodge-me trap is still connected to the mines, leading into your fort. Fix it.
Workshop profiles are unused. This is good for training mechanics, masons and carpenters and bad for getting low quality items.
Psalms says: It appears that everything is in order, but Telgin has been telling me that 'Oil Mace-pony' has been getting trapped around the bee hives. I experienced this too and at the oddest times too and because of this randomness, it makes it hard to fix. All I can suggest is making sure that the hives are away from trees and buildings.
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Topic: Dawnpick (My Little Fortress) (Read 236448 times)