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Author Topic: Do bins have a memory?  (Read 861 times)

treczoks

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Do bins have a memory?
« on: December 02, 2011, 04:29:01 pm »

Fellow dwarfherders,

Sounds strange, but sometimes I've got the impression that bins have a memory. At least they somehow "remember" which kind of stockpile they were once in.

I stumbled across this when I noticed that UristMcPorter grabbed a fresh iron bar at a magma smelter. Instead of dumping it in the iron bar stockpile right next to him, he ran to the main staircase an vanished upstairs. Following other bars taking the same mysterious path, I found them in a newly set bin in a furniture stockpile. The bin might just have been in the iron stockpile before, as I had just emptied out the pile by making pig iron and steel.

This is not the first time that my bars took a wide detour - this happened in other fortresses, too, but here I have at least a lead that it might be connected to the bins' last pile.

Is this a known "unintended feature"? ;-)

Yours, Christian

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Quietust

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Re: Do bins have a memory?
« Reply #1 on: December 02, 2011, 04:54:02 pm »

Yes - bins (and barrels) keep track of the stockpile to which they are assigned - if you look at the item's name, you'll see a "<#NNN>" at the end which indicates the stockpile number. When a container gets assigned to a stockpile, dwarves will immediately start storing items in it, even before the container itself gets hauled to the stockpile; when somebody eventually gets around to hauling the container to the stockpile, any active jobs to store items in said container will cancel with "Job item misplaced".
« Last Edit: December 02, 2011, 04:56:23 pm by Quietust »
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Garath

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Re: Do bins have a memory?
« Reply #2 on: December 02, 2011, 05:25:13 pm »

funny, i saw this happening quite often, but i just assumed my people were lacking in intelligence
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peskyninja

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Re: Do bins have a memory?
« Reply #3 on: December 02, 2011, 05:29:13 pm »

But they do lack of inteligence...
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SannaSK

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Re: Do bins have a memory?
« Reply #4 on: December 03, 2011, 12:19:48 am »

Yes - bins (and barrels) keep track of the stockpile to which they are assigned - if you look at the item's name, you'll see a "<#NNN>" at the end which indicates the stockpile number. When a container gets assigned to a stockpile, dwarves will immediately start storing items in it, even before the container itself gets hauled to the stockpile; when somebody eventually gets around to hauling the container to the stockpile, any active jobs to store items in said container will cancel with "Job item misplaced".

I have WONDERED what the <#19> was about! Now I know! : D
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treczoks

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Re: Do bins have a memory?
« Reply #5 on: December 03, 2011, 07:50:25 am »

Yes - bins (and barrels) keep track of the stockpile to which they are assigned - if you look at the item's name, you'll see a "<#NNN>" at the end which indicates the stockpile number. When a container gets assigned to a stockpile, dwarves will immediately start storing items in it, even before the container itself gets hauled to the stockpile; when somebody eventually gets around to hauling the container to the stockpile, any active jobs to store items in said container will cancel with "Job item misplaced".
Thanks for the insight! One learns something new every day.
So apart from the point that the dorfs hauled the iron about ~60z upstairs just to move it back down again in the bin (A bin full of iron bars ~60z down again? Urist McHauler will be die of starvation on that long, slow journey!), I don't need to worry that the iron will be lost. It will only arrive a few seasons later...
I just found a few bins of steel bars in the "uncut gems" stockpile. ARGH!
NOTE TO SELF: Whenever splitting a big, wild bar pile into separate, sorted piles, have a lot of spare bins at the ready.
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I fall into a strange mood. I withdraw from society. I claim a computer. I draw pictures of bedrooms. I draw pictures of farming levels. I draw pictures of defenses. I draw pictures of pipes and pumps. I start playing Dwarf Fortress!