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Author Topic: sand collection cancellation  (Read 1813 times)

Fedor

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sand collection cancellation
« on: May 20, 2008, 05:04:00 am »

Problem: I'm getting an inordinate number of sand collection cancellation messages and almost no sand.

Observations: Haulers are tasked to fill bags of sand. Before completion, the message "item lost or destroyed" message appears and the job is canceled. On at least some occasions, this cancellation happens when the hauler actually has a bag in his hands and is on top of sand designated as a sand-collection area.

(this bug may or may not have been reported already, but I didn't see it on the known bug list so decided to (re?)submit it)

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Fedor Andreev is a citizen of the Federated Endeavor. He is a member of the Wandering Minds.

Samyotix

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Re: sand collection cancellation
« Reply #1 on: May 20, 2008, 12:39:00 pm »

Erm. You do have a furniture stockpile set to accept sand bags?
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Derakon

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Re: sand collection cancellation
« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2008, 02:03:00 pm »

quote:
Originally posted by Samyotix:
<STRONG>Erm. You do have a furniture stockpile set to accept sand bags?</STRONG>
He doesn't need one. When dwarves finish collecting sand, they'll just drop the bags where they are. If there is such a stockpile, then it'll generate a task to take the bag to the stockpile, which must be completed before the sand bag can be used at the glassworks, but otherwise your glassmaker will just go to the sand collection area, pick up one of the bags lying there, and take it to his workshop.
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Toady One

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Re: sand collection cancellation
« Reply #3 on: May 21, 2008, 09:50:00 pm »

I've downloaded it from the DFFD and I'll take a look at it.  Do you know if the bags were surviving the process?  That's the only job item there is for it to think about.
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Fedor

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Re: sand collection cancellation
« Reply #4 on: May 22, 2008, 06:13:00 pm »

quote:
Originally posted by Toady One:
<STRONG>I've downloaded it from the DFFD and I'll take a look at it.  Do you know if the bags were surviving the process?  That's the only job item there is for it to think about.</STRONG>
I played a bit more with it, and it appears that the bags always survive.  Some get loaded with sand, most get canceled, but they always survive.


Other comments from this savegame:
* Shirts and other civilian torso-coverings should not be in the "armor" category for stockpiling and trade purposes.
* Remains and rotting things should be high-priority refuse tasks, to cut down on miasma (requested before, but this savefile clearly shows the ill effects of even a single cat).
* I am making and melting buckets to train up a blacksmith, exploiting an oddity in metal requirements versus melt returns.  One vote for all furniture except statues to use either one or two bars and consistently melt for a given fraction of what they require.
* This savefile recently suffered a noticeable FPS slowdown with no additional (visible) units in play, about the time I started to shift the fortress underground.  Analysis of what factors are imposing the greatest load on the CPU on this or another savefile would help people revise the wiki page on maximizing framerate with more effective advice, prioritized by importance.  At present, we're more-or-less stumbling in the dark.
* Workshop cluttering is one of the bigger sources of unnecessary micromanagement in this particular game.
* Neither herbs nor trees are growing in the attempted gardens in the limestone tower at z-level 151, despite the ground not being disturbed for a long time.  They are also growing too slowly in the excavated area west of the limestone tower.
* This savefile clearly shows the (known) problem with seeds and bags, with bags holding anything from dozens to a single seed, taking up many more bags and  much more stockpile space to store than is reasonable.

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Neonivek

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Re: sand collection cancellation
« Reply #5 on: May 22, 2008, 08:03:00 pm »

"* Neither herbs nor trees are growing in the attempted gardens in the limestone tower at z-level 151, despite the ground not being disturbed for a long time. They are also growing too slowly in the excavated area west of the limestone tower"

I have a theory on this because I am having similar problems.

Simply speaking you hit a cap, I also believe the cap can start lower then the cap, and all the plants are in fact growing/grown elsewhere.

Animals can annoyingly do this too... spawning in inaccessable parts of the map where until they are kill you will receive no wildlife. (CURSE YOU TWO HUMPED CAMELS!!!)

Trying cutting down trees and harvesting plants at other sides of the map and see if your Herb and tree harden springs to life.

[ May 22, 2008: Message edited by: Neonivek ]

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Draco18s

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Re: sand collection cancellation
« Reply #6 on: May 22, 2008, 09:20:00 pm »

quote:
Originally posted by Neonivek:
<STRONG>the cap can start lower then the cap</STRONG>

X is less than X, but not equal to?

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Neonivek

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Re: sand collection cancellation
« Reply #7 on: May 22, 2008, 11:11:00 pm »

What I mean is... the cap can start at 100... but there could be like 200 trees or something.

I don't know the exact science but trees slowly stopped growing (though not all together) in my cleared out area and is very thick in areas they are not

[ May 23, 2008: Message edited by: Neonivek ]

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FunnyMan

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Re: sand collection cancellation
« Reply #8 on: May 23, 2008, 09:43:00 am »

Actually, all vegetation runs on a water system.  Each area of land has a certain amount of water available, and the vegetation claims what it needs when it spawns.  So if you've got a ton of harvestable plants, you'll get few/no trees, because the water's already in use.  Not sure if this applies to grass as well, but it seems likely.

Edit: Which, for you, means that if you keep clearing the trees but not the plants, the area will get clogged with plants and have no trees.

[ May 23, 2008: Message edited by: FunnyMan ]

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Neonivek

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Re: sand collection cancellation
« Reply #9 on: May 23, 2008, 09:55:00 am »

Yep so I was right... there is a Cap
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Fedor

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Re: sand collection cancellation
« Reply #10 on: May 23, 2008, 07:39:00 pm »

quote:
Originally posted by FunnyMan:
<STRONG>Actually, all vegetation runs on a water system.  Each area of land has a certain amount of water available, and the vegetation claims what it needs when it spawns.  So if you've got a ton of harvestable plants, you'll get few/no trees, because the water's already in use.  Not sure if this applies to grass as well, but it seems likely.

Edit: Which, for you, means that if you keep clearing the trees but not the plants, the area will get clogged with plants and have no trees.</STRONG>


That's hugely interesting!  Do you have a source for this?  Not that have any reason to doubt you, mind, but it is surprising and I've never heard ToadyOne mention such a thing...

[ May 23, 2008: Message edited by: Fedor ]

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Derakon

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Re: sand collection cancellation
« Reply #11 on: May 23, 2008, 08:50:00 pm »

Toady's made reference to the water table before when spawning trees, but I don't know exactly how the simulation works.
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StormDragoness

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Re: sand collection cancellation
« Reply #12 on: May 30, 2008, 09:16:00 am »

I've noticed this, I had a glass furnace on top of sand, and thus alternating repeating orders in the furnace.

The glassblower would recycle the bag he was using while doing the job, but I thought I noticed someone coming along and stuffing a seed in the bag, invalidating it as a valid sand bag.

The problem does not happen if you have adequate bags to contain all the seeds, but honestly, I would like to the ability to reserve bags, similar to how we can reserve bins ( what use do they have in reserve anyway? ) but instead reserve bags, since there are actually jobs that use those.

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