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Dwarf Fortress => DF Dwarf Mode Discussion => Topic started by: Psilobe on November 28, 2011, 07:20:15 pm

Title: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Psilobe on November 28, 2011, 07:20:15 pm
Up untill now I've based my forts survival on the basics when it comes to eating. I start a plump helmet farm and just expand when I need, a simple destillery or two for constant booze, nothing fancy. At times I butcher an animal for bones or leather and get some meat also but I wish to give my dwarfs the very best. I usually come to a point thou where I just buy all the meat, fish, cheese and booze merchants bring to complement my own production but I wish to grow my understanding of the food industry completely.

What are the simplest ways to set up the different industries and what does it require to grow differnet crops?  How do you set it up for yourself?
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 28, 2011, 07:36:13 pm
Well, you have your starting crops? Just grow different ones, and check in your (z) (kitchen) screen, and make sure you're brewing your crops (to get more seeds of course!). Also, turn off cooking unless you want to get rid of seeds.
To get more crops, (d) (p) is the command for you! Your dwarves will then proceed to gather random herbs, fruits and a myriad assortment of crops and once seeds are available, begin farming.
(Different plants can be found above ground, through trade and in caverns.).

Cooking all of your meat into at least easy meals is also a direct necessity for large forts, keeps dwarves happy and keeps food from rotting!
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Broseph Stalin on November 28, 2011, 07:43:24 pm
There are two kinds of farms, above ground and underground you can grow different crops above ground than you can below. If you didn't embark with seeds don't worry just use D->P to gather plants and then begin making booze. After this you'll have seeds that can be used to grow that plant for food and booze production. Different crops grow different seasons and in different climates make sure you plan your harvests so that you don't have a massive pile of one flavor of booze that bores the pants off your dudes.

As for raising animals just get a breeding pair and let them do their thing. Raise their children to adulthood and butcher the males but leave the females to breed (you'll never need more than one male but it's good to have a spare lying around in case you have too much fun.) Large animals have to be given pastures and that leads to overcrowding and mothers kicking their babies to death not to mention the fact that some can't feed themselves and some will step on grass before they can eat it, start with birds. Then you'll just need a breeding pair and a nest box, as soon as you build the nest box the female will run over to lay eggs be ready to use T-> F to forbid them as soon as they drop because your dorfs will take them to the stockpile and they won't hatch. One thing you can't get with birds is cheese, for that you need an empty bucket and a female animal that hasn't recently been milked. Use the farmers workshop to order an animal to be milked and then have that milk made into cheese.

Fishing is easy, assign fishing to a dorf and build a fishery. They'll take care of the rest. One big plus to this industry is that it's the only way to get shells. Shells come from turtles and mussels and can be used to make various crafts and decorations.

The most important thing is to remember to create prepared meals as often as possible. Dwarfs can eat most food raw but they get better thoughts from a meal made in the kitchen and prepared meals can be an excellent commodity.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Muttonhawk on November 28, 2011, 08:55:26 pm
About five turkey hens and a gobbler pastured in a coop next to your kitchen with some nest boxes is an easy way to make more prepared meals.

When they start to get old, lock the door to the coop until a clutch is hatched and butcher any extra gobblers, starting with the oldest one.

Voila! you have a poultry industry. Where minced eggs are not pointless, but a delicacy!

The best part is, poultry feeds by filtering nutrients out of the air (ergo, they don't graze). And after a while you'll have enough eggs that you don't have to be worried about brewing all the crops.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: assimilateur on November 29, 2011, 12:25:24 am
Quote from: Broseph Stalin on November 28, 2011, 07:43:24 pm
but they get better thoughts from a meal made in the kitchen

It's not quite that simple. Currently, they only get thoughts about food and drink they have a preference for, a high value is not enough.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Urist Da Vinci on November 29, 2011, 01:44:26 am
Erase your existing food stockpiles and make them like so:
- Each plant that you grow gets its own stockpile* near the still/farmer's workshop/millstone/etc.
- Alcohol stockpiles are put near the meeting area
- A prepared meals stockpile is put near the dining hall and meeting area
- Every other cookable food item (including plants that you don't grow) is put in a stockpile near the kitchen

*Each plant stockpile is sized so that you can have at most 20-25 barrels of the plant. That is about 200-250 units of plant. If you grow more plants than that, they simply wither in the fields (without producing miasma). This may seem wasteful at first, but it allows you to run farm plots at 100% without running out of barrels/pots for alcohol or other stuff. If you don't use enough plants from the stockpiles, you may run out of seeds, but that can be fixed by brewing a few plants or buying seeds from the caravan.

Your meat/egg/milk/cheese/fishing feeds into the kitchen stockpile, where it can be cooked with a variety of plant products like flour, syrup, or leaves to produce an excellent assortment of meals.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: assimilateur on November 29, 2011, 02:10:46 am
Quote from: Urist Da Vinci on November 29, 2011, 01:44:26 am
Each plant that you grow gets its own stockpile*

I've been stockpiling all the plants I intended to brew in a single stockpile, those to be milled in one, and those to be processed in one, but your suggestion makes probably even more sense if you want to be very economical, space-wise.

Regarding running out of seeds, perhaps forbidding a handful of seeds of each type would be the most hassle-free thing to do here. Or at least it would be for me, since I generally disable my caravans (by removing the relevant active season tags) when I'm done with migrants.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Lemunde on November 29, 2011, 03:00:50 am
Take special note of sweetpods. They can't be eaten raw but they can be processed into rum, syrup or sugar. The syrup and sugar make excellent ingredients for prepared meals.

If you want to be super efficient about food, take a census of what each dwarf likes, or maybe just important dwarves like nobles. Check their thoughts and preferences, bright green area. If you find several dwarves like the same thing you might consider making an industry out of it.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: assimilateur on November 29, 2011, 03:27:29 am
Quote from: Lemunde on November 29, 2011, 03:00:50 am
The syrup and sugar make excellent ingredients for prepared meals.

Syrup not so much, since .31. It used to be excellent in .28 but now dwarves are fussy about using liquid ingredients for cooking, seemingly to the point where they will only use them if nothing else is available. They also can't make meals composed only of liquid ingredients anymore.

This means that in order for your syrup to get used up you'd have to produce only miniscule amounts of solid ingredients or micromanage heavily by forbidding everything solid and only unforbidding it in amounts of 1 to 3 stacks at a time. Otherwise you're going to end up with huge amounts of unused syrup.

Accordingly, I don't produce syrup anymore except for special occasions, and I'd advise anyone to do the same.


Processed quarry bushes yield 5 items per plant, similarly to barrel-processed sweetpods (but at a lower value per item), so those are probably the next best thing when aiming for stack-size and value.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: thegoatgod_pan on November 29, 2011, 03:51:09 am
I can't believe a food industry thread hasn't brought up forgotten beasts!  The average forgotten beast (if organic and not covered in necrosis-inducing dust) is hundreds of units of meat, organs, and fat all just waiting to be made into tasty and classy roasts.  2-3 forgotten beasts will have your fort covered for years, knowing all the while you are eating a one-of-a-kind unspeakable creation.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: dr_random on November 29, 2011, 06:04:00 am
Quote from: thegoatgod_pan on November 29, 2011, 03:51:09 am
I can't believe a food industry thread hasn't brought up forgotten beasts!  The average forgotten beast (if organic and not covered in necrosis-inducing dust) is hundreds of units of meat, organs, and fat all just waiting to be made into tasty and classy roasts.  2-3 forgotten beasts will have your fort covered for years, knowing all the while you are eating a one-of-a-kind unspeakable creation.

Ugh, but they are big hulking things, oozing with poison and noxious materials. who would want to eat this?
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Sphalerite on November 29, 2011, 08:44:38 am
Quote from: assimilateur on November 29, 2011, 03:27:29 am
Syrup not so much, since .31. It used to be excellent in .28 but now dwarves are fussy about using liquid ingredients for cooking, seemingly to the point where they will only use them if nothing else is available. They also can't make meals composed only of liquid ingredients anymore.

This means that in order for your syrup to get used up you'd have to produce only miniscule amounts of solid ingredients or micromanage heavily by forbidding everything solid and only unforbidding it in amounts of 1 to 3 stacks at a time. Otherwise you're going to end up with huge amounts of unused syrup.

I keep hearing people say this, yet my dwarves are continuing to churn out syrup roasts without needing any micromanagement on my part.  I have yet to ever see piles of unusable syrup barrels either - whenever I get the message that my cooks are out of ingredients, the syrup stockpile has been emptied.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: zilpin on November 29, 2011, 08:55:56 am
Quote from: Sphalerite on November 29, 2011, 08:44:38 am
I keep hearing people say this, yet my dwarves are continuing to churn out syrup roasts without needing any micromanagement on my part.  I have yet to ever see piles of unusable syrup barrels either - whenever I get the message that my cooks are out of ingredients, the syrup stockpile has been emptied.

Same here.
I've never had a problem.

Once you have a decent stockpile of food, forbid a couple barrels as a safety margin, and cook Lavish Meals.
I only ever cook Lavish.  Keeps everyone real happy.
After year 2, you should have dog meat coming out of your ears.  With a little bit of optimized farming (hint: farm plots 7 tiles big, fertilize), a single farmer, cook, and potash maker can keep even large fortresses happy & fat.

Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: assimilateur on November 29, 2011, 09:32:15 am
Quote from: Sphalerite on November 29, 2011, 08:44:38 am
my dwarves are continuing to churn out syrup roasts without needing any micromanagement on my part.

I guess I'm going to have to test that again, this time more thoroughly.


Quote from: zilpin on November 29, 2011, 08:55:56 am
I only ever cook Lavish.  Keeps everyone real happy.

If you imply that meal value results in happy thoughts directly then that is a common misconception. It used to work this way, or at least appeared to, but currently they only get thoughts about food and drink they have a preference for. I'm repeating myself now, since I said the same in this very thread.

Of course I don't expect you to take my word for it, especially after being possibly wrong about that other thing, but this is easy to test. Look for "had a fine/wonderful/legendary/whatever meal/drink" thoughts in your dwarves' profiles and compare their preferences vs what you provide. If my recent forts have been any indication, you should notice no such thoughts unless they're accompanied by a preference for something produced locally.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Psilobe on November 29, 2011, 10:06:20 am
Quote from: Muttonhawk on November 28, 2011, 08:55:26 pm
About five turkey hens and a gobbler pastured in a coop next to your kitchen with some nest boxes is an easy way to make more prepared meals.

When they start to get old, lock the door to the coop until a clutch is hatched and butcher any extra gobblers, starting with the oldest one.

Voila! you have a poultry industry. Where minced eggs are not pointless, but a delicacy!

The best part is, poultry feeds by filtering nutrients out of the air (ergo, they don't graze). And after a while you'll have enough eggs that you don't have to be worried about brewing all the crops.

I think I will start with this idea as this seems a good compliment to my puppy kebab special I serve to my dwarfs.
Are there any non grazing animals that gives leather?


Quote from: Urist Da Vinci on November 29, 2011, 01:44:26 am
Erase your existing food stockpiles and make them like so:
- Each plant that you grow gets its own stockpile* near the still/farmer's workshop/millstone/etc.
- Alcohol stockpiles are put near the meeting area
- A prepared meals stockpile is put near the dining hall and meeting area
- Every other cookable food item (including plants that you don't grow) is put in a stockpile near the kitchen

*Each plant stockpile is sized so that you can have at most 20-25 barrels of the plant. That is about 200-250 units of plant. If you grow more plants than that, they simply wither in the fields (without producing miasma). This may seem wasteful at first, but it allows you to run farm plots at 100% without running out of barrels/pots for alcohol or other stuff. If you don't use enough plants from the stockpiles, you may run out of seeds, but that can be fixed by brewing a few plants or buying seeds from the caravan.

Your meat/egg/milk/cheese/fishing feeds into the kitchen stockpile, where it can be cooked with a variety of plant products like flour, syrup, or leaves to produce an excellent assortment of meals.

Seems like some nice organisation ideas here that I will have to try out. Any recomendations as to what crops I should start growing for something other than dwaren wine?
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Broseph Stalin on November 29, 2011, 10:11:19 am
Quote from: assimilateur on November 29, 2011, 09:32:15 am
Quote from: Sphalerite on November 29, 2011, 08:44:38 am
my dwarves are continuing to churn out syrup roasts without needing any micromanagement on my part.

I guess I'm going to have to test that again, this time more thoroughly.


Quote from: zilpin on November 29, 2011, 08:55:56 am
I only ever cook Lavish.  Keeps everyone real happy.

If you imply that meal value results in happy thoughts directly then that is a common misconception. It used to work this way, or at least appeared to, but currently they only get thoughts about food and drink they have a preference for. I'm repeating myself now, since I said the same in this very thread.

Of course I don't expect you to take my word for it, especially after being possibly wrong about that other thing, but this is easy to test. Look for "had a fine/wonderful/legendary/whatever meal/drink" thoughts in your dwarves' profiles and compare their preferences vs what you provide. If my recent forts have been any indication, you should notice no such thoughts unless they're accompanied by a preference for something produced locally.
I can actually vouch for that, my food is all stockpiled in one place so that might have something to do with it but they actually cooked all of our booze before they touched the syrup.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Lemunde on November 29, 2011, 10:44:13 am
Quote from: assimilateur on November 29, 2011, 09:32:15 am
Quote from: Sphalerite on November 29, 2011, 08:44:38 am
my dwarves are continuing to churn out syrup roasts without needing any micromanagement on my part.

I guess I'm going to have to test that again, this time more thoroughly.


Quote from: zilpin on November 29, 2011, 08:55:56 am
I only ever cook Lavish.  Keeps everyone real happy.

If you imply that meal value results in happy thoughts directly then that is a common misconception. It used to work this way, or at least appeared to, but currently they only get thoughts about food and drink they have a preference for. I'm repeating myself now, since I said the same in this very thread.

Of course I don't expect you to take my word for it, especially after being possibly wrong about that other thing, but this is easy to test. Look for "had a fine/wonderful/legendary/whatever meal/drink" thoughts in your dwarves' profiles and compare their preferences vs what you provide. If my recent forts have been any indication, you should notice no such thoughts unless they're accompanied by a preference for something produced locally.

By my understanding dwarves get a happy thought if they eat a meal that has an ingredient they like in it. Since lavish meals use more ingredients it's more likely that it will have an ingredient they like. However if you focus production on food items that many dwarves like it may be more efficient to make biscuits or just leave your food raw.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: proxn_punkd on November 29, 2011, 12:45:32 pm
Quote from: Psilobe on November 29, 2011, 10:06:20 am
Quote from: Muttonhawk on November 28, 2011, 08:55:26 pm
About five turkey hens and a gobbler pastured in a coop next to your kitchen with some nest boxes is an easy way to make more prepared meals.

When they start to get old, lock the door to the coop until a clutch is hatched and butcher any extra gobblers, starting with the oldest one.

Voila! you have a poultry industry. Where minced eggs are not pointless, but a delicacy!

The best part is, poultry feeds by filtering nutrients out of the air (ergo, they don't graze). And after a while you'll have enough eggs that you don't have to be worried about brewing all the crops.

I think I will start with this idea as this seems a good compliment to my puppy kebab special I serve to my dwarfs.
Are there any non grazing animals that gives leather?

Any animal whose size is 2000 or higher in the raws gives leather, meat, and bones in addition to a skull. Any animal whose size is smaller than 2000 typically only gives a skull when slaughtered. As a baseline, anything cat-sized or larger IRL probably gives meat, leather, and bones in DF (including cats).

Of the poultry options, ducks and guineafowl only give skulls, and all others give meat and leather. Turkeys give relatively large amounts of eggs while living and meat, bones, and leather when slaughtered, and are generally the preferred poultry.

Among grazers, sheep are usually prized; they have relatively low grazing requirements, but give milk and wool while living, and meat, leather, and bones when slaughtered. General protocol is to slaughter unwanted stray grazers as soon as they arrive or as soon as it's reasonably feasible, and pasture grazer pets until they can be disposed of without pissing off the owner too badly.

I usually stash baby non-grazer animals in a cage in the meeting areas so dwarves who like those kinds of animals can get happy thoughts: "saw a wonderful creature in a cage recently". When they mature, they are pastured or chained, examined thoroughly, and culled so the biggest/fattest/most muscular live on and breed while the smaller/skinnier/weaker ones line my dwarves' larder.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Sphalerite on November 29, 2011, 01:16:38 pm
Here's what you can get from each of the domestic animals:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

From this we can see that of the non-grazing common domestic animals, the dog has the highest yield of meat and other butchering products.  Turkeys are the best of the egg-layers.  Ducks and guineafowl are never large enough to get anything but a skull, but they go give eggs.  Rabbits and cavies are completely useless.

Water buffalo are the highest meat common domestic animal, but they're nearly impossible to keep fed.  Sheep, alpaca, and llamas are all good choices for grazing livestock, you can not only butcher them for meat but get milk, cheese, and wool from the living animals.

ETA:  On closer inspection, either geese or blue peafowl are actually superior to turkeys as sources of meat.  Turkeys take two years to reach full size, geese and peafowls only take one year, and the amount of meat you get from them appears to be the same.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Psilobe on November 29, 2011, 01:34:59 pm
Quote from: proxn_punkd on November 29, 2011, 12:45:32 pm
Quote from: Psilobe on November 29, 2011, 10:06:20 am
Quote from: Muttonhawk on November 28, 2011, 08:55:26 pm
About five turkey hens and a gobbler pastured in a coop next to your kitchen with some nest boxes is an easy way to make more prepared meals.

When they start to get old, lock the door to the coop until a clutch is hatched and butcher any extra gobblers, starting with the oldest one.

Voila! you have a poultry industry. Where minced eggs are not pointless, but a delicacy!

The best part is, poultry feeds by filtering nutrients out of the air (ergo, they don't graze). And after a while you'll have enough eggs that you don't have to be worried about brewing all the crops.

I think I will start with this idea as this seems a good compliment to my puppy kebab special I serve to my dwarfs.
Are there any non grazing animals that gives leather?

Any animal whose size is 2000 or higher in the raws gives leather, meat, and bones in addition to a skull. Any animal whose size is smaller than 2000 typically only gives a skull when slaughtered. As a baseline, anything cat-sized or larger IRL probably gives meat, leather, and bones in DF (including cats).

Of the poultry options, ducks and guineafowl only give skulls, and all others give meat and leather. Turkeys give relatively large amounts of eggs while living and meat, bones, and leather when slaughtered, and are generally the preferred poultry.

Among grazers, sheep are usually prized; they have relatively low grazing requirements, but give milk and wool while living, and meat, leather, and bones when slaughtered. General protocol is to slaughter unwanted stray grazers as soon as they arrive or as soon as it's reasonably feasible, and pasture grazer pets until they can be disposed of without pissing off the owner too badly.

I usually stash baby non-grazer animals in a cage in the meeting areas so dwarves who like those kinds of animals can get happy thoughts: "saw a wonderful creature in a cage recently". When they mature, they are pastured or chained, examined thoroughly, and culled so the biggest/fattest/most muscular live on and breed while the smaller/skinnier/weaker ones line my dwarves' larder.

Does traits like big and fat actually affect offspring? Other attributes like appearance/strength? Would it be possible to selectively breed super animals?
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Broseph Stalin on November 29, 2011, 02:16:00 pm
Quote from: Psilobe on November 29, 2011, 01:34:59 pm
Does traits like big and fat actually affect offspring? Other attributes like appearance/strength? Would it be possible to selectively breed super animals?

Yup, selective breeding has been proven to work.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: assimilateur on November 29, 2011, 08:24:04 pm
Quote from: Lemunde on November 29, 2011, 10:44:13 am
Since lavish meals use more ingredients it's more likely that it will have an ingredient they like.

No argument there, but since I'm getting the hint that many people believe that high meal value without a corresponding preference is enough for good thoughts, I feel it's sensible to point out that it doesn't work that way.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Sphalerite on November 29, 2011, 09:16:14 pm
Quote from: assimilateur on November 29, 2011, 09:32:15 am
Quote from: Sphalerite on November 29, 2011, 08:44:38 am
my dwarves are continuing to churn out syrup roasts without needing any micromanagement on my part.

I guess I'm going to have to test that again, this time more thoroughly.

Admittedly not a thorough test, but in the fortress I have running at this moment, I have a kitchen right next to a large stockpile of dwarven syrup barrels.  I butchered a yak, resulting in the usual pieces of meat and organs being generated.  When I set the 'prepare lavish meal' job to be performed, a cook grabbed a single Prepared Yak Kidney, then went and got three barrels of Dwarven Syrup to fill out the meal, despite there being many more pieces of perfectly usable yak meat and organs in the butcher stockpile.

Here's the kitchen with ingredients listed:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And here's the nearby meat stockpile:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Admittedly this is a heavily modified world, but none of the mods should affect cooking of liquid ingredients.

There may be some as yet undetermined strange priority scheme for determining which ingredients get cooked in what order that will need further science to work out.  The claim that dwarves won't touch liquid ingredients until there aren't any solid left isn't the case - at least under the conditions I was testing dwarves are willing to use nearby syrup even if there is meat usable further away.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Urist Da Vinci on November 29, 2011, 09:24:32 pm
Quote from: Psilobe on November 29, 2011, 10:06:20 am
Quote from: Muttonhawk on November 28, 2011, 08:55:26 pm
...
I think I will start with this idea as this seems a good compliment to my puppy kebab special I serve to my dwarfs.
Are there any non grazing animals that gives leather?
Quote from: Urist Da Vinci on November 29, 2011, 01:44:26 am
...
Seems like some nice organisation ideas here that I will have to try out. Any recomendations as to what crops I should start growing for something other than dwarven wine?

Cat and dog leather is easy to obtain via. domestic breeding. You already have puppies, so breed more of those and let some get older before butchering them. You need a tanner to turn the skin into leather.

Try growing ALL of the underground plants to start with. Play around with what you can do with them. Personally, I like rum, so I tend to use a lot of sweet pods in the fort.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: khearn on November 29, 2011, 09:32:22 pm
I suspect (but haven't tested) that using liquid ingredients in food has to do with distance. It looks like in Sphalerite's example, the syrup was closer to the kitchen that the meat. Since one solid ingredient is required, the cook found the closest solid ingredient, then for the remaining ingredients he just grabbed whatever was closest, which happened to be the syrup. It'd be easy enough to test. Set up a kitchen, then a stockpile that takes only syrup, then a stockpile farther away that takes meat. If I'm right, that should result in meals that contain one meat and three syrup. Then try reversing the stockpiles and you'd probably get all meat meals.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: assimilateur on November 29, 2011, 09:37:35 pm
Quote from: Sphalerite on November 29, 2011, 09:16:14 pm
The claim that dwarves won't touch liquid ingredients until there aren't any solid left isn't the case - at least under the conditions I was testing dwarves are willing to use nearby syrup even if there is meat usable further away.

In my fort I have all ingredients used for cooking stored in the same stockpile. Combined with your findings my experience would explain why I ended up with unused syrup barrels: they pick ingredients by distance. If, in my case, all my eggs turn up in one barrel I tend to get roasts composed of four stacks of eggs, if all my spices end up close to each other I'll get quadruple leave roasts, etc.

This suggests that placing a stockpile that only holds syrup right next to my kitchen should result in 1x solid, 3x syrup roasts until I run out of the latter. Thanks for testing this.

Now if only we could place stockpiles in a way that would result in greater ingredient diversity (since I figure the whole point of a "lavish" meal is using four different ingredients). Off the top of my head, a few single-tile stockpiles right next to the kitchen accepting eggs, meat, flour, syrup respectively, and - this is important - in cases other than the syrup one not accepting barrels might do that. But I don't expect haulers to be able to keep up with a legendary+5 cook and restock the mini stockpiles in time.

I'll have to test this later.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Blue_Dwarf on November 29, 2011, 10:13:16 pm
They don't pick ingredients by distance in my forts, I've tried this many times already... Even tried surrounding my kitchen with syrup.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: proxn_punkd on November 30, 2011, 01:12:32 am
Quote from: Blue_Dwarf on November 29, 2011, 10:13:16 pm
They don't pick ingredients by distance in my forts, I've tried this many times already... Even tried surrounding my kitchen with syrup.

Were the other ingredients on another Z-level? Dwarves calculate distance disregarding things like floors, so a food stockpile directly below the kitchen would be seen as closer than a food stockpile directly left of the kitchen, even if actually getting to it takes a couple dozen steps to the stairwell and another couple dozen to the food.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Blue_Dwarf on November 30, 2011, 04:25:56 am
Quote from: proxn_punkd on November 30, 2011, 01:12:32 am
Quote from: Blue_Dwarf on November 29, 2011, 10:13:16 pm
They don't pick ingredients by distance in my forts, I've tried this many times already... Even tried surrounding my kitchen with syrup.

Were the other ingredients on another Z-level? Dwarves calculate distance disregarding things like floors, so a food stockpile directly below the kitchen would be seen as closer than a food stockpile directly left of the kitchen, even if actually getting to it takes a couple dozen steps to the stairwell and another couple dozen to the food.

I tried both on the same z-level and on another. I even tried restricting traffic to the other stockpiles.

Here's an example of my test kitchen surrounded by syrup barrels, the main stockpile is on a lower z-level to the east:

(http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/2379/syrupcooking.th.jpg) (http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/2379/syrupcooking.jpg)

Here's a save (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=INLXFDML) if anyone wants, just order a meal and unpause.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Sphalerite on November 30, 2011, 10:39:05 am
I tested Blue_Dwarf's save and determined that with his setup the dwarves would refuse to use the nearby syrup for cooking while there were any other solid ingredients available.  It didn't seem to matter if the ingredients were plant, meat, or tallow.  This was very strange as in my own fortress my dwarves would happily make stacks of food out of one solid ingredient and three barrels of syrup even with plenty of solid ingredients available.

I noticed the main difference between my setup and Blue_Dwarf's is that I strictly segregate my food stockpiles such that barrels can only be used for liquid foods (booze and extracts) while solids are stored outside of barrels.  I wondered if this might be a factor.  So I forbade storage of meat in Blue_Dwarf's main stockpile and created a new stockpile of just meat with zero barrels permitted.  Then I seized a giant lion from the elves and butchered it.  Once the new stockpile was full of meat, I forbade the cooking of everything but syrup and giant lion meats, and set the kitchen to cooking.

The result:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It appears that whether or not an ingredient is stored in a barrel is a factor on the order in which dwarves will use ingredients.  Ingredients in barrels get used before ingredients not in barrels.  I always store non-liquids outside of barrels, which is why my fortresses never have trouble cooking liquids.  If all your foodstuffs are stored in barrels, the liquids won't get cooked until all the solids are gone.  Mystery solved.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Lemunde on November 30, 2011, 10:58:35 am
Here's a thought. Aside from the number of ingredients are there any differences between a roast, stew and biscuit? If not then it might actually be more efficient to make biscuits or stews if you lack a lot of variety in food types. I noticed most of the time when I have a lavish meal produced my dwarves will use the same ingredient more than once, sometimes making the whole meal out of one ingredient. Such meals would have the same chance of producing a happy thought as lesser meals.

I'd suggest when you start making meals start with lavish meals and check to see if any ingredients are getting reused a lot. If so then consider stepping down to roasts and if it's still a problem go with biscuits.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Garath on November 30, 2011, 05:53:06 pm
basically, no difference i think, except the price etc. However, if your basic food supplies are running over, preparing a lavish meal is more likely to consume lots of annoying storage taking items

i have a special storage for seeds and sell off any i dont need. it works better than blocking productions
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: proxn_punkd on November 30, 2011, 06:33:45 pm
Quote from: Sphalerite on November 30, 2011, 10:39:05 am
I tested Blue_Dwarf's save and determined that with his setup the dwarves would refuse to use the nearby syrup for cooking while there were any other solid ingredients available.  It didn't seem to matter if the ingredients were plant, meat, or tallow.  This was very strange as in my own fortress my dwarves would happily make stacks of food out of one solid ingredient and three barrels of syrup even with plenty of solid ingredients available.

I noticed the main difference between my setup and Blue_Dwarf's is that I strictly segregate my food stockpiles such that barrels can only be used for liquid foods (booze and extracts) while solids are stored outside of barrels.  I wondered if this might be a factor.  So I forbade storage of meat in Blue_Dwarf's main stockpile and created a new stockpile of just meat with zero barrels permitted.  Then I seized a giant lion from the elves and butchered it.  Once the new stockpile was full of meat, I forbade the cooking of everything but syrup and giant lion meats, and set the kitchen to cooking.

The result:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It appears that whether or not an ingredient is stored in a barrel is a factor on the order in which dwarves will use ingredients.  Ingredients in barrels get used before ingredients not in barrels.  I always store non-liquids outside of barrels, which is why my fortresses never have trouble cooking liquids.  If all your foodstuffs are stored in barrels, the liquids won't get cooked until all the solids are gone.  Mystery solved.

SCIENCE!

*toasts to your findings*
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Blue_Dwarf on November 30, 2011, 08:20:20 pm
Quote from: Sphalerite on November 30, 2011, 10:39:05 am
It appears that whether or not an ingredient is stored in a barrel is a factor on the order in which dwarves will use ingredients.  Ingredients in barrels get used before ingredients not in barrels.  I always store non-liquids outside of barrels, which is why my fortresses never have trouble cooking liquids.  If all your foodstuffs are stored in barrels, the liquids won't get cooked until all the solids are gone.  Mystery solved.

Wow, who would have thought...  ??? Good job  :)

So now we have a new problem. We have to figure out whether cooking without syrup is worse than cooking without barrels in food stockpiles.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Nidokoenig on November 30, 2011, 08:31:42 pm
The only issue there is that not storing food in barrels takes more space, but storing food in barrels uses more barrels/pots, and can interfere with custom reactions. I can't get my ponies to make dough or paint wood if any of the ingredients are stored in containers, for example. So I'm definitely forbidding unnecessary use of barrels now. Awesome work!
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Blue_Dwarf on October 10, 2012, 07:44:04 pm
Quote from: Sphalerite on November 30, 2011, 10:39:05 am
It appears that whether or not an ingredient is stored in a barrel is a factor on the order in which dwarves will use ingredients.  Ingredients in barrels get used before ingredients not in barrels.  I always store non-liquids outside of barrels, which is why my fortresses never have trouble cooking liquids.  If all your foodstuffs are stored in barrels, the liquids won't get cooked until all the solids are gone.  Mystery solved.
Does anyone know if this has changed in the recent versions?

Feeling a bit lazy to do science on it again...
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Gentlefish on October 10, 2012, 09:41:24 pm
I'm pretty sure the reasoning with this is the fact that there's probably more meat in those barrels than there is syrup in a barrel.

I bet it works exactly like the seed thing, where almost-full bags get used before the empty bags that are surrounding them so they're used up first. In this case, though, it's stuffed-full meat barrels getting picked over less item-heavy syrup barrels.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Broseph Stalin on October 11, 2012, 05:56:40 am
Quote from: Blue_Dwarf on October 10, 2012, 07:44:04 pm

Does anyone know if this has changed in the recent versions?

Feeling a bit lazy to do science on it again...
Even if it didn't creating secondary stockpiles could fix it. Just put a stockpile that accepts only liquids and a stockpile that accepts any food but doesn't take any barrels and set them to take from the primary food stockpiles and give to the kitchen.
Title: Re: Advanced food and booze
Post by: Blue_Dwarf on October 11, 2012, 12:21:30 pm
Quote from: Broseph Stalin on October 11, 2012, 05:56:40 am
Quote from: Blue_Dwarf on October 10, 2012, 07:44:04 pm

Does anyone know if this has changed in the recent versions?

Feeling a bit lazy to do science on it again...
Even if it didn't creating secondary stockpiles could fix it. Just put a stockpile that accepts only liquids and a stockpile that accepts any food but doesn't take any barrels and set them to take from the primary food stockpiles and give to the kitchen.
It seems that dwarves don't take stuff out of the barrels to put it into a stockpile that doesn't accept barrels.