I have a Grand Project in the works that I wanted to be built from specific rock blocks (for colors). Letting the dwarves pick which rock to use is no good, because they'll never get around to picking the type I need at the moment -- it's a law of DF physics or something.
SO, what I did was, I set up several different 1x1 dump tiles right outside my masonry shops. As I mine out stone, I activate the appropriate dump tile, deactivate the rest, and mark the stone for dumping. When I run into a new color, I switch tiles I'm dumping to. This sorts everything out nice and tidy into separate piles.
Then, to get the dwarves to use only the color I need at the moment, I forbid the ones I don't want, and reclaim only the one that I do.
It's a bit of a pain in the neck -- I think it'd be easier to simply tell them 'make 30 microcline blocks', but since you can only specify 'rock' and not what type of rock, this is the next best thing I've found.
I can't find it but it's there and it does work.
[ January 19, 2008: Message edited by: Wooty ]
quote:
Originally posted by THLawrence:
<STRONG>Someone had made a reaction a little while ago that required almost every type of stone. This caused almost every type of stone to count as economic. Then they could easily select what type of stone to use and forbid all of the others.I can't find it but it's there and it does work.</STRONG>
That's what I use.
The only materials not marked are Adamantine and the three oceanic stones (The oozes and pelgaic clay).