Bay 12 Games Forum

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Originally posted by Mud:
<STRONG>Wouldn't be a lot simpler to keep the current "basic" stockpiles but just add a toggle of what items could be stored in them, like armor and weapons racks do now?</STRONG>

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Originally posted by Maximus:
<STRONG>The specialization code is also already largely in place, in the form of weapon racks and armor stands.  The ability to specify by item type and material type ought to work just fine for all stockpiles.</STRONG>

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Originally posted by Mud:
<STRONG>That's a REQ #1, by the way. Toady knows we want this.</STRONG>

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Originally posted by Maximus:
<STRONG>There are quite a few posts on this subject, plus it's item #1 on Toady's good ol' requested/required things list.</STRONG>

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The reason why my post was more detailed than just "make all stockpiles act like weapon racks" is because there are a few other changes that are needed in order to fully round out the stockpile system.  I have made an attempt to describe those other changes in detail.

I've been doing some thinking on what kind of new functionality I'd like the stockpile system to have.  What I realized is that the current system doesn't need that many changes, aside from the all-important ability to specialize them.

The specialization code is also already largely in place, in the form of weapon racks and armor stands.  The ability to specify by item type and material type ought to work just fine for all stockpiles.

The current set of stockpiles is also pretty good.  Wood, animal, coins, leather, refuse, graveyard, ammo, ore, and cloth stockpiles seem just right.  I'd make the following changes, though:

Gems currently includes raw glass -- I'd give glass (plus sand) its own stockpile.

Finished Goods -- is this just crafts?  If so, it's just fine.

Bar/Block -- this one needs a lot of separating.  I'd put ash, potash, and pearlash into an "Ash Products" stockpile (along with lye).  I'd also create a "Fuel" stockpile type for charcoal and coke.  And "Block" should be its own stockpile type, with stone/metal/glass as subgroups, and specific materials beneath that.

Stone -- I'd actually forgo a light/dark/grey option and just have "all" "grey only" and pick-individual-types options.  White shouldn't include limestone and black shouldn't include obsidian -- and excepting from those, white and black are more or less equal.

Food -- the existing groupings for barrels (plant/seed/meat/fish/raw fish/prepared/etc.) would work well for selectable types, although Drink should probably be separated into its own stockpile.  I might like seed and plant types individually selectable as well, to put them near different farm plots, or a barrel for outdoor plants vs. crops.

Furniture -- I'm thinking this should probably be broken into three stockpile types.  Specifically:

Furniture:
-Doors
-Beds
-Chairs/Thrones
-Chests/Coffers/Containers
-Tables
-Armor Stands
-Weapon Racks
-Cabinets
-Windows
-Coffins/Caskets
-Statues

Storage:
-Barrels
-Buckets
-Bins
-Bags

Miscellaneous:
-Floodgates
-Cages
-Chains/Ropes
-Animal Traps
-Mechanisms
-Catapult Parts
-Ballista Parts
-Anvils

Armor Stands -- these should probably be altered to include shirts and cloaks, the only two pieces of clothing currently without a home.  If pants and shoes are armor, surely shirts and cloaks are as well.  Perhaps they should include backpacks, quivers, and waterskins as well.

There's one last issue in the form of animal (meat, leather goods, bones, etc.) and plant-derived (cloth, wood, etc.) products: should one be able to specify the source material of each material type?  There are hundreds of animals, so this menu could be overwhelming.  I could see doing it in a case where you wanted to put a specific meat barrel near an individual that preferred that  food, but that's about it.  I think I could live without it altogether, but if it were implemented, it'd probably require the type-in/search interface used on the Manager and Starting Equipment screens.

As Quiller stated in a different thread on the same subject, "It should also give priority to specific stockpiles over general ones. So it puts bones in a bones stockpile, and only when it fills up puts bones in a general refuse pile."

That's about all I can think of for now.    

[ September 25, 2006: Message edited by: Maximus ]

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Originally posted by Mud:
<STRONG>I think a simpler solution is simply to have a "use closest available item" available option for things like building workshops. If you don't know where each rock you're choosing actually is in your fortress, you're probably going to end up with a very long haul time.</STRONG>

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Indeed, my road took forever to build because of that.  I've since gotten wise and always do some mining near where I'm going to build things, then select the stones from the bottom of the list of available materials.

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Originally posted by Ookpik:
I don't want my legendary stonecrafter to waste his time moving his new creations to a stockpile.  I want him to keep working while a hauler does it.

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In theory I agree with you, but in practice hauling is very unreliable, and lengendary dwarves can churn stuff out so fast, they'll clutter a shop faster than a dedicated hauler can clear it.

Even the lowest level of clutter doubles the time for each task, which is a huge hit in productivity.  It stands to reason that a craftsdwarf would normally rather store his output as part of the task than have to pick his way through a labyrinth of a shop.

An alternative would be to have dedicated workshop assistants -- and this could be implemented via the suggestions in the first post of this thread.  If it becomes possible to eventually prioritize tasks on a per-building basis that'd be even better.  But having dwarves clear their own shops should be an option too, and ought to be relatively easy to implement, I think.

But I figure if you could bind a stockpile to a dwarf, you could compel dwarves to do a specific hauling job right away (and also ongoing).  It could ultimately serve as a de facto implementation of the "burrows" feature.

However, there still seem to be some bugs in the hauling code that cause dwarfs to stand idle even when there's one or more jobs waiting for them.  I'm not positive, but it looks like some other job has to get cleared from the queue before the "dead" job(s) get recognized again.

Incidentally -- another bug -- I find I can't "Remv Cre" either from the Jobs or Units screen when a dwarf is in the middle of a "Store Item in Bin" job.  I'm wishing I hadn't made those bins -- right now, they're like rogue stockpiles that you can't move, destroy, or reassign.  I'm sure they'll work nicely some day, but right now they're a menace.    :roll:

It's terribly frustrating waiting for the lye buckets to get cleared out of your Ashery, watching some dwarf haul coke from the magma smelter to a bin at the front of the fortress, and to be unable to open your floodgates in the spring because your seed barrel/bag is in the middle of the farm.

Judicious use of the "take from stockpile" option solves a few problems, but inconsistently at best.  I watch dwarves run back and forth across the fortress all day because they don't know what needs putting where.  I figure just a few changes could fix up dwarves' erratic hauling habits almost completely.  

Namely:

* Assign stockpiles to dwarves.  Any dwarf assigned a stockpile would fill up that stockpile only, and ignore all others.  Multiple dwarves could be assigned the same stockpile, and each dwarf could be assigned multiple stockpiles.  This way you could create dedicated workshop assistants (raw goods gophers), or a crew to clear out a specific space (they could be assigned a stockpile which 'takes from' the designated space to be cleared).

* Add limited stockpile behavior to workshops.  Specifically, the "take from" stockpile option should be extended to workshops, so that finished goods can be flushed out of a workshop in a reliable fashion.

For me, these two changes would probably fix what is my single greatest frustration with an otherwise amazing game.