While there is great potential in multiple-item hauling, the current implementation leaves much to be desired. Specifically, dwarves will travel, possibly from right next to an item, to a stockpile, pick up a partially full bin, travel back to the item (much more slowly thanks to the weight of the bin), add the item to the bin, then drop the now-too-heavy bin, travel back to the stockpile to retrieve a wheelbarrow, return to the abandoned bin once again, then finally cart the item, bin, and barrow back to the stockpile. What should have been one simple trip morphs into an exasperating comedy-of-errors. And the entire time this hauling job is active the bin in question and all of its contents are unusable by any other dwarf, leading to job cancellations, prevented workshop orders, and other annoying behavior.
I suggest issuing all dwarves with small-item-hauling labors enabled a bag which they carry with them (much like woodcutters carry axes and miners carry picks); when multiple small items can be hauled simultaneously, the hauler will head directly to the items, place them in his bag (up to a limit established by bag size and/or hauler strength), then carry them all back and remove them from the bag when placing them in the stockpile. This remains very similar to the current behavior while conveniently avoiding any extra trips and also preserving existing items' availability in the stockpile.
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Topic: Multiple-item hauling improvement (Read 724 times)