40d:Bin

A Bin is a specially made basket for certain stockpiles. A bin can be made from one wooden log at a carpenter's workshop or three bars of metal at a forge. Bins make it possible to store lots of objects into one tile of a stockpile. A stockpile without a bin will likely fill up fast, leaving any remaining items where they are to get in the way.

Stockpiles that use bins are ammo, armor, bars/blocks, cloth, coins, finished goods, gems, leather and weapons. Food stockpiles use barrels instead of bins. Other stockpiles do not use anything at all.

The number of items that fit in a bin varies, for example 10 bars or gems (probably the lowest number) or 100 bolts (independent of how they are stacked, probably highest number) fit in one.

Bins also save time when hauling goods to the trade depot, as a bin marked for trade will be carried along with all its contents.

Note that bins containing blocks and bars can become too heavy for most dwarves to move in one day, or if the distance is long enough, even a season.

See stockpiles for more information on how things are organized with bins.

When possible, dwarves will organize stockpiles with multiple bins into subgroups. Dwarves can mix items in a bin when given the order to through the stockpile menu.

If you have a bin that will not be moved to any stockpile, check the contents to make sure that some stockpile will accept that mixture of items. Dwarves will not sort items from bins at the Trade Depot or on the ground. If you have a bin with mixed contents which you wish to have sorted between two or more stockpiles, you must first make a temporary stockpile which accepts all types. Then change the settings on the temporary stockpile to force out the items which you want moved to another bin. Then finally destroy the temporary stockpile to move the now-sorted bin.

To see the contents of a bin (or barrel), use the k key. Once there, use + & - to scroll up or down the contents, and Enter if you wish to view that item specifically. You can forbid a single item only if you are viewing that item - if merely highlighted in the general menu, you will forbid the container itself, not the items within it.

Thermonuclear Reaction

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When a lignite block is placed in an iron bin and ignited with magma, the universe always seems to blink. When the laws of physics aren't looking -- usually paying attention to some goblin being hurled down twelve z-levels -- the bin decides to magically and forever protect the lignite from being put out. This means that, until the lignite completely burns away, you have a completely unextinguishable fire.

Which is very, very fun.

Some discussed uses include an incredibly easy waterfall, with water from an inexhaustible supply (such as a river) falling down onto the lignite fire. No pumping systems are required at all. It is also an interesting component in a modified flooded entrance, with water sweeping unwitting enemies into lignite fires, resulting in dead enemies. However, dwarves near these fires will be incinerated, so this requires a recovery system.