40d:Stone management

Mine for long enough and you'll find yourself surrounded with various stones and ores. How do you get rid of them?

Here follows several stone management techniques.

Techniques

Making use of stone and blocks

Use your masons to the fullest by creating roads, blocks, furniture, floodgates. Blocks can be stored in bins, but bins cannot be made from stone so this diverts wood or metal from other uses.

Craftdwarfs at high levels can produce large quantities of rock crafts very quickly, but this trades the problem of clutter from tons of stone to clutter from tons of crafts. However, crafts can be sold to foreign traders and often merchants have plenty of room for a lot of goods.

You can also use stones (and blocks) to build large structures above ground, and floors over areas such as sand, silt, or loam. The building interface might be slow, but not only do you use up the stone from your excavations, but you also create usable indoor space without having to mine any additional stone.

Catapult

Build a catapult (or three), and assign a dwarf (or five) to keep firing stones into walls, or at camels. This destroys the stone and also trains dwarves in siege operating.

Dump

This is a preferred method due to its ease and usefulness. However, it could easily be considered an exploit, and might not work in later versions.^{v0.27.169.33a}

1. Make a zone of 1x1 or 1x2 tiles (preferably near your stone-needy workshops), and mark it as a garbage dump.
2. Press k and find a stone. Press d, and the stone will be marked for dumping. Alternatively, use the stocks menu (faster for mass dumping, but requires some bookkeeper labor first).
3. A dwarf with refuse-hauling will come by, and take the stone to the garbage dump.

• Advantage: No matter how many stones you mark for dumping, they will all be placed on the same tiny garbage tile! So basically, mark all the stones you want dumped and they will be dumped. You are now able to place all the stones and ores in the fortress on 1 tile!
• Disadvantage: Every dumped stone will be marked as "Forbidden", and will not be used in stone-production. Use the designation 'Reclaim Items' to reclaim the entire pile. (If you want to only use specific stones, you must press k, find the pile, and press f on every stone you want on the list, using +/- to navigate through the list. Macros may come in handy when employing this method.)

If the dwarves are instructed to dump the stone into a garbage zone over bottomless lava or chasm, that stone will fall off the bottom of the map and journey back to the center of the Earth.

Rock chute

You can dig a channel, and make a zone over an adjacent tile. Mark it as a garbage dump, and dwarves will dump stones flagged as "forbidden" down the channel. The stones will end up in the bottom tile.

Rock compactor

Similar to the rock chute, but build a drawbridge in the pit and a pressure plate at the entrance to the chute, linked to the bridge. Make sure you set the pressure plate to trigger on citizens. Alternately, just link it to a lever and pull it every once in a while. Mark the channel and empty tile as a dump zone. When a stone is dropped, the drawbridge will crush the stone, permanently destroying it. Note: make sure the bridge is up when stones are dumped down it, or it will fling stone back up the channel. To achieve this, you will need to hook up another lever, and pull it once before any dwarves go on the pressure plate.

Level Z:
=====
==.==
== ==
==^==

Level Z-1:
=====
=BBB=
=BBB=
==D==

. - Channel
= - Wall
^ - Pressure plate
B - Drawbridge - make sure to set to raise while constructing, as opposed to retract.
D - Door - keep locked to avoid accidently crushing dwarves

Magma melting

Create a 2-tiles garbage area, one on magma and the other on the floor next to it, and mark all your stones to dump in the stock area (press z, then Stocks, then go to Stones, press Tab to display all stones, and d for each stone). Your dwarves will put all your stones into magma, and after some time, provided you have Temperature activated, the stones will disappear.

Minimizing clutter

The easiest way to avoid stone clutter is not to produce it in the first place. Use unskilled miners for initial fortress excavation to reduce the amount of useless stone they create, and don't dig out more than necessary. Produce lots of barrels and bins to cut down on your need for stockpile space.

However, unskilled miners also have a low chance of creating valuable stones and gems when they dig out a tile. It may require some micromanagement to prevent unskilled miners from wasting potentially valuable materials.

Stockpile

This is not a recommended method due to space requirements. Build a large stockpile for stone away from your fortress. Dwarves will carry stones out to the stockpile, and they will no longer clutter up your fortress. The stockpile needs to be placed somewhere without stones, because only 1 stone will be placed per tile, and will result in long hauling trips.

Reasons for managing stone

Stockpiles

On some stockpiles, you will be unable to use the tiles that contain a stone. It will therefore be a good thing to clear up room for the things you want to stockpile. Alternatively, if the top Z level comprises soil/loam rather than rock, then you can clear it out for stockpiles without worrying about stones filling the new space.

Aesthetics

Many players find the fortress more enjoyable to look at if it looks nice and uniform. Random stones lying about are clutter which block the view of a tile and prevent stockpiles from being filled. Create smooth clear floor for a leaner, fitter, happier fortress.

Not Actually Necessary

You actually don't need to remove stones at all, except for the stockpile thing. Clearing out the fortress for stone is more of a personal priority rather than an essential need or requirement. Remember that there is no such thing as excess stone to a dwarf. However, people have had a tendency to ask about and discuss this specific subject, so here you are. A guide to stone management.

Mining FAQ
How do I get my dwarves to haul stones only from certain areas?
How do I find ores to mine?
How do I get my dwarves to haul ores and ignore useless stones?
How do I get rid of all this stone?
How do I stop miners from falling in channels as they dig them?
What causes a cave-in?
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