Dwarf Fortress – Tips and Tricks on Stockpiles and Storage

Stockpiles and Storage

All credit goes to McOrigin!

I never do quanum stockpiles.

I start with a big stockpile for everything (except stone, wood, mechanism, ..), to get stuff underground as soon as possible.

Next is a larger wood stockpile outside the entrace to collect every log as soon as it’s cut:

• You want larger logging operations with mass hauling protected by your military instead of a precious carpeter to run over the map into a agitated giant elephant… have smaller stockpiles with selected wood inside to “take” from that large stockpile and each gives to a carpenter workshop. You want willow bins and cages for their weigth, maybe oaks of for barrels for the role play, and everything else is turned into charcoal for me).

Next are some smaller stockpile to separate some stuff that will not be used for some time:

• All gems, all cloth, all leather. Those can be in future bedrooms at the end of a aisle, 3×4 is more than enough at the beginning.

Food is the first caterory that I separate early:

• Drinks and prepared meals get a dedicated stockpile each, close to the big dining room. Kitchen and still are close by and receive larger input stockpiles on the floor above of below, thus kitchern personell has short trips: Meat, Plants, Cheese, Eggs, each a dedicated and named (!) stockpile. A furniture stockpile for barrels nearby is next.

Create barrels and bins as soon as posible to compress gems, cloth, and food.

A general seed storage to sell all unwanted seed bags does not allow any barrels.

Dedicated seed stockpiles for my crops are organized with an collecting stockpile without barrels which give to a small long term storage stockpile with barrels enabled wich does not accept from everywhere.

Those can be organized with little space:

• 1×1 for long term storage with 1 barrel, 1×2 feeding stockpiles without barrel is one row of dedicated seed stockpiles per type.

As you need some variety in booze, starting with several dwarven drinks is preferred, in addition set up a surface farm for some support drinks. Preferrably those that do not create a “plant” in addition to the brewable crop (fisher berries, blackberreis, raspberries and many others are good, strawberries are bad).

You will need quite some bags for seeds. Leather works fine before your cloth industry is up.

More complex production chains like the metal or cloth industry I ususally set up with “give to” stockpiles to control material flow. HJowever, a workshop taking one ressource from such a stockpile will need every ressource from a giving stockpile:

My first wood furnace has a dedicated wood stockpile giving to it and a stockpile for charcoal on the other side, taking from it.

My first smelter takes from the charcoal and an ore oder unprocessed fuel (lignite / bituminous coal) stockpile. Depending on what I have it makes metal (copper, bronze, brass) or it processes fuel.

A larger stockpile for coke is on the next floor.

More smelters are set up for specific jobs: process fuel, melt down metal object, etc. and work is organized with production tasks with conditions.

To sort what needs to be melted from what is to be kept, I usually go for steel as soon as possible. Creating that wealth can be dangerous though.

• Two small (1 x4) dedicated steel weapon and armor stockpiles accept only steel items with top 3 qualities. That’s what is to be kept for now. Quality is more restricted as the instustry keeps going.
• A “steel scrap stockpile” accepts the corresponding lower qualities for smelting.
• A “metal scrap stockpile” accepts all metal weapons and armor not made of steel and not of artifact quality. As I use wood bins only, I can easily designate all the stuff to get molten.
• If you ever are lucky to find non usable steel item, it might end up in the non-scrap stockpile and might need to be designated for recycling by hand. Not a big issue usually.

Metal recycling of “goblinite” may give a lot of different metal bars. I usually collect them all in a larger stockpile and separate later. iron and steel get a dedicated stockpile early, pig iron is just an interim product and is never stored. I use gold and brass for most furniture and other items and put all other metals bars into long term storage further away. You may use copper or brass barrels if your map lacks wood, copper bolts are good enough for hunting and may be used for training too. Fiddling with ammo in the current version is… not worth it in my opinion.