Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Grimmash]

I tried to search for this, but I couldn't find an answer in the first few pages of responses, so...

Is there a rough guideline to how long clothing lasts on dwarves before it gets worn out?  And is there a rough guideline for how long it takes clothing to rot in a refuse pile?

I really find the whole clothing industry/system to be rather confusing and overly complicated, at least compared to things like smithing and such.  So I'm trying to figure out how much clothing I need to make and roughly how often I should do it or at least figure out how much to stockpile in batches.  I'm also gathering that old clothing is a bad thing, so I want to figure out if it is better to let it rot, try to set up a trade stockpile, dump it in magma, or make an atom smasher for it.  The wiki seems to note that things rot over time, and clothing wears over time, but I either missed the part where the time is explained, or it is not in the wiki.

Thanks!

[smjjames]

1. No idea.

2. Really fast, maybe half a month for unworn clothes, even less for worn out clothes.

As for the clothes industry, I'm wondering that as well and also wishing that I could set the workflow so that there are always x amount of unworn clothes available.

As far as dealing with old clothing/goblin junk, just set up a stockpile for new clothes that only takes from your clothiers and another stockpile to take old clothing/goblin junk and make that a refuse pile because I find that the old worn clothing and goblin junk just become overwhelming in the finished goods stockpile.

To add a related question, is there some trick to get dwarves to automatically put old clothes in a refuse stockpile without also setting it to finished goods with only clothing items?

[Grimmash]

To help contribute to science, my current fortress is about 3 years old.  My founding seven are still alive.  Two have discarded xclothesx, and others are wearing xclothesx, with nothing on the floors of their rooms.  The refuse pile is pretty much empty of clothing.  To me this indicates that clothing wear for active dwarves (my founders have been pretty much constantly busy) hit the xclothesx level somewhere in the 2-3 year mark.

I have no idea if wear is affected by activity.  I suppose I could really test this by starting a few fortresses, trading no clothing, and seeing how long it takes.  Unfortunately on this fortress I have trapped the elven caravan at least once, and traded for some clothing when nothing else of value was present.

[evictedSaint]

My dwarves won't get rid of old clothing. They will stuff thirty XXrope-reed fiber socksXX in their cabinets as they scurry off to the clothmakers shop to pick up a new batch.

[smjjames]

Dfhacks cleanowned would probably help with that. I haven't had that problem, yet, since I just installed cabinets into the communal sleeping quarters.

The main problem that I have is not so much that the goblin junk fills up the finished goods pile that accepts from everywhere (actually it does, to an extent) it's that the worn clothes get put in there as well.

I did try to set up a refuse pile that takes worn items and they did use it a little, but not as much as they are using the finished goods stockpile that is also set as a refuse pile.

What would be REALLY good is to have an option that says the stockpile accepts worn clothes or doesn't. Or maybe some kind of stockpile trick that will have them reliably put only worn clothes in a refuse stockpile.

[Larix]

I think making the management of clothing, particularly worn clothing, less of a headache is the subject of well-established suggestions which will hopefully be implemented at some point in the not-too-far future.

My experience is that clothing takes somewhere between 1 1/2 and two years to gain one "level" of wear, thus is worn enough to cause unhappy thoughts after ~three and a half years and will completely rot away after a bit over seven years. Dwarfs will try to replace their clothes as soon as they reach the first level of wear. So for minimal clothing happiness, you'll need to provide a pair of shoes, trousers and some upper-body covering (i usually go for cloaks) for each dwarf every two years.

[Blue_Dwarf]

Right now it's easier to just let the clothes industry run automatically.

Set a refuse stockpile to accept all clothing except certain specific items that you produce. Produce specifically Pig Tail fiber dresses, trousers, socks and shoes (or wool, or cave spider silk, or whatever may be convenient) on repeat.

Once every year or two, mass dump and atomsmash all clothing with no exceptions.

That way most goblin clothes will be destroyed by the refuse stockpile, and excess clothing will be atomsmashed, reducing the fps damage.

[smjjames]

So, you're saying use the workflow or just produce a bunch of clothes every year or two?

edit: Hm, seems like the workflow takes into account unowned and unworn stuff, OR maybe it's reading from the stockpile? I'll give the workflow a try.

[mirrizin]

I make a few batches of clothes per year, in a haphazard fashion, 10-20 of each kind of garment with a random mix of materials (I have easy access to all by this point.) No naked trantrums. Yet.

[Repseki]

As long as you have the resources to keep things going smooth, using workflow is probably the easiest way to deal with clothing.

I usually set it up to keep 10-15 extra Shirts, Trousers, Shoes of whatever material I have going at any one time, with enough thread and cloth set to keep things backed up. That way the dwarves are kept happy, and a quick mass-dump of all the worn stuff can be done every year or two when you want to tidy up. I tend to smash it all, but you can just as easily trade it away or somehow use it to kill Elf merchants.

Using cleanowned and then mass-dumping all of the worn stuff is probably the easiest way to do it, since it is nearly impossible to get the dwarves to bring worn clothing to a refuse pile.

[Snaake]

I'm referencing another post I just read yesterday from memory, but the IIRC "best" way to set up stockpiles so dwarves bring used clothing to a refuse stockpile, but not the new stuff is:

Stockpile A takes only from your clothier's workshops, set to only accept clothing (however you want to do the settings. I limit it to armor/headwear/legwear/handwear/footwear and mats to leather/silk/cloth/yarn, although I guess I should also have it take from the leatherworkers then...). Bins or not, your choice, I prefer not, but I've noticed there was a risk of overflow getting carried to...

Stockpile B, which has NO BINS and accepts only clothing, but from anywhere.  This will have to be moderately sized, I'm using 11*5 at the moment I think, which seems sufficient. Used and/or goblin clothing will get carried here. Stockpile B also gives to...

Stockpile C, which takes only from B, but where you have a choice. 5*5 or larger is probably advised here as well, and bigger is better. I have stockpile C set to have bins, and then dump them, bins and all, to my garbage dump near my trade depot if this fills up (like it will after sieges). It all gets traded off eventually, so far. But the other option is to have this set to accept only clothing, but also enable refuse, however disable all options under refuse. That should cause them to rot away. I'm not sure how long bins will take to rot, or if they do, so disabling bins and making this pretty large (I'm thinking a full 11x11 or so) may be easiest.


For the record: I don't actually rot the clothes away, so not using the full system at the moment. And my fort has 85 citizens in case you're wondering about what kinda fort those stockpile sizes are for.

P.S. As an aside, only just now realized my childcare burrow (a room with beds assigned to all the children, some booze and food, that all the kids are assigned to) doesn't have clothes in it, so any new peasants are ashamed about being naked. Oops.

[smjjames]

Doesn't look like bins can rot away, it's only items with the CAN_ROT tag, or something like that, that will rot in a refuse pile.

[gestahl]

My whole fort gets put into civilian squads and assigned leather boots, leggings, and armor. Miners and woodcutters can throw on whatever the migrants left laying around for as long as it takes them to dig out or clear cut whatever I have for them. I usually start phasing this in around year 3 or 4, about the same time the drunks start bitching about it.
If you don't feel like embarking with a dozen geese and/or dogs, traders will bring plenty of leather and are suckers for mechanisms. Elves also like to swim.

[Bludulukus]

My fort has no problem acquiring clothing, goblin sieges leave plenty of it behind. The problem is getting the dwarves to use it before they start tantruming because of the nakedness

[Snaake]

Doesn't look like bins can rot away, it's only items with the CAN_ROT tag, or something like that, that will rot in a refuse pile.

At first I accepted your answer, but in another thread someone else just said today that everything wears away in a refuse stockpile... Except skeletons, feathers and the like. D'oh! But chairs and bins and stuff should be destroyed eventually. I mean, clothing on the floor doesn't rot normally, only in a refuse pike. I guess CAN_ROT governs what rots anywhere and produces miasma, like animal parts, fish or cheese (outside of food stockpiles).