Dwarf Fortress – Stockpiles and Storage Guide

How to Organize Storage and Stockpiles

Separate stockpiles for any goods you expect to handle in large quantities. You don’t want to find out you’re running out of your primary alcohol of choice, or cloth, just because some other underused crops’ seeds exceeded your shared stockpile settings.

This applies to basically anything that’s part of production chain. Final products can be handled even if they clutter workshops without much disruption, but if some base or refined resource has its supply disrupted, that can result quite quickly in all manner of !FUN! situations.

I organize my storage in two main ways. First, I create small storage areas for work materials near the workshops that use them. This helps keep production moving smoothly. The most important storage areas are for materials that workshops need as inputs. Storage for finished products can be a bit farther away since haulers can move things.

It’s best to group related workshops close together, along with their storage areas. This creates efficient “production clusters.”

Then, I set up bigger storage areas for long-term storage. These are usually on different levels from the production area. The smaller work storage areas are set to get more materials from these big storage areas when they run low.

This system helps keep everything organized and running efficiently.

Ultimately, you want to slowly create individual stockpiles for most things. You can start by categories (say, one stockpile for seeds, another for meat, and so on), but any goods you’ll be handling a lot absolutely should be separated as soon as you start setting up dedicated production around their availability.

One you get comfortable enough with the basics, things like quantum stockpiles are extremely helpful, and setting up even half-automated mining cart system for moving things between sub-sections of the fortress makes things even more efficient.

There’s a lot of automation potential in Dwarf Fortress (both in terms of gameplay and in-game use of automated systems), figuring those out is a lot of fun.

“Magma shotgun carts for everyone!”

Anyway… tl;dr: make lots of exclusive stockpiles for things you’ll be handling a lot, especially during production process.

Keep things tidy, and dwarf on.

In addition to what’s been said above, one tip I’ll give is to really dial in your furniture stockpiles. They contain a lot of goods that don’t fit in bins and will take up a lot of your space. Separating things so you have your actual furniture in one stockpile (maybe even linked to a workshop that decorates), things like sandbags in another, and empty barrels near your still/kitchen.

Having workshops that use each other’s good being nearby helps a lot too. Have your farmers workshop, loom, dyer, and clothier shop all nearby.

Make sure to use work orders to fine tune exactly how much stuff you produce.