How to best move random rocks

[Butterlord]

For example I have rocks all over various rooms that are blocking where I can build potential furniture. I tried giving everyone the hauling order and that helped only a little, and trying to have them manually dump it manually seems to be either taking forever or not happening at all.

Anyone have any advice? Still a newbie

[Imperialus]

Build a big stone stockpile.

Get a craftsdwarf building stone mugs or something to sell to traders. Just set it on infinite repeat. They'll chew through your stockpile.

[Large Hardon Collider]

Just build an XL stone stockpile somewhere outside your base and dump it all there.
You can delete the stockpile once the stones are moved if you want, it just gets them out of the way easily.

[Butterlord]

Originally posted by Large Hardon Collider:

Just build an XL stone stockpile somewhere outside your base and dump it all there.
You can delete the stockpile once the stones are moved if you want, it just gets them out of the way easily.

Do I want any of the stones for building or crafting? That's the only reason I didn't do that yet

[Infinite Being]

Originally posted by Butterlord:

Originally posted by Large Hardon Collider:

Just build an XL stone stockpile somewhere outside your base and dump it all there.
You can delete the stockpile once the stones are moved if you want, it just gets them out of the way easily.

Do I want any of the stones for building or crafting? That's the only reason I didn't do that yet

The stones won't be deleted if you delete the stockpile. Your dwarves simply won't be hauling the stones there anymore. You will still be able use the stones for building and crafting.

Unless for whatever reason you dumped them in an Atom Smasher and crushed them, this method should do fine.

[sajmon]

i just make floors with said stones :)

[Johan 2.0]

Two Words: Quantum Stockpile[dwarffortresswiki.org]

[Infinite Being]

Originally posted by sajmon:

i just make floors with said stones :)

Don't do that. Building with raw stone is slow and inefficient because the rocks are heavy. Instead, make Rock Blocks with the stones first. Your dwarves will karate chop the stone into four pieces that are not only lighter to haul to the building location, but results in four times the building material to work with.

Although keep in mind: Rock Blocks can only be used for Construction jobs such as Walls, Floors, and Bridges. They cannot be used to make crafts and furnishings such as mugs or chairs.

[Arcanua]

What Infinite said. Make blocks or such out of them, slabs are also an option and you can't use blocks for those to begin with and if dwarves die you will need to have some around! It may take time and some stuff may actually be a special kind of stone and make say coal, coke, metal, gems etc etc. So if you're not sure if it is a special one you can usually click it to check or use the wiki, what rocks do what is thankfully unchanged between this and classic.

[Excellion]

One thing not yet mentioned and which should still be in the game: Create wheelbarrows for your stone stockpiles if you haven't already.

Dwarves are slowed down by heavy loads, and stones tend to slow them to a crawl which makes hauling them slow. Stockpiles with wheelbarrows will allow dwarves to pick up a wheelbarrow and then use it to transport the stones. This negates the weight of the stone and speeds things up considerably.