Currently, a colonist will only carry what's needed to fill the stack in the current destination.
If the destination is a stockpile or dumping zone, it will carry as much as the zone can accept, counting ALL of the cells, filling the destination stack, and dumping the rest in the nearest cell until its full and so on until the pawn dumped everything it was holding. The same goes for a shelf, it will carry as much as both slots can currently accept.
BUT, if there are more shelves or zones nearby or even right next to the destination, the pawn will ignore them
What this situation creates, is that shelves are very impractical to use for stackable items, so workshop with them may look nice and tidy, but will make your colonist work a lot more to haul items, one big stockpile zone is still the better option
What I suggest is the ability to "group" several stockpiles and shelves manually so the colonists will look for this groups instead of individual zones or shelves. Codewise, every recently built shelf or zone would be a group on it's own, and the player will merge this groups as desired
If the destination is a stockpile or dumping zone, it will carry as much as the zone can accept, counting ALL of the cells, filling the destination stack, and dumping the rest in the nearest cell until its full and so on until the pawn dumped everything it was holding. The same goes for a shelf, it will carry as much as both slots can currently accept.
BUT, if there are more shelves or zones nearby or even right next to the destination, the pawn will ignore them
What this situation creates, is that shelves are very impractical to use for stackable items, so workshop with them may look nice and tidy, but will make your colonist work a lot more to haul items, one big stockpile zone is still the better option
What I suggest is the ability to "group" several stockpiles and shelves manually so the colonists will look for this groups instead of individual zones or shelves. Codewise, every recently built shelf or zone would be a group on it's own, and the player will merge this groups as desired