Pick Up and Haul. It lets pawns pick up multiple items and transfer them all at once, visiting multiple stockpiles to drop things off or whatever. 100% 'always use' mod for me. It can occasionally cause a bit of hauling weirdness, but that's rare, and the positives FAR outweight any slight negatives.

Vanilla Expanded Framework also adds a new carry weight stat for pawns that a lot of other mods make use of that helps them to actually carry more stuff. Even if you're not using any other VE mods, the framework has a lot of useful features.

Originally posted by Radiosity:

Pick Up and Haul. It lets pawns pick up multiple items and transfer them all at once, visiting multiple stockpiles to drop things off or whatever. 100% 'always use' mod for me. It can occasionally cause a bit of hauling weirdness, but that's rare, and the positives FAR outweight any slight negatives.

Vanilla Expanded Framework also adds a new carry weight stat for pawns that a lot of other mods make use of that helps them to actually carry more stuff. Even if you're not using any other VE mods, the framework has a lot of useful features.

I already have it, and MANY other hauling mods, but the ai is still bricks for brains

Do you have Carry Capacity Fixed?

Originally posted by Radiosity:

Do you have Carry Capacity Fixed?

No, but I am going to sub to it right now. Thanks for telling me!

Yeah, that mod is really useful as it lets pawns actually utilise their carry capacity, especially when twinned with Pick Up and Haul, and is probably why I've not seen the issues you list.

edit: If you're not using Common Sense, I'd HIGHLY recommend it. One of the many features is to let pawns pick up ALL items they require for crafting jobs in one trip, instead of having to go back and forth multiple times. It's a real time (and headache) saver.