rezaf
2001
Well, the idea of a water drainage went bad when I hit the aquifier or something at one level - at least an endless supply of water appeared out of thin air (or rather out of damp walls) and filled the drainage caverns completely.
I think I’m going to restart at a new site, as I have other problems as well.
I have now more than fifty dwarves (far too many immigrants now, imo) most of which are idle or throwing parties most of the time, and four 5x5 farms which aren’t even fully in use (lack of spawns), but that appears to be enough to keep everybody well fed. I also still have next to no alcohol and no “sophisticated” stuff like housing, but the dwarves do not complain for some reason. Them stout ones seem to be a lot more modest in the new version.
I had a single failed mood where the gem cutter demanded some kind of leather that I couldn’t get and he fell into melancholy. I still think it’d make much more sense if a dwarf you couldn’t supply with the goods for his dream creation would just pack his stuff and leave to get the ingredients himself elsewhere instead of going berserk or starving himself to death. But I disgress.
One of my biggest issues is … no wildlife. The caverns I have discovered, but they appear to be devoid of any life. There’s fish in the river, plenty actually, but there’s almost no animals. I usually have one or two wild animals on the unit list, despite starting on a heavily forested untamed wilds site. I think the default map size is far, far too small now.
It used to be huge in the DF of old (without Z axes) but then it got shrinked because a dozen Z levels where possible. Now I have a hundred and twenty five at my site, but the map is only like 3x3 screens big (default settings).
That’s no good.
How big can you make the starting site size until it has severe performance issues? DF complains as soon as you increase any dimension, so I haven’t done it for the first fortress, but the default size is definately much too tiny.
Can you somehow limit the maximum z levels to counterbalance? Fifty underground levels would be more than sufficient for me, I love the z axis idea, but I hate actually having to navigate the different levels with the current UI.
rezaf
On my 3.4 ghz i7 I generally run a fortress consisting of 21 areas. We’ll see how many dwarves I can handle with that, I’ve only hit 30 so far. If I drill into the HFS my FPS drops from a consistent 200 to 14 because of the HFS pathing, I think.
You should try to pump out the aquifer enough to get below it — it’s a great challenge.
There’s a reasonable amount at the three or four embarks I’ve made.
I think the default map size is far, far too small now.
It used to be huge in the DF of old (without Z axes) but then it got shrinked because a dozen Z levels where possible. Now I have a hundred and twenty five at my site, but the map is only like 3x3 screens big (default settings).
That’s no good.
3x3 dimensions are fine. I typically play on 2x2 to improve performance.
If you go down the z-levels you’ll see why so many are needed now. Note that going down enough will certainly result in death.
rezaf
2005
I actually got below the aquifier easily by finding a spot of waterproof stone (some appearently cannot get damp) and digging a up/down staircase through it.
I just needed some tunnels elsewhere later and got too careless because I could dig for a number of tiles with only damp stone warnings, but no actual water. But then I hit a tile which almost instantly amassed 7/7 water and took only a very short while until my drainage cavern was completely flooded.
Anyway, I mentioned above that I’m not yet in shape to provide decent living quarters for my dwarves, do you really think that suggests I’m in any position to design a complicated series of pumps?
I also forgot how darn annoying it is to run a metalsmith on charcoal made out of wood. Even if there’s sufficient tree’s to be had…
Edit:
You think 2x2 screens is reasonable? That’s how much, 80x80 plots? Miniature I say!
Like I wrote, I discovered an expansive cavern network (that was basically empty) in my game, it spanned at least 25 levels, and I’m sure I could’ve dug deeper from there. But it’s annoying to navigate and it’s so hard to build anything fancy if you always need to build vertical.
It’s nice being able to do that, but I’m not so happy about it being mandatory.
rezaf
HRose
2006
Any way to make leather?
I enabled hunting on a dwarf but it does nothing at all. Hunting seems completely broken for me, and if I can’t skin an animal where do I get the leather?
Use domesticated animals. They don’t eat (I’m pretty sure), so they are infinite meat/leather/bone mines!
I don’t think you’re meant to build in the caverns.
My layout is typically like this, where one line = one z-level:
Entrance, trade depot
Storehouses
Workshops
Dining hall
Beds
Cemetary
I blogged up the skeletal goat bit for the world to enjoy. And the psycho adventure play bit from RPS (PS. has anyone played adventure mode? Is it fun?)
I think waiting for the bug fixes is worse than waiting for the big releases. I wanna play, but it’s broken! Argh! :)
After some more experience with underground caverns I think I understand how they work. When I first arrived in them they were quiet and empty. After a few years they’re starting to spawn a steady stream of monsters though, and I even had a megabeast (a giant butterfly, which was hilariously easy to kill). Since there is so much open space flying monsters wreak havok with your dwarves as everyone on the level drops what they were doing and runs for it. You definitely need three or four squads of 4+ members to keep a caverns under control.
Oh, I’d love to hear any/all funny stories for posting to my blog. Screenshots would be nice as well.
HRose
2013
My 3 top priority issues from last year seems still there:
- respawning wildlife so that hunters can continue to do their job
- rewalling, to undo mistakes and adjust layouts when you dig
- manually accept/reject immigrants
rezaf
2014
I wasn’t refering to building IN the caverns, just building more fancy stuff like luxury housing or a “factory” anywhere in the fortress.
I also have a more modest layout that’s not all that different from yours, but the default size felt really, really cramped as I could only put a couple of “blocks” next to each other. (I usually use a network of 3x3 5x5 sized rooms surrounded by tunnels and/or “utility” - like channels.)
I tried doubling the default size, which resulted in a really nice, large map (I hope optimizations will make those playable one day), but it was horribly laggy. I found just increasing the default dimensions by 1 tile in each direction was more than sufficiant for my tastes.
Yeah, there’s so many bugs now, even though so many things where changed, it’s a tad disappointing that much was obviously never tested to any degree before release. Sure, better a buggy release than none, but it’s still a bit disheartening.
I ran into a number of issues - rotting stuff no longer produces bones, turtles no longer produce shells, food production / consumption overall seems buggy (I have a gazillion dwarves in my new fortress and only three fields, but I’m drowning in food), manufacturing is buggy (gold flasks made from iron and stuff like that), construction is buggy - had workers getting stuck while trying or immediately after constucting something, also workers failing to begin a job they had the tasks for … the list goes on and on.
Then there’s other people stories of maps without fish and unkillable enemy types … but you gotta admit bugfixes are usually delivered in a somewhat timely manner by Toady, so it’s not all that bad.
rezaf
Rewalling is in, isn’t it? Somewhere near the bottom of the second screen of things you can build, there’s an option that lists walls/something/something (possibly “C” to access it) and then “w” to build a wall.
That’s been there for a long time. If you use stone blocks, you can smooth/engrave it, too.
rezaf
2017
How do I assign an axe to a woodcutter?
A new miner with enabled mining job automatically picked up a pick I had produced, but the woodcutter I’m trying to get to cut down trees refuses to pick up the battleaxe I had my metalsmith forge for him.
I even tried to assign him to a military squad and assign him as an axewielder, but he STILL refuses to pick up the darn axe.
rezaf
Wolff
2018
Try checking his hands and forcing him to dump what’s in them.
The former exists (maybe it’s just slower than you’d like? Find some underground caverns, down there it’s a little too quick for my liking.
The latter exists as mentioned already.
This was always the case. In 40d I always just had a 5x5 plump helmet farm and that fed me right up to 100 dwarves.
It will be picked up when they decide to go wood cutting. If they aren’t cutting wood check they don’t have other tasks as a higher priority and the axe isn’t owned by anyone. Training axes don’t cut trees.
EDIT: also just saw this:
18:44 <@ToadyOne> still finishing off email etc., but I'm hoping to start crashes tomorrow, yeah
JM1
2020
The ability to manually reject migrants usually involves a retractable bridge and a pool of lava.
