This thread might interest those of us with FPS issues. It's the same thing I've noticed in 40d: FPS decreases gradually over time, but will not recover even after a massive population crash due to some kind of Fun.
Been paying attention to this since I read that thread. My latest fort has been gradually going from 40 to 30 FPS over one year. I had a migrant wave in the middle, but it didn't cause an abrupt FPS drop as might have been expected.
If the FPS slowdown was mostly due to the number of dwarves and their pathing, you'd expect that 1) lowering the population would help a lot, 2) pathing-friendly geometry and traffic zoning would help a lot, 3) keeping dwarves idle would increase FPS a lot, and 4) large migrant waves would instantly drop the FPS considerably. Yet the fact of the matter is that #1 helps a little, #2 helps a little, #3 often doesn't seem to make any difference, and #4 isn't always noticeable either.
I guess it comes down to all the extra stuff in the fortress slowing things down, and atom smashing all extra crap is the way to go. I also have a nagging suspicion that going crazy with engravings slows things down, especially in combination with overly huge meeting areas (I guess it's better to keep meeting halls cramped anyway, because that way the dwarves interact with each other and get happy thoughts). This might be because the game checks for stuff the dwarf might admire while walking around, and a lot of engravings means a lot of stuff to potentially admire.
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
edited April 2010
i finally figured out how to start training but they won't actually do anything because one of my dwarves has "go to dodging whatever" but is just standing outside the fort.
My soldiers are stuck! One of them has job: Organize Dodging Demonstration and the rest have job: Attend Dodging Demonstration. But they all just stand there, getting thirstier and hungrier, doing nothing, until I deactivate them. Is this a bug, or am I doing something wrong?
EDIT: My fortress got raped by goblins right after I posted this. Awesome.
Military is all kinds of bugged.
Here's a workaround that seems to be good enough for getting a functional military with a bit of patience.
It seems I chose to start playing this just as a whole bunch of things get glitched.
Military, fishing, hunting, cooking...
I believe most of that is fixed now, we just need toady to finish the 40D integration so he'll release the build, my guess would be a couple weeks at least.
i finally figured out how to start training but they won't actually do anything because one of my dwarves has "go to dodging whatever" but is just standing outside the fort.
You might want to read the article in the dwarf wiki on the new military system. You should have better luck getting them to actually train if the number of dwarves set to train at a time is lowered.
It seems I chose to start playing this just as a whole bunch of things get glitched.
Military, fishing, hunting, cooking...
I believe most of that is fixed now, we just need toady to finish the 40D integration so he'll release the build, my guess would be a couple weeks at least.
looking forward to it
Hopefully it'll be a save-compatible release too...
My fort is not a wise place to go if you are a merchant.
I sealed up the front of my fortress a few years ago, still have the depot out there, and every time a merchant shows up, they get destroyed by ambushes. Has made a rather lovely web of gore, if you ask me.
dare you venture out to claim the treasures of beyond?
Or he smells like and dung heap AND is a total badass.
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
edited April 2010
jesus christ
there's a piece of olivine on the floor that my dwarves just won't touch
they won't pick it up to make a wall RIGHT NEXT TO IT or even RIGHT WHERE IT IS, they won't fucking move it with a dump or stockpile order, and it's in the way of my pump
there's a piece of olivine on the floor that my dwarves just won't touch
they won't pick it up to make a wall RIGHT NEXT TO IT or even RIGHT WHERE IT IS, they won't fucking move it with a dump or stockpile order, and it's in the way of my pump
Have you got any unfinished constructions? When a stone is designated for a construction, it can not be moved except for completing that construction. This would most likely be a wall, floor or workshop.
there's a piece of olivine on the floor that my dwarves just won't touch
they won't pick it up to make a wall RIGHT NEXT TO IT or even RIGHT WHERE IT IS, they won't fucking move it with a dump or stockpile order, and it's in the way of my pump
I think (haven't verified or anything) that there's a bug where if you have an item marked for dumping that's on the same square as an incomplete building the dwarves will ignore it.
I've usually had to completely cancel the construction and redump it - and even that only seems to work some of the time. Is definitely annoying.
I'm really jonesing for an in-depth strategy game, so I'm going to jump down this rabbit hole. Is the new version significantly buggier than older ones? Is it ok to start with this one, or should I use the last stable version? Any starting tips?
I'm really jonesing for an in-depth strategy game, so I'm going to jump down this rabbit hole. Is the new version significantly buggier than older ones? Is it ok to start with this one, or should I use the last stable version? Any starting tips?
In all honesty, get 40d. Don't attempt the new version since for a newbie to DF it could easily kill it for you.
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
edited April 2010
can you not give channel orders to areas with objects on them?
I'm really jonesing for an in-depth strategy game, so I'm going to jump down this rabbit hole. Is the new version significantly buggier than older ones? Is it ok to start with this one, or should I use the last stable version? Any starting tips?
Here's a list of skills I take at the start. Which dwarf has what really doesn't matter too much, though remember that your miner is often going to be busy doing things, so it's good to give him the merchant-related skills (or skills you find you use infrequently). Finding the right starting experience is a bit of trial and error, but anything I list as proficient I strongly recommend you take at that level.
Miner (Proficient. Self explanatory. Some builds call for two proficient miners; I get by with one in 31.03, since there's more skills you have to deal with now. You will want to train him/her up to legendary before you start digging through veins of ore; try to carve out lots of rooms for your fort first, and you should be able to have a legendary miner by the first trader at the end of autumn) Brewer (Proficient. Good alcohol makes happy dwarves which means no tantrum spiral) Cook (Proficient. Good food makes dwarves happy and can be worth a TON! Beware, there is a bug where the cook will receive a negative thought if a masterwork food is consumed. Find the food, F for forbid, and then trade it for lots of cash. Organizer (possibly adequate. He'll learn it fast if you use work orders a lot, but it really helps when you elect this guy as an arsenal dwarf, and he won't have to spend years to do one task) Judge of Intent (novice) - helpful for the appraiser dwarf, so you know whether you're pissing merchants off.) Appraiser (novice - it REALLY helps to know how much the stuff you're trading [for] is worth) Record Keeper (novice-adequate - helps to know if you're actually running out of food. It trains well, and after several years, your dwarf will probably be legendary in this. Starting with something in it helps, since it means he won't spend entire seasons taking stock. Mason (I get by with Competent or a little less- better masonry means faster, higher-quality stuff, but stone isn't worth much to begin with.) Carpenter (Same deal with mason, I'd stick with competent. Better beds makes for happier dwarves, since a good bed gives a happy thought, but I figure there are better ways of gaining happiness. If you start in an area with plenty of wood, you'll be making TONS of beds, barrels, and bins, so you can effectively train this up. Wood Cutter (adequate. Higher skill means faster cutting, but there's no quality levels in chopped wood. Having really fast cutters is nice for late-game, where you want to get wood cut quickly before the inevitable goblin ambush, but it isn't essential, and there are better ways to spend your starting points) Mechanic (adequate. mechanisms do have quality levels, but they aren't that important. There used to be the notion that higher quality mechanisms worked faster than lower (ie, hit the lever to raise the draw bridge and there's a bit of a delay). I believe this is a misconception.) I've found making mechanisms for the dwarf trader at the end of your first autumn is very effective. You just have to be careful in that they're heavy, and the trader will only take so many (though you can buy up his heavy items too). Architect (Competantish - it used to be that you took a proficient mechanic and a proficient architect, but I've found it isn't that useful. Better buildings give more happy thoughts, but not every building needs an architect.) Siege Engineer (Proficient - I'm still a little up in the air on this one. It's INCREDIBLY hard and costly to train up a good siege engineer, but the real value of siege weapons has become a bit questionable. Apparently the ballista isn't the same God-killer it used to be. Still, it can't hurt.) Metal Crafter (Proficient - You will make LOTS of money off of gold/platinum/etc crafts. You want them to be high quality, since quality multiplies the value of what they're made out of.) Metal Smith (Proficient - Nobles demand rooms that are high value. They also demand lots of furniture. You will be making many gold cabinets, coffers, armor stands, and weapon stands. May as well have them be of the highest value, so you don't have to make extra statues to raise up the room values) Armorsmith (Proficient - Armor keeps dwarves safe. You want good armor.) Weaponsmith (Proficient - Same deal as armor. You want the best weapons possible.) Gem Setter (adequate - Gems are frustrating, since encrusting items with them is incredibly random. There are tricks, but it's still a pain. Gems are limited, so starting with someone having this saves on resources. Encrusting something with a gem multiplies its value, irrc) Butcher (novice - kinda pointless, but getting stuff you kill cleaned up fast is a real bonus. It beats having your mountain goats go rotten. If you can think of something better to start with, then, by all means, take that instead. You can get by simply by building more butcheries and having extra dwarves with butchery as a skill (quantity over quality)) Bone Carver (I just take one, since you'll likely need lots of crossbow bolts for training and you'll have tons of bones kicking around everywhere. Skill level is your choice, but, as with any profession that actually makes something, more skill = better quality (though bone is generally worth next to nothing)) Engraver(You'll eventually get an immigrant with engraving, so this is kinda optional. Starting a dwarf with this means you save time, as starting engraving from scratch takes FOR EVER, but I've never had a fort where I didn't have an immigrant eventually come with this skill. It isn't essential, but it does help keep dwarves happy.)
Hopefully I'm not forgetting anything. Remember, that I might have listed skills at a higher level than you can afford at the start - I'm just giving an outline off the top of my head.
Always bring an anvil. They're 10% the cost of what they used to be in 40d, and losing a proficient metal crafter when he gets a mood and the F-ing traders won't bring anvils for a year is horrible.
Always bring a copper pick. You can't mine without it.
If you're strapped for space, you can possibly skip on the copper axe, and simply forge one from the metals you find. It doesn't cost much, though (and it doesn't have to be freaking steel, like in 40d)
Take lots of booze. Get each type to maximize the number of barrels you start with. Food stacks a little differently, so a variety isn't nearly as important, but it does help. Take fish too. Remember that farming is a lot harder in 31.03, so you'll have to keep yourself fed right off the start.
I take a barrel of milk because it's so cheap and you get a free barrel.
I take 2 dogs of different gender and a donkey. The donkey means that you can milk it to make cheese; it isn't much, but it can help keep those starting 7 alive for longer.
I'll throw in 3-5 cheap animal skins to make bags. Not as important, but it can help if you're trying to make flour or quarry leaves early. Especially true if you're collecting sand for glass (which I don't recommend unless you start with a magma pipe near the surface. You have more important things to do than having to wait to dig down all the way to the magma sea.)
I take some bitluminous coal out of habit from 40d. bitluminous coal and lignite are MUCH more plentiful, but if, by chance, you're in an area with none, it really helps to have 5-10 to start with.
If you're in an area with little wood (check the biomes when you're picking a location), then take wood with you. Beds are important.
I think that's everything I tend to start with. Don't bring cats. ALWAYS max your starting skills before equipment. Equipment is easy to get, but skills can take a long time to train. Always try to maximize skills that actually produce things with quality levels before skills that don't.
Start by disassembling your wagon for extra wood. Some people put their depot outside; I always have mine inside, so it's easier to defend. There is a bug where the traders don't bring wagons any more, but I still build my entrances 3-wide, just in case (I haven't tested, but the traders might not come if they can't fit their non-existent wagon through.)
I tend to make my fort with 3-wide hallways for major 'roads', then lower it to 2-wide, then 1-wide. When you have more dwarves, they get slowed down if they run into eachother.
As your miner starts carving the entrance, I set all my other dwarves to plant-processing, and get them picking everything they can. The more starting food, the better. I set a food stockpile in the tunnel that my miner creates, since food spoils slower when it's underground (or, not at all, if it's in an underground food stockpile).
If you run out of things for your dwarves to do, get them to build some workshops outside out of the stone from your main tunnels and start making some basic stuff. You can always dismantle these workshops later when you move indoors. Getting your carpenter to chop down some trees and make some beds is a great move. You can build the beds in a clump inside in one of the halls (before there are basic rooms) so your dwarves won't have to sleep on the floor. Make sure to set them as being a dormatory. You can also get a wood burning shop set up, make a charcoal, then make a smelter. Start refining the bitluminous coal into coke to save some time. You'll have to give dwarves some jobs they aren't trained in, but that isn't really a problem, since wood burning and furnace operating don't have quality levels.
Make some mechanisms to sell to the first caravan for food. You'll probably be desperate by the time they come.
Go to kitchens in the z-menu, and deselect plump helmets from cooking. Later, you'll have thousands, but right now you need the plump helmet spawn, and cooking destroys seeds. Brewing doesn't, however. Make sure your dwarves don't cook with their booze at this point (unless you start to starve.) I tend to start with more food than booze, and the later is always the first to go.
What other things have I ran into that might help?
In my last fort, I had a brook that ran along side a cliff. I build all my farms on the same level, but inside the fort. I left enough room for a pump, and then dug a channel into the outside wall, directly where it'd cut into the river. Brooks are weird - the surface layer is technically flat ground that just counts as a special tile called 'brook'. If you dig down through the brook layer, there's actually water. Anyways, I built a pump on the inside of my fort to run water into some empty rooms. You don't need to run the pump for long; two 5x5 rooms that were connected by one square would be filled completely when the square closest to the pump had 3/7 water. Give a season or two so that the water can evaporate. Also, check the wiki for how to use pumps properly.
I don't know if it's been fixed, but in 31.01 and .02, there was a bug where you'd tell a dwarf to make a gold goblet, and he'd magically produce a iron goblets out of gold. Apparently it worked in reverse too; I've had it happen before, but I can't always replicate it. Give it a try with one gold bar; if it happens, then smelt the gold into electrum with some silver. The net value is the same (30 gold + 10 silver -> 2x 20 electrum)
Speaking of goblets, it could sort-of be seen as an exploit, but always make goblets (or rock mugs). One resource makes 3 items, while crafts or instruments only make 1 item. The only time you might not want to do this is if the traders are offering 200% for crafts or intstruments, but even then...
Besides, you get 3x the training, if I remember correctly.
I don't know the exact details, but there was a bug in 31.01 where, if you were planting something in, say, autumn, and it couldn't be grown in the following season, the crop would disappear when the seasons changed. I don't know if it still does this, but I suggest ALWAYS having plump helmets (or dimple cups, but they just make dye) in the autumn. Make extra farm plots if you want diversity.
Training is bugged. Do NOT set dwarves to active training. Simply leave them on inactive so they do individual training. If they have shitty jobs (the standard reason for putting people in the military), then make sure to remove those jobs so they don't accidentally do them... or just give them non-quality based jobs. One important thing - dwarves without a regular job will get an unhappy thought if you put them on duty (ie. order their squad to move somewhere or kill something) and then remove that order. My trick is to either train a peasent in something like furnace operating or something else like that, or tell him to train with a pick. If a dwarf is training with a pick as a weapon, they gain skill as a miner (since fighting with a pick = mining skill - it works both ways.) Just make sure they don't have mining enabled as a job, and you dump the pick from their equipment when they become a miner.
Speaking of miners, for god's sake, don't take your miner off duty. If your miner is the same guy who talks to the merchants, and you think it'll be a good idea to take him off mining duty so the bugger actually goes to the depot, just say no. If he drops the weapon, there's a bug where he won't pick it back up. I don't know if it has to do with the fact that miners don't like picks that weren't made in your fort (ie. they start with a foreign pick, which is why they hold it.) or what, but I do know that you'll either have to buy a new pick from the traders (which I found worked), or possibly forge a new one.
If you're wanting to dig straight down to magma, use up/down stairs. Digging ramps for channels means that, when you hit the magma sea or the ceiling of a large cave, your dwarf has to step one z-level down, sending them to a gruesome death. I think the bug revolves around the fact that they'll step one layer down to carve the ramp if they either know it's safe, or if they don't know what's underneath. They step down before it's revealed there's nothing under them, and then they fall. It IS safe to dig channels over magma or when you know there's no ground underneath - they'll make an empty hole (as per channels of 40d) rather than a ramp. Up/down stairs are perfectly safe, though.
Speaking of stairs, I've mentioned it in the other thread, but for new folk. Up/down stairs go both to the layer above and the layer below, which saves steps, rather than having to dig an upstair and a down stair on one level. The hazard is that if a dwarf falls (or dodges) on an up-down stair, he'll fall ALL the way to the bottom. If you want to imagine it, imagine that it's like a ladder. Rather than a ladder going from one floor to the next, a string of up/down stairs is one giant ladder, all the way to the bottom. I don't know if making hatch covers prevents this.
My current strategy is to dig the basic first couple floors of my fort first, then dig straight down to the magma sea. If I hit a cave, I find the closest pillar that leads to the floor, I dig over to it, and then continue digging down through it. I'll remove the up-down stair that broke into the cave and build a floor over the resulting down-stair, so that flying megabeasts can't break into my fort through a hatch cover.
Hunting is bugged. If you want something for your dwarves to butcher, get the military. tell a squad to attack an animal outside, go to the orders menu (o I believe) and set the refuse rules so that dwarves pick up refuse from outside. You then build a refuse stockpile near your butchery (within 10 steps iirc) and dwarves will pick up the animals you kill. To butcher an animal, it MUST be either brought to the butchery from the z-menu, or be a corpse in a refuse stockpile. Same for tanning - when they butcher an animal, the tanners will take the skin from the butchery or from the refuse stock (where it'd be put from the butchery).
Make SURE you have enough food stockpiles. Food will rot shockingly quickly if left out in a butchery. I always have a few extra dwarves with either just hauling or with some infrequent skills just to take care of large hauling jobs. If it's an emergency, just make a food stockpile in the hall by a butchery. You can micromanage stuff from there by setting your main food stockpile to take from that extra stockpile. You don't want the millions of organs from a mountain goat to rot and fill the fort with miasma.
Speaking of miasma, I always make sure to put doors on my refuse stockpile. I don't know if this works, but I tend to put my refuse just under the surface so I can put a channel in the roof. I don't know if this makes the miasma disappate more quickly, or if it lessens the 'pressure' so it doesn't burst through the door when it's opened, but meh - it might work. It isn't essential, though.
Don't be afraid to duplicate workshops. I have multiple butcheries and tanners, simply because there might be a HUGE amount of animals to go through, and all my butchers are novice or less. At the moment, all the organs don't stack well (they'll stack in multiples of the same kind (eg. goat lungs), but I don't think they mix types.) so I always have my cook make tons of meals to try and make room. Prepared meals stack, organs don't.
Time to start a new fort, with the goal of setting up an extensive and efficient farming industry. I'm pretty good at getting a basic food setup going, but I usually get distracted by other industries when it comes time to start processing things to bags and barrels or make thread or use millstones. This time around, we use every crop we can find to its maximum potential and trade away the results for axes and swords.
Also, holy shit, EndlessInfinity. That's a helluva triple post.
(Why does Chrome acknowledge "helluva" as a word?)
INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
edited April 2010
I think the whole "losing is fun" thing would be more true if it didn't take like three days played time doing nothing to get a reasonable dwarf populatiob
I think the whole "losing is fun" thing would be more true if it didn't take like three days played time doing nothing to get a reasonable dwarf populatiob
Three days? What?
I started a fort this morning and am up to 80.. it'd be higher if I didn't cap at that.
A shortage of dwarfs is one problem this game has never had.
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
I think the whole "losing is fun" thing would be more true if it didn't take like three days played time doing nothing to get a reasonable dwarf populatiob
Three days? What?
I started a fort this morning and am up to 80.. it'd be higher if I didn't cap at that.
A shortage of dwarfs is one problem this game has never had.
how? it takes me hours between each wave of immigrants!
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Amikron DevaliaI didn't ask for this title.Registered Userregular
edited April 2010
You can mod the game to let you embark with a bunch of dwarfs at once, but you only get to spend points on the starting 7 if I remember right.
Does anyone know what needs to be changed this time around to do so?
I think the whole "losing is fun" thing would be more true if it didn't take like three days played time doing nothing to get a reasonable dwarf populatiob
Three days? What?
I started a fort this morning and am up to 80.. it'd be higher if I didn't cap at that.
A shortage of dwarfs is one problem this game has never had.
how? it takes me hours between each wave of immigrants!
I get immigrants at least once a year. New forts should get positively flooded with immigrants, it's not unusual to have 40 of them before the first year ends.
Thanks, EndlessInfinity, that's a ton to digest. I've started my first little hole in the ground, I think it will take a while before I know what I'm doing. This seems like a heck of a thing.
Thanks, EndlessInfinity, that's a ton to digest. I've started my first little hole in the ground, I think it will take a while before I know what I'm doing. This seems like a heck of a thing.
I put doors everywhere to account for freak accidents like that. It's easier to write off a section of the fortress (and anyone in it) by locking the doors.
Alright what file(s) do I copy to duplicate a fortress I have? This is actually the first time I ever try to do this, it's just my location is so pristine and has everything I want, I don't want to lose it
Posts
especially if it's just a 1-square wide penetration, water will fill it up really slowly
Been paying attention to this since I read that thread. My latest fort has been gradually going from 40 to 30 FPS over one year. I had a migrant wave in the middle, but it didn't cause an abrupt FPS drop as might have been expected.
If the FPS slowdown was mostly due to the number of dwarves and their pathing, you'd expect that 1) lowering the population would help a lot, 2) pathing-friendly geometry and traffic zoning would help a lot, 3) keeping dwarves idle would increase FPS a lot, and 4) large migrant waves would instantly drop the FPS considerably. Yet the fact of the matter is that #1 helps a little, #2 helps a little, #3 often doesn't seem to make any difference, and #4 isn't always noticeable either.
I guess it comes down to all the extra stuff in the fortress slowing things down, and atom smashing all extra crap is the way to go. I also have a nagging suspicion that going crazy with engravings slows things down, especially in combination with overly huge meeting areas (I guess it's better to keep meeting halls cramped anyway, because that way the dwarves interact with each other and get happy thoughts). This might be because the game checks for stuff the dwarf might admire while walking around, and a lot of engravings means a lot of stuff to potentially admire.
Military is all kinds of bugged.
Here's a workaround that seems to be good enough for getting a functional military with a bit of patience.
Military, fishing, hunting, cooking...
I believe most of that is fixed now, we just need toady to finish the 40D integration so he'll release the build, my guess would be a couple weeks at least.
You might want to read the article in the dwarf wiki on the new military system. You should have better luck getting them to actually train if the number of dwarves set to train at a time is lowered.
looking forward to it
Hopefully it'll be a save-compatible release too...
dare you venture out to claim the treasures of beyond?
This bodes nothing but well.
You just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake
Shiren FC: 3093-6912-1542
What am I gonna do with a bunch of flutes and empty animal cages?
I guess the cheese would be nice.
I also checked, and he has no friends or close relationships, at all. Every single person he knows besides his god is listed as "passing acquaintance"
I bet he scares the shit out of the other dwarves
there's a piece of olivine on the floor that my dwarves just won't touch
they won't pick it up to make a wall RIGHT NEXT TO IT or even RIGHT WHERE IT IS, they won't fucking move it with a dump or stockpile order, and it's in the way of my pump
Oh yes.
Have you got any unfinished constructions? When a stone is designated for a construction, it can not be moved except for completing that construction. This would most likely be a wall, floor or workshop.
I think (haven't verified or anything) that there's a bug where if you have an item marked for dumping that's on the same square as an incomplete building the dwarves will ignore it.
I've usually had to completely cancel the construction and redump it - and even that only seems to work some of the time. Is definitely annoying.
You just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake
Shiren FC: 3093-6912-1542
In all honesty, get 40d. Don't attempt the new version since for a newbie to DF it could easily kill it for you.
You just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake
Shiren FC: 3093-6912-1542
One of them after an encounter with a mountain goat:
Here's a list of skills I take at the start. Which dwarf has what really doesn't matter too much, though remember that your miner is often going to be busy doing things, so it's good to give him the merchant-related skills (or skills you find you use infrequently). Finding the right starting experience is a bit of trial and error, but anything I list as proficient I strongly recommend you take at that level.
Miner (Proficient. Self explanatory. Some builds call for two proficient miners; I get by with one in 31.03, since there's more skills you have to deal with now. You will want to train him/her up to legendary before you start digging through veins of ore; try to carve out lots of rooms for your fort first, and you should be able to have a legendary miner by the first trader at the end of autumn)
Brewer (Proficient. Good alcohol makes happy dwarves which means no tantrum spiral)
Cook (Proficient. Good food makes dwarves happy and can be worth a TON! Beware, there is a bug where the cook will receive a negative thought if a masterwork food is consumed. Find the food, F for forbid, and then trade it for lots of cash.
Organizer (possibly adequate. He'll learn it fast if you use work orders a lot, but it really helps when you elect this guy as an arsenal dwarf, and he won't have to spend years to do one task)
Judge of Intent (novice) - helpful for the appraiser dwarf, so you know whether you're pissing merchants off.)
Appraiser (novice - it REALLY helps to know how much the stuff you're trading [for] is worth)
Record Keeper (novice-adequate - helps to know if you're actually running out of food. It trains well, and after several years, your dwarf will probably be legendary in this. Starting with something in it helps, since it means he won't spend entire seasons taking stock.
Mason (I get by with Competent or a little less- better masonry means faster, higher-quality stuff, but stone isn't worth much to begin with.)
Carpenter (Same deal with mason, I'd stick with competent. Better beds makes for happier dwarves, since a good bed gives a happy thought, but I figure there are better ways of gaining happiness. If you start in an area with plenty of wood, you'll be making TONS of beds, barrels, and bins, so you can effectively train this up.
Wood Cutter (adequate. Higher skill means faster cutting, but there's no quality levels in chopped wood. Having really fast cutters is nice for late-game, where you want to get wood cut quickly before the inevitable goblin ambush, but it isn't essential, and there are better ways to spend your starting points)
Mechanic (adequate. mechanisms do have quality levels, but they aren't that important. There used to be the notion that higher quality mechanisms worked faster than lower (ie, hit the lever to raise the draw bridge and there's a bit of a delay). I believe this is a misconception.) I've found making mechanisms for the dwarf trader at the end of your first autumn is very effective. You just have to be careful in that they're heavy, and the trader will only take so many (though you can buy up his heavy items too).
Architect (Competantish - it used to be that you took a proficient mechanic and a proficient architect, but I've found it isn't that useful. Better buildings give more happy thoughts, but not every building needs an architect.)
Siege Engineer (Proficient - I'm still a little up in the air on this one. It's INCREDIBLY hard and costly to train up a good siege engineer, but the real value of siege weapons has become a bit questionable. Apparently the ballista isn't the same God-killer it used to be. Still, it can't hurt.)
Metal Crafter (Proficient - You will make LOTS of money off of gold/platinum/etc crafts. You want them to be high quality, since quality multiplies the value of what they're made out of.)
Metal Smith (Proficient - Nobles demand rooms that are high value. They also demand lots of furniture. You will be making many gold cabinets, coffers, armor stands, and weapon stands. May as well have them be of the highest value, so you don't have to make extra statues to raise up the room values)
Armorsmith (Proficient - Armor keeps dwarves safe. You want good armor.)
Weaponsmith (Proficient - Same deal as armor. You want the best weapons possible.)
Gem Setter (adequate - Gems are frustrating, since encrusting items with them is incredibly random. There are tricks, but it's still a pain. Gems are limited, so starting with someone having this saves on resources. Encrusting something with a gem multiplies its value, irrc)
Butcher (novice - kinda pointless, but getting stuff you kill cleaned up fast is a real bonus. It beats having your mountain goats go rotten. If you can think of something better to start with, then, by all means, take that instead. You can get by simply by building more butcheries and having extra dwarves with butchery as a skill (quantity over quality))
Bone Carver (I just take one, since you'll likely need lots of crossbow bolts for training and you'll have tons of bones kicking around everywhere. Skill level is your choice, but, as with any profession that actually makes something, more skill = better quality (though bone is generally worth next to nothing))
Engraver(You'll eventually get an immigrant with engraving, so this is kinda optional. Starting a dwarf with this means you save time, as starting engraving from scratch takes FOR EVER, but I've never had a fort where I didn't have an immigrant eventually come with this skill. It isn't essential, but it does help keep dwarves happy.)
Hopefully I'm not forgetting anything. Remember, that I might have listed skills at a higher level than you can afford at the start - I'm just giving an outline off the top of my head.
Always bring an anvil. They're 10% the cost of what they used to be in 40d, and losing a proficient metal crafter when he gets a mood and the F-ing traders won't bring anvils for a year is horrible.
Always bring a copper pick. You can't mine without it.
If you're strapped for space, you can possibly skip on the copper axe, and simply forge one from the metals you find. It doesn't cost much, though (and it doesn't have to be freaking steel, like in 40d)
Take lots of booze. Get each type to maximize the number of barrels you start with. Food stacks a little differently, so a variety isn't nearly as important, but it does help. Take fish too. Remember that farming is a lot harder in 31.03, so you'll have to keep yourself fed right off the start.
I take a barrel of milk because it's so cheap and you get a free barrel.
I take 2 dogs of different gender and a donkey. The donkey means that you can milk it to make cheese; it isn't much, but it can help keep those starting 7 alive for longer.
I'll throw in 3-5 cheap animal skins to make bags. Not as important, but it can help if you're trying to make flour or quarry leaves early. Especially true if you're collecting sand for glass (which I don't recommend unless you start with a magma pipe near the surface. You have more important things to do than having to wait to dig down all the way to the magma sea.)
I take some bitluminous coal out of habit from 40d. bitluminous coal and lignite are MUCH more plentiful, but if, by chance, you're in an area with none, it really helps to have 5-10 to start with.
If you're in an area with little wood (check the biomes when you're picking a location), then take wood with you. Beds are important.
I think that's everything I tend to start with. Don't bring cats. ALWAYS max your starting skills before equipment. Equipment is easy to get, but skills can take a long time to train. Always try to maximize skills that actually produce things with quality levels before skills that don't.
Start by disassembling your wagon for extra wood. Some people put their depot outside; I always have mine inside, so it's easier to defend. There is a bug where the traders don't bring wagons any more, but I still build my entrances 3-wide, just in case (I haven't tested, but the traders might not come if they can't fit their non-existent wagon through.)
I tend to make my fort with 3-wide hallways for major 'roads', then lower it to 2-wide, then 1-wide. When you have more dwarves, they get slowed down if they run into eachother.
As your miner starts carving the entrance, I set all my other dwarves to plant-processing, and get them picking everything they can. The more starting food, the better. I set a food stockpile in the tunnel that my miner creates, since food spoils slower when it's underground (or, not at all, if it's in an underground food stockpile).
If you run out of things for your dwarves to do, get them to build some workshops outside out of the stone from your main tunnels and start making some basic stuff. You can always dismantle these workshops later when you move indoors. Getting your carpenter to chop down some trees and make some beds is a great move. You can build the beds in a clump inside in one of the halls (before there are basic rooms) so your dwarves won't have to sleep on the floor. Make sure to set them as being a dormatory. You can also get a wood burning shop set up, make a charcoal, then make a smelter. Start refining the bitluminous coal into coke to save some time. You'll have to give dwarves some jobs they aren't trained in, but that isn't really a problem, since wood burning and furnace operating don't have quality levels.
Make some mechanisms to sell to the first caravan for food. You'll probably be desperate by the time they come.
Go to kitchens in the z-menu, and deselect plump helmets from cooking. Later, you'll have thousands, but right now you need the plump helmet spawn, and cooking destroys seeds. Brewing doesn't, however. Make sure your dwarves don't cook with their booze at this point (unless you start to starve.) I tend to start with more food than booze, and the later is always the first to go.
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In my last fort, I had a brook that ran along side a cliff. I build all my farms on the same level, but inside the fort. I left enough room for a pump, and then dug a channel into the outside wall, directly where it'd cut into the river. Brooks are weird - the surface layer is technically flat ground that just counts as a special tile called 'brook'. If you dig down through the brook layer, there's actually water. Anyways, I built a pump on the inside of my fort to run water into some empty rooms. You don't need to run the pump for long; two 5x5 rooms that were connected by one square would be filled completely when the square closest to the pump had 3/7 water. Give a season or two so that the water can evaporate. Also, check the wiki for how to use pumps properly.
I don't know if it's been fixed, but in 31.01 and .02, there was a bug where you'd tell a dwarf to make a gold goblet, and he'd magically produce a iron goblets out of gold. Apparently it worked in reverse too; I've had it happen before, but I can't always replicate it. Give it a try with one gold bar; if it happens, then smelt the gold into electrum with some silver. The net value is the same (30 gold + 10 silver -> 2x 20 electrum)
Speaking of goblets, it could sort-of be seen as an exploit, but always make goblets (or rock mugs). One resource makes 3 items, while crafts or instruments only make 1 item. The only time you might not want to do this is if the traders are offering 200% for crafts or intstruments, but even then...
Besides, you get 3x the training, if I remember correctly.
I don't know the exact details, but there was a bug in 31.01 where, if you were planting something in, say, autumn, and it couldn't be grown in the following season, the crop would disappear when the seasons changed. I don't know if it still does this, but I suggest ALWAYS having plump helmets (or dimple cups, but they just make dye) in the autumn. Make extra farm plots if you want diversity.
Training is bugged. Do NOT set dwarves to active training. Simply leave them on inactive so they do individual training. If they have shitty jobs (the standard reason for putting people in the military), then make sure to remove those jobs so they don't accidentally do them... or just give them non-quality based jobs. One important thing - dwarves without a regular job will get an unhappy thought if you put them on duty (ie. order their squad to move somewhere or kill something) and then remove that order. My trick is to either train a peasent in something like furnace operating or something else like that, or tell him to train with a pick. If a dwarf is training with a pick as a weapon, they gain skill as a miner (since fighting with a pick = mining skill - it works both ways.) Just make sure they don't have mining enabled as a job, and you dump the pick from their equipment when they become a miner.
Speaking of miners, for god's sake, don't take your miner off duty. If your miner is the same guy who talks to the merchants, and you think it'll be a good idea to take him off mining duty so the bugger actually goes to the depot, just say no. If he drops the weapon, there's a bug where he won't pick it back up. I don't know if it has to do with the fact that miners don't like picks that weren't made in your fort (ie. they start with a foreign pick, which is why they hold it.) or what, but I do know that you'll either have to buy a new pick from the traders (which I found worked), or possibly forge a new one.
If you're wanting to dig straight down to magma, use up/down stairs. Digging ramps for channels means that, when you hit the magma sea or the ceiling of a large cave, your dwarf has to step one z-level down, sending them to a gruesome death. I think the bug revolves around the fact that they'll step one layer down to carve the ramp if they either know it's safe, or if they don't know what's underneath. They step down before it's revealed there's nothing under them, and then they fall. It IS safe to dig channels over magma or when you know there's no ground underneath - they'll make an empty hole (as per channels of 40d) rather than a ramp. Up/down stairs are perfectly safe, though.
Speaking of stairs, I've mentioned it in the other thread, but for new folk. Up/down stairs go both to the layer above and the layer below, which saves steps, rather than having to dig an upstair and a down stair on one level. The hazard is that if a dwarf falls (or dodges) on an up-down stair, he'll fall ALL the way to the bottom. If you want to imagine it, imagine that it's like a ladder. Rather than a ladder going from one floor to the next, a string of up/down stairs is one giant ladder, all the way to the bottom. I don't know if making hatch covers prevents this.
My current strategy is to dig the basic first couple floors of my fort first, then dig straight down to the magma sea. If I hit a cave, I find the closest pillar that leads to the floor, I dig over to it, and then continue digging down through it. I'll remove the up-down stair that broke into the cave and build a floor over the resulting down-stair, so that flying megabeasts can't break into my fort through a hatch cover.
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Hunting is bugged. If you want something for your dwarves to butcher, get the military. tell a squad to attack an animal outside, go to the orders menu (o I believe) and set the refuse rules so that dwarves pick up refuse from outside. You then build a refuse stockpile near your butchery (within 10 steps iirc) and dwarves will pick up the animals you kill. To butcher an animal, it MUST be either brought to the butchery from the z-menu, or be a corpse in a refuse stockpile. Same for tanning - when they butcher an animal, the tanners will take the skin from the butchery or from the refuse stock (where it'd be put from the butchery).
Make SURE you have enough food stockpiles. Food will rot shockingly quickly if left out in a butchery. I always have a few extra dwarves with either just hauling or with some infrequent skills just to take care of large hauling jobs. If it's an emergency, just make a food stockpile in the hall by a butchery. You can micromanage stuff from there by setting your main food stockpile to take from that extra stockpile. You don't want the millions of organs from a mountain goat to rot and fill the fort with miasma.
Speaking of miasma, I always make sure to put doors on my refuse stockpile. I don't know if this works, but I tend to put my refuse just under the surface so I can put a channel in the roof. I don't know if this makes the miasma disappate more quickly, or if it lessens the 'pressure' so it doesn't burst through the door when it's opened, but meh - it might work. It isn't essential, though.
Don't be afraid to duplicate workshops. I have multiple butcheries and tanners, simply because there might be a HUGE amount of animals to go through, and all my butchers are novice or less. At the moment, all the organs don't stack well (they'll stack in multiples of the same kind (eg. goat lungs), but I don't think they mix types.) so I always have my cook make tons of meals to try and make room. Prepared meals stack, organs don't.
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Also, holy shit, EndlessInfinity. That's a helluva triple post.
(Why does Chrome acknowledge "helluva" as a word?)
You can. The object will fall through. But some things, like trees, prevent channeling.
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Three days? What?
I started a fort this morning and am up to 80.. it'd be higher if I didn't cap at that.
A shortage of dwarfs is one problem this game has never had.
how? it takes me hours between each wave of immigrants!
Does anyone know what needs to be changed this time around to do so?
I get immigrants at least once a year. New forts should get positively flooded with immigrants, it's not unusual to have 40 of them before the first year ends.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
No worries. A lot of that is more information than you need to know. Check the wiki at: http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Main_Page
Lots of information isn't up to date, but most of the missing stuff is simply carry-over from 40d
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flooded the entire fucking thing
fuck my life
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