Bay 12 Games Forum

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Deathtrap is a story fortress using the DF 0.40.02. My goal is to keep it going as long as possible and move it to new versions if possible. The catch? I have set up four rules to make things more interesting:

• No utilities nor modding: Even if utilities like Therapist becomes available, I'm not going to use those. This experience will be as pure as possible!
• Population cap set to 80: To make things a bit more controllable, I have limited the number of dwarves to 80. Of course, I will probably get more since it's possible to get over the cap due large migrant waves and births.
• No savescumming: The only situation where this is allowed is if game breaking bug happens.
• Invaders must be able to path to Trade Depot: At any point during the game, enemies must be able to reach my trade depot.

I format of story will be like it was told by outsider, so no diary format this time. I will also try to post in yearly basis at least, depending on how much things worth of mentioning happens.

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Claiming Dwarf

It's possible to claim a dwarf. What I need is name, gender and at least one profession. Keep in mind that, since I'm limiting the number of dwarves, almost everybody will be assigned to several jobs to keep the fortress running. Also, since managing all the dwarves will be a major pain in *BEEP*, any additional wishes may or may not be granted, completely depending on the situation. So please, if I have acknowledged your additional requests and haven't made them happen, please don't nag about it, it may be impossible or impracticable to fulfill. Or I just may think that the request doesn't go well enough with my other even if it was otherwise possible to fulfill. This applies especially to the personalities of dwarves; In general I will use the personality given by the game, though there will be few characters whose personality I will make up myself to spice things up a bit.

Also, I'm not going to keep close eye on every claimed dwarf, so if your dwarf hasn't done anything important, he/she may not be mentioned in the story. Also, you may ask closer statistics of your dwarf, though please don't request full details after every update.

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Embark

I'm using 3*3 sized embark location with access to water through a brook. There should be lots of trees around, enough soil and even some clay. All four major entities have access to my site, though I intentionally went with location with no Towers nearby.



As for the world, I went with "Small Region" with few tweaks to the parameters:

• The amount of embark points was increased to maximum
• Mineral density was set to 200

And bellow is the list of equipment I embarked with. All the animals I have (excluding the ones game creates automatically) are listed on the picture as well.

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List of Dwarves

Here is the list of dwarves living in Deathtrap. I'll update this list as the game goes. From left to right, each line consists of name of the dwarf (either translated last name or the name given when claimed), gender, profession, job related skills the dwarf has, weapon skills the dwarf has. In case of job related skills, if the skill is bold and underlined, then I have assigned him/her to that job. All dwarves available to claiming are listed in green, unavailable dwarves (claimed or reserved by me) are in red and every dead dwarf has been struck through.

• "Grahar" (M) [Miner], Miner/Engraver
• "Arlen" (M) [Miner], Miner/Engraver
• Fountaindaubed (F) [Woodworker], Wood Cutter/Carpenter
• "Imakuni" (M) [Crafter], Gem Cutter/Gem Setter/Wood Crafter/Stone Crafter/Bone Carver
• Papercraft (M) [Farmer], Butcher/Tanner/Brewer/Cook/Grower
• Paintedbrains (M) [Mason], Mason/Mechanic/Building Designer
• Glazedune (F) [Noble]

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P.S.

I know I used "It was inevitable" in the title, and it was completely intended. But please, PLEASE, no flooding this thread with jokes related to it, or "It was terrifying!", or anything remotely related.
THANK YOU! 

ATTENTION!

This research has been on hiatus since 20th of November due personal reasons. The current plan is to continue this in few weeks (during February). I have also released the first, unpolished and incomplete, version of the research in DFFD as PDF file. There are currently things in the file that hasn't been mentioned in this thread, I hope I'm able to update this thread in near future.

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Some time ago I had a problem when I tried to make a proper rooms for my monarch. I didn't have too much spare metals and I wanted to know which materials should be enough to make the rooms to Royal without wasting any valuable materials for nothing. I tried to search but nothing came up, at least nothing specific enough, only theories and myths. And thus I decided to conduct a research of my own to actually figure out all the variables and calculations used.

Around the same time I also decided to start a blog about dwarf fortress. Now, it has been some time since that happened and I decided that the first entry of the blog will talk about this research. Unfortunately the research has become quite big and it's not yet finished, but I decided that it would be a good time to publish the first part of the results. And, since I think that there are other players who are interesting to find this out, I decided to make a thread here in forums as well.

When I have finished the research I will publish a document I'm writing about it, which is already getting quite long (35 pages so far). In the meantime I will keep updating this thread and the blog of the current progress of the research.

The blog in question can be found here.

If you want more details about the research I suggest that you read the blog post I have written as well as all the upcoming updates. In this thread I will mostly compile the data. Of course, suggestions are always accepted. Every detail will be tested and included to the final report, with the description of the testing methods, my own thoughts of the results and random ramblings I just ended up writing.

Terminology
In this research I use the following terminology in calculations:

• V = Generic value. Depends on the situation what it describes.
• MV = Material value. Usually used in context of tile material, though in case of items also the material item was made. Defined in raws.
• FV = Furniture value. The total combination of the value of every pieces of furniture.
• RS = Room size. The amount of tiles the room contains. Includes every tile, even the ones at the edge.
• QM = Quality modifier. If something has a quality, QM is used.
• IV = Item value. The value determined by item type in case of furniture. In case of smoothing and engraving IV is given separately.
• BV = Basic value. The combined value of rough tiles and FV. Mostly used in tables only.
• Q = Room quality. Used in tables only.
• S = Value of smoothing. This value describes the additional value the smoothing tasks causes.
• SV = Smoothing value. The total value of tile that has been smoothed. Don't confuse with S!
• EV = Value of engraving.
• TP = Type modifier. The value depends on the context where it's used.
• GR = Gap Reduction. A value that is reduced from room value if all the edge tiles aren't walls.

Results
Since there will be lots of information written in this section I will put everything in spoilers. Next to the title is also the current situation of the given part.

Room Tiles - Partially Done

Furniture - Partially Done

Smoothing - Finished

Engraving - Finished

Gaps in the wall - Partially done

Room overlapping - Under work

Workshops - Under work

Special features - Under work


"Interesting" facts
These facts are listed here just for fun and may or may not be accurate. I think these also describe the size of this project quite well.

Number of MS Excel sheets used: 16
Time wasted spent: Over 150 hours
Number of A4 paper sheets filled: 20
Amount of rooms created: 1500+
Amount of worlds generated: 17
Total number of times I used the "Die" feature of DFHack: Too many, careful estimation is around 100-200 per day.
Amount of tantrum spirals: 2
Size of final report (WIP): 37 pages
My sanity level: 33%

Introduction:
"Leave dwarves alone and they will leave you alone. But if you happen to insult them, either by underrating their crafts or complaining their habit of deforest entire continents, well, you get what you deserve. This is what happened in Athira Ewe, also known as The Plane of Enchantment.

It's not known how or when the wars erupted but that's actually irrelevant. Most important thing is that at the end of year 100 of Third Age of Myth dwarves were at war against almost every civilization. In fact, the only one still in peace with dwarves were humans, apparently they still hold the crafting skills of the short people in high value.

One day the king of dwarven clan The Buff Channels, known as Zulban Earthstream, decided that the borders of his kingdom must be fortified. Several small groups were sent out to establish outposts, each one having a special purpose. Some outposts were designated to guard the borders, some were supposed to look out the trade routes and some were meant to support the armies travelling to distant lands.

One such group was commanded by Kipi Chuckedgems, a middle class noble with no bright future in the mountain home. He was accompanied by six others; two miners, mason, carpenter, farmer and warrior. Their task was to establish small outpost to The Strapping Hills. And what was their special purpose? Well, Oilfame, as the outpost was going to be known, was never meant to be big and flashy. Instead the king wanted it to be hidden with only minimal forces to protect the outpost itself and ambush any invaders crossing the border. Of course minimal forces here wasn't applying to the quality of the army, oh no. That's why the king ordered one of his personal guards to go with the expedition group and to ensure that all soldiers inside Oilfame could be considered elite.

And so, during the winter of year 100, Kipi took the reins of the wagon and the seven dwarves begun their journey to the unknown lands."


About Oilfame:

Oilfame is a story fort where I'm testing out the latest version of my Total Mayhem mod and especially the entity changes I have released.

Being a story fort Oilfame is controlled by me and only by me. You can request dwarves to be named after you but there are few rules to it;

• When requesting I need the name, gender and profession. Name is mandatory but if you don't specify the other two I will just take the first dwarf in unit list
• Even if you state profession I hold the rights to add or remove jobs of claimed dwarves. This is because the population is going to be limited (cap set to 80 dwarves). Also, some of the combinations may not ever happen (for example maso + miner). I'm not posting specific list of forbidden combinations as it would be too long so instead I will ask you to rethink the professions if the combination you requested is out of question.
• Specific gear, rooms and so on may be requested but not promised. This applies especially to military equipment because I'm not going to have many soldiers in my fortress. For example, wielding two weapons is definitely out of question.
• In case of military, gear requests will not be taken in consideration when claiming a dwarf. You want a spear dwarf? You will get soldier and after that I will check out if the equipment request fits to my plans. But even if your request doesn't happen immediately it may happen later.

Finally, I will be using three utilities while playing; Legends Viewer (for the story purpose), Dwarf Therapist (with Caste addition) and DFHack. DFHack is mostly used to get around some of the bugs in game but also speed up things (vein mining and auto dumping) but nothing that affect the actual balance of the mod is not used.


So, let's get started. Have fun reading!

Welcome to Fulllashes!

This fortress community (not succession!) exploration project of the new version of DF! When starting this I have just installed the new vesion to my computer, haven't even checked the changelog, so everything that was introduced by the new version comes more or less as surprise. Of course some of the features (like vampires) are already known to us but I wanted to keep this fortress as fresh experience as possible.

So please, join the FUN and madness of the new DF 0.34.01. Hold on tight, this is going to be a wild ride!


How to dwarf?

If you want to take part in this project (and who wouldn't?) please post the name of dwarf, preferred gender and preferred profession(s). I will dwarf you as soon as possible. The dwarves are given in first come, first served -basis, though this rule is not set to adamantine. I also hold the right to give additional jobs to claimed dwarves unless specifically asked not to.


Embark Info

The site is flat, 4*4 area. We have access to all basic civilizations, clay and metals. No aquifers nor running water.



The starting seven consist of two miners, mason, carpenter, axedwarf, expedition leader (reserved!) and farmer. We have the basic supplies, like food, seeds and alcohol as well as the basic copper equipment for our soldier. I also took two cats and two dogs with me.


Again, welcome to Fulllashes, hopefully you enjoy the journey of discovering the new features of DF 0.34.01!

Welcome to Frenzywork, the dwarven fortress of inequality! Here every and each dwarf is treated basing on their contribution and value to the fortress. Are you a simple soap maker? Don't except any luxury or long life! Do you produce masterwork weapons and armors daily? Live like a king! It's not who you are but what you do that matters!


Embark information

This fortress runs with mostly vanilla version of the 31.25 version, though there are few modifications made; all underground plants ccan grow every season, custom reaction to produce steel directly from iron (uses the same amount of materials as iron -> pig iron -> steel route) and no aquifers.

The embark location is 5*5 big area. The catch is, the whole area is haunted! Of course we have river, soil, clay and metals as well. I reduced the number of caves to two to save some FPS as this fort would offer lots of FUN anyway.


The starting seven, also known as The Holy Seven, consist of miner, carpenter, stone crafter, mason, farmer, axedwarf and expedition leader. None of these are claimable.

As for the items I took food, alcohol and all the basic items, like cloth, glass and so on. The warrior also got a full set of iron armor, including both breastplate and chainmail, iron shield and iron axe. I also took lots of copper axe blades for traps

As for animals, I took two war dogs and one cat.


Caste System

This fortress introduces a special caste system to determine the worth of each dwarf; the profession of the dwarf determines the generic living conditions (above ground, soil layer or stone layer). After that the working ethics as well as other factors determine how much luxury you get. For example a woodcutters and carpenters live above ground. If you are mostly idling, haven't produced anything special and are in every way a dwarf that attracts no attention then you most probably won't have any kind of bed room. On the other hand, if you have very important person in your field of industry, you should except more luxury than average dwarf. The general rule of thumb is that the deeper you live the more important you are.

If two dwarves marry then their living conditions are determined by the higher status of both. Children heritage the status of their parents for the duration of childhood. After that, the worthiness decides their fate.

Here is the rough grouping of jobs and their living conditions:

Woodcutters, carpenters, wood crafting, hunters, fishers, animal handlers: above ground.
Butchers, leather, cloth, soap, bone and all related industries: first soil layer.
Food industry (except hunters and fishers): second soil layer.
Public meeting area, dining hall, hospital, military, jail: first stone layer.
Stone crafting, jewelry: second stone layer.
Masonry, mechanics, engraving, mining: third stone layer.
Metal working (including smelters): fourth stone layer.
Nobility: Fifth layer and deeper.

The above list is only a rough at the beginning, more accurate list will be posted when the fortress is shaping up.


Claiming a dwarf, AKA Dwarfing

You can claim a dwarf. What I need is a name, gender and profession(s). All claimed dwarves start at the lowest level of worthiness and will climb among their fellow dwarves during the course of the game. This means that, while you are still gathering the fame, you may and most probably will get another jobs assigned as well and no special wishes are granted. Gradually the claimed dwarf gets more important and will specialize to the profession(s) you have asked. I will keep on updating the status of each claimed dwarf, including what kind of special requests you can make.

Note that the starting seven can't be claimed!

If the above explanation doesn't make sense I can try to give better one.


Claimed Dwarves

A beekeeper of low citizenship status

A soldier who also dreams of producing weapons and armors. Currently has a low citizenship status.

A mason who also dreams of becoming a hammerdwarf. Currently has a low citizenship status.

The bookkeeper of the fortress with noble heritage. Currently has low citizenship status.

A bone carver with affinity to bolts and who wants to become archer. Currently has low citizenship status.

Waiting To Be Claimed

Babylon (Babylon) - Engraver
? (GreatWyrmGold) - Soldier, prefer sword, and a soaper.

Dear Fikod Oilaces

I know that you are currently busy with all the preparations for leaving the mountain home. That is why I decided to write this letter instead of summoning you here in my office.

The big day is near. I heard you were chosen to organize and lead this small group of dwarves to the world beyond our kingdom. Your group is going to travel to lands not well known to us, all our knowledge coming from few scout reports and the tales told by human traders. This is why careful preparations are in order as there is no way to tell what is waiting you at your destination.

When you reach the destination your task is to begun the construction of new capitol. As you know this place is getting crowded and old. Thus we are in need of new capitol. But this time you shall not follow the old traditions. This time you should concentrate building as much as possible above ground. Yes, I'm aware that our race has been living underground for centuries but this has to change. How could we show our mighty in the eyes of other, lesser races? The answer is simple, we must beat them in something which they think they outsmart us. And thus we need a fortress that is even more grandiose than this one while showing that grandiose to anyone living in the lands surrounding the fortress.

I wish you a good luck in your journey and remember, while there are only seven of you at the beginning more dwarves will follow and the caravans will visit you every autumn. You are not alone in this project!

Best Regards
The Queen

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Manormatch is a fortress I started few days back in vanilla DF 0.31.25 to find new ideas for my Advanced -mod. It turned out to be interesting fortress, fourth year is almost at the end. So I decided to turn this a community fortress, though this will differ from normal story fortress in many ways.

• There is no linear story told, instead I will juggle between short stories which will have more or less something to do with the fortress and just plain description of special events and progress of construction. The main idea is that I'm building a grand fortress and I'm sharing the progress with you.
• Dwarving is possible though so that you get a own avatar living in the fortress. But as I'm not telling any linear story here most of the dwarves will be just statics without much effect to the progress. Also, unlike in any other community fortress I have made in the past, you can't request special actions for you dwarves, like murders or certain behavior. The claimed dwarves are just as any other dwarves but named after members of this forum.
• As this fortress is about constructing a grand fortress any kind of construction ideas are accepted as long as it fits to the fortress. The ideas can be vague ones or very detailed. If the idea fits in my opinion it will then be added to list of projects to be done. Note that I reserve the option to edit the ideas to make it fit better to the grand theme of the fortress. I also reserve the right to not include an idea to the list if I don't like it.
• Community art and journals are welcome. Just note that I may or may not take the journals in account when writing the stories, it depends if the information contained in community journals contradicts on my plans and ideas.
• Most of the fortress will be built above the surface so keep that in mind while throwing suggestions.
• The mood of this story will be light, even though the playing itself is serious. The entries I'm posting here won't be that serious so you could expect almost anything.

The embark location is almost flat, eastern side of the area is one level lower than rest of the area. There is no special features visible on the surface except huge amount of trees and few pools of water. The size of the embark area is 4*4, so there should be at least two adamantine veins waiting.

The fortress currently has following types of citizens. If you want a dwarf named then please specify which category you want to belong. All dwarves have the following jobs enable despite the group they belong: Feed Patients/Prisoners, Recover Wounded and Cleaning.
Following is the list of groups and their responsibility in fortress.

• Noble: traders, managers, baron, any dwarf that relates to the management of the fortress. No other jobs enabled.
• Miners: mining and engraving. No other jobs enabled except Mining and Stone Detailing
• Masons: No other jobs besides Masonry, Mechanics and Architecture
• Metal Workers: All metal working jobs enabled, including Furnace Operating. No other jobs enabled.
• Jeweller: Gem Cutting and Gem Setting enabled, nothing else.
• Stonecrafter: Only Stonecrafting enabled
• Archer/Soldier: No civilian jobs enabled.
• Peasant: Every job not covered by specialists enabled. Main workforce of the fortress.

Bellow are some pictures of the fortress at the state it is when starting this thread.

Introduction

The mountain home of dwarven civilization The Faithful Furnaces has been under martial law for several years. The crime rates have grown to unimaginable level, riots are daily events and no sane dwarf would travel outside their home without an escort. Guards are unable to solve the problem as the jails are already full and there is no room for more criminals. So, as the execution is out of the question due traditions, the criminals can act freely without fear of punishment.

Finally, at the late summer of year 100, the captain of guards figured out the solution; all the criminals should be sent to remote location, where they build their own fortress which also serves as their prison. The criminals sent there are the worst of their kind, those whose sentence is no shorter than life long. The criminals are allowed to live in the fortress without being chained, but they are not allowed to cross the borders of the fortress and they must work for the mountain home, gathering materials and crafting goods. All the time they are observed by the guards and personnel, who also have the rights to punish anybody not obeying the rules and orders.

It took only a week from the captain of guards to persuade the king to establish such prison fortress, and so seven dwarves were sent out to journey the location chose beforehand where the prison should be built. Of these seven dwarves six were criminals, guarded by single dwarf equipped with bronze axe and iron armor. The prisoners were chosen from the worst criminals basing on the skills needed to build the initial prison. The guard also got two war dogs to help keeping the criminals under control as well as one cat, one camel and one yak cow.

And so they begun their journey, knowing that they it was the last time they saw the glorious halls of the mountain home...


Description

Evercage is community fortress using Dwarf Fortress Advanced mod version 0.3.6 with the No Aquifers, Enable All Metals and No Cursed Stones optional features. More info about the mod can be found here.

There story is told in outside perspective, so any dwarf can be claimed. You can choose from three options: guard, personnel or prisoner. If you want a guard I need at least nickname and optionally which weapons the guard should specialize. Personnel is same as noble, and for them I need the nickname and which position you want. For the criminals, who are the common folk of the fortress, I need the nickname again and optionally the crime(s) the dwarf has committed to be sentenced to Evercage. Also, if you pick prisoner, you can request for specific job, though I can't promise anything. Every other request (like gender, personality etc.) will be taken in account, but can't promise anything.

When a dwarf is claimed I will post the description of the dwarf here. Also, feel free to post suggestions, comments and even personal diaries.

Bellow are few pictures of the embarking location and the items the dwarves got at the beginning. The location is more or less flat, with volcano about in the middle, a tall mountain just northwest from it and flat hill on the east. The wagon has been parked in the middle between the volcano and the mountain. There is brook running through the map on the west side. The area is covered in snow, but I will turn off temperature once everything has melted.