Bay 12 Games Forum

Dwarf Fortress => DF Community Games & Stories => Topic started by: Hetairos on March 16, 2013, 05:07:48 pm

Title: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade
Post by: Hetairos on March 16, 2013, 05:07:48 pm
A Forgotten Beast wandered into the caverns of Wirejade. A towering feathered serpent with a trunk and a bloated body, called Radavi the Jackal of Twilight. Able to spray deadly dust. Like many times before, I sent out the military to counter it, expecting at most a few dead soldiers.

It sat in the middle of an underground lake, so I decided to provoke it with marksdwarves and make it walk straight into the middle of my troops. It attacked them, just as I expected, and turned towards the rest of the soldiers. Then I noticed the marksdwarves are already dead, despite being hit only with the dust. Checking the health of some animals which were unlucky enough to get caught up in the battle revealed the cause.

"Deadly" was a major understatement. The dust literally caused the entire body to rupture. Death from blood loss followed within seconds.

I evacuated the warriors, and fortunately the beast walked back into the lake. I was already digging out a chunk of the ceiling to drop on its head... I'm not sure what happened then. I think a passing hunter started shooting at it, making it crawl out of the water, and was killed. Afterwards the beast kept moving from dwarf to dwarf, leaving a trail of blood and destruction. About 40 dwarves, including a large portion of the military, died. Damn thing was fast, too - ordering everybody to go back into the fortress proper did little.

One of the dwarves who didn't make it was my captain of the guard, Sakzul Riddlegirder the Clean Call, slayer of seven Forgotten Beasts, two of which she literally bisected. Adamantine chain mail, artifact helm and shield, ☼adamantine short sword☼ forged by the duke himself - nothing helped her in any way. The beast slammed her into the wall with its dust... she got up, walked a few steps and promptly collapsed next to a torn apart hyena cub. I didn't mention this infernal serpent is exceptionally good at ripping out limbs. It got hit a few times, though - it's middle spine is broken. Not that it helps much. Other injuries are probably caused by its own dust throwing it into walls.

At this point, I decided to seal off the caverns, abandoning whoever was left there to their doom. There are still some survivors, picking wild plump helmets. After that, I did the last thing I hope will get me rid of that abomination.

I breached the hollow adamantine spire.

This had the downside of having whoever was far below the fortress, in the magma forges level, mercilessly slaughtered in a number of gruesome ways. But hey, the beast would get them sooner or later, right? I ordered them to forge some armament for themselves so they would at least die armed and fighting, and organized them into squads. One received the name "The Evisceration of Smiths". It's more or less an accurate description of what's happening now.

Anyway, that brings us where we are now. The demons are assaulting the forges, and dwarves are getting roasted alive and kicked across the room. Smoke, blood, corpses and various metal garbage is everywhere. The beast is slowly destroying the base of my old pumpstack I used to dry an underground pond. Everything below z-level -11 is dead, dying, or will be dead. All that stands between Wirejade and its doom is an artifact bituminous coal hatch cover and some nickel bridges.

There are three demons futilely trying to kill a cave blob. One of the others got named "Hatedemons".

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Current death count: About 100 and increasing, 339 dwarves alive.

It isn't over yet.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Foamybeard on March 16, 2013, 05:32:47 pm
This sounds pretty cool. Keep us update, will you?
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on March 16, 2013, 09:05:56 pm
Some music I found fitting. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IEbfDtDaUc)

The first demons reached Radavi. It knocked them away with the dust and hid in the pumpstack. It's kind of difficult to see anything through all the smoke, fire, dust and miasma. Now it's duelling a huge bristleworm composed of salt. Neither of them is gaining an upper hand.

The cave blob I mentioned is now being simultaneously pummelled by 8 demons. Another large group is thoroughly destroying furniture on the forge level, clearing room after room. Other demons are mostly hunting down the survivors. They knocked a dwarf into a magma pool, chased him down there and didn't stop attacking him even while he was melting.

A dwarf is tantruming in his sleep. Speaking of tantrums: they are regular, but so far the only casualties I noticed are two farm plots. Both were quickly rebuilt.  The fact that for the past decade I had kept the number of idlers in single digits is probably helping. Very few dwarves have any relations beyond "Passing Acquaintance" and rusty social skills aren't an uncommon sight. Three dwarves lost to melancholy, including a proficient hammerdwarf. Also the duke's dead, a mayor has been elected.

The survivors are still around, wandering in the cavern. I reclaimed the food and drink of fallen soldiers and whatever pots of booze happened to be lying around, it should serve them for quite a long while.

BTW, I have a wall tile with 37 different contaminants.

Death count: Over 140, shouldn't get much more than that. For demons: 1 Tick Devil and 2 Steam Devils. Wealth is down by over 4 million. I'll order some engravings...

SO MUCH BLOOD SO MUCH MIASMA ARMOK HELP US
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Solon64 on March 16, 2013, 09:11:43 pm
Opening the the clown car to deal with a nasty forgotten beast?

You made the dorfiest and thus the most appropriate decision, and I commend you on that.  Well played.

Also, YOWZA that's a nasty syndrome that beast's dust has.  Armok blessed that creature personally.  I find I like the "geyser of blood" syndromes way more than the "paralyze ALL the organs!" ones that I usually get.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on March 17, 2013, 06:06:57 am
This is legendary. Abandon all hope you Dwarves that walk beneath here, for hope has abandoned you.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: birdy51 on March 17, 2013, 08:45:31 am
This is legendary. Abandon all hope you Dwarves that walk beneath here, for hope has abandoned you.

Some will make it out of there alive. Just make their reward lots of booze. Booze is a powerful motivator for survival.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Asra on March 17, 2013, 09:18:26 am
Does the Forgotten Beast have any other titles now?
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Frelus on March 17, 2013, 09:53:25 am
Wait, atifacts can burn but not be destroyed, right?
Then, for the final touch, set the hatch on ‼FIRE‼, would you?
"THE BURNING GATE TO HELL... well, it is more of a hatch, really, but it burns!"
Also, any chance to get a code for that syndrome? I am planning on modding a deadly creature that vaporizes anything it happens to see, and that sounds good.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Spacespinner on March 17, 2013, 12:24:07 pm
One received the name "The Evisceration of Smiths". It's more or less an accurate description of what's happening now.
-------------------------------

Lost it.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Kofthefens on March 17, 2013, 01:55:24 pm
You made the dorfiest possible decision.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: coldmonkey on March 17, 2013, 02:07:07 pm
This is awesome and makes me want to conquer the Circus with captured enemies.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on March 22, 2013, 10:22:31 pm
Sorry for taking so long, life got in the way.

Does the Forgotten Beast have any other titles now?

Just a... surname, I think. It's now Radavi Seizeclout the Jackal of Twilight.
This is legendary. Abandon all hope you Dwarves that walk beneath here, for hope has abandoned you.

Some will make it out of there alive. Just make their reward lots of booze. Booze is a powerful motivator for survival.

I've got over 8000 units. Should be enough. I'm kind of obsessive about food and drinks.
Wait, atifacts can burn but not be destroyed, right?
Then, for the final touch, set the hatch on ‼FIRE‼, would you?
"THE BURNING GATE TO HELL... well, it is more of a hatch, really, but it burns!"
Also, any chance to get a code for that syndrome? I am planning on modding a deadly creature that vaporizes anything it happens to see, and that sounds good.

I'm afraid I don't know how to get this, unless you tell me how to. I'm an absolute noob at modding. About burning gates, an ‼artifact goat bone door‼ is deep down in the (former) forges. So, a burning, unused gate somewhere in Hell. The hatch is right in the middle of the housing z-level, I'd rather not set it on fire. Though I won't have much of a choice if a pyromaniac clown comes too close.



Notable combat logs:
• A blacksmith got cornered by a Steam Devil.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
He is either going to dehydrate to death or level up all the way to legendary and finally land a hit. We'll see.
• The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, aka beast vs. demons:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Um, I guess it's epic or something.

Since I'm probably not going to regain access to the corpses soon, I commissioned 150 slabs and engravings in the new burial chamber. Sakzul will get a nice platinum sarcophagus if I ever manage to reclaim the underground. I hope I'll have the dead slabbed before ghosts start popping up, because something is telling me they won't be the usual forlorn haunts.

I have a plan on how to rescue the survivors in the caverns, or rather how to make them rescue themselves. Hint: it involves a pick.

As of 5th Malachite, 147 there are 3 miserable dwarves (who I think have already succumbed to melancholy), 10 very unhappy ones and 11 unhappy ones. Honestly, I expected the death of one third of the fortress population to have a bigger impact. Maybe many dwarves simply aren't aware of who is dead yet. I wonder if migrants are going to come.

I still have coal, I still have iron, I still have everything I need to sustain a fortress. One day, I will have my revenge.

SHORASTOTIL ENDURES

Question: Should I reorganize the military back into squads of 10 dwarves each or leave them at lower numbers?
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Solon64 on March 23, 2013, 01:38:30 am
For organizing the military, put them in squads of two and reduce the "minimum soldiers required on duty" to 1 in their schedule. This ought to have them sparring (and thus training MUCH faster than by demonstration) a lot more. Make the squad leaders have the teacher skill, if they have it.

You can always sort them into proper larger squads later
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on March 23, 2013, 06:44:20 am
For organizing the military, put them in squads of two and reduce the "minimum soldiers required on duty" to 1 in their schedule. This ought to have them sparring (and thus training MUCH faster than by demonstration) a lot more. Make the squad leaders have the teacher skill, if they have it.

You can always sort them into proper larger squads later
No no no, you'd want to have squads of 3 with it set to train for 2 or 3. Set to 1 would be one Dwarf on their own teaching to their self. Set to 2 or 3 would allow for much larger sparring rates (including on occasion 3 Dwarves sparring altogether simultaneously).

It's a moot point though, since multiple training orders can be given. So you can give 4 training orders for 2 in a squad of 9-10 for example, and it'd have the same effect as splitting the squad into smaller squads.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: McDonald on March 23, 2013, 03:04:49 pm
Oh my god... I wish I could have a fortress like that (So action-filled, not dead!). Mine is boring and laggy. Mine biggest achievement was defeating a goblin siege consisting of 12 lashers and one pikegobbo.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: GuesssWho on March 23, 2013, 10:48:10 pm
. . . wow.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on March 28, 2013, 06:21:36 am
Oh my god... I wish I could have a fortress like that (So action-filled, not dead!). Mine is boring and laggy. Mine biggest achievement was defeating a goblin siege consisting of 12 lashers and one pikegobbo.

Sounds like my fort for the past 21 years, minus the goblins - back then I didn't even know how to check neighbouring civs. FBs and kobold thieves posed the only danger. Speaking of lag - I have about 10 FPS now, up from 6 before the beast attacked. I was even planning to open Hell on purpose to give the fortress a more fitting end than framerate death. And that's when the game decided to give me an extra helping of ‼FUN‼.

Aren't lashers ridiculously overpowered or am I confusing them with something?
No no no, you'd want to have squads of 3 with it set to train for 2 or 3. Set to 1 would be one Dwarf on their own teaching to their self. Set to 2 or 3 would allow for much larger sparring rates (including on occasion 3 Dwarves sparring altogether simultaneously).

It's a moot point though, since multiple training orders can be given. So you can give 4 training orders for 2 in a squad of 9-10 for example, and it'd have the same effect as splitting the squad into smaller squads.

Thanks, I wish I knew that before. Not that it would've helped much... Time to reorganize the army!



A fireclown collapsed the pumps... I'd better seal the hole before anything gets out.

...

Why is the mason on fire?


And that's how I got a demon on the surface. Fortunately the soldiers weren't far away, and I immediately ordered them to charge. They engaged it on the ground, and a spearmaster managed to inflict enough damage (keeping fighting even while he was melting) to force it to retreat into the air, where it hovered, hurling fireballs with the rapidity of a machine gun. Ultimately it fell to heavy crossbow fire. Another mason is already on his/her way.

The rescue plan is set in motion. The dwarves have been assigned to the burrow, and a hole has already been dug. All I can do now is pray they are faster than the demons.

Deep down, the clowns are hunting down random cavern wildlife and setting everything on fire. They seem to be having fun.

But how's Radavi the beast? Well, it killed a demon:

(http://i50.tinypic.com/5zmgz9.png)

But then...

(http://i48.tinypic.com/2rer6li.png)

DING DONG THE BEAST IS DEAD

Coming soon: An overview of the types of demons, and my plan on how to deal with them.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Marcus Of Polo on March 28, 2013, 08:50:43 am
As a newby, ok a noob, this not only frightens me but now makes me want to surge on and find some fun!

Guess it finally succumed to its injuries?
Good luck reclaiming the dead!
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: zzandy on March 28, 2013, 09:48:20 am
That is awesome! How do you manage to get 45 FPS with all the stuff going on?
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: CognitiveDissonance on March 28, 2013, 09:52:58 am
That is really, really cool! Any chance you could write a summary of the events in the Forgotten Beast Art thread? I think you might inspire a few people there...

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=124312.0 (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=124312.0)
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: MrWillsauce on March 28, 2013, 05:15:34 pm
ptw. This is pretty neat.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Nostril actor on March 28, 2013, 05:18:37 pm
It's a moot point though, since multiple training orders can be given. So you can give 4 training orders for 2 in a squad of 9-10 for example, and it'd have the same effect as splitting the squad into smaller squads.

I really don't know about the whole multiple train orders thing because whenever I set it up this way I still end up getting a lot more demonstrations and a lot less sparring than when I actually make squads of 3.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on March 28, 2013, 06:01:28 pm
As a newby, ok a noob, this not only frightens me but now makes me want to surge on and find some fun!

Guess it finally succumed to its injuries?
Good luck reclaiming the dead!

Unfortunately the combat log wasn't very informative about this, but it's lower spine has been broken at one point, in addition to middle spine wound it suffered before, and it became winded. It seems it finally suffocated to death.

That is awesome! How do you manage to get 45 FPS with all the stuff going on?

Huh? I don't, thanks to all those deaths my framerate goes up to 12 at most. DF's FPS counter sometimes gets stuck, and that's probably what happened. Or maybe I unpaused it shortly before.

That is really, really cool! Any chance you could write a summary of the events in the Forgotten Beast Art thread? I think you might inspire a few people there...

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=124312.0 (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=124312.0)

A summary? Sure, I can do it. Do I have to draw anything? Creating anything that would be roughly recognisable as a FB something would take me a metric ton of time...



Do you remember what I said about a plan? The entry point to the caverns is surrounded by a ring of fortifications, constructed early in Wirejade's history. It served as the first beachhead in the underground, and later as a secure stronghold against dangers coming from there. Wiki told me that raised drawbridges act as walls, and are immune to building destroyers. Now, the plan was to lure some demons with a few statues, and surround the statues with several rings of upright spears triggered by a pressure plate positioned in the entrance of the main food & booze stockpile.

It didn't exactly work as intended.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
There is empty space above some of the fortifications fliers can get through, and all demons seem to be able to fly. At least no important dwarves were lost.

I came up with plan B soon afterwards:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Close the bridges, open the hatch, pasture an animal down there, close the hatch, send the soldiers, open the bridges, watch demons come and die, rinse and repeat. The first try yielded three dead Brine Demons, so the whole operation seems promising.

Meanwhile, three last survivors - including the blacksmith fighting a Steam Devil I mentioned before - commit acts of unprecedented badassery.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The above coming from a dwarf whose highest combat skill was Competent Fighter. He would've killed it with his bare hands, but a Brine Demon came and smashed everyone into a bloody pulp. Another one destroyed a Steam Devil with a single strike of his pick. The last one is the blacksmith himself simply for holding out for long enough to have his skills rise up to Proficient level and becoming able to counterstrike.

The new engravings in the burial chambers are underwhelming: foundation of the fort, a cheetah, a leopard, some boring masterwork items, dwarves crying over no longer being militia commanders. Come on, I want some dwarves in foetal positions and laughing demons, or vice versa!

There was about a hundred of them, so far, twelve are dead. Here's the promised overview:
• Haunts of Fire and Specters of Fire - made of fire, shoot fireballs. breath fire. The "ranged wing" of the forces of the underworld. Not very tough, but few thing manage to get close to them.
• White Demons and Slush Banshees - composed of snow. Surprisingly, quite deadly.
• Brine Demons - salt bristleworms with shells. Die easily, provided you can hit them.
• Spirits of Ash - three-tailed blobs of ash, about as powerful as the snow clowns.
• Tick Devils - eyeless ticks, the only type of demon to bear a syndrome (poisonous gas), excluding the Slug Demons which wander aimlessly in Hell. It causes fever and blistering of the skin, but doesn't appear to be lethal. In combat, usually keep spraying gas and doing little else.
• Steam Devils - oddly enough, beaver-shaped. Completely unable to directly deal damage, but incredibly good at dodging.
• Demon of Salt - a salt blob. There's only one of this kind.

The blob-shaped ones are worrying, since I'm not sure if they can be killed in combat at all.

And right when I was thinking things are getting better...
(http://i49.tinypic.com/9lbmyt.png)
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: MattStriker on March 28, 2013, 06:06:57 pm
That seems to be the right moment for Operation Fuck The World: Dig a direct connection between clown town and the surface. That planet deserves it.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: MrWillsauce on March 28, 2013, 06:18:51 pm
Catch the dragon in a cage trap. Maybe you can keep it cooped up behind some fortifications, then path some demons in front of it and try to kill them with dragon fire. I know they're immune to lava, but dragon fire is a lot hotter.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Foamybeard on March 28, 2013, 06:26:05 pm
That seems to be the right moment for Operation Fuck The World: Dig a direct connection between clown town and the surface. That planet deserves it.

I agree with MattStriker. Let the demons loose, and have your dwarves seal themselves into themselves. Cask of Amontillado yourself.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on March 28, 2013, 06:30:01 pm
Ask yourself this: Can it never cease to get worse?
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on March 30, 2013, 11:53:11 am
Catch the dragon in a cage trap. Maybe you can keep it cooped up behind some fortifications, then path some demons in front of it and try to kill them with dragon fire. I know they're immune to lava, but dragon fire is a lot hotter.

That's exactly what I'm going to do.

The dragon burned a large amount of animals, and a few dwarves who stayed on the surface to have a drink. I guess that's what "negative effects of alcohol consumption" mean in Dwarf Fortress. I'm trying to lure it into the trap corridor, but it's more interested in destroying furniture in the surface barracks. I have to say that dragonfire is impressive. Grass doesn't even burn, but instantly turns into ashes. Stone and metal items caught in the direct blast melt into something that's apparently categorized as "glob".

The strangest thing is was a burning donkey foal which doesn't suffer damage or emit smoke. It died in the heat as soon as I unpaused the game, which seems to be a bug. The same thing happened to another one near the wells, where a large number of dwarves is hanging out. I hope nothing important catches fire.

Oh, and:
(http://i47.tinypic.com/4gn1bp.png)

A moody dwarf made an artifact sheep bone coffin. I designated it as Sakzul's future resting place.

In the underground front, great success! The new demon elimination plan may be even better than the first one. Its second execution yielded about a dozen dead demons, including Fatesank the tick devil, which is likely responsible for the injuries which caused the beast's death. Blob clowns aren't as that dangerous, I saw an ash one die to two or three bolts.

A spider FB walked into the third caver level and was killed by demons without inflicting any damage.

I'm trying to figure out how creeping eyes vomit despite not having a mouth.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Foamybeard on March 30, 2013, 12:53:23 pm
I'm trying to figure out how creeping eyes vomit despite not having a mouth.

Do you mind if I put that in my signature? I find that to be way too funny to pass up on.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Mr Space Cat on March 30, 2013, 04:42:45 pm
PTW for more !!fun!! and clowns and goresplosions.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: McDonald on March 31, 2013, 09:32:12 am
Oh my god... I wish I could have a fortress like that (So action-filled, not dead!). Mine is boring and laggy. Mine biggest achievement was defeating a goblin siege consisting of 12 lashers and one pikegobbo.
Quote
Sounds like my fort for the past 21 years, minus the goblins - back then I didn't even know how to check neighbouring civs. FBs and kobold thieves posed the only danger. Speaking of lag - I have about 10 FPS now, up from 6 before the beast attacked. I was even planning to open Hell on purpose to give the fortress a more fitting end than framerate death. And that's when the game decided to give me an extra helping of ‼FUN‼.

Aren't lashers ridiculously overpowered or am I confusing them with something?

Whoops, sorry for not respoding for such a long time, I ragequitted life because of DF crash and lost saves :P

Speaking of lashers, according to wiki even copper whips can crush steel helmets.
Also, I remember one of my lost forts, a single ambush with a lasher destroyed my whole fort and the lasher was pursuing my tantruming mayor in circles for a long time and finally crushed his head. I LOLed so hard the whole time! :D
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: MattStriker on March 31, 2013, 10:12:42 am
Whips are one of the weapons that react in really weird ways to the damage calculations. Tiny contact area, huge leverage modifier...extremely nasty.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: jonanlsh on March 31, 2013, 10:49:51 am
i lol'd wayy more than what should be socially acceptable for a situation necessitating such dwarfy reactions.

breaching the fiery beyond to deal with one FB.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on April 01, 2013, 06:19:04 pm
I'm trying to figure out how creeping eyes vomit despite not having a mouth.

Do you mind if I put that in my signature? I find that to be way too funny to pass up on.

Sure, go ahead!

yay I got sigged



Unfortunately, the dragon decided that going in circles close to the barracks is a wonderful idea. And then the dwarven caravan came.

So the merchants arrive to see blood and ashes everywhere, us nowhere to be seen, a rampaging dragon

WELCOME TO FUCKING WIREJADE!

I hope you like dragonfire!

Two of them were melted together with their pack animals, and the rest fled the map. Not a big loss, since all I've been using the caravans for during the past decade or so was getting rid of tattered clothes. All that remained behind was a pile of mostly useless metal stuff.

Finally, I lost my patience and decided to bait the dragon with dwarves. Long story short, it ended up so heavily wounded by marksdwarves that I sent soldiers to put it out of its misery. A spear in the head brought it down.

Two or three more demons are dead. The bulk of their forces is still deep below where magma forge complex used to be, and there is plenty of furniture left to trash. I doubt that I'll be able to shoot them all from safety, even though it seems that the mere presence of dwarves on the battlements draws them where I want. The reclamation of the caverns will be long and bloody.

I cold use more dwarves. Jewellers and masons suffered the heaviest losses, but I'd make use of anybody, especially with some military skills. Everyone is now busy cleaning up the surface, hauling animal corpses and withered crops (the farms were meant to supply almost 200 more dwarves), repasturing the surviving creatures and restoring the surface statue garden.

A furnace operator got possessed and is making something out of bone. Why do all dwarves without moodable skills in this fortress make bone crafts?

Several months have passed since Wirejade went under the population cap, but migrants aren't coming. Why? Is it too early?

Oh, did I mention this is my first fortress ever?
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on April 01, 2013, 07:57:23 pm
Wow. PTW.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Foamybeard on April 01, 2013, 11:09:05 pm
Your first fortress?!?! My first fortress everyone got killed by an ambush.... :/
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Urist Mc Dwarf on April 07, 2013, 04:57:06 pm
Mine, the mayor ordered the hammering of his wife, son and two other popular dwarves. He went beserk soon after. did I mention that he was also my millitary commander nad armed  and armored in steel with Proficent Swordsdwarf. My second I made a causeway from hell to surface
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Porpoisepower on April 07, 2013, 10:39:57 pm
You seriously need to do a Story fort!

 :o
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on April 14, 2013, 01:07:41 pm
Your first fortress?!?! My first fortress everyone got killed by an ambush.... :/

That's probably how mine would've ended had goblins been anywhere nearby... Dwarf Fortress definitely has quite a few things left in store for me.

You seriously need to do a Story fort!

 :o

Oh wow, I don't think my storytelling skills would be sufficient for this. Here, I'm doing little more than describing events from the game.



As of 11th Sandstone, 148 approximately 1/3 of the demons is dead, the vast majority killed by marksdwarves. It took some time and ammo.

(http://i46.tinypic.com/b5gyue.png)

Do you see this wall grate in the middle? It's an artifact created by the fortress manager, one of the starting seven (two of which remain alive) and is currently serving as the demon bait. The dead dwarves were sent to deal with a tick devil stubbornly refusing to succumb to the crossbow fire. As it turns out, even a gravely wounded demon with a dozen metal bolts firmly stuck in its body is perfectly capable of ripping a dwarf's guts through masterwork steel armour. The fortifications at the bottom are meant to be a ballista bunker, but I suppose the operators will run away anyway. However, I can go back to my old idea of using upright spears, and 80 iron ones have already been commissioned. While the raised bridges don't stop demons from coming inside, they seem to mess with their pathfinding.

Checkerboards, magma machineguns, minecart shotguns... The dwarves of Wirejade will defeat the legions of Hell with good old dakka, and some pointy metal sticks.

In other news, I'm massproducing iron bolts and searching for new coal veins to power the industry. I don't like having to rely on charcoal, and the aforementioned iron spears will require some fuel. An elven caravan arrived and nobody bothered to go and trade with it. Some dwarf made an artifact statue of an otherwise unremarkable giant sloth bear being killed by a Forgotten Beast. I discovered kobold bone crafts in one of the workshops. I finally managed to stockpile some soap and make dwarven syrup.

Some time before Radavi's rampage, I had the idea to arm all civilians with a bone crossbow, a wooden shield and a full quiver. If it got there just a few months later, it's likely it would get shot before inflicting too much damage. Anyway, the project appears to be complete. It's hilarious when a kobold thief gets spotted inside the fortress.

The demons in the old forges are finished with smashing furniture. Some went up, some stayed deep underground for no particular reason.

Migrants, why aren't you coming? You can take potshots at demons here! Crossbow and ammo for free!
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on April 14, 2013, 01:20:10 pm
Migrants, why aren't you coming? You can take potshots at demons here! Crossbow and ammo for free!
There always reaches a point where the Overseer needs it pointed out to them just how insane they seem.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Trapezohedron on April 14, 2013, 01:33:20 pm
Wow, your fortress is indeed having a party with that uninvited guest and its clown entourage. Well done.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on April 21, 2013, 09:53:04 am
There always reaches a point where the Overseer needs it pointed out to them just how insane they seem.

Bay12 calls me insane... Should I turn myself over to an asylum or just go straight to the SCP Foundation?

Wow, your fortress is indeed having a party with that uninvited guest and its clown entourage. Well done.

Everybody is indeed having lots of fun, but it seems not all guests will make it home on their own...



Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Meet Mestthos Earthenexits the Flaxen Elder. She's a moderately skilled macedwarf, serving in the Primitive Daggers squad. Faster than her squadmates, always running ahead of them.

And she has recently killed a tick devil in hand-to-hand combat.

With a single strike.

Of her shield.

Because she stubbornly refuses to pick up a weapon.

Some time ago, a kobold thief was unlucky enough to be caught by her. She proceeded to break every bone in his body with the shield, before finishing him off with a blow to the head.

She is scaring me.

How did it all happen? Well, the upright spears I mentioned before were all in place and hooked the up to a lever (initially I wanted to use a pressure plate, but it didn't work as intended, so I decided a lever would be more reliable). All except one tile. Some dwarves came down to fix it and clean up the place a little bit, and were attacked by a tick devil demon. At one moment, only two metalsmiths remained alive.

(http://i35.tinypic.com/244qs11.png)

They miraculously crippled the demon's legs and wings, rendering it unable to move, and kept it pinned down with crossbowfire, standing amidst the blood both fresh and old, grime, torn off limbs, corpses of demons and their fellow dwarves, bolts and clouds of foul-smelling miasma and fever-inducing gas, until the relief force arrived. You know the rest.

Said spears are working quite well and have already skewered a demon on their own. I moved the ballista a bit so the operator no longer runs away, but only 1 shot out of 2 reaches the target, and there is always nobody to fire it when I need it.

One of the flame demons has somehow killed itself in a remote part of the caverns. It just... somehow rammed itself into the ground and exploded. A closer inspection revealed forgotten beast webs inaccessible to dwarves, hanging above some ramps. It still doesn't fully explain how a basically weightless creature fell on the ground with sufficient force to blow itself apart, but whatever.

I'm beginning to wonder if opening Hell doesn't somehow stop immigration. If someone could confirm or debunk this I'd be grateful.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Skorp on April 21, 2013, 10:09:38 am
Quote
I'm beginning to wonder if opening Hell doesn't somehow stop immigration. If someone could confirm or debunk this I'd be grateful.
I can confirm that it doesn't, but the high amount of casualties and the death of merchants will scare them off
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: usgreth on April 21, 2013, 10:42:05 am
I have a pillbox set up away from my fort thats full to the brim with clowns. I use them as a sort of guard tower against elves, goblins and also as target practice for siege weapons. I've had several migrant waves since then, in fact the last batch of migrants passed perilously close to the bunker when making their way to my proper fort, was half expecting them to all get fireballed in the face.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on April 21, 2013, 10:57:16 am
I can confirm that it doesn't, but the high amount of casualties and the death of merchants will scare them off

Only that I don't even get the "The fortress attracted no migrants this season" message. And the last caravan left a few months ago filled to the brim with goods.

I have a pillbox set up away from my fort thats full to the brim with clowns. I use them as a sort of guard tower against elves, goblins and also as target practice for siege weapons. I've had several migrant waves since then, in fact the last batch of migrants passed perilously close to the bunker when making their way to my proper fort, was half expecting them to all get fireballed in the face.

Doesn't that eat up FPS like crazy? Certainly better than a "welcome" sign, though.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Vattic on April 22, 2013, 12:22:45 am
PTW, cheers for sharing.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: tarrahwade on April 28, 2013, 04:34:08 am
I always love spoilers. :)
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Tarqiup Inua on April 28, 2013, 06:35:04 am
The new engravings in the burial chambers are underwhelming: foundation of the fort, a cheetah, a leopard, some boring masterwork items, dwarves crying over no longer being militia commanders. Come on, I want some dwarves in foetal positions and laughing demons, or vice versa!
Bit old quote... well, you need engraver that has "admires tradition" or something like that in his description to get those engravings.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on April 28, 2013, 06:43:18 am
The new engravings in the burial chambers are underwhelming: foundation of the fort, a cheetah, a leopard, some boring masterwork items, dwarves crying over no longer being militia commanders. Come on, I want some dwarves in foetal positions and laughing demons, or vice versa!
Bit old quote... well, you need engraver that has "admires tradition" or something like that in his description to get those engravings.

Yeah, I looked it up later... Some engravings with demons started appearing then, including one depicting the mortal wounding of Radavi by Fatesank.



Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to announce that the first level of the caverns has been fully reclaimed. Many valuable goods, especially weapons and armour, is again in dwarven hands. Cleaning the area up is almost finished, and an expedition into the depths should follow soon.

In the bad news, a few dwarves rushed to deep even though I forbade everything that could've attracted them. The results were predictable.

(http://i39.tinypic.com/iw6t8p.png)

She would have probably survived, but a FB appeared and bit her head off.

However, thanks to them I'm sure the remaining demons have utterly broken pathfinding and won't move unless something gets very close. I should be able to hunt them down one group after another. According to my military research, killing demons with moderately skilled dwarves is possible under several conditions:
- the demons must have their legs (and wings, if they have any) broken, preferably from distance,
- the melee dwarves are heavily supported by marksdwarves,
- a large number of dwarves is used so even if the demon starts tearing apart one soldier, the others can attack it,
- and of course the warriors have the best gear available. A limited adamantine supply is probably better used for weapons than armour, since demons are so massive their blunt attacks like kicks won't be stopped by anything except maybe shields or dodging.

I have an idea about what to do with the demon remains, but that will come later.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: jonanlsh on April 28, 2013, 08:38:43 am
in comparison to your epic dwarven fun ball, i only recieved my first dragon assault today.

i nearly shat my pants in fear. but my military slew it with ease.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Volfgarix on April 28, 2013, 09:50:51 am
Oh Armok, this is... Awesome... :o
PTW
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Ringsea on April 28, 2013, 10:47:51 am
You can probably just burn the corpses. I don't THINK they'll still be lava immune after death. You can always atom smash, though. A symbol of the triumph of Dwarven technology over the Demons.

I kinda wanna see what happens if a necromancer were to come at you.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Tarqiup Inua on April 28, 2013, 12:26:11 pm
That's right, can't you save the corpses for your necromancer hero?
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Trapezohedron on April 28, 2013, 12:29:03 pm
That's right, can't you save the corpses for your necromancer hero?

AFAIK, HFS cannot be animated.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Porpoisepower on April 28, 2013, 04:04:55 pm
This fortress needs a Planespacked!
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Batmantis56 on April 28, 2013, 05:24:14 pm
Awesome story, good work dealing with that mess.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Solon64 on April 28, 2013, 05:53:48 pm
That's right, can't you save the corpses for your necromancer hero?

AFAIK, HFS cannot be animated.

This. HFS all have the tag [CANNOT_UNDEAD], rendering them immune to reanimation. Thank armok for that, you think HFS is bad, I cant imagine a zombie clown...

Which brings up a question, actually. Can clowns be thralled/husked? Thralls/husks are not actually undead... needs testing. I actually haven't seen a husking cloud in a LONG time though. The last ones I saw ended in a herd of Ostrich husks pecking my seven dwarves to death in less than two minutes.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: FritzPL on April 29, 2013, 07:13:17 am
We demand a save.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Button on April 29, 2013, 09:33:54 am
Quote
Only that I don't even get the "The fortress attracted no migrants this season" message. And the last caravan left a few months ago filled to the brim with goods.

I have heard it said that once you have too many dead (5000 or so?), you stop attracting migrants unless you clear out the roster with DFHack. Though I guess since you're on an island that's unlikely. I only hit the limit when I'm in range of a Tower.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Batmantis56 on April 30, 2013, 12:04:10 am
We demand a save.

Seconded for !SCIENCE!
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: DWC on April 30, 2013, 12:48:11 am
Why a save? It's much more fun to do it with your own fortress.

Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Exitstrategy on April 30, 2013, 01:10:57 am
Is it bad that I want to see something to show up on the surface to add to the !!fun!!
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: FritzPL on April 30, 2013, 10:16:42 am
Why a save? It's much more fun to do it with your own fortress.

This man just built a fort that could rival -cannon fortresses in his first game. I want his awesome aura to be passed to me through the save.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: slothen on April 30, 2013, 10:51:33 am
Thoroughly enjoyed this.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Urist Mc Dwarf on May 01, 2013, 05:13:06 pm
SAVESAVESAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 01, 2013, 09:03:47 pm
You can probably just burn the corpses. I don't THINK they'll still be lava immune after death. You can always atom smash, though. A symbol of the triumph of Dwarven technology over the Demons.

I kinda wanna see what happens if a necromancer were to come at you.

Actually, I am planning to put them in a museum-like facility. I'm still looking for the perfect place and wondering what else to put in there. As for a necromancer...


...let's just say it's probably a good thing there are no towers nearby.

Can clowns be thralled/husked? Thralls/husks are not actually undead... needs testing. I actually haven't seen a husking cloud in a LONG time though. The last ones I saw ended in a herd of Ostrich husks pecking my seven dwarves to death in less than two minutes.

I remember reading how somebody pitted husks against clowns; the husks won. I don't dare to imagine the unholy spawn of Armok that huskified clowns would be.

I have heard it said that once you have too many dead (5000 or so?), you stop attracting migrants unless you clear out the roster with DFHack. Though I guess since you're on an island that's unlikely. I only hit the limit when I'm in range of a Tower.

Actually, the dead/missing count is over 3300. I blame the huge amount of animals I can barely butcher and process quickly enough to keep the population in check. If that is indeed the problem, I'll officially proclaim you a Hero of the Mountainhome. Which command should I use? I'm not good with DFhack.

We demand a save.
We demand a save.

Seconded for !SCIENCE!
SAVESAVESAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Save... I should have thought about this earlier, since things are mostly cleaned up by now, but if you insist, here it is (http://dffd.wimbli.com/download.php?id=7621&f=region2.zip).

Please don't laugh too hard at my layout. Large parts of the fortress have been designed when I was still at the "holy carp I can make dorfs dig" phase, so I didn't exactly have long-term architectural development in mind.



As I had said, the soldiers were assembled and ordered to descend into the depths. They did a good job - 7 demons (4 steam, 2 fire and an ash one) standing around the last remaining cabinet were smashed into pieces with relatively low casualties, four salt clowns which foolishly decided to stand near the fortifications guarding the entrance into the second cavern level didn't last long under accurate crossbowfire, some more were hunted down in more remote parts of the caverns and one fire clown was walled off. Then I sent the soldiers against three slush banshees swimming in the magma pool in the third cavern.

They proved themselves to be tougher opponents than the others.

(http://i41.tinypic.com/huq0p4.png)

About the half of the military is dead, after barely landing a hit; mostly the melee fighters. The marksdwarves brought one banshee down and heavily damaged another one, but that's all. I ordered a retreat, and the demons went to swim in the magma sea.

I'm devising a way to somehow kill them off. There is a hole in the floor above the magma pool, which was a part of a minecart system used for disposal of surplus stone. The bottom of a cavern lake is situated to its west. I plan to construct a floor above the pool and put a new artifact gabbro grate on its end as a bait, wait until they come to it, and then either flood and hopefully obsidianise them, or drop a huge amount of gold nuggets or something else previously quantum stockpiled on the bridge upon their heads.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Litast Figurebrass the Dourness of Crying, an elite marksdwarf who managed to crawl all the way to the hospital. She should survive despite the infections - the healthcare of Wirejade is well organised. She killed a total of 12 demons. Her personality is... interesting.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on May 03, 2013, 01:41:08 pm
Chaos, disorder and Dwarf Fortress.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: DireWolf64 on May 03, 2013, 02:39:07 pm
Oh man, all I've got in my current fort are herds after herds of naked mole dogs, gorlaks, trolls, one winged, blind, minty green, poison spitting lobster FB (that came into my fortress and was in turn slaughtered by my military and made into soap, yeah, I literally have "Forgotten Beast soap" in my soap stockpile...), a skinless toad FB and a red, horned, eyeless poisonus viper FB (both the viper and the toad are having a bath in the underground lake that I broke into while digging and don't show any interest whatsoever in coming into my fort)+ a whole load of gobbos whom I intend to sacrifice in Armoks name in the new temple I'm building (might release pictures if anyone is interested)
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Crashmaster on May 03, 2013, 05:21:02 pm
If the slush demons are not moving and in the magma pool, a single bucket of water dropped through a grate from above the tile they are in will form obsidian and kill everything under it all the way to the SMR.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 04, 2013, 12:07:12 pm
Chaos, disorder and Dwarf Fortress.

What do you mean by "and"?  ;)

If the slush demons are not moving and in the magma pool, a single bucket of water dropped through a grate from above the tile they are in will form obsidian and kill everything under it all the way to the SMR.

All I would've had to do if they just stayed in place was mining out a single tile and pulling a single lever. Unfortunately...



...the banshees decided to move to the forges, and then up until they finally stopped 2 z-levels below the blockaded first caverns exit, slamming some cheetah cubs and kittens into walls on the way there. I surrounded the exit with fortifications, taking care not to leave a way of escape through the ceiling, put an artifact pig bone door in there, and ordered the floor blocking the stairs deconstructed. One jumped out rather quickly, and marksdwarves shot it to pieces. The second one was more reluctant. I unlocked the door, hoping it would get the demon to move - and a civilian walked inside. He was lucky enough to get kicked through the fortifications before suffering too much damage, however his lower spine has been destroyed and he'll never walk again. Still, the plan has served its purpose well.

Then the soldiers went down to kill an ash demon hovering in the lowest caverns, and suffered some unnecessary casualties due to being stupid and walking straight past it to the assembly point. The Lauded Lances, a squad which used to be stationed on the surface alongside The Primitive Daggers, guarding the western side of the fortress for years, was reduced to its last member and subsequently disbanded.

Anyway, only 5 demons are left, 4 made of fire and one of salt. The salt one is stuck in the shaft I used to drop old furniture into magma, one fireclown is walled off in a corridor just above the third caverns, another one is hanging by the magma pool with no intention of moving, and the last two sit in an unused shaft with a ballista pointed at them. The old magma forges are considered reclaimed, and are currently being cleaned up and restored. All dwarves are so busy that no one had time to go and trade with the dwarven caravan. Everyone is hauling everything everywhere.

The project which was meant to kill the banshees hasn't been abandoned and will - after some slight alterations - serve as an obsidian factory. If everything works as designed, that is.

Three things I forgot to mention before:
- Something actually did show up on the surface - more precisely, a minotaur child. Since the soldiers were busy underground fighting the demons, I sent some crossbow-bearing civilians on the walls. A flurry of bone bolts made short work of the monster.
- Back when I was setting the anti-demon upright spears in place, my chief medical dwarf was attacked by a tick devil. The ultimate cause of his death? Being scared by a murderous ghost. While being torn apart by a gargantuan monster from hell.
- My new hammerer has a ghostly dwarf on his kill list. Dwarven justice reaches everyone.

I did some research and found the DFhack command for clearing the dead units list. Over 2500 entries were deleted. I hope that fixes the immigration.

And the saddest thing for the end: the expedition leader and founder of the fortress, dedicated manager and bookkeeper for about 24 years, Bembul Cosmosgorge, is dead. She has apparently stepped into some forgotten beast goo scattered near the well and bled out on the way to the hospital. She will receive a platinum sarcophagus and an engraved tomb in return for her loyal service.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Julien Brightside on May 04, 2013, 07:08:21 pm
Seems like you have managed to run into quite a lot of fun.

I am a bit surprised you had 400 dwarves though.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 08, 2013, 07:27:16 pm
Seems like you have managed to run into quite a lot of fun.

I am a bit surprised you had 400 dwarves though.

There wasn't much to kill them, aside from an occasional FB.



I bring bad news. Mestthos Earthenexits the Flaxen Elder, the macedwarf without a mace I described before, has perished fighting a forgotten beast alone in order to buy time for the others. An unfortunate kick to the head ended her life. I didn't have enough soldiers to keep a squad in the lower caverns. I still don't, in fact.

Also, the dwarves failed to trade with an elven caravan which brought a giant brown recluse spider, if I remember correctly. And a giant jaguar.

On the other hand...

(http://i41.tinypic.com/35b9vh2.png)

MIGRANTS! WAHAHA!

A few waves have already arrived, and for some reason the arriving dwarves have no relatives, no previous affiliations to any other civs, and almost a half of them are traders. However, all dwarves are welcome, since the recent events have left me a bit short on raw dwarfpower.

In general, the life in the fortress is mostly back to normal. The forges are once more filled with the sound of metal striking metal, and I'm planning to resume mining adamantine soon (now that the two fireclowns near the path to it are gone). Two of the spires go straight through the magma sea, but are also situated next to some cavern ponds, so with some careful mining and floodgates extracting all of the precious candy should be possible. The obsidian farm is progressing nicely, though two miners died in unexplained cave-ins wile mining out bits of wall. Some large scale above-ground architectural projects are in progress, such as claiming a large area of the surface as fortress interior and creating a tall stone tower with the top made of solid electrum. Or maybe two.

The true challenge, though, will be creating an outpost in Hell itself. Using pitchblende. Okay, not only pitchblende, because I have only about 75 blocks of it. I guess I'll put in some dark stone, like gabbro or obsidian, too.

Wait, why are there random explosions of steam in the caverns?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

EDIT: HOLY CARP FIRECLOWN OUT OF NOWHERE EVERYONE HIDE
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: slothen on May 08, 2013, 11:53:26 pm
sadly, the hammerer's kill list with the ghostly victim is probably just a bug.  If he kills a dwarf that later turns into a ghost, all references and images to that dwarf will refer to the ghostly dwarf.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 11, 2013, 05:47:05 am
Two quick questions: How powerful is an artifact bone pick and is there a way to put out burning artifacts? I'm not exactly thrilled about having smoke from a backpack annoy all my smiths. Minecarts, perhaps?
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on May 11, 2013, 10:41:30 am
Two quick questions: How powerful is an artifact bone pick and is there a way to put out burning artifacts? I'm not exactly thrilled about having smoke from a backpack annoy all my smiths. Minecarts, perhaps?
Bone picks are weapons of boasting. Otherwise they're not that much more effective than a copper pick I'm afraid.

In mining however, they are furious excavators of mountains.

So are other picks.

But they're not made out of bone.

If the artifact fire gets too troublesome, a cave in from far above will destroy it [and the fire].
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 12, 2013, 11:14:36 am
Guess what happened.

Two FBs with deadly dust simultaneously decided to visit my fort.

The first one, Allas Echoedpaddle the Mine of Ashes, appeared near the magma forges. I send the military down to deal with the threat. I hoped to lure it into the forges proper, where it would find itself under heavy fire from marksdwarves, but one of them stumbled into it near the entrance. I issued an attack order, and at the cost of one markdwarf and an non-lethal body rot for an axedwarf the monster was decapitated. The axedwarf was also the slayer of that ‼clown‼ which surprised me before, and is missing the majority of his body fat. He is the first dwarf in the fortress' history to name his weapon: Roughslips the Bone of Combining, an adamantine battle axe.

Just when I thought things are back to normal, another one, Sostet Shadowevils, a hairy carmine lizard with a trunk emerged in the first cavern level. All soldiers were as far away as they could possibly be, of course. Its syndrome is very similar to that of Radavi, but the symptoms take a whole minute to kick in. After that, victim's entire body - including eyes and internal organs - starts intensively bleeding (or maybe liquefying, who knows). Death follows in about 8 frames. Oh, and the dust clouds has up to 30 tiles in diameter. I'll try to get a screenshot.

All in all, about 50 dwarves or 20% of the population, including the queen, is dead, with the most common cause being dwarven stupidity (A giant lizard rampaging in the caverns? Everybody must retreat into the fortress? I'll just grab this pipe section and go where the corpses are, I'm sure it won't notice me). Everything below the floor hatch Wealthwinters is once more declared off limits.

My hope is that Sostet will slam itself into something one time too much, finally crippling its heart or lungs.

EDIT:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Fenrisson on May 13, 2013, 08:13:52 am
Have you considered lever-operated menacing spikes to kill the FB? Build the corridor of death, lure it with dogs or cats - when pathing into the kill-zone raise bridges to trap the beast - then pull lever in repeat mode. Voila, you now have swiss-FB-cheese without dwarven casualties
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Magistrum on May 13, 2013, 12:04:05 pm
My hope is that Sostet will slam itself into something one time too much, finally crippling its heart or lungs.
Trow him some useless animals to give him a reason to use his dust, he will die soon.
Also, nice adamantine battle axe.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 16, 2013, 08:11:21 pm
I would've posted this a bit earlier, but my OS spontaneously chose to ignore the existence of my network card.

Have you considered lever-operated menacing spikes to kill the FB? Build the corridor of death, lure it with dogs or cats - when pathing into the kill-zone raise bridges to trap the beast - then pull lever in repeat mode. Voila, you now have swiss-FB-cheese without dwarven casualties

That sums up Plan A...

Trow him some useless animals to give him a reason to use his dust, he will die soon.

...and that Plan B. Both didn't work.



The upright spears trap with an artifact grate I used to kill demons is still there, however Sostet went towards the floor hatches I installed above the forges in order to be able to isolate them in case of danger, passing near a bunch of giant sloth bears and dingos left there.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Thanks to the fact that the dust syndrome wasn't immediately fatal like Radavi's, they dealt some damage to it before death. Much, if not most of the blood visible on the screenshot belongs to the FB. While it was heading deeper, I decided to set up the bait to lure it towards the upright spears. The trap would've had to suffice - the enormous range of the dust cloud (while fighting animals on the stairs, it managed to reach up to 8 z-levels higher than the source) meant the beast would've been able to attack the marksdwarves on the fortifications above should I decide to send them there. This is probably how the demon-slaying marksdwarf Litast I mentioned before perished - her body was found on the stairs leading there.

All this left Sostet quite heavily wounded:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yes, this is a lung and heart indicated as non-functional. Despite this, it kept crawling around for weeks.

But before I could let the dwarves herd the animals near the trap, I had to close a gap in the wall I deconstructed to retrieve a dead baby's skeleton. Using the gap and ignoring all orders the new captain of the guard, Kivish Shegetavuz, went down to get himself some gear and stumbled upon the beast in the forges. Having no weapon skill and only partial armour didn't stop him from slaying it - but not before painting a considerable part of the floor with its blood. He expired some time after that, of course. His sacrifice will not be forgotten.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

After resuming the normal activity in the fortress, I noticed that a dwarf is carrying somebody familiar to the hospital. As Oiledring, the axedwarf from the previous update. He survived two months in the caverns, unconscious, rotting and starving, only to ultimately starve in the hospital just when I finally got somebody to fetch him some food. Maybe that's better? He lost his eyesight, was rotting, and a large chunk of his body had been melted away previously.

After these events, six soldiers were all that was left of my military. Fortunately, migrants with military skills started to arrive, and a macedwarf and an axedwarf were drafted. Still, that's eight. Barely enough to defend the surface. For this reason Wirejade is turning towards automated defence. I'm launching a research project with the aim of developing simple, effective, easily replicable and adaptable weapons using impulse ramps. The testing range is being prepared in the northern part of the fortress aboveground, and I hope to post the results soon, here or in a separate thread. Hmm, maybe some more artifact-based spear traps? I need to look around for good locations.

Occasionally, dwarves still bleed out and fall dead. Inspection of the clothing doesn't reveal any forgotten beast extract coatings on the clothes or the body. Majority of those incidents has taken place in the main dining room, an area far away from any possible dust residue. I commissioned 90 pairs of leather shoes, hoping to prevent further deaths, if stepping in it is the cause.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheDarkStar on May 16, 2013, 10:34:12 pm
That's a lot of blood for one dwarf...  :D
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on May 17, 2013, 03:44:33 am
"Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!" - Ferdinand, The Tempest
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Deus Asmoth on May 17, 2013, 07:31:00 am
This is amazing. My first fort was killed by an elven ambush.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Julien Brightside on May 18, 2013, 09:11:33 am
That was a lot of blood.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Porpoisepower on May 20, 2013, 04:31:22 pm
That FB better look out for blood borne pathogens!
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 20, 2013, 06:47:13 pm
That's a lot of blood for one dwarf...  :D
That was a lot of blood.

It looked like a dwarf's entire supply of blood was ejected out of his/her body within about 2 seconds. I wish an excessive amount of blood on one tile could spread to the neighbouring ones, creating multi-tile pools. The first level of caverns would probably end up looking like some horrific slaughterhouse. Then again, it kinda was one...

"Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!" - Ferdinand, The Tempest

Give me some time and I'll put dwarves there. Considering the sheer amount of stuff still scattered around that has yet to be hauled into the proper place, it may take a while.



Two more FBs. The first one, Tofi (I-don't-remember-what with deadly blood) was unlucky enough to spawn near a place all soldiers happened to be in. They were already waiting in place when it finally left the edge of the map. Then some war cheetahs chased it for a while, marksdwarves shot it, crippling its legs and slowing it down, and an axedwarf bisected it so hard its lower body (mass - over 5000) flew away 3 tiles. Another one, Litheme Ashendepth, a one-eyed alligator, kept swimming in an underground lake for quite a long time, painting it with its noxious secretions before leaving it and approaching the entry point to the caverns. Of course, the soldiers were already waiting for it. Two of the three migrants drafted so far already have an FB kill to their names.

Random deaths from bleeding out have stopped, for dwarves at least. It still sometimes happens to animals, but that's not a major concern. The butchering industry slowed down so much the donkey population went out of control and is beginning to starve.

I have a spiral minecart route going through multiple z-levels. If I create two routes: one taking things from the top to the bottom, and another going in the opposite direction, and set the minecarts on both to "guide", will it result in traffic accidents every time they meet or will it be safe? I need to know this before I convert one of the routes which used to deliver ore to the magma forges into one taking furniture in the opposite direction.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 24, 2013, 01:03:42 pm
Another Forgotten Beast, Tozör, a huge, scaly, winged snail has just been defeated after over three weeks of almost constant fighting. The game must hate me, because it threw the last thing that was missing until now at me.

A web-spinner. Just below the hyperlethal dust FBs when it comes to danger level.

At first I wanted to evacuate the underground entirely, but when I saw Tozör flying through a well and bypassing my defences I sent the soldiers down to give the escaping civilians some time. They ended up stuck in an ever-increasing mass of webs a z-level above the forges, unable to attack, unable to escape, with the beast just below, occasionally breaking their legs.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Finally a hammerdwarf got through and actually fought it for some time, until Tozör started using him as a ball, kicking him all around the forges. In a desperate attempt to break the stalemate, I sent some civilians with crossbows as a relief force. Making the beast bleed out took them about two weeks of hectic battle. It ended with about 12 dead dwarves, including two soldiers, most of the military heavily injured, and a huge amount of dead war animals, which had kept suicidally throwing themselves at the beast.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

At least it's dead. Now all is up to the medical staff when it comes to saving my troops. The battle took so long that some of the dwarves wounded in the beginning are dehydrating by now.

In other news, the research into impulse ramps has yielded nothing useful so far, the furniture delivery system is under construction, and in general, things are slowly progressing.

Here's one of the more ridiculous Forgotten Beasts the fort has faced (died to bisection):

(http://i39.tinypic.com/33jqlw8.png)
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Mr S on May 24, 2013, 01:11:40 pm
I've loved following this thread.

I hope you've gotten your answer on guided minecarts by now.  If not, guided minecarts use a dorf to drive them, and are not (normally) subject to collisions, either to other minecarts, objects or dorfs and pets.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on May 24, 2013, 01:52:27 pm
Give me some time and I'll put dwarves there. Considering the sheer amount of stuff still scattered around that has yet to be hauled into the proper place, it may take a while.
I like how you think. There's method to the magma, as they say.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Swonnrr on May 24, 2013, 09:13:55 pm
Thanks for making me discover an awesome song, an awesome story, and rediscover an awesome game that i though i extracted everything.
You gave me the courage to continue my current fortress despite the routine.
I'm building an army, then i'm launching a full-scale invasion on Hell.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: ObeseHelmet on May 24, 2013, 10:31:34 pm
1. Amazing thread so far. Masterpieces like this are rare.
2. Posting to watch.
3. Your first fortress?! Holy shit... Hetairos, you are a DF badass already, just saying.

Wow.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Cobbler89 on May 27, 2013, 10:47:01 am
Stasno sounds like a good candidate for the Forgotten Beast Art Contest.

(Yes, I do go around reading random threads and telling people to send the FBs mentioned in them off to be drawn. The thread's here (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=124312.0), by the way.)
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 30, 2013, 12:17:36 pm
I hope you've gotten your answer on guided minecarts by now.  If not, guided minecarts use a dorf to drive them, and are not (normally) subject to collisions, either to other minecarts, objects or dorfs and pets.

Ultimately, I constructed a testing track with two minecarts guided in the opposing directions across two z-levels. No collisions were observed. I actually have an over 100 z-levels high spiral track with four routes delivering ore and other raw materials to the forges, all set to "guide". However, sometimes the empty minecarts would start rolling back down for no discernible reason while being guided upwards, injuring or killing anyone below. I even dug out some space to provide a way for the cart to derail into when it acquires too much speed.

1. Amazing thread so far. Masterpieces like this are rare.
2. Posting to watch.
3. Your first fortress?! Holy shit... Hetairos, you are a DF badass already, just saying.

Wow.

Thanks for making me discover an awesome song, an awesome story, and rediscover an awesome game that i though i extracted everything.
You gave me the courage to continue my current fortress despite the routine.
I'm building an army, then i'm launching a full-scale invasion on Hell.

*blushes fiercely*

*hides under the desk*

Stasno sounds like a good candidate for the Forgotten Beast Art Contest.

CognitiveDissonance suggested the same thing about Radavi... I guess I could get to it at last.



Tozör may have died, but the troubles weren't over yet. Almost all melee warriors were heavily wounded, with multiple broken bones. I designated a few more dwarves as medical staff (all labours except healthcare turned off). Since some of the wounded were on the edge of dehydration or starvation, I even ordered a dwarf to do nothing but bring the patients food and water. The medics did an excellent job - only one dwarf was lost to infection, all others were fully healed and are already out of the hospital. It looks like there were no compound fractures or anything equally serious.

It didn't go absolutely flawlessly - one hammerdwarf, Nish Courageworks, the unlucky one tossed around by the FB in the previous update was left alone, starved and thirsty with ten broken bones, not generating a "Recover Wounded" job for anyone. I almost gave up on saving him, but in the DFHack thread I found a script intended to fix exactly that problem (great thanks, drayath!); he's doing his duty like any other warrior now, but with a lot of thread sewn into his body. One soldier was released from the hospital still unable to grasp and tried to clean himself. Subsequently, he spent a few weeks trying to pick up soap.

The metal industry is somewhat stifled by the destruction of several forges and a ton of webs blocking the reconstruction. Four looms are set to collecting webs on repeat, and FB silk is being produced. The magma pool was fully flooded, and the miners are busy digging the obsidian out. Even the llamas are beginning to starve. The attempts at breeding giant hornbills were met with failure.

Two new useful artifacts were created: Cloudodor, a gazelle bone shield and Findblunts, an adamantine throne. I put Findblunts in the late queen's throne room, and moved her old artifact orthoclase throne to the mayor's office. I was wondering whether to give the queen's quarters to the mayor, who is the highest ranking dwarf in the fortress now. Maybe I'd do it if she were doing her job as the chief medical dwarf. While the recently assigned peasants were busy setting bones and dressing wounds, she was drinking, eating, sleeping, or taking a break.

Some new FBs arrived. Osod the Shaft of Shadow, a mud blob with deadly spittle, fortunately decided to pound on an artifact door instead of harassing the dwarves, and was the first victim of my military after the soldiers left the hospital. There's also Rulac, an amber humanoid with a trunk and poisonous vapours, isolated in the second caverns, and a porcelain web spinner in Hell, the second FB to appear there, after Tharumi, a huge, scaly ribbon worm. They haven't got into any fights with the demons yet.

Minecarts! The furniture route successfully delivered the first shipment where I wanted it to, and I'm figuring out the impulse ramps. Finally some useful results! See below.

Experiment Log:

It has been established that:
• impulse ramps require a wall next to them on the side pointing away from the direction of the track; for example, launching a minecart to the north requires NW ramps with a wall on the W side. Otherwise, the ramps function identically to a normal NS track.
• pushing a minecart onto a single impulse ramp launches it about four (4) times farther than pushing it onto normal track.
• weight of a minecart does not appear to have an influence on velocity or range.

Experiment #01:
Procedure: A nickel minecart filled with orthoclase blocks was pushed northwards onto a track consisting of one (1) section of NS track and one (1) section of NW upward track, followed by a fortification tile. In addition, a wall was constructed to the west of the upward track.
Results: The minecart stopped in front of the fortification.
Notes: It looks like we need more power.

Experiment #02:
Procedure: A nickel minecart filled with orthoclase blocks was pushed northwards onto a track consisting of one (1) section of NS track and ten (10) sections of NW upward track, followed by a fortification tile. A giant sloth bear was positioned ten (10) tiles away from the fortification tile as a test subject to check the lethality of the construction.
Results: The minecart was lodged into the fortification, and its contents were mostly spilled on the same tile. The contents of the bins filled with blocks were spilled as well, leaving them empty. Furthermore, a few block were scattered away from the fortification. The subject remained unharmed.
Notes: This looks promising. It needs some more alterations, but at least I know grapeshotting should be possible with such a simple construct.

Experiment #03:
Procedure: A nickel minecart filled with orthoclase blocks was pushed northwards onto a track consisting of one (1) section of NS track, ten (10) sections of NW upward track, and eight (8 ) sections of NS track, followed by a fortification tile. A giant sloth bear was positioned directly behind the fortification.
Results: The minecart ejected its contents across two (2) z-levels, scattering them in a conical shape. The subject remained unharmed.
Notes: That's it! Though I should watch the next test carefully. Why didn't the blocks hit anything except trees?

Schedule:
Phase 1a: Minecart Launching - Completed
Phase 1b: Lethality Testing (1) - Completed
Phase 2a: Grapeshotting - Completed
Phase 2b: Lethality Testing (2) - In Progress
Phase 3: Experimental Design - Pending
Phase 4: Basic Automatisation - Pending
Phase 5: Implementation - Pending
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: zubb2 on May 31, 2013, 02:18:04 pm
This was pretty darn impressive.

My first try I didn't know about z levels. (this was after they were invented)

Show that hell why they buryd themselves in the first place, to get away from dorfs.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Foamybeard on June 01, 2013, 11:51:12 pm
I haven't posted in this thread in a while, but reading what you've been doing has inspired me to continue my current fort.

Just because I haven't gotten a siege in six years doesn't mean I won't get a bunch of FBs, and I want to see if I can handle them like you did.

Hetairos is a God, my friends.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: A Random Passerby on June 02, 2013, 01:56:18 am
Wow. I must say, this whole thread has been pretty amazing. Now, for grapeshotting with minecarts. Is it possible to launch something sharp, such as axe blades, and have them do slashing damage? I believe I read that somewhere before.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Kofthefens on June 02, 2013, 03:13:35 pm
Certainly worked with serrated disks.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on June 07, 2013, 12:16:16 pm
Wow. I must say, this whole thread has been pretty amazing. Now, for grapeshotting with minecarts. Is it possible to launch something sharp, such as axe blades, and have them do slashing damage? I believe I read that somewhere before.

Certainly worked with serrated disks.

And large serrated discs are exactly what I'm going to try next, especially that they're the symbol of the local government, The Jade Artifact. The only problem is that fully loading a single minecart with them takes 500 discs. Even if I use only a 25% load, that's 125. The furnaces are going to be busy. I'll throw in some glass discs to speed things up. Finally a use for all those sand bags I've been buying!



The smithies are extremely loaded with work, and not only because of the discs. The current orders are:
• 2*80 steel spears, for the artifact-based upright spear traps
• plenty of sarcophagi
• 30 electrum grates for the museum
• the discs, of course
• maybe some furniture
• making bolts out of the bronze and bismuth bronze I acquired from the caravans
• processing the newly dug out adamantine into arms and armour
• and whatever else comes up.

Fortunately, almost every immigration wave brings me at least one dwarf skilled in smithing. A masterwork large serrated steel disc is worth over 45000 ☼, so the wealth of the fortress is increasing quite rapidly, and is currently approaching 34 million.

Watching The Hobbit left me with an intense desire to breed giant eagles. What did the next elven caravan bring? A female one! I already have a male, in fact, I don't even remember when did I get it, it's been here for as long as I remember. I vaguely recall it happened fairly early in the history of the fortress. Three eggs are already in the nest, and I added the [CHILD:1] token to giant eagles and hornbills, since I had heard the giant birds don't have it and need it for their eggs to hatch. Which should happen in autumn, if they will hatch at all.

I put out the fire on two burning artifacts by using DFHack to spawn 7/7 water on the top of them. Why didn't I think about it before? I wanted to wall them off, somebody suggested a cave-in. One was a bone door. I installed it in the entrance to a well near the forges - the same one Tozör flew in through. In case anything tries that again, the well will double as a containment chamber. Another remains on fire, and is already built; spawning water on it and attempting removal don't seem to work. Speaking of artifacts, I got a third bone shield, called Trumpetumbral, whatever that means. And a fabulous purple tanzanite hatch cover, now protecting the forges from threats from above and the rest of the fort from what manages to get into the forges.

About FBs... it turned out that Rulac wasn't as well isolated as I thought. There was a hole near the floodgate letting in the water for obsidian production. It's vapours only caused numbness, blistering and fever, nevertheless it was far tougher than I expected an amber beast to be. After all, I have a corpse of a malachite one stored somewhere, and it was defeated in close combat, maybe even before I started steel production, so how hard can this one be to beat?

(http://i40.tinypic.com/6gim2b.jpg)

It took quite a lot of time, a few soldiers, a small herd of animals and a lot of chopping limbs off.

I have 14 soldiers now. Still not much, but at least they get to choose from a wide range of masterfully crafted steel and adamantine arms and armour. One migrant wave gave me three soldiers out of 6 or 7 dwarves. Two of them - Zas Buckshoots and Eshtan Dyelong - were married. Both lived for risk and excitement, but Eshtan was extremely friendly, gregarious, active, energetic, optimistic, adventurous and doing the first thing that comes to mind, her husband was more composed and organised. Within months from arrival in the fortress, they were both slain by two different Forgotten Beasts. If dwarves write tragedies about love, I guess that's how the basic outline of a plot looks like.

The third soldier is still alive, and bears the awesome name of Ber Hammerbearded. He's talented at armour use, dodging, observing and wrestling, so despite the lack of a weapon skill I expect a nice career in front of him.

There is a fire-breathing pterosaur in the third caverns. Why do I get so many dinosauroid FBs? I'm wondering if I should send in the soldiers, but I'm afraid it will end with someone melting. Though I had a fire-breather killed once with a single blow, before it noticed, let alone burned anything.

I'm building a sacrificial platform of some sort... just some stone floors 2 z-levels above a tile of water still contaminated with Radavi's dust, next to it's skeleton. I'm going to occasionally throw random animals down there. I have way too many of them anyway.

Experiment #04:
Procedure: An empty nickel minecart was pushed northwards onto a track consisting of one (1) section of NS track and a single-tile bridge, followed by a wall tile. On the z-level below,  a track consisting of one (1) section of NS track and ten (10) sections of NW upward track was situated. The bridge tile was above the first upward track ramp. A lever was linked to the bridge.
Results: After the lever was pulled, the minecart was dropped onto the ramp and accelerated successfully.
Notes: So 3-4 tiles above the impulse ramps are all I need for a basic remotely activated cannon. I could already start putting one in place somewhere underground - there is a suitable spot near the forges - but I want to test grapeshotting through one tile wide corridors, to see what would be more effective. Maybe multiple minecarts on one track could be used? It would probably require a wall around the bridge to prevent scattering them, and might not work at all. Only testing will show, though that's not a priority at the moment.

Updated and revised schedule:
Phase 1a: Minecart Launching - Completed
Phase 1b: Lethality Testing (1) - Completed
Phase 2a: Grapeshotting - Completed
Phase 2b: Lethality Testing (2) - In Progress
Phase 3: Basic Automatisation - In Progress
Phase 4: Experimental Design - Pending
Phase 5: Implementation - Pending

Oh, I almost forgot I have a surprise! I got Fortress Overseer to work. It's a bit glitchy, doesn't render stairs and any buildings, including roads and furniture, but works. Just remember that the roads should be covered with electrum (Why is it orange? It's an alloy of gold and silver).

Spoiler: Night in the fortress (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: The mines (click to show/hide)

Sigh... why are things bleeding to death again?
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: CognitiveDissonance on June 07, 2013, 01:41:19 pm
Stasno sounds like a good candidate for the Forgotten Beast Art Contest.

(Yes, I do go around reading random threads and telling people to send the FBs mentioned in them off to be drawn. The thread's here (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=124312.0), by the way.)

Don't you worry, I have been keeping this thread as one of the priority options for when somebody fails to present us with a new Forgotten Beast :D I love the stories here
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Matoro on June 07, 2013, 01:43:14 pm
And all this epicness started just because of game generated little more dangerous FB than normally. Hell, I love this game.

Quote
kicked through the fortifications

... so you can throw creatures through fortifications? We have to weaponize this.

Quote
I told you about the stairs

I see what you did there...
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: DireWolf64 on June 08, 2013, 09:59:02 am
I feel like the name of this thread should be changed to whatever the name of this fortress is, because it isn't so much about random FB's anymore, It's more about crazy stories and adventures in this fort, I'm loving it! Oh and: Greetings from Iceland!
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: GuesssWho on June 20, 2013, 01:13:21 am
I really want a Stasno picture.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on June 22, 2013, 04:55:19 pm
And all this epicness started just because of game generated little more dangerous FB than normally. Hell, I love this game.

Quote
kicked through the fortifications

... so you can throw creatures through fortifications? We have to weaponize this.

Quote
I told you about the stairs

I see what you did there...

It's a funny thing. Beforehand, I thought I don't have anything to do other than ending the fort somehow so it doesn't suffer an FPS death. Now, I'm developing new projects at a higher rate than the fort's dwarfpower can reasonably allow.

I believe that kicking through fortifications was discovered before by Loud Whispers in Silentthunders. Though in that case it was a creature flying over them after being shot with a crossbow bolt. It works the same way, I think.

I feel like the name of this thread should be changed to whatever the name of this fortress is, because it isn't so much about random FB's anymore, It's more about crazy stories and adventures in this fort, I'm loving it! Oh and: Greetings from Iceland!

I was considering a topic name change ever since Radavi was killed, but I've never really had any idea which seemed good enough. And there was always an uninvited guest or two lurking behind a corner. I'm not even sure how would I do it... change the subject of the original post?

Alas, my country isn't dorfy enough to have volcanoes under glaciers and the like. However, it's not lacking in terms of general mess, things that don't make sense appear to have ever been intended to make sense and crazy overseers.

I really want a Stasno picture.

All right, I swear I'll make a backup save, look up the Legends Mode and post the FB descriptions in the art contest thread this weekend.



Okay, where did we end? Oh yes, the pterosaur. Sluste, if anybody cares about the name.

With a creak of gears and a clang of chains, the bridge was opened. The soldiers rushed out into the cold darkness of the cavern and headed towards the place where the beast was last seen. Indeed, the rustle of its mighty wings could soon be heard, and some of the more sharp-sighted dwarves swore they saw a flicker of fire in the distance. Without a second thought, the dwarves turned in its direction.

But the beast was more cunning than they expected; exploiting the cramped space of the caverns, the lack of light, and its own ability to fly over the walls it misled the soldiers following it by appearing here and there until the warriors were scattered and isolated... and vulnerable.

Ast Tradetown, a marksdwarf, was searching the underground forest like his comrades. At least he supposed that was what they were doing - he had lost track of the last of them some time ago. Suddenly he was hit by a wave of hot air, combined with the sound of igniting air somewhere disturbingly close. After taking a turn behind an orthoclase pillar, he was confronted by a horrifying scene.

The beast was there, sitting upon a spore tree, which was bent under its weight. Below lied a charred corpse vaguely identifiable as a dingo. The nearby walls were blackened by fire. But Ast didn't have much time to assess the surroundings, since dodging the fireballs flying in his direction quite obviously had a higher priority. He yelled for his companions, but could anyone hear him?

Ast wasn't going to take his chances. He raised his crossbow and pressed the trigger. The bolt impaled a joint in Sluste's right wing, and while it seemed it only made the beast more angry, it did force it to stop wildly thrashing around in the air, allowing the marksdwarf to aim with greater ease. He was running on instinct alone, deeply etched into his mind after years of practice.

Take a bolt out of the quiver. Slide it into the crossbow. Aim. Pull the trigger. There is no beast, there is only a target you have to destroy. The second missile pierced Sluste's throat, and the monster let out a garbled roar. Blood and smoke escaped its mouth.

Ast paid it no attention. Soon another bolt flew through the air and buried itself deep in the beast's chest. The blood gouting out of its wounds was beginning to form a growing pool beneath it, and its attempts of attack were noticeably becoming weaker and weaker. If both its throat and heart were opened, it was a matter of time until it succumbed to blood loss, but if the heart was intact, it might still have a slight chance of escaping and hiding in some inaccessible corner of the cavern to recover.

Ast tried to take a deep breath, but intense cough stopped it halfway through. Only then did he notice the smoke growing thicker and thicker, its acrid stench increasing in intensity. He looked around. The cavern vegetation around him was burning, leaving him no apparent way of retreat. His legs were growing weaker, and his vision blurry. He realised he had no way of making it out of there alive.

He slid another bolt into his crossbow.


I hope my attempt at inserting a little story into the narrative isn't too painful to read. Yes, I had a marksdwarf kill an FB with three well-aimed bolts. For some reason, he died shortly after the FB did, to blood loss, even though I thought he didn't catch on fire. Maybe it was some other FB's goo in an unfortunate location. I floored over the site of the battle with nearby stone just in case.

Just when I was thinking things were getting quiet and normal (well, as normal as DF can be) - a welcome break from neutralising yet another threat to the fortress - I found this.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Over 100 z-levels beneath the surface, in a place never touched by sunlight, grass. Not dallisgrass, not dropseed grass, not dog's tooth grass or whatever else grows here, just a random tile of generic grass. I don't understand how is that possible.

Also, I know that the fireclowns rampaging near the cage traps might have lefts some of the cages molten, but no, the resulting glob of metal doesn't count as a cage any more. Somebody go clean this up.

(http://i43.tinypic.com/332uuzo.png)

WEAPONSMITH GOES MOODY

YES YES MAKE ME SOMETHING SEXY OUT OF THIS ADAMA-

(http://i39.tinypic.com/ml5eoi.png)

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

(http://i41.tinypic.com/f418w3.png)

Wait, what?

(http://i42.tinypic.com/2samsdu.png)

Now that's more li- third mood?

(http://i42.tinypic.com/2mwz2ts.png)

So when it comes to of weapon artifacts I have two adamantine maces, three bone shields and two adamantine spears. It's getting kind of repetitive. Well, I guess I can't complain about three new legendary weaponsmiths and two extremely powerful polearms. Their names translate respectively to "The Ray of Circumstance" and "Dullaching". I assigned them to the two best speardwarves only dwarves in the fortress who had any kind of experience with using spears.

Both saw combat rather quickly. The Ray of Circumstance was used against an ash humanoid, Zebu, but the killing blow was struck by Ber Hammerbearded with the pommel of the same ☼adamantine short sword☼ with which Sakzul Riddlegirder the Clean Call slew 6 Forgotten Beasts, and which was forged by the duke Kogsak Eyeringed himself. In the fight against Sanene, a red tarantula with a poisonous bite (do all spider FBs have poisonous bite?) it proved that a dwarf wielding it turns into walking, pointy death. Dullaching was apparently used to kill a magma crab, but I have no recollection of such an event.

Sanene also helped test the new safety measures in the first caverns. The road to the staircase leading to the forges is being walled off, with drawbridges providing access to the rest of the cavern. The staircase also has a retractable bridge on the top, allowing me to shut off the access to anything below with a pull of the lever. Or rather, it would, but the safeguards in the minecart route are still under construction.

That sacrificial platform didn't exactly work as designed. Not enough elevation. The donkey thrown in there simply walked out of the water with only a few bruises. I tried to make a new one in the second caverns, using the contaminated lake and a few more z-levels. As a result, I now have two dingos happily sitting in the middle of the FB goo. They're too far away from the shore to consider climbing out of there.

I received enough migrants with military experience (including a talented hammerdwarf, who also happens to be a high master wound dresser and diagnostician) to reestablish the fourth squad. The Inky Entries, formerly containing civilians for the purpose of equipping them with shields and crossbows, were redesignated as a regular military squad. The military has now 22 members. Estrur, another dinosauroid FB, provided me with the perfect opportunity to put it to a test.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Considering the fact that the upper little 2 is its entire lower body, I have to say they did quite well. The only casualty was a dwarf unlucky enough to stand on a drawbridge while it was being closed. He was launched straight into a weapon trap.

I got rid of the demon in the magma chute by putting a huge amount of giant sloth bears, dingos and war dogs into the room used to stockpile furniture to be disposed of, and then deconstructing the wall separating it from the chute. The demon only killed or injured one or two animals before being ripped to shreds by the rest of them. The dwarves were quick to clean up the remains, but the demon's snow melted in their hands and they ended up carrying globs of water.

The minecart with the large serrated discs was finally filled and launched. Since a picture supposedly says more than a thousand words, here's one instead of an experiment log. Eleven victims, mostly due to severed limbs.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The artifact/upright spear trap saved me from a clear glass web-spinning FB. It would've probably slaughtered my military with ease. Even though the spears kept glancing off, they eventually broke it in half. Its total mass was circa 25000. It's a real pity the inorganic FBs can't be processed. I had one made of star ruby...

I was going to put some Stonesense screenshots here, but they don't look right. Electrum is an alloy of equal parts gold and silver, shouldn't it be more light-coloured than gold itself instead of that brownish hue? Is anyone aware of any alternate colour schemes for Stonesense? My own search yielded nothing.

Oh, and here's one thing from long ago. I had a tantruming marksdwarf do something that I'd like to nominate for the most absurd combat event at least in the long history of the fort:

(http://i39.tinypic.com/2lsci3c.png)

And the single most important thing in this update is me finally figuring out how to properly stockpile worn out clothing thanks to a thread here. It's now all going to a special stockpile set to be a refuse pile with no types of actual refuse allowed. It's vanishing at a positively surprising rate. Selling it all to caravans was quite tedious. I used to give out hundreds of thousands ☼ of used garments. Now I have a chance of getting rid of all the totems and crafts that have accumulated over the course of the past few decades.

* * *

I kept putting this update off, since it seemed nothing particularly exciting has been happening. Things have been much more under control lately. It clearly means something terrible is going to happen. It's the only possible explanation.

If anyone has ideas regarding the thread name change, I'm open to suggestions.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: sculleywr on June 23, 2013, 01:50:21 am
Watching for awesome.

You did this with your first fort? I've lost count of all my forts, and still haven't managed to muster a real military (mostly because I only just figured out how to run a proper smithing method). After this fort reading, I'm planning to delve deeper with my 8 legendary weapon masters. Goblins got boring when Dumed defeated a vile force of darkness by launching a snatcher into the leader with his hammer.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Krevsin on June 23, 2013, 04:09:45 am
Posting to Watch.


This should be in The Hall of Legends.

Also, have you considered moving this to the DF Community Games & Stories board?
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Mr. Palau on June 23, 2013, 05:28:11 pm
If you are weaponizing mine-carts I suggest this DF thread from the paradox OT forums.  http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?390202-Dwarf-Fortress-Main-Thread/page223

Blue Emu did some real work on a mine-cart death machine. See the downside to loading things into a minecart is that it takes time, and you thus have to reload, whereas if you use a fluid like water (can't use magma cuz it is too dense) the mine-cart is loaded instantly. By using impulse ramps to accelerate the mine cart to its terminal velocity, and thus also the water inside of it, he was able to create a weapon that obliterates pretty much anything you put in front of it. It has a range of more than 60 tiles or so, IIRC. It also reloads incredibly quickly, and with the 5 or so barrels his version had it was capable of sustaining a virtually constant flow of water out of the barrel.

It is quite complicated, and takes a lot of resources and an infinite supply of water, but if you have enough water on hand I would strongly suggest you use it. 

Also, great thread. I wish my fort was this much fun.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on June 26, 2013, 05:49:23 am
Watching for awesome.

You did this with your first fort? I've lost count of all my forts, and still haven't managed to muster a real military (mostly because I only just figured out how to run a proper smithing method). After this fort reading, I'm planning to delve deeper with my 8 legendary weapon masters. Goblins got boring when Dumed defeated a vile force of darkness by launching a snatcher into the leader with his hammer.

I remember back when I was starting the fort I was amazed I could keep the dwarves fed. There were some booze shortages, though... And I still run into issues with dwarves not equipping things they should.

Good luck with your invasion. One thing I feel I should add is that clowns almost completely disregard armour. I've seen them chew through masterwork steel with ease, and if the demon is a blob, or anything else capable of only blunt attacks, its tremendous mass can and will smash a dwarf into the opposite side of the hallway with half of his bones broken. Blobs made of flimsy materials like ash murder everyone in close combat, but can be destroyed with 2-3 bolts. And everything is much less powerful if its legs are destroyed, making it fall over.

Also, have you considered moving this to the DF Community Games & Stories board?

Actually I did back when I started it, and I guess it could be a good idea, but I can't see a "move topic" option anywhere... could you help me?

If you are weaponizing mine-carts I suggest this DF thread from the paradox OT forums.  http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?390202-Dwarf-Fortress-Main-Thread/page223

Blue Emu did some real work on a mine-cart death machine. See the downside to loading things into a minecart is that it takes time, and you thus have to reload, whereas if you use a fluid like water (can't use magma cuz it is too dense) the mine-cart is loaded instantly. By using impulse ramps to accelerate the mine cart to its terminal velocity, and thus also the water inside of it, he was able to create a weapon that obliterates pretty much anything you put in front of it. It has a range of more than 60 tiles or so, IIRC. It also reloads incredibly quickly, and with the 5 or so barrels his version had it was capable of sustaining a virtually constant flow of water out of the barrel.

It is quite complicated, and takes a lot of resources and an infinite supply of water, but if you have enough water on hand I would strongly suggest you use it. 

It's impressive. And powerful. And very, very dwarfy.

However it's huge, complex and requires power. I need to be able to fit my new defences deep underground, and into a fort which was never intended to house anything like that. I also don't understand repeaters. I do have some water I can use, and I might try to design something running on impulse ramps alone, so the only problem would be resupplying water. Since I would only need to fire the cannon occasionally, reloading time isn't a huge issue.



I checked the world in Legends mode to get the long-awaited FB descriptions, and looked around with Legends Viewer. It seems the Legends mode isn't exactly reliable, unless that's because I messed up the past by running the fix/dead-units DFHack command. One thing I noticed was a bronze colossus destroying small clothes and bolts in Wirejade. By melting. Years after its death. And the fortress has never been visited by any bronze colossi.

A recurring topic in the engravings in the fort were a few creatures: the dragon Slakga Jadeglows the Warmth of Gold, two cheetahs - One Trammelappear and Tuco Singleflag, and a leopard called Slibtu Auburnpuzzling. The dragon killed 14 elves from the neighbouring civ, The Water of Youths, and was killed by one of them in 83. One attacked an elf in 33. Tuco and Slibtu haven't done anything besides dying of old age. Why do my dwarves regard this as a memorable event I have no idea. All are depicted settling in the Lavender Hills, the biome in which the fort is situated. I can understand that nothing else has ever happened there, but still...

Anyway, here are the beasts!

(http://i41.tinypic.com/birr6w.png)

Radavi's killcount is broken and shows only 22 dwarves, whereas it caused the deaths of many more. The demise of the Captain of the Guard, Sakzul, is for example misattributed to a beast called Emxa. For the record, Radavi was killed by a tick devil called Fatesank the Skulls-Plagues of Dust.

(http://i40.tinypic.com/9u3gae.png)

If anyone wants to use them in the art contest thread, feel free to do it.

I regret to inform everyone there most likely will be no updates at least until mid-July, since I'll be abroad, and far away from DF. Just so you know the thread isn't dead. Huge thanks to everyone who posted here.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hommit on June 27, 2013, 09:56:36 am
Quote
And the single most important thing in this update is me finally figuring out how to properly stockpile worn out clothing thanks to a thread here. It's now all going to a special stockpile set to be a refuse pile with no types of actual refuse allowed. It's vanishing at a positively surprising rate. Selling it all to caravans was quite tedious. I used to give out hundreds of thousands ☼ of used garments. Now I have a chance of getting rid of all the totems and crafts that have accumulated over the course of the past few decades.
Hmm, somehow i can't make this to work. refuse pile, i tried all disabled, enabled clothing type, enabled goods/armor with or without quality types - still no-no. why?  :-[ :-\
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Deepblade on June 27, 2013, 10:15:47 am
Do you still have some refuse enabled?
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on June 27, 2013, 11:04:25 am
I believe that kicking through fortifications was discovered before by Loud Whispers in Silentthunders. Though in that case it was a creature flying over them after being shot with a crossbow bolt. It works the same way, I think.
Landborne crundle that got shot through a pillar of fortifications with many bolts. Probably wasn't the first case of it, but it still was funny as hell.

How many Dwarves are still alive there? It seems that in every update Dwarves have been casually bursting into flames. Can't be good for the health I imagine.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hommit on June 27, 2013, 12:10:48 pm
Do you still have some refuse enabled?
tried both
they move there nothing or some corpses from siege

also from wiki:
Quote
Also note that if you allow bins to be used on your refuse pile, damaged clothing will be stored in it, allowing for more efficient use of your pile.
not! working. wtf?
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on June 27, 2013, 06:42:54 pm
How many Dwarves are still alive there? It seems that in every update Dwarves have been casually bursting into flames. Can't be good for the health I imagine.

As of 9th Granite, 158 there are 241 living dwarves in the fort. The population fell below 200 at its lowest point, and has been steadily rebuilding ever since. However, much time will pass before it reaches pre-Radavi levels.

Quote
And the single most important thing in this update is me finally figuring out how to properly stockpile worn out clothing thanks to a thread here. It's now all going to a special stockpile set to be a refuse pile with no types of actual refuse allowed. It's vanishing at a positively surprising rate. Selling it all to caravans was quite tedious. I used to give out hundreds of thousands ☼ of used garments. Now I have a chance of getting rid of all the totems and crafts that have accumulated over the course of the past few decades.
Hmm, somehow i can't make this to work. refuse pile, i tried all disabled, enabled clothing type, enabled goods/armor with or without quality types - still no-no. why?  :-[ :-\

Because it's tricky as hell. You have to:
• enable armor, footwear, headwear, handwear and legwear under Finished Goods. Disable metal or dwarves may try hauling pieces of armour there.
• enable all non-armour clothing items under Armor. I'm not sure how does the Usable/Unusable setting work - leave both options on.
• enable Refuse, but forbid all kinds of it.

The fortress which once couldn't even bring all its worn out clothes to the trade depot now can barely see a pair of used pants in the hallway. I can provide screenshots of the stockpile settings in case my instructions aren't clear enough.



Between this post and the last one, at least 4 new FBs arrived. One spews deadly dust and forced me to lock away the entire third cavern level.

First giant eagle chicks hatched some time ago and the first batch has recently reached adulthood.

After a lot of number-crunching with pencil and paper (yes, I actually sketch out the bigger/more complex projects before I try to implement them) I have a rudimentary design of a powerless semi-automatic water-based railcannon, and possibly even a powered full-auto version. Provided everything works the way I think it does, of course. If the answer is "yes", it might even work with magma... It seems to good to be true, and it probably is, however only experiments will tell the truth. There is ‼science‼ to be done!

I renew my request for an explanation of how to change a thread's name and move it. Help a forum noob!
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hommit on June 29, 2013, 09:42:33 am
Quote
• enable armor, footwear, headwear, handwear and legwear under Finished Goods. Disable metal or dwarves may try hauling pieces of armour there.
• enable all non-armour clothing items under Armor. I'm not sure how does the Usable/Unusable setting work - leave both options on.
• enable Refuse, but forbid all kinds of it.
hmmm...
at first, that didnt work
then i enabled all under armor, but disabled "metal" category. seems to work...

fake-edit: not really, there is still occasional not rotten clothing
maybe, it is required to have another pile to somehow take good items first?

edit2: enabling armor, footwear, etc under refuse does nothing, adding same under goods and armor still brings wrong items

Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on June 29, 2013, 11:21:37 am
I renew my request for an explanation of how to change a thread's name and move it. Help a forum noob!
Edit the original post's title to change the thread title of the entire thread, bottom left of the thread's page there is the option to move the topic.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Melzer on July 03, 2013, 02:30:38 am
This is pretty interesting. I can't believe it's your first fort.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on July 10, 2013, 12:53:59 pm
Quote
• enable armor, footwear, headwear, handwear and legwear under Finished Goods. Disable metal or dwarves may try hauling pieces of armour there.
• enable all non-armour clothing items under Armor. I'm not sure how does the Usable/Unusable setting work - leave both options on.
• enable Refuse, but forbid all kinds of it.
hmmm...
at first, that didnt work
then i enabled all under armor, but disabled "metal" category. seems to work...

fake-edit: not really, there is still occasional not rotten clothing
maybe, it is required to have another pile to somehow take good items first?

edit2: enabling armor, footwear, etc under refuse does nothing, adding same under goods and armor still brings wrong items

Oh, yeah. I never had any unused undamaged clothing lying around, it was all almost immediately claimed by dwarves, so that issue never was never my concern. Unfortunately, I don't know how to keep the dwarves from bringing good clothes there. At least I think they won't be destroyed or damaged.

I renew my request for an explanation of how to change a thread's name and move it. Help a forum noob!
Edit the original post's title to change the thread title of the entire thread, bottom left of the thread's page there is the option to move the topic.

Now that's an elusive button. Thank you very much!

This is pretty interesting. I can't believe it's your first fort.

To be honest, neither can I. I guess it would be more obvious if I showed its layout. It's basically a pile of random rectangles dug out whenever they were needed, and some larger architectural projects slapped on the top.

I also didn't expect this small remark to be such a sensation. All this happened more due to luck than anything else.



Not really an update, I'm just posting to show this is still going. There probably won't be anything bigger until August.

I now have 4 FBs stuck in the same place, blocked by trees and rocks in the second cavern layer. The first giant hornbill chicks have hatched. The designs for the sacrificial platform keep failing. I hope a 14 z-level fall on a weapon trap will work. The military is growing, and the commander of the Primitive Daggers is now called Atir Judgewalled the Craterous Meal of Trade. What is this intended to mean I have no clue. The dictionary doesn't even recognise the word "craterous" and suggests "adulterous" as the correct version.

After encountering and overcoming a few obstacles, I believe I am very close to getting the simple semi-automatic water railcannon to work. I managed to make it reload itself successfully once. The second try got the minecart stuck underwater. It's a good thing I had had enough foresight to install floodgates before. Earlier, the minecart had been caught in a loop with an impulse ramp pushing it in one direction and getting pushed back by a normal upward ramp, had flown into the air in a nice arc instead of rolling back to the start, and so on. The design still needs refinement, especially if I want to build a full-auto version.

Is an artifact buckler better than a normal shield?


EDIT:
Quote
Nominated! (and vote added)  Hetarios's Wirejade: An Uninvited Gust [SPOILERS] will be eligible to receive votes in August.

BY ARMOK'S BOOZE-SOAKED BEARD

HOLY CARP

Where is this going to end up next, on TVTropes? I swear I hadn't expected this kind of thing to happen when I was halfway through reading Hellcannon and thought "Damn, this game seems too much fun not to try. In the worst case, I'll just fail, right?".
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Grey_Wolf on July 13, 2013, 07:00:22 am
Dwarves....sealed off in the caverns...alone, scared, running for their lives, scavenging plump helmets...so Dorfy.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on August 09, 2013, 05:20:51 pm
I hit a wall in my cannon research. Impulse ramps behave oddly when submerged. Theoretically, I should get 4890 (or 4910, I'm not sure) speed from each one, which would be decreased by 600 from 7/7 water friction. However, the minecart seems to move from ramp to ramp with low, constant speed, until it hits the normal upwards ramp, where it gets caught in an endless loop. Like each impulse ramp added its bonus speed to a 0 and made this the minecart's speed at the moment. Now, this doesn't always happen - I think the cannon reloaded itself correctly at least once - but it's too often to declare it working. Without water everything is working fine, only all I get from that is a minecart going there and back again for no practical reason. I could just use rollers, but I wanted to create a powerless design for greater simplicity, deep underground application, and perhaps magma use. I'm looking into this thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=127621.0) in hope of finding any useful tips. If anyone has any experience with this sort of issue, I'd greatly appreciate some help.



In other news, the sacrificial shaft is finally working. Regular sacrifices to Radavi, the Great Calamity of Wirejade are regularly conducted. It will help me rearrange my livestock a bit. A sample of the shaft's effects below.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The shaft used for furniture disposal was extended to the surface, and a minecart route above the river drops refuse down there. I'm planning to build another one to connect the refuse stockpiles to the west of the fort with this one. I've been running out of space to store corpses recently. Speaking of corpses, the sarcophagus production caught up with the, uh, demand at last.

(http://i39.tinypic.com/adj0u8.png)

A superkobold almost killed a smith with his dagger, and was apparently quite skilled with its use. Damn thing seems to be better at stabbing than a spear. I should probably equip some of the wrestler migrants with daggers.

(http://i40.tinypic.com/2i75ksx.png)

Something is off here.

As it turns out, digging into Hell from a different adamantine spire triggers the "You have discovered an eerie cavern" message again, but not the demonic invasion. I did think the game will shower me with ‼fun‼ once more for a while, though. Hell is becoming an FB zoo, by the way. They are fond of spawning there.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And this is how tiles near the main wells look like.

No FBs have caused any significant problems lately. I killed two at once with the artifact trap near the forges. On a different occasion I encountered a blood-sucking clear glass quadruped. I wonder if the drained blood was visible inside it. Clear glass behaves weirdly in combat - dog bites can fracture it, bone bolts can chip it, a silver mace glances away. Fortunately, it reacts to adamantine in a predictable way.

I feel that the fort lacks some proper megastructures. Extending the walls to the north gave me quite a lot of space I could use, only that I'm not sure what could I build. So far I'm going to create a new statue garden out of electrum, cobaltite and quartzite, with electrum statues and possibly a minecart-based mist generator, if I manage to engineer one. That still leaves a huge area to utilize. Any suggestions?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Tirion on August 09, 2013, 06:00:52 pm
How about an automated swimming pool? To avoid falling-related injuries, bring the water to your dwarves! Hint: equipment and live dwarves can be pushed through anything that lets water flow through it horizontally, but probably not through floor grates and certainly not through pumps.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on August 09, 2013, 07:46:57 pm
What, no pile of vomit?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on August 09, 2013, 07:51:51 pm
I always found glass FBs to be of a particularly vicious appearance. Extremely fragile... Extremely sharp.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Mr Space Cat on August 09, 2013, 08:33:42 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I like how there's just some random piles of dwarven wheat flour and dwarven sugar in all that mess.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on August 12, 2013, 01:34:50 pm
How about an automated swimming pool? To avoid falling-related injuries, bring the water to your dwarves! Hint: equipment and live dwarves can be pushed through anything that lets water flow through it horizontally, but probably not through floor grates and certainly not through pumps.

Something like the dwarven bathtub, or that thing to train swimming skill with? I guess I could tell dwarves to walk to a certain area, which is even easier since everyone is organised into squads, and have water flow in there through a channel closed by a floodgate just before water depth becomes dangerous, using a water-triggered pressure plate, but I have wells and soap for cleaning and swimming skill isn't very useful. Unless there is some other purpose I'm not aware of. Anyway, now I have the idea of building a waterfall tower in the middle of the new statue garden. Judging from my experience with a pumpstack, it shouldn't impact my framerate (which is now at a stable 6-8 FPS) too severely.

I always found glass FBs to be of a particularly vicious appearance. Extremely fragile... Extremely sharp.

This one only managed to maim a war dog or two. Glass beast have a high mass - I imagine that a glass web-spinner could be quite a threat. I think I had one, actually, but an artifact trap broke it in half.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I like how there's just some random piles of dwarven wheat flour and dwarven sugar in all that mess.

Flour, blood, sugar, devil goo... oh, and of course antman ichor. There was a small antmen tribe in the first caverns once. My first few attempts at eradicating them failed, mostly thanks to their queen, Brushedfrozes the Confidence of Dyes. Since then, their ichor has been spread just about everywhere.



The cannon - in a semi-automatic version at least - is working! There is now a "wet" part, where the minecart is refilled with water, and a "dry" part, which pushes it back to the start. The minecart is transfered from one to another with the use of a hatch opened by pressure plate. I've only recently realized I can use a hatch instead of a retractable bridge for greater reliability and reloading speed - a bridge is opened 99 or 100 ticks after the signal is sent, whereas a hatch opens instantly. Of course, that means some water will inevitably flow from the "wet" to the "dry" part. I have to only balance out the drainage system and the water supply now... maybe find a way to limit the amount of lost water, too. And then - a fully automatic version! I'll post the blueprints when it's ready.


Due to a flaw in the design - up/down stairs where up stairs should be - a fire-breathing FB flew into the middle of the busiest lane of the fort. About a dozen dwarves died in the flames, and the burning and rotting bodies blocked the passage for a long time. One of the killed was Reg Sneakedurns - the best cook in the fort, good enough to be depicted on engravings and figurines, raising masterful roasts. I would've given her a platinum sarcophagus if there were anyhing left to bury.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on August 12, 2013, 07:27:47 pm
Then give her a platinum slab.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: thoushaltcallmelars on August 14, 2013, 01:15:07 am
So much in this thread is sigworthy that I can't even decide what to sig...
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on August 14, 2013, 10:52:36 am
So much in this thread is sigworthy that I can't even decide what to sig...
Sig it all Urist. Sig it all.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on August 22, 2013, 09:55:57 am
Then give her a platinum slab.

Alas, slabs can only be made of rock.



After overcoming numerous issues with the auto version of the cannon, I made it fire two times in a row. Somewhat underwhelming, but still an improvement, since it goes from place to place correctly. I have to adjust the water supply so it can sustain prolonged fire. The bridge dropping the minecart into the reloading system was replaced with a floor grate, which has the same tick delay for activation with a pressure plate, but doesn't make the minecart fly in random directions. I don't know the friction value for grates and floor bars - I assume it's the same as a normal floor tile, not that it matters much. The bad news are that automatisation without using power seems impossible. I had to use rollers. Only about 29 ticks pass between the activation of the pressure plate opening the way for the minecart to return (I had to count that myself in case impulse ramps behave oddly again), so I'd have to keep it somehow "busy" and still moving for circa 70 ticks before sending it back with an impulse ramp, so it doesn't drop back into the reloading system. Maybe somebody else can figure this out, I'm out of ideas. Anyway, I should put up the schematics relatively soon. I hope. Solving one issue breeds another - I even flooded a part of the fort at a time. I'm now more careful about the order in which levers are pulled.

You see, these cannons are going to be a substantial part of the Hell outpost I'm going to construct. This is why I was trying to make a powerless version. I suppose I'll just make an artificial waterfall out of a cavern lake and have it drain into an eerie glowing pit. Of course deep underground nothing stops me from using magma as ammunition, but power must be provided by water. The aboveground part will also see its fortifications lined with cannon batteries.

So the current plans include mining out and processing all the adamantine, constructing an out post in Hell, complete with cannons, silk farms (there are some web-spinning demons I hope to lure into them), a baiting system, marksdwarf bastions and possibly a few more things, building a tall tower out of obsidian, replacing all the furniture with electrum, finishing paving the fort with said metal, creating a new statue garden with mist generators, and couple of other projects I don't remember at the moment.

Speaking of adamantine - the spires go straight through the magma sea, so before I send the miner I have to let in water to obsidianise the surrounding magma. Pockets of magma can even appear within the spire. I lost a miner this way. I started with the north-western spire - a floodgate, a lever, and a door so the miners can walk in after all is done. Now, the nearby pool is 2 z-levels high. I installed everything, opened the floodgate and sent in a miner to dig out the last tile. I expected him to outrun the water rushing in, but apparently pressure had a different opinion. At one moment, I noticed a job cancellation due to dangerous terrain. The magma was cooled down, but now I had a drowning miner, and it wasn't an ordinary one - he was the creator of Wealthwinters, the second artifact created in the fort's history, the floor hatch which at one moment was the only thing standing between the fort and the demonic Siege From Below, and the husband of late Reg Sneakedurns. While trying to create him an escape route, I noticed he's moving. He approached a nearby ramp and disappeared. This happened a few more times, so I took a look on the z-level above. Now, the cavern pool in question can be divided into two parts - northern and southern, separated by a narrow rock wall cutting it's width to one third of its normal value. The northern part was drained of water so rapidly it became passable, and the miner - after a few attempts stopped by water flow pushing him back -  just walked out. Where did the water go?

Spoiler: Right here. (click to show/hide)

I shut down the floodgate and left it all for later use. And then a winged ribbon worm Tharumi Murkechoed residing below had the wonderful idea to fly up and wreak some havoc.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In order to even reach it, I had to dig a staircase down to where it was at the moment. Do you remember that Ber Hammerbearded fellow? It ripped out his right arm. And he survived, and even got back to pick up his sword, when the beast was slain. This didn't stop the trouble. The water flooded the entire hallway between the forges, the ore stockpiles and the barracks of the Fenced Neutrality. I hewed out some space above and constructed two pump batteries trying to displace the water, to no avail. It's still there. I guess I'll just make a small pumpstack and add magma to the equation.

There was another beast in the first caverns, with an interesting syndrome. First, unconsciousness. Then numbness and nausea, not that it matters much for an unconscious creature. Then the spine began to rot. Shortly before death, the victim would wake up and spend it's last conscious minutes suffocating and being torn apart by a giant, horned, feathered moose. The artifact trap saved my soldiers.

The dwarven caravan of year 161 did not appear for no apparent reason. Since then, I've received two "The fortress attracted no migrants this season" messages. Something is wrong. Have I driven the home civ extinct?


Some more random fun:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Foamybeard on August 25, 2013, 12:12:11 am
The dwarven caravan of year 161 did not appear for no apparent reason. Since then, I've received two "The fortress attracted no migrants this season" messages. Something is wrong. Have I driven the home civ extinct?

I -think- that happens when enough of your people die, so no one wants to go there anymore, since going to Wirejade = Death.


Honestly I didn't know that that happened anymore.


Spoiler 2 looks tasty. :D
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Tirion on August 25, 2013, 05:00:44 am
Swimming raises attributes, making dwarves faster and more durable, that's why I suggested it.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on August 25, 2013, 01:26:41 pm
The dwarven caravan of year 161 did not appear for no apparent reason. Since then, I've received two "The fortress attracted no migrants this season" messages. Something is wrong. Have I driven the home civ extinct?

I -think- that happens when enough of your people die, so no one wants to go there anymore, since going to Wirejade = Death.

Honestly I didn't know that that happened anymore.

Spoiler 2 looks tasty. :D

Only that I haven't had many deaths recently, just the occasional dwarf suffering a deconstruction accident or stumbling upon an FB. The population is at a stable ~250.

And it doesn't explain why the caravan stopped arriving without an explanation, or why I started receiving messages about the beginning of seasons. There are only two seasons - wet and dry - but now the game tells me about springs and winters too. Has something got corrupted? It's quite a serious issue.

I deconstructed the old depot and built a new one out of platinum, but it probably won't help.

Swimming raises attributes, making dwarves faster and more durable, that's why I suggested it.

I see. Is it better than having dwarves operate pumps without actually pumping anything? I've started searching for an optimal location, anyway.


As a bonus, here's the place memorialising the struggle against the forces of the underworld. It's been ready for a while now, I just kept forgetting to post it.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Tirion on August 25, 2013, 02:27:33 pm
Swimming raises attributes, making dwarves faster and more durable, that's why I suggested it.

I see. Is it better than having dwarves operate pumps without actually pumping anything? I've started searching for an optimal location, anyway.


Why not both?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: snjwffl on August 25, 2013, 07:06:59 pm
Swimming raises attributes, making dwarves faster and more durable, that's why I suggested it.

I see. Is it better than having dwarves operate pumps without actually pumping anything? I've started searching for an optimal location, anyway.


Pump operating doesn't raise agility, and swimming does.  On the other hand, swimming doesn't raise toughness and pump operating does.  Besides those they're pretty much the same (between the two of them, every physical attribute gets raised).
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on August 26, 2013, 02:57:34 pm
First, I'm kinda short on dwarves idle enough to pump, and second, using a pool would give me more control over how who exactly is exercising at the moment. Agility is more desirable for me since it improves movement speed, and my dwarves haul a lot. A swimming pool it is, then. Is the optimal water depth 4/7?



The cannon is up to 10 shots in a row, and you can put one every two tiles for greater firepower. I need to install a few so I have anything to make screenshots of. I still get minor optimisation ideas every once in a while.

I got a third artifact adamantine mace. I wish it had been a war hammer just for a change. I also have two artifact bucklers; are those better than non-artifact shields?

The most pivotal issue, however, is the lack of immigration and caravans. Without those, the fortress is at risk of a slow death, when accidents claim dwarf after dwarf. I have no clue what could've caused this, and I need this solved as soon as possible, or introduce some "family-friendly" policies (put dwarves into a small room, lock it down, let them out only when they form couples).

EDIT: One more thing: the latest FB encounter left me with another one-handed soldier. Should I let them carry both a weapon and a shield or order them to leave shields behind?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on September 01, 2013, 06:17:25 pm
It's the fourth year since the homeland fell silent. No caravans, no immigrants. No matter what terrible disaster befell The Whip of Beaches, Wirejade stands alone now. But haven't we faced the greatest threats known to dwarfkind? Haven't we come out victorious? Our craftsdwarves can create unsurpassed beauty. Our engineers improve the fortress constantly in new and ingenious ways. Our soldiers are capable of striking down any abomination from the depths. Their arms and armour have no equal in this world. Wirejade can and will grow greater than it ever was. Long live The Last Mountainhome!

If I want things to happen in the way described above, I'll have to stimulate the population growth a bit. I can begin as soon as the designated area is sufficiently stocked with booze, which may take some time, since dwarves drink it faster than it's brewed.

Do you remember the miraculously saved miner from a few updates ago? Well, he's dead. Killed by a tile of bugged obsidian. When I was pouring water into the magma pool, it would occasionally flow diagonally and form unsupported tiles of obsidian. They would cave in instantly upon formation, splashing magma on the z-level above, and therefore into (or very close to) water. However, obsidian tiles formed this way cause a cave in upon being mined out. Zefon will be missed, especially due to being one of the last few legendary miners left in the fortress. Without him, all projects involving mining have been greatly slowed down. His slab stands next to that of his wife.

Most of the time and effort since the last update was spent on various improvements and alterations of logistical nature, which - despite their importance - wouldn't make for a passionate read. Livestock reduction, gold ore delivery, that sort of thing. The refuse piles I posted some time ago are gone, their contents cast into magma with the use of minecarts.

There was, however, a dragon.

(http://i42.tinypic.com/1zf66oz.png)

It arrived on the southern edge of the map and promptly walked into a cage trap. I'm going to use it for... uhm, livestock "disposal" for now. I don't really need a thousand animals, and dragonfire doesn't leave those pesky remains behind. Then I'll have it trained as a war beast. Oh, and it doesn't have a nose. Knowing this game, I suppose a dwarf bit it off a long time ago or something.

A scorpion FB was spotted in the third caverns and even though I could've killed it with retracting spears, I decided to give the soldiers some live training. It pushed a swordswarf around for a while before being bisected with a ☼candy axe☼. Kind of anticlimactic. At least its slayer is now known as Rakust Paintedbeached the Crypts of Liberation in recognition of her fifth kill. I imagine while the swordswarf was narrowly escaping one deadly blow after another she just casually walked up to the beast and struck it with her weapon.

A weretortoise ambushed and almost killed a dwarf, but a tigerman killed it before it finished him off. Who transformed on the next full moon? The heavily injured dwarf? Nope, the tigerman, even though he had been barely scratched. It happened in the jail, where he was presumably feeding on the prisoners' food stock. One dwarf was killed, but another managed to fend it off for long enough for the werebeast to retransform, though not without losing some teeth.

Uh oh, she's still following the tigerman and bashing him with her crossbow. I have a bad feeling about this.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Tirion on September 02, 2013, 03:23:52 am
Uh huh. Loyalty cascade time?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on September 02, 2013, 01:44:52 pm
Uh huh. Loyalty cascade time?

Crisis averted. They're both locked in the hospital's cloth stockpile. She's beating him up with an ☼alpaca bone crossbow☼, and he bit off her toe. She is labelled a member of the local government and an enemy of the civ, so yeah, loyalty cascade material. For a moment the fort was a wrong turn and a few crossbow shots away from almost inevitable collapse. That kind of thing reminds me why did I install floor hatches on every single level of the central staircase of the main part of the fortress.

That would've been hilarious, though. Dozens of Forgotten Beasts, including some only killable by complex traps. The entire host of the underworld. Dragons and minotaurs. All neutralised. And then a freaking tigerman who was in the wrong place at the wrong moment would've made the fort implode.

I'm going to arrange a heated meeting between the tigermen and the dragon in return.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Tirion on September 04, 2013, 04:32:44 pm
I see you are prepared. And lucky to have a Tigerman, I haven't seen one of those in ages!
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on September 14, 2013, 09:31:42 am
I see you are prepared. And lucky to have a Tigerman, I haven't seen one of those in ages!

Honestly, the fort was saved more by sheer dumb luck than anything else. Had things taken an ugly turn, I'd have tried to lock the cascade down as effectively as possible (putting doors everywhere pays off sometimes) and hoped the casualties weren't too high. In the worst case I could have rebuilt the fort with whoever was in the forges at the moment. I have some food and drinks stashed there so the smiths don't have to take a trip a 100 z-levels up, and there should be some seeds in the stills.

As for tigermen... if you thought dwarves are the masters of suicidal stupidity, tigermen would make you change your mind. They are well capable of dying of dehydration on the way to the water source, even though there was nothing to stop them from getting a drink before. Or taking a nap on a weapon trap filled with large serrated discs.

Spoiler: Rest in pieces, Mosus (click to show/hide)

And they take up the coffins prepared for dwarves, unless you forbid pet burial, but then there's a risk of Urist throwing a tantrum because his/her pet cavy is rotting in the dining hall.



Since the fort is no longer waiting for migrants to repopulate it, and the number of citizens is going to be slowly decreasing for now, I have to rearrange the economy a bit. For example, I can no longer rely on imported leather, so I relocated the butcheries, tanneries and leather works closer to each other and disabled hauling labours for a few tanners. The efficiency has been significantly improved, but mass producing leather items is still not an option. I want to have some leather to spare in case a leatherworker goes moody. The complete overhaul of the food and booze industry is going to follow, since honestly it's quite a mess now. Whenever I thought I needed a new kitchen, still or whatever I put it anywhere there was some space, with little regard for logistics.

The surplus quivers and bone crossbows can be sold to elves. Wooden shields will have to be disposed of in a different way. Crops will be left alone for now, until I take care of the livestock. After a few incidents the dragon-powered incinerator is finally working as intended, though the corpses could burn down more quickly. The amount of animals is now below 900. I guess it's kind of a humiliation for poor Nganiz Warmglow the Flare of Jades to serve as a part of the dwarven trash disposal system.

(http://i41.tinypic.com/152fc5l.png)

Bushmasters were immolated after I noticed I have almost 6000 bushmaster eggs. In other circumstances this would've probably been a blessing, but my food stocks are overflowing. And when the dwarves leave the eggs in the nest, this happens, because I modded them to be able to breed.

(http://i40.tinypic.com/mt1ogj.png)

And I have enough creatures pathfinding already, even if they don't have a lethal venom.

The Shipping Chamber caused a few friendships to form. Good for a start. The biggest obstacle is waiting for enough dwarves to assemble.

FBs have been exceptionally quiet lately, but I was lucky to have the steel cockroach spawn in hell and not in the first caverns, for example.

I wanted to obsidianise a lower z-level of the magma pool, and started with caving in the floor above the upper layer.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In hindsight, I should have prepared a way to immediately start forming obsidian on the lower level.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

At least nobody died. I'm not even sure why I had wanted to do that.

For some reason, the dwarves keep carrying various refuse to the garbage dump, even though it was never designated for dumping. Is something wrong with the standing orders? I'll set everything to "save" and see what happens.

I already have the screenshots for the cannon schematics; now I only have to label all the elements. I realised that if I want to aim them at demon spawn points I can't put the loading system below the cannon, since it's undiggable slade floor. I have an idea how to load and return the minecarts with a contraption above the cannon, however. Testing pending.

EDIT: I found something strange. The stocks screen displays some items apparently belonging to a caravan. Trying to zoom in leads to empty, nondescript tiles near the edge of the map. This might have something to do with the lack of dwarven caravans and migrants. Does anyone have an explanation?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on November 04, 2013, 08:48:45 pm
I'm alive! Slaughterhouse School duties and other issues have kept me away from the game for a while; moreover, most effort was invested into tedious work towards large projects, so there wasn't much to describe despite lots of things being done.

Testing revealed another design flaw in the minecart cannons. As it turns out, normal downward ramps don't work properly when submerged - dropping a minecart from above doesn't make them accelerate in any direction. I have to replace them in every single cannon with impulse ramps, and that means the entire water inflow control system requires an overhaul. At least that should be the last change to the design. The section responsible for firing the projectile works, and the one returning the minecart to the starting point is too simple to be broken. Time to build a massive pump battery and have things fixed. There goes another in-game year, at least...

Tigermen continue to be a pest. Even long since dead and burned in dragonfire, they keep claiming coffins. It's infuriating to waste perfectly good electrum sarcophagi this way. It seems I have to make some rock coffins for them to claim instead. A crude solution, but it should work.

Congratulations to the sneakiest kobold thief ever, Libipogin, who walked straight onto the barracks of the most elite squad in the fortress.

My last legendary miner, Ineth Archstroked, somehow ended up surrounded by fire caused by a Forgotten Beast, so I designated him a way to safety. He decided to put off digging it out until being set on fire. It took him 8 tiles of digging to bleed out. Dwarven survival instinct at its best, I guess.

Thanks to the wiki, magma flow tiles next to raw adamantine are no longer an issue. Designating a construction on them while they're clear of magma means it can be built even after it's submerged again, and the construction's presence allows the tile to be obsidianised normally. Once all the adamantine is excavated, it'll be time to go even deeper...

I've discovered something disturbing about the civ's history. See, Unib Oilomen and Kogan Steelchants were both queens of the Whip of Beaches. The bone carvers of Wirejade made many figurines of their ascension to the throne. No one, however, depicted this.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The presence of humans with dwarven names is intriguing, too. I have no clue how I haven't noticed this before.

A few more weapons were named, the most notable of which is Balancedfences the Whiskered Calm, the ☼adamantine battle axe☼ wielded by Rakust Paintedbeached the Crypts of Liberation. Eleven notable kills, including 10 FBs and a demon, plus two steam devils listed as "other" kills. Rakust herself is responsible for the deaths of 9 of the beasts, and thus has surpassed the achievements of Sakzul Riddlegirded the Clean Call. This merits a badass custom job title. Suggestions welcome.

Behold the Roast of Roasts! It's a stack of 252 roasts made of pig tallow and quarry bush leaves (x18), all masterfully or exceptionally minced.

(http://i42.tinypic.com/724lmv.png)

Huh. I look away from the game for a moment and when I get back there is a dead magma crab in the forges.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on November 05, 2013, 11:28:12 am
And THAT is why you leave war animals randomly running around your fort.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on November 07, 2013, 03:47:33 pm
And THAT is why you leave war animals randomly running around your fort.

And equip all civilians with a crossbow and a shield. Speaking of war animals, I have an almost complete collection of predatory felines. All in all, a few hundred war-trained creatures, and I plan on modding giant eagles to be war trainable, since it's a bit odd to see them run away from danger like they were guineafowl.



Another legendary miner was pushed into magma by 1/7 water and instantly encased in obsidian.

33 screw pumps took half a year to build. Time to pull the lever and hope for the best.

Oh, I almost forgot I have a new mayor - Ustuth Torchdeer, the fort's broker, who likes backpacks and ballista arrows.

The fourth mood in a row is a farmer. The three former produced absolutely useless shale trinkets. At this point I'd accept even another bone shield. What did he grab? Ooh, tower-cap logs. Such a rebel.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 07, 2013, 04:14:14 pm
What and how did Rakust fight? Considered stealing the name of one of the FBs as her job title?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on November 15, 2013, 01:16:59 pm
Nothing better than internet connection failure to keep me from responding.

What and how did Rakust fight? Considered stealing the name of one of the FBs as her job title?

(http://i43.tinypic.com/s3iv4j.png)

Here's the kill list, slightly updated. As for her fighting style, she'd often walk up to a beast already attacked by, say, a swordsdwarf and unceremoniously chop it up into a few pieces. Go, team. I'm thinking about calling her the "Killstealer".

By the way, your sparring advice seems to be paying off. The soldiers now spar regularly, and the combat skills of all increased noticeably, up to Professional level (part of it should probably be credited to DFHack fixes, of course).



A dwarf decided to shoot a bolt at a demon down in Hell while retrieving a piece of raw adamantine. This pissed it off. But that problem was solved with relatively few deaths.

Then another dwarf got the same wonderful idea, and the others decided the best course of action is to keep going through the artifact door the second demon was banging at while fetching socks and booze.

(http://i41.tinypic.com/21mx4py.png)

12 13 14 dead in total. Ingish Merchantwhirled the Line of Dye, a professional hammerdwarf, talented at other combat skills and thus one of the most skilled defenders Wirejade ever had was struck down by Mournfulwails the Sewer of Stalkers. Atir Judgewalled the Craterous Meal of Trade (who killed 4 Forgotten Beasts, 6 kobold thieves and a minotaur) started bleeding heavily for no apparent reason and passed away as well. This is truly a black day for the fortress, one of the blackest in 20 years.

EDIT: 15 now. An axedwarf died in the hospital to his wounds.

At least pumping is going smoothly now, if you don't count the 4 drowned idiots.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There will be a bit of a mess to clean up, though.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on November 25, 2013, 01:25:38 pm
So I've recently started new project of considerable scope, and it's mostly about launching large amounts of war-trained animals into the second cavern level in order to clean it of FBs without exposing dwarves to the danger. There are 5 of them: two with deadly dust, two fire-breathers, and one relatively harmless salt dinosaur. There were two more, but ended up shot by marksdwarves. I've already found out that one dust-beast causes the entire body to rot, so I can't just assemble the military and clear out the caverns.

I'm going to employ a device called a "double minecart shotgun" (I think), which basically makes the minecart with a cage inside hit a fortification at a high velocity, making the cage fly out of it and hit another fortification, spilling its living contents. Most of the cargo doesn't survive, at least in my design, but I have a ridiculous quantity of more or less deadly critters, which makes them fairly expendable. Hopefully a dozen or two of giant sloth bears will soften the beasts up a bit.

And now it's time for a bit of a military showcase. Two soldiers gained their titles: the first one is Momuz Granitelessons the Teal Bride of Hawks. The "teal" part is kind of fitting, since he's a swordswarf. I gave him that sword as a reward.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The second one is Lór Empirearmors the Roasted Spring of Bastions, a veteran of the war against demons. Shot four of them, and two FBs as well, but the game treats demons who haven't gained a name as "other kills", so they don't count towards a title while kobold thieves do. He got a new shiny artifact adamantine crossbow.

And finally, Ingiz Scouredmachine, the most skilled soldier in the entire fort. Accomplished macedwarf, legendary fighter. Unbelievably strong - even though the killing blow in the battle with Mournfulwails was dealt by someone else, Ingiz had smashed the demons legs off one by one, with single strikes before that. He also doesn't care about anything anymore and is missing his right arm, due to an unfortunate encounter with a FB quite a while ago. Tharumi, I think, for anyone who remembers. Oh, and he's apparently a son of a dude-turned-werebeast. A werehedgehog, to be precise.

Dishmab Axeact the... Livid Beguiler-Bone of Lancers. What. Anyway, she has just shot the salt dino with a mangled bone bolt and poof, it died. An artifact feather wood crossbow might have helped.

The bottom of one of the adamantine spires was reached and the hole floored over so nothing unpleasant gets through for now. Another one is being worked on.

And for the end of this update, a true hallmark of a long-lasting fortress. A dwarf dying of old age.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Foamybeard on November 26, 2013, 11:24:53 pm
Heh, yay, more updates!

I've got to say (yet again) I am -incredibly- jealous of the fact that this was your first fort. x_x

You are a god among Dwarves, sir, and I look forwards to your updates.

*takes off hat*

Rest in peace, Asmel Lolokenos. May Armok favor you in the next life.


(Also, did you figure out why no more Migrants / Caravans were coming anymore?)

(Aaand what stage is your fortress at? Baron, Duke, Earl or King?)
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on November 27, 2013, 08:36:27 pm
Heh, yay, more updates!

I've got to say (yet again) I am -incredibly- jealous of the fact that this was your first fort. x_x

You are a god among Dwarves, sir, and I look forwards to your updates.

*takes off hat*

Rest in peace, Asmel Lolokenos. May Armok favor you in the next life.


(Also, did you figure out why no more Migrants / Caravans were coming anymore?)

(Aaand what stage is your fortress at? Baron, Duke, Earl or King?)

Why thank you.  :)

As for the migrants - not exactly. It seems that something went wrong when the caravan was leaving one year, since there is a lot of caravan items scattered near the edge of the map, only accessible through the stocks menu. Dwarves can pick them up only if I have them designated for dumping, but afterwards they show up in the game just fine. It seems related to the immigration problem, but I have no clue how exactly.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to fix that and I have no idea what caused all that in the first place. I tried clearing the edge of the map of trees, but to no avail. No migrants, no caravans, only stacks of cave lobsters in a highly unusual quantum state. I've even posted the issue on the Dwarf Mode board, but it appears to be a rare bug.

I had already had both a duke and a queen when I began relating the story. Both have been dead for a while now. The duke, Kogsak Eyeringed, died with the other smiths when the demons assaulted the forges, with an axe in hand, but weapons created by his hand still protect the fortress. See this masterwork sword in the previous update? It's his work. He had also made a spear of the same quality and material, and with a similarly impressive kill list.

The queen, Adil Floorbalance, died after taking the wrong turn when running away from a beast with a body-liquefying syndrome way back in 152, according to figurines made by Wirejade's bone carvers. She was caught by the very edge of a dust cloud...



Work on the new statue garden has lately begun. Expect some neat Stonesense screenshots once it's finished. I'll probably have to set up some quarries, because mass production of mechanisms exhausted my stone stockpiles.

A recent battle with a fire-breather in the caverns would've ended without casualties, had two dwarves not decided to stand around in the fire it caused. I guess units can't path through smoke in order to stop them from running into fires, only it doesn't work as intended in certain cases. There goes an expert hammerdorf.

Current population is 205. I'm still slabbing the ghosts spawned by Radavi's rampage and subsequent demonic assault. Damn flame clowns setting everything on fire. It's been 26 years!
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Sarrak on November 28, 2013, 04:05:17 am
Just to say it myself: it is incredibly awesome (and deadly) fortress, built entirely from !!FUN!!
Considering that it is your first attempt, as well as the amount dwarves and deaths...

As for the bug, there were some curcumstances which caused similar problems. One was related to the overburdened dead counter, which was successfully cleared with DFHack, but I have a feeling that you have already encountered such problem. Another fortress got the not-so-ghostly dwarf, who ceased all future births altogether. Maybe it was true for migrants as well, but the fort civilisation already died by that time.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on November 30, 2013, 10:08:59 am
As for the bug, there were some curcumstances which caused similar problems. One was related to the overburdened dead counter, which was successfully cleared with DFHack, but I have a feeling that you have already encountered such problem. Another fortress got the not-so-ghostly dwarf, who ceased all future births altogether. Maybe it was true for migrants as well, but the fort civilisation already died by that time.

Yeah, fix/dead-units has already saved me once. That bug is actually related to the sum of all four sections of the units screen, doesn't stop caravans, and prevents the game from displaying the "no migrants" message every season. Toady himself has acknowledged it, and is apparently going to make the cap settable (see the Bay 12 Twitter account).

You might be on to something about the ghost. There is one I can't find on the slabbing list, and I think there were no new births in a while either. Might be a caravan guard fried by a dragon. Was the issue dealt with? Should DFHack's clear-ghostly solve it?

EDIT: A girl by the name of Asob Helmmurders has just been born. Kinda shy, but has quite good physical stats. However, it complicates the situation even more.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Sarrak on November 30, 2013, 03:57:35 pm
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=93279
The whole game was centered around children problem. Bug, as later deduced, was somehow related to an abducted child, who remained at map as a "ghostly" data, with nothing actually at his final place, being that of abduction.

But your children situation is different, as well as version (not that it really matters). Perhaps, something happened with mountainhomes. Like, you could have severly depleted your own civilisation resourses by recent migration waves. Not sure about this, as caravans would spam regardless as long as civ itself is alive. Or maybe you encountered something similar in nature, yet highly improbable...

You should try and slab missing ghosts with DFHack, but it may not work.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 26, 2013, 03:25:51 pm
Bloody good Fort, well worth the re-read.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on December 26, 2013, 06:33:44 pm
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=93279
The whole game was centered around children problem. Bug, as later deduced, was somehow related to an abducted child, who remained at map as a "ghostly" data, with nothing actually at his final place, being that of abduction.

But your children situation is different, as well as version (not that it really matters). Perhaps, something happened with mountainhomes. Like, you could have severly depleted your own civilisation resourses by recent migration waves. Not sure about this, as caravans would spam regardless as long as civ itself is alive. Or maybe you encountered something similar in nature, yet highly improbable...

You should try and slab missing ghosts with DFHack, but it may not work.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It hasn't, not that it's much of a surprise. I have only noticed that the scattered caravan items are similar in status to those "hidden" by water flow, but marked red in the stocks screen instead of yellow. Maybe even the gear of the caravan guards had been left here. I'm dumping it all and hoping that will work. In the worst case, I get some free goods. In time, I might even become able to rely on natural population growth, but another caravan willing to take away my bone garbage crafts can't be replaced that easily.

Anyway, thank you for giving me an excuse to read the famous Saga of Weatherwires. Man, how hard do my storytelling skills suck in comparison to this...



'Tis time for celebration! With the passing of the year 176, Wirejade turns 50 years old. I guess I should deliver something special for this occasion, so I announce that

THE MINECART WATERCANNONS ARE FINALLY WORKING! (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=134745.0)

Apparently having a gear assembly power the rollers at the start of two neighbouring cannons and the minecarts in both switching it off so they don't immediately roll back where they came from is a bad combination. Gearboxes toggle on every signal sent, so sending two means they remain in the same state as before, defeating the whole purpose. I was close to disassembling everything and putting a tile more between the cannons, but alternating the length of the uppermost sections (so there is 1 gearbox/1 starting roller) is a simpler and more effective solution, which was subsequently verified by experiments. The amount of water fired depends heavily on how the water supply is designed, length of each cannon's reloading section and number of active cannons. I achieved about 40 globs of water simultaneously fired from 3 of them. Detailed schematics in the link.

The obsidian tower is getting a sterling silver roof. Good progress is being made on the statue garden, even if shortages of building materials hamper it from time to time. New minecart routes were created to transport clay to the magma kilns and crafts to the depot. Hopefully it will let me drown the elves in bone/wax/horn/whatever crap more effectively. At least the bone carvers appear to have put a dent in the mountains of animal byproducts lying around the fort. Meanwhile, setting the farms to be cultivated one season per year only resulted in the plant stocks remaining at a steady about 10500. It looks like I'll have to turn off agriculture completely for the next... few decades or so, except for rope reeds and pig tails. Dyes are not a problem. Pressing industry was restarted, and now dwarves have mead to drink.

I've never really bothered to check just how much of finished goods do I have. I ended up with over 1500 totems, and about a thousand of each of the craft types. And that's not counting the absurd amounts of bone bolts. Lesson for today: Don't go overboard with your meat industry, even if you like variety. Seriously, just don't. Otherwise, this happens.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The struggle to reclaim the second cavern level continues. The unreliable double shotgun was replaced with a new system which has yet to be tested. Mirise, a dust beast, hit a wall at high velocity while fighting the latest delivery of war animals, killing itself. Marksdwarves are more successful - they shot two firebreathers, Ospun and Uzbad Holecrabs the Nightmare of Midnight respectively in the throat and both lungs, as well as another FB called Stukos and some vomit blob. However, inorganic beasts can't be killed with bolts, and even the organic ones aren't easy to shoot to death. The occasional errors with equipping ammo make it even worse. And for some reason, wildlife returned to the cavern, which means its reclamation is even more important than before. Crundles could make a nice source of target practice, and a giant cave spider has been spotted there, too...

Speaking of FBs, they have mostly been spawning in the second cavern level, and any others were dealt with swiftly and surely. One was made of quite unusual material.

(http://i41.tinypic.com/2m7f8th.png)

Calcareous ooze is a type of oceanic soil; I don't think I've ever got a beast made of soil before. As expected, it died quickly. But some time later, this showed up.

(http://i40.tinypic.com/rkwu2t.png)

Ooze contaminating my moat. I'm fairly sure no dwarves were around when it appeared. Does the game spawn contaminants in places they have never actually reached? It would explain the antman ichor everywhere. Two werebeasts showed up as well: one wounded an alpaca and ran away, another encountered a crossbow-armed dwarf, who scored a lucky shot to its throat. How many more are stuck on this island? There aren't even any human settlements, only elves and kobolds.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Two more kobold thieves had been caught sneaking through the barracks, between the training soldiers. Needless to say, it didn't end well for the kobolds You'd think they would notice it might be a bad idea after carefully opening the door and seeing a bunch of heavily armed dwarves and pools of blood on the floor, but no. Another one somehow walked into the fortress proper and snatched an artifact adamantine figurine, but died mauled by a giant eagle.

Ingiz Scouredmachine became a mace lord, and one Zasit Waxycrystal a hammer lord. Since the military in Wirejade is kind of low in numbers, and some of the soldiers are of advanced age (Ingiz, for example, is over 120) I introduced a new recruitment policy. Every dwarf who comes of age must have his/her physical attributes checked. Those with above average stats are to be conscripted. So far I've got a new competent hammerdwarf; three more recruits are still dabbling at their respective weapon skills. The policy was inspired by discovering that one of the hammerdwarves, Rimtar Groovedpulleys, was born and trained from scratch in the fortress to professional levels, meaning that the whole project is feasible. Rimtar is about 40, but I don't know how long ago did I conscript him.

The recent artifacts have been thoroughly unimpressive: a bone left gauntlet, an animal trap, two splints, one of them made of adamantine, a shoe, and this. Note the name.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There seems to be a bug regarding creatures standing on top of floor hatches - they open after a while, no matter if the creature in question was going down through the hatch or not. If it's yet another war cheetah, it causes annoying report spam. Things get worse if it's a dwarf carrying something heavy.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Oh, and does anyone remember how I installed an artifact door in the entrance into the well chamber above the forges to hold any FBs inside should they fly through the opening? Probably not, it was one of the first updates after reconquering the caverns. I myself barely remembered it, until it actually served its purpose about 20 years later.

With the year 177 comes the 30th anniversary of Radavi's rampage. Time to toss in some sacrifices.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: MDFification on December 26, 2013, 09:43:07 pm
This is an artifact fort. It menaces with spikes of !!FUN!!. It is decorated with hanging rings of someone already made this joke.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Elephant Parade on December 27, 2013, 03:17:07 am
Posting to watch.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on December 28, 2013, 04:24:17 pm
All the FBs plaguing the second level of the caverns are now dead, and dwarves can finally walk there safely. Really, I should've got this idea a long time ago.

I dug out a 7x7 chamber and put an artifact table in the middle. Then I channelled out the ceiling, except for a ring of floor two tiles away from the table, built a support there and linked it to a nearby lever, while pasturing some animals nearby to make the bait more attractive. When everything was ready, I pierced a hole to the caverns and waited.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

All six beasts rushed in. One of them took a turn towards the fortress proper; fortunately it was just a water humanoid with vapours causing a mild gut rot, quickly dealt with by the passing war animals. I was watching the rest futilely claw at the artifact while I ordered the lever to be pulled.

(http://i43.tinypic.com/igvor9.png)

The collapsing ceiling killed them immediately, including Ngongno Unouzun Osnongstrastnas, a hornblende quadruped with powerful syndrome dust, and Comewi, a fire-breathing skinless lizard which had been hit with another beast's (maybe Ngongno's) dust and has been walking around rotting and spewing clouds of miasma like some demon of decay. Oh, and it killed my mechanic with a fireball.

Two dwarves who were in the wrong place at the wrong time were lost, one of them a legendary engraver, Stukos Citybeauty. With their deaths, the total population fell below 200. I should probably do something about that, and quickly...

EDIT: Oops. Looks like the vapour weren't that harmless after all, and that one of my best marksdwarves is now blind and blistered. Wait, she can see again. That's a relief; she refuses to go to the hospital, I hope that won't end badly.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: peregarrett on December 30, 2013, 05:23:04 am
Holy Armok's Balls, why have I missed this thread? It's awesome!

Could you put a score table at the first post? Like that -
FB's : 32
Clowns : 54
Dwarves : 503
Others :  Uncountable!

I think that would be fun, though boresome to count. Maybe I'lll come up with easy way later. For now I just think of using falconne's dfhack search plugin on list of dead, it easily filters FB's and every type of demon separately, but count dwarves apart from their dead cattle is a hard task. Maybe fix/dead-units script helps with removing animals from there?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Chevaleresse on December 31, 2013, 05:12:09 am
This is. . . simply amazing.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on December 31, 2013, 01:23:47 pm
Could you put a score table at the first post? Like that -
FB's : 32
Clowns : 54
Dwarves : 503
Others :  Uncountable!

Sorry to disappoint you, but fix/dead-units is apparently a bit overzealous. The list only shows 15 FBs, all slain recently, and no demons at all. I could list dwarves, and maybe kobold thieves. I remember the game spawned about a hundred demons, only one of which remains alive, trapped in a forgotten corridor near the bottom of the second cavern level. It's a pity, since I was curious about that myself.

By the way, demons which haven't acquired a name are considered equal to wild animals when it comes to kill lists - a dwarf can kill five kobolds and get a title, but twenty dead demons still won't net him one.



A fire-breathing scorpionfly forced me to shut down access to the second caverns, interrupting the wild gem hunt I sent the miners on. It was the last level of the caverns I discovered, and one exceptionally difficult to explore due to a shortage of open space in certain areas.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As a result, there are many clusters of gemstones waiting to be excavated (including rock crystal), not to mention the numerous easily accessible veins of gold. My aim is to make the area a bit more traversable and establish firmer control over it. I'll put a cannon or two in there, and some artifact building as bait.

I've resumed work on descending into hell, the first stage of which is casting obsidian around the edges of the adamantine veins so the ore itself can be safely exploited. What comes later will pose a much greater challenge. The demons won't attack unless you do it first or come too closely, but I'm afraid Forgotten Beasts may all rush in as soon as my staircase reaches the bottom. There is a steel cockroach among them, for example. If I capture it alive, I could use it to train the entire fortress to legendary in marksdwarfship, but I'd rather not have my soldiers face it in combat. I'm going to need a few hatches, forbid the masons from carrying crossbows, and be really, really careful.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on January 31, 2014, 08:16:44 pm
There are three things which can be blamed for this delay: my internet connection slowing down to non-functional levels, the Call of Warhammer Rage of Dark Gods mod for M2:TW and the simple fact that most of the effort for the past month went into getting rid of huge amounts of stuff that has accumulated over the years. All the millable plants have been milled into dye or flour, so I can now send the millers to do other tasks and grow some of those crops for brewing. I have over 1700 units of dye, that should last me a while. Severely limiting agriculture allowed me to reduce the plant stocks to less than 8000 units from over 11000 in the beginning. The amount of useless bone crap lying around can still be only described as "unholy", and it only increased, but there is less even more useless bone in storage. All rock nut paste was processed, and I'll go through the oil itself soon, too. Meat stocks? Over 7500, most of it from Forgotten Beasts, and growing. I had to butcher some llamas and ran out of storage space. A lot of dead llama had to be tossed into the magma sea.

But enough of my logistical troubles, I imagine they're not very interesting to read about. All dwarves unburied for various reasons - the most common of which was having been immolated by demons, before or after death - have a memorial slab now, nearly forty years after death. The waterguns in the eastern and southern sides of the fort are ready for linking their components together. The new statue garden is being filled with statues, encrusted with some of the fort's most precious gems. I caught some rutherers, which will replace llamas as a source of meat and leather, and crundles, which I plan to use for live training for my soldiers. Forgotten Beasts unfortunately prevented me from progressing towards Hell. Especially this bitch.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Its poisonous gas killed a High Master Marksdwarf who got too close. A legendary one, Astesh Rawring the Fetid Droplets of Laboring lost both arms in a fight with another FB (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=135227.0), Thudel Menaceshaft the Poisoned Hex, but what killed him was a kick in the head some time later. Two axedwarves were slain by a winged salt humanoid who proved to be more of a challenge than I thought. A promising young swordsdwarf was crushed to death by a blob beast which flew in through a hole I forgot to wall off. An Expert Swordswarf, Atis Diamondsound, is already 162 and may pass away any year now. Two new recruits, Iden Armorkeys and Asob Helmmurders can't replace those losses soon. Asob became the new captain of the guard. Sakzul wielded a sword (later named The Angry Thrower), Kadol an axe, and Asob received an ☼adamantine pick☼, a remainder of my attempt to create a squad of miners, cut short by Radavi's rampage. The other soldiers are certainly up to any challenges they may face, and quite a few received titles or became weapon lords, or both - enough for me to lose track of who was already mentioned. So I wrote a little something for reference.


The most intense fight they were a part of was the one with Nosmul the Skull of Oblivion, a one-eyed sparrow, beware its deadly dust. I sent the military after it when I accidentally learned it causes what may be the most underwhelming syndrome ever - temporary disabling the pancreas. Fighting dust beasts with soldiers is quite a chore. They keep spamming massive clouds of dust, and you can only hope someone or something gets a lucky shot in. The soldiers spent more time being thrown around than fighting. The battle moved into the entrance corridor of the caverns, where bolts, war animals and weapons finally brought the beast down.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There was also a tick devil escaped from Hell. It broke the hands of Momuz the swordmaster, but Lor the hammerlord killed it mostly on his own, striking the killing blow with his bone shield. Three Forgotten Beasts are sitting in the third cavern around an artifact door. One of them is called Abesp.

Abesp is a web-spinning humanoid made of electrum. You might be wondering what's so shocking about that. Well, Wirejade sits upon gargantuan amounts of gold. Tens of z-levels of gabbro criss-crossed with gold veins. Galena is the second most common ore, not counting the iron-bearing rocks. As a result, electrum became the staple luxury metal in the fortress. The furniture in the quarters, in the dining halls, doors, workshops, roads leading to the entrance, much of the new statue garden, many more things... all made of the same alloy. It's almost symbolic of the fortress. And Abesp... I can't help but feel like it's a sign of the things to come, a foreboding herald of impending doom. Perhaps a symbol of the fortress turning upon itself, of a danger hidden within. What it is, I do not know, and I dare not speculate.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: GuesssWho on February 01, 2014, 01:29:05 am
Man, how old IS this fort?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on February 01, 2014, 11:52:32 am
It has just hit 60 years, and I'm far from finished with it. Hell isn't taken over yet, for example...
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on February 17, 2014, 05:45:18 pm
The three Forgotten Beasts blocking my way to the adamantine spires - Abesp and Oquari Moistenhollow, the web-spinners, and Cirono Frigiddrunken - were lured into a containment chamber with an artifact table inside with the use of some giant hornbills as bait. My elite marksdwarves can now shoot at them from time to time with impunity, while they fruitlessly bang on a shiny piece of furniture. It's amazing what creative application of drawbridges can accomplish.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That means I have free access to the adamantine spires again, and work on them can be resumed. The deeper I go, the more obsidian casting is there to do to safely mine out the precious metal, but I want to have it at least mostly processed by the time I start descending into Hell. It's going quite smoothly, but I'm still being extra careful to avoid unfortunate accidents. I have a very devious plan on how to clear Hell of FBs. It involves some bait artifact furniture, giant hornbill cages, and a lot of cage traps.

The statue garden was finally finished and designated. Halfway through the construction I decided to encrust the new statues before building them. It took some more time, but some gems were put to a good use at last. Here is a long promised screenshot. I changed the colour of electrum from the original brown.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I keep drowning the elves in bone goods. Unfortunately, even selling about 200 000 ☼'s worth of them hardly puts a dent in my stocks. I can only hope they will be gone before the end of the century. One time, the elves took so long to pack up one of their animals gave birth. Here's one of the many, many things I sold.

(http://i59.tinypic.com/33yt6at.png)

The animal count stays below 700. And apparently I've already used up all the 1700 units of dye. The cultivation of fibre crops has been halted.

I trapped a few interesting things: blind cave ogres, useful for live training the civilians in crossbow use; crundles, which I modded to be able to breed and intend to use as a renewable source of practice targets for actual soldiers; rutherers, which I want to replace llamas with (alpacas stay, though - I need milk and wool); a giant cave spider, for which I'm building a silk farm at the moment; and a werecamel I'm going to keep around just in case he's ever needed. And two giant toads, hopping around the fort. The problem with rutherers is that they take 10 years to mature, if I'm reading the raws correctly, so I'd need some other source of leather. I'm considering guineafowl - they don't produce too many secondary products, and multiply quickly.

The last remaining dwarf of the original seven, Shorast Howlrock, went into a mood at last. Boltsclout the rope reed fiber shirt is relatively unremarkable, but still an artifact. I had her put it on. Other recent moods brought some mechanisms, some bone furniture useful for luring building destroyers and a few useless trinkets or pieces of clothing. The new captain of the guard, Asob Helmmurders, bestowed the awesome name of Livingdrunken on her masterwork adamantine pick.

I noticed something disturbing while replacing stone furniture with electrum in the dwarven quarters. Take a look at them:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The vast majority of these bedrooms doesn't belong to anyone. Their owners are long dead. I'll remove and sell or melt the furniture from the unused ones and then show you just how empty the fort is in comparison to what it used to be. Not all rooms were taken even when the population was at it's peak, but now there are entire rows of beds where only one is claimed.

I pieced together most of the story of Datan Natureboulders. The two youngest of his seven children immigrated to my fort: Urdim Laboredbristle, a bone carver, most likely slain by demons, and Ingiz Scouredmachine, who became the first melee weaponlord in the fort, received the title of the Umbral Omen of Trade, and is still fighting and training even though a Forgotten Beast tore off his right arm years ago. Urdim and Ingiz were born in 53 and 54 respectively. Datan became a general of the Whip of Beaches in 92. However, in the early autumn of 121 Ber the Sweltering Spine, the kea god of volcanoes and mountains, cursed him to become a werehedgehog. He did the same thing to two queens of the Whip of Beaches before. I guess there is a reason Ingiz doesn't worship any gods. Later on, Datan arrived at Wirejade, and I had him killed, knowing nothing about his past. It must've happened decades ago.

And for the end, some figurine weirdness:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on February 19, 2014, 04:37:14 pm
Must have been a big crossbow.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on February 21, 2014, 04:27:25 pm
Must have been a big crossbow.

I'm imagining a very angry dwarf cramming a huge spear into a crossbow and running towards the caverns, while everyone gets out of his way and decides not to ask questions.

I probably killed it with retracting spears while someone was shooting at it. Note the figurine doesn't list the killer.

It's good to know someone is still reading this, by the way.



I wanted to apologise for the fact that things have been quite slow recently. I hope to pick up the pace as soon as I finally start expanding into Hell. I managed to free up much of the workforce, enough to get double-digit amounts of idlers not seen for decades, so if if I put them to a good use it should happen sooner rather than later.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Foamybeard on March 10, 2014, 03:32:01 pm
I still read this as well. :)

How is the fort?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Sarrak on March 12, 2014, 05:21:06 am
Heh, we always lurk somewhere near, waiting to hear some more epic tales from great fortress  ;)

Also, wanted to say it a long time: you have really, really weird figurines (and artists, respectively). Yet, essentially, it's what makes them so great.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Julien Brightside on March 13, 2014, 10:09:12 am
Impressive how you`ve kept this alive for so long.

From the dwarves point of view, it would almost seem like they are cursed by the gods.

I like your band of legendary dwarves. Most of which are getting used to tragedies.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on March 15, 2014, 07:21:11 am
How is the fort?

Quite well, thank you. There were a few births and a few deaths, so the population remains stable. There is a couple with 18 children, by the way. I have a nice herd of rutherers now, and a silk farm with a giant cave spider. Crundles fail to bree- wait, no. I could swear I had added a [CHILD:1] tag a while ago. Embarrassing. I've captured a bunch of elk birds recently, but I'm not expecting too much from them - grazing and egg-laying don't go well together. There's a second werecamel, too. This island seems chock full of them. Giant armadillos bought from elves ensure I'll never have to worry about shells again.

No new Forgotten Beasts entered the map, but there was a dragon, which killed two dwarves, almost wiped out my alpacas, and then started puking and bleeding to death for an unknown reason, possibly getting hit by a bolt covered in FB extract.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I got rid of all the bone/horn/hoof/etc. amulets, bracelets, rings, figurines (sorry, Sarrak) and whatnot mostly thanks to a minecart delivering them almost straight to the depot. The next items on the list are surplus furniture, civilian crossbows and quivers, old steel armour and, of course, the 65000 prepared meals. At least the supply of cookable items, save for a small cheese industry I started, is mostly exhausted. Agriculture works on an ad-hoc basis, helping keep a modest stockpile of dye and the amount of all types of booze above a thousand. I might lower the threshold in the future. Plants below 5000. The clothesmaking industry is being converted to rely on silk.

Impressive how you`ve kept this alive for so long.

From the dwarves point of view, it would almost seem like they are cursed by the gods.

Do you mean the absence of caravans and migrants? If yes, it seems we have an explanation. Sadly, nothing can be done about it:

There's also the extremely rare case where part of a caravan gets stuck in limbo - i had one case of a wagon getting blocked, possibly by a sprouted tree, just off the map proper, and another case where a horse pulling a stuck wagon ended up in solid rock when the wagon broke. In both cases, the unit stayed loaded but untouchable and the related caravan was treated as never having left the site.



I'm putting this on a semi-hiatus for now, since I don't want to clutter the thread only with reports on logistics and industry. That means I'm going to keep things moving forward, just not described in full detail. Once I start expanding into Hell I should have something ready to show off.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: MDFification on March 15, 2014, 05:33:10 pm
'Last Stand'.
'Colonizing Hell'.
Welcome to Wirejade.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on April 28, 2014, 04:05:16 pm
Nevermind. Nothing actually happened. I forgot to pause the game and everything broke. I don't usually savescum, but when I do, it's to retcon stupid things like this. Sorry  :-[
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: NAV on April 28, 2014, 10:18:46 pm
And it was such a good update too  :(
*Insert words of encouragement here*
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 01, 2014, 03:28:54 pm
All right. Take two.

The year is 200 and Wirejade stands at the dawn of the new century, greater than ever. And what better way to commemorate this event can there be if not to conquer the unconquerable?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Once the staircase reached the floor of Hell, all the Forgotten Beasts rushed into my carefully prepared trap, just as I had predicted. I waited for them all to assemble, and released the bait animals. The place soon turned into mess of dust, vapours, webs and miasma. The intention was to have the beasts spray the cage traps with webs and throw each other into the cages with the dust explosions. And perhaps test their syndromes.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Three beasts were caught, but two died to syndrome vapours, together with almost all organics. The other one is a boring snow quadruped. All others are now safely locked between two drawbridges and keep assaulting the artifact table in the middle of the trap. Now I'm dropping giant sloth bears on their heads and hoping they get caught as well (the beasts, I mean). If it doesn't... the plan for now is to use more bears. It's not like I have a shortage of them.


The minecart cannons are mostly finished, and as soon as the work on the water supply is done I'll have to start work on linking all the components. It's going to be a daunting task, to say the least.

The dwarves somehow engraved empty space while working on the drainage shafts. It's a shame it's not an image of a nothing or two, but I guess a bear being killed will have to suffice.



I'm considering reorganising this story - dividing it into chapters, putting a table of contents in the first post, that sort of thing. It will have to wait until I'm done with the finals.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Melzer on May 04, 2014, 11:23:29 am
Epic.

PS How long has it been since you started this fort?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Sarrak on May 04, 2014, 02:58:39 pm
The dwarves somehow engraved empty space while working on the drainage shafts. It's a shame it's not an image of a nothing or two, but I guess a bear being killed will have to suffice.

That sounds so... Wirejady.

Also, what anniversary goes without multiple sacrifices? Bears and Forgotten Beasts should suffice for now, but something more dangerous and sentient must be absolutely thrown into a bloody mix!
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 05, 2014, 07:54:02 am
PS How long has it been since you started this fort?

It started in 126, and we're in 201 now, which means - provided I haven't just made an embarrassing error - 75 years + a few months.

The dwarves somehow engraved empty space while working on the drainage shafts. It's a shame it's not an image of a nothing or two, but I guess a bear being killed will have to suffice.

That sounds so... Wirejady.

Also, what anniversary goes without multiple sacrifices? Bears and Forgotten Beasts should suffice for now, but something more dangerous and sentient must be absolutely thrown into a bloody mix!

Oh, sacrifices are a different thing. There is a pitchblende drawbridge in a remote area of the fort, and several z-levels below, on an obsidian platform - a weapon trap filled with large serrated steel discs and a few impractical artifact weapons. It's situated right above the place where Radavi's skeleton lies. The water there is full of severed body parts of the sacrificial animals. I tossed a few dozen llamas in here since I don't need them now that I have elk birds and rutherers.

The only "more dangerous and sentient" thing I have is my legendary warriors, and I'm not going to expose them to the Ebola-has-got-nothing-on-this syndrome. Population growth is at 0, and only because I'm trying hard to keep everyone as safe as possible.

And by the way, Forgotten Beasts don't enter the map any more. I must have exhausted their population.

(http://i58.tinypic.com/jtsbvr.jpg)
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on May 05, 2014, 02:04:15 pm
I think at this point you can just leave this fort alone for a hundred years, come back, and it will be fine. I still can't believe this is your first fort, BTW.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 06, 2014, 08:36:35 am
If I could bother to learn how to use workflow, then yeah, that might work. On the other hand, however, the booze (over 16000 units) would last only a bit over 5 years, assuming 4 units per season per dwarf.

BUT I HAVE PROJECTS TO BUILD
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: MDFification on May 06, 2014, 08:40:51 am
... what you need to do is run this save through DF Story Maker and post the results. The fort is bloody incredible.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 06, 2014, 09:07:20 am
Never heard of it, what does it do?

Also thanks :)

(http://i61.tinypic.com/33dusgn.jpg)
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: MDFification on May 06, 2014, 09:23:30 am
Never heard of it, what does it do?

Also thanks :)

It reads your gamelog.txt and allows you to filter out announcements you don't like, creating a new, shorter file detailing the history of your fort from embark to the save, assuming you haven't deleted gamelog.txt at some point. For example, you can filter out everything except combat logs, births/immigration, deaths, invaders, and artifacts, basically making a much shorter summary of everything that's happened in your fort. That way you can pick through the history (or upload, and have other people pick through the history) of the fort without interesting happenings being impossible to find due to sheer volume.
You can find it here (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128570.0) if this sounds interesting to you. Although don't feel obligated to.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on May 07, 2014, 04:34:02 pm
Hah, it's great to see this Fort is still going.

Oh, sacrifices are a different thing. There is a pitchblende drawbridge in a remote area of the fort, and several z-levels below, on an obsidian platform - a weapon trap filled with large serrated steel discs and a few impractical artifact weapons. It's situated right above the place where Radavi's skeleton lies. The water there is full of severed body parts of the sacrificial animals. I tossed a few dozen llamas in here since I don't need them now that I have elk birds and rutherers.

And also still demented. I like your brand of crazy, it's a practical kind of crazy.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 09, 2014, 11:35:40 am
Never heard of it, what does it do?

Also thanks :)

It reads your gamelog.txt and allows you to filter out announcements you don't like, creating a new, shorter file detailing the history of your fort from embark to the save, assuming you haven't deleted gamelog.txt at some point. For example, you can filter out everything except combat logs, births/immigration, deaths, invaders, and artifacts, basically making a much shorter summary of everything that's happened in your fort. That way you can pick through the history (or upload, and have other people pick through the history) of the fort without interesting happenings being impossible to find due to sheer volume.
You can find it here (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128570.0) if this sounds interesting to you. Although don't feel obligated to.

The log seems almost untouched (46,6 MB). I'm going to toy around with that tool later on, maybe put something up as a part of the story's reorganisation. I haven't tried anything yet, but it looks promising.

I like your brand of crazy, it's a practical kind of crazy.

Practical crazy is best crazy!  ;D



Three more Forgotten Beasts were captured; three more, plus an ape devil, are still at large. Almost all cages are now covered in webs, so it shouldn't take much more time. One of the bears survived by getting trapped itself and is now stuck in a hole together with four eldritch abominations, amidst rotting corpses, skeletons, blood and webs, surrounded by walls made of half-molten, red-hot rock. And occasionally watching a few of its kin being brutally murdered by said abominations.

(http://i62.tinypic.com/2uqex51.jpg)

The gem miners had a bit of a fight with rutherers, and one hauler was killed. The soldiers had to hunt them down on the narrow wooden walkways over a contaminated lake. Fortunately no one dodged the wrong way.

A new mayor was elected: Alath Tipmerchants, mother of 23. She and her husband had been given a special tomb, usually granted to military heroes, for keeping the population up. She likes boxes and bags and menacing spikes, so mandates should be easy to fulfil. Also she apparently killed a Forgotten Beast once. I expect her to hold the office for quite a while.

Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: MDFification on May 09, 2014, 12:10:34 pm
Alath Tipmerchants, mother of 23.
Owner of 19 cats, friends with 107 dwarves.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 11, 2014, 12:26:20 pm
You're making it sound like a bad thing, but without her the fort would have been much weaker. The fort can only keep its population up through natural growth.

There are no cats here (and Alath has no preferred animal), and no one has any friends - all dwarves are too busy to ever go beyond "Passing Acquaintance".

And she has just given birth to another dorfling.



Along came a giantess - extremely long-haired, and very fat [insert "your mom" joke here]. Oddly enough, almost all her body parts were displayed as bruised. It disappeared as soon as she was first wounded.

(http://i57.tinypic.com/2r4js0k.jpg)

No match for an angry dwarf with a hammer.

At the moment, a bear and one of the Forgotten Beasts are on the stairs, constantly webbed by another beast. I can't close the bridge they're on, because it will deconstruct. I can't drop a ceiling on their heads, since it will destroy the bridge and possibly break a few more things. I guess I have to wait until the bear dies of old age. It's a male, so no hope for cubs.

(http://i62.tinypic.com/cpc07.jpg)

Oh hell no.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on May 11, 2014, 01:43:09 pm
The giantess was clearly looking for a home. You monster.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 11, 2014, 02:27:05 pm
Well, she refused to walk into my cage traps, so she has only herself to blame. I even sent the soldiers back behind the walls, but one hammerdwarf failed to listen and I had to give him reinforcements.

And now there's a weremarmot.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: NAV on May 11, 2014, 05:11:22 pm
What was Atollisig? Was it a useful artifact or useless?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 12, 2014, 10:29:27 am
Honestly, I don't remember, so probably useless. It's not like I keep track of all the amulets and other such things random dwarves feel like making from time to time.

Or it might have been a floodgate, which is slightly more painful. But only slightly.

EDIT: Nope, the floodgates are where they were.

(http://i59.tinypic.com/2ebubmh.jpg)
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 24, 2014, 09:47:31 am
The finals are over and I can go back to the fort.

I've been trying out some ASCII tilesets, but none were satisfying enough. I guess I just prefer the vanilla mix of seeing much of the map at once and easily readable text.



(http://i60.tinypic.com/2h6r7fa.jpg)

Work on the outpost is actually more advanced than this by now. Wooden staircases and bridges form the scaffolding, and the walls are obsidian. The last bear is still being webbed by the porcelain beast, so I'm working on a different spire instead.

The first dwarf to stand on Hell's floor was Minkot Colorlantern, mayor Alath's husband. He was promptly attacked and killed by Zikath Tombspukes the Bloated Crypt, a Forgotten Beast which had hidden somewhere in the unexplored part of Hell. Three soldiers were sent to defeat the beast, two of them legendary warriors and one a fresh recruit, Minkot's and Alath's son. I hoped he would get a chance to avenge his father's death, but it was Stakud Netdabble who landed the final blow. And slammed a steam devil which decided to join the fray with his shield, exploding it into pieces.

The Colorlanterns-Tipmerchants family in general hasn't been very lucky recently. A pumping accident (I should have known better than to attach a water wheel directly to a pump) ended in deaths of two babies because the mayor was working on the pumpstack at the moment. Alath herself had an encounter with a tick devil while working on the hell outpost. That's right, a noble suffered a genuine unfortunate accident. The demon, named Tombspoisons, was shot to death by Edem Slapmountain, who gained the title "the Pointless Rampages". Looks like metal bolts aren't necessary.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Melting Sky on May 24, 2014, 03:48:02 pm
Truly an epic fort by any measure, perhaps the most epic first fort ever founded.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on June 12, 2014, 10:24:29 am
The finals are over and I can go back to the fort.

...well, I should have followed that up with some updates, right? Unfortunately, my video card had a different opinion. Figuring out the problem and finding a replacement for the card took most of the time since the last update, and obviously no progress has been made in that period. Sorry, everyone. rip radeon 4890 ;_;

As a compensation, I'll outline my Hell "colonisation" plan. It begins with constructing staircases down to the underworld's floor and surrounding them with obsidian walls extending to the ceiling, since all demons, even the wingless ones, are able to fly. These hollow obsidian columns are supposed to be the starting points - beachheads for later expansion. Anything needed for future construction will be moved there. Then I'll connect the columns with similarly built ways, which will create an L-shaped fortified area. Turning the "L" into a square will completely enclose the central section of Hell and mark the end of the final stage of colonisation. After that... all kinds of ‼fun‼ engineering await.

In more mundane news, a kobold thief stole an artifact adamantine splint, worth over 700 000 ☼. I'm afraid the kobolds will start sending out ambushes if they grab anything more. My plan is to construct an artifact vault in Hell out of steel and electrum. For now, I put a dozen of giant sloth bears in the temporary artifact stockpile. However, a weaponsmith created an armour stand (sic), Glidedanger the Vise of Guards, worth about as much as the splint, and more useful. I'm trying to devise a minecart-based timer for the silk farm, and perhaps construct a new, improved one with the new GCS I captured.

Otherwise, life in the fortress proceeds as usual.

(http://i58.tinypic.com/30s7la9.jpg)
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: McDonald on July 14, 2014, 02:46:57 pm
wat
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Sarrak on July 15, 2014, 01:32:56 am
Dwarves storing magma instead of clothes in their coffers... Yes. That is Wirejade. Any news about hell colonization?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on July 22, 2014, 07:33:14 pm
I've been putting this off for far too long, haven't I?

wat
Dwarves storing magma instead of clothes in their coffers... Yes. That is Wirejade. Any news about hell colonization?

No storing is involved here; these are coffers I tossed out into the magma sea a long time ago when I was replacing the old furniture with electrum. I forgot some of it was made of magma-safe stone or metal. Only a few coffers are filled with magma for some reason. One day I might obsidianise the place, retrieve it all and sell to elves. Together with the magma, of course.

Also dwarves store their clothes in cabinets, not coffers/chests. Not that it matters much.

The colonisation has moved forward slightly, but in general it's not going as quickly as I'd like it to. It's all a matter of luck. If the game spawns a batch of demons too close to where I'm building, a few months long lull in construction follows. And a few months are quite a lot of time at 7-11 FPS. But if they end up on the other side of Hell, I send down all my masons and get as much as I can done (not a lot) before they leave, or notice my dwarves. Once I connect the first two columns I may start working on something that will let me react in a less passive way. I put a scoutcock in there to get a better look on the underworld's topography, since the war giant eagle didn't do a very good job. And it found a something, not to mention too many eerie glowing pits.

(http://i58.tinypic.com/9zohup.jpg)

For now, I'm finishing the minecart watercannons. The fort is situated in a river valley, and its western side is 2 z-levels higher than the east. I had to build a cistern, a pumping tower with an aqueduct, the power supply (remember the water wheel incident?) and link it all together. Two depth-triggered pressure plates are meant to automatically refill the cistern if the water level falls too low. I have yet to see if it really works. I'm keeping a lever just in case. The mechanics are going to be busy - there are four linkages per cannon, and tens of cannons to complete.

In the meantime, the dwarves got an unexpected guest.

(http://i57.tinypic.com/veowfq.jpg)

Forgotten Beasts used to be regular visitors, but the last time I got a titan was somewhere in the early days of the fort. 130's, I think. There might be some engravings around, but I'm too lazy to check them all out. This one took quite a while to smash, leaving behind a large pool of white ichor. Ber Hammerbearded can apparently punch with the force of a war hammer.

Also I accidentally smashed the last of my starting seven, Shorast Howlrock, legendary in three skills, when she was collecting webs in the silk farm. Because I just had to make the drawbridges two tiles wide.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on September 02, 2014, 04:15:31 pm
Two levels of the wall of the hallway connecting the two columns are almost in place. Some Tiger Iron Demons spawned far away and stayed in one place, giving me 4-5 months for uninterrupted work on the fortifications, followed by a successful evacuation. I'm still extremely careful. Flyer pathing cannot be trusted, and I want to keep casualties at the absolute minimum.

This was however preceded by a failed attempt, which ended in deaths of two civilians and a recruit to a Slug Demon, called Tombsriddles from then on. Mosus Zenithposts the Walled Domain of Worshippers, a grand master swordsdwarf would've almost died thanks to a small oversight on my part. The lever controlling the bridge which could block the demon's way wasn't in the burrow to which I had sent away the civilians, so no one could pull it. Before I could fix my mistake Mosus was already taking a pounding. He lost a leg, and his right arm was heavily damaged. You'd think adamantine gauntlets would protect his wrists against monster bites, but no. Tombsriddles began to strangle him with his wings, which paradoxically saved his life. Before he suffocated, a rescue party had bashed the demon's brain in. Mosus survived all this, although barely, and remains in traction at the hospital. Every two days he gets diagnosed. At least the medics get some training.

(http://i59.tinypic.com/nq6aol.jpg)

(http://i61.tinypic.com/kec8p2.jpg)

One of the spires was flooded after I pulled some old, forgotten lever. Collapsing a floor tile on the staircase only knocked my miner into the water, where he drowned. A huge chunk of obsidian wall did a better job. I had to open the passage to Hell to let the water drain. A Specter of Flame took the opportunity... Two dead, including one recruit. In the end it got into the well chamber, where a marksdwarf finished it off. The place is already surrounded by fortifications to let the dwarves fire at a target inside, and I'm going to add tens of upright spears to it. Wirejade has no shortage of steel. I really need more marksdwarves - they're extremely effective against all demons made of easily destroyable materials.

The newly discovered adamantine is being mined out, but the spire goes straight through the magma sea. I can cast an obsidian shell around the ore, but the nearest source of water is ~80 tiles away. Still, it should be worth the effort. The spire seems to be richer in adamantine then the other ones, and the area of Hell below it is far away from any demon spawn points. Creating an underworld entry point there could considerably speed up the colony construction.

One of the few remaining elite marksdwarves, Dishmab Axeact the Livid-Beguiler Bone of Lances, died of old age. Zasit Waxycrystal, a hammerlord, acquired the title of "the Land of Fingers". Okay, I guess?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Sarrak on September 05, 2014, 03:01:26 am
So, while demons and dwarves steadily die, Hell remains unconquered as for now? How is dwarven population? Nothing to worry about yet?

You're doing an excellent job maintaining all this madness, but we won't mind a bit more regular updates.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Julien Brightside on September 10, 2014, 04:53:55 am
Hehe, still find this fortress interesting.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on September 21, 2014, 02:45:44 pm
Forgive the late answer, I was away from DF and the Internet for a while.

So, while demons and dwarves steadily die, Hell remains unconquered as for now? How is dwarven population? Nothing to worry about yet?

You're doing an excellent job maintaining all this madness, but we won't mind a bit more regular updates.

As for your first question, the answer is more or less yes. I keep doing my best to minimize the likelihood and possible consequences of such incidents, but they still happen from time to time. There has been an encounter with White Demons (I think) recently, and it ended with one dwarf dead. Another time Steam Devils popped up nearby and assaulted the dwarves, but fortunately they are incapable of dealing any damage except in indirect ways such as pushing enemies off walls and such. This is what happened to Ber Hammerbearded. His leg was broken, he passed out and the demon kept on attacking him, but he woke up and began to fight, dancing in circles right on the edge of an eerie glowing pit.

(http://i62.tinypic.com/2nb7yps.jpg)

While Steam Devils can lose limbs to the smallest amounts of damage, they are just as good at evading it as any other type of demon. Having someone hit them in a 1-on-1 duel without legendary combat skills is extremely rare. Ber bashed it into pieces with his artifact bone buckler. His squad has been moved from the surface to the forges, by the way. Ranged support may be very useful down there.

The construction continues at a steady pace, as the demons are staying away from the fortifications at the moment. Success is measured in tiles of wall per unit of time. The channel meant to grant me another entry point is currently being worked on and nearing completion. The stone will most probably be turned into mechanisms. The whole thing may take a year or two, however the wait should pay off. I thought about creating something nicer for the animal training zone than a random hole in the ground, but that's a project for when Hell is inaccessible.

The population is 176 citizens, so while the fort is nowhere near extinction, just about any larger project is severely slowed down by the lack of dwarfpower. The number of idlers rarely reaches double digits.

I haven't been playing a lot of DF lately, so the most recent events all took place during the last two in-game years or so. I hope to pick up the pace now, but I'm not promising anything. If everything goes right, updates should become more frequent. I'm still surprised how far did I go without anyone calling me out on the update speed  ;)
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: dwarf_reform on September 21, 2014, 05:09:22 pm
Just got done reading this complete thread for the first time, and the last thing I expected was to see that its still surviving :O Totally shocking :) I get a siege of 80 undead against my 80 dwarves in my last fort, suffer between 15-20 casualties and just barely avoided losing the whole fort to tantrum..

This is an epic piece of work!
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Dwarf4Explosives on February 26, 2015, 10:53:28 am
Serious necro, but I just realized that this Forgotten Beast was basically what Quetzalcoatl would be if his stance on human sacrifice didn't apply to dwarves.

Also, holy fuck this is metal.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on February 27, 2015, 06:49:39 pm
A feathered serpent... How didn't I realise it before? Or maybe I did and forgot afterwards. It was certainly the end of an era for the fort.

And it's not a necro if it's still going, he he :)



So this took a while. I really have no excuse this time: I had time and I wasn't tired or busy with much except for a month of exams. I can only beg your forgiveness and aim for making steady progress.

I was going to update only after something significant happened, not wanting to bother anyone with what's essentially "more wall was built, also some dwarves died". I preferred to wait until some sort of a milestone. What happened, then? Well, there was a birth. First one in eight years. It was a girl, born to Momuz the mechanic and Zasit the miner. Agile and strong. Likes steel, gauntlets and voracious cave crawlers for their scary mouths. She's got a bright future ahead of herself, unless demons punch her head in or she deconstructs the wrong wall.

There is quite a lot of wall now, though - the western side is almost completed, and I'm more than halfway through the northern part and making good progress.

Hell construction attempts have been hindered in the past by obsidian shortages - basically building faster than I can provide resources. I'm trying to up the production hard and assemble massive stockpiles whenever I can't go and build because of demons running around. I feel I'm getting better at this. Things are progressing faster. The easternmost spire is still blocked by a few Forgotten Beasts I was trying to trap, and a bait bear. They all got stuck in webs instead and I can only wait for the bear to die of old age. I don't want to simply collapse the ceiling on their heads - one is a giant steel cockroach that will provide endless practice for all marksdwarves.

The new birth set the population at 169 dwarves. A miner died in the cooled magma pool in unknown circumstances, and his body was only dug out later. A couple of other dwarves was lost because they decided to spend breaks in random spots in the underworld. Risen Matchedpage had his legs and a hand broken by a kobold thief with a power dagger, years after another kobold made him a partial paraplegic. Poor bastard. The thief was killed by Kogsak Counselledgold, who acquired the nickname of the Lauded Clasp of Elevating. A minotaur arrived and was quickly killed with a hammer. I brewed away all the plants, going from ~10 000 to 0 and putting the drink stockpile at over 20 000. I'll let that drop down to about half that number and then try to keep each type of beverage at 500 with ad-hoc farming. For now I can dump the surplus pots on the elves.

(http://i58.tinypic.com/1j6tmt.jpg)

The current goal is to wall off hell before Wirejade hits one hundred years. 14 years left; I believe I can manage that if I keep up the pace. Then the tedium will end and the real fun can begin.  :D
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on February 27, 2015, 07:05:33 pm
Next you should line the entire map edge with cage traps. Bonus points if you do the caverns too.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Foton on February 27, 2015, 08:50:28 pm
I suspect that FPS is awful.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Pencil_Art on February 28, 2015, 03:12:28 am
Looking good. Colonizing Hell is an experience not many get.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Dwarf4Explosives on February 28, 2015, 06:36:52 am
This is still going? And it's about to hit the 100-years-old mark too. Your first fort. That's even more impressive than I thought.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Sarrak on February 28, 2015, 09:38:35 am
Well, there was a birth. First one in eight years. It was a girl, born to Momuz the mechanic and Zasit the miner. Agile and strong. Likes steel, gauntlets and voracious cave crawlers for their scary mouths. She's got a bright future ahead of herself, unless demons punch her head in or she deconstructs the wrong wall.
Wirejade lives! All hail to Hetairos!
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on February 28, 2015, 04:49:50 pm
Next you should line the entire map edge with cage traps. Bonus points if you do the caverns too.

There isn't much that can be caught in the traps any more. Maybe werebeasts. I'm on an island, so no sieges. Only the second cavern has some wildlife that occasionally wanders into the traps around the entrance. There are still some left in a few spots, and they're probably the most redundant part of the fort's defensive system.

I am planning on paving the inside of the fort with electrum, though.

I suspect that FPS is awful.

I get a steady 9-12 FPS with ongoing Hell constructions (a lot of long distance pathing), and slightly more without. Not so bad, but all those attempts at decreasing the amount of items are supposed to improve the framerate as much as possible. We'll see.

Well, there was a birth. First one in eight years. It was a girl, born to Momuz the mechanic and Zasit the miner. Agile and strong. Likes steel, gauntlets and voracious cave crawlers for their scary mouths. She's got a bright future ahead of herself, unless demons punch her head in or she deconstructs the wrong wall.
Wirejade lives! All hail to Hetairos!

That reminds me, I have yet to start the matchmaking project. I could get more regular population growth, but not without drawing upon the workforce. It will have to wait until I'm done at lest with the basic fortifications.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Julien Brightside on February 28, 2015, 10:09:32 pm
Are the elves on the same isle as you?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on March 01, 2015, 06:55:02 pm
Yes. They bring me neat war animals from time to time.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on March 01, 2015, 07:06:42 pm
What do you use to keep your FPS up?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on March 04, 2015, 07:08:07 pm
DFHack bugfixes? But they don't provide any massive boost, and the new version doesn't need them. I lock out larger areas not currently in use. I fiddled a bit with the traffic designations, no idea if it actually helped with anything. I try to keep the item count from increasing, too. That's pretty much all I remember. The framerate definitely improves when the idler count gets larger.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on March 04, 2015, 07:34:01 pm
How do you keep the fort clothed?

I'm asking all these questions because I've got a fort, Bastiongate, that I'm in in for the long haul with. I keep FPS up by caging my pets and lowering the GPS. And I still only get 8 FPS.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on March 05, 2015, 08:23:40 am
The raw materials are provided by a silk farm (those things have a quite huge output) plus a herd of alpacas, but it doesn't have a big impact. The farm has a minecart-powered timer set to close the door for a week and leave them open for 16 days, so the webs can be harvested. Before that I just grew rope reed and pig tails, it's not difficult to overproduce crops. Dyes are provided by ad-hoc farming - a year or two is enough to build up a stockpile for a long time. A separate building outside the fort's walls houses the water mills used to grind up the plants.

I have 4 weavers, 6 clothiers and 5 dyers, all legendary. They have been providing clothes for the entire fort for many, many years, so it shouldn't come off as a surprise. They aren't working full time - I occasionally check inventories of random dwarves to see which clothes are tattered, then order batches of those at the manager. Usually they are done in next to no time. It's enough to keep all dwarves wearing only a few slightly damaged items at all times, seemingly enough to fend off unhappy thoughts from old clothing.

Ask away if anything's unclear, or could be elaborated upon, or simply seems interesting for some reason. It helps fill the void between larger updates ;) By the way, what do you mean by GPS?



A stonecrafter and one of my marksdwarves had another baby, a son called Erush Sealslings. He should make a fine soldier or animal trainer, or perhaps both. I'm wondering now if the lack of children for the few past years hadn't been the effect of some obscure bug.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: MDFification on March 05, 2015, 08:29:51 am
DFHack bugfixes? But they don't provide any massive boost, and the new version doesn't need them. I lock out larger areas not currently in use. I fiddled a bit with the traffic designations, no idea if it actually helped with anything. I try to keep the item count from increasing, too. That's pretty much all I remember. The framerate definitely improves when the idler count gets larger.

Ironically enough you can increase your FPS by making your fort more open. It takes fewer pathing calcs to move a dwarf through a wide, open vista than through your typical corridor design with adjacent rooms.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on March 05, 2015, 09:18:34 am
I've got three weavers, one dyer, and two clothiers (one died), all legendary. They make lots of pig tail and smoke weed fiber clothing, which my bone carvers decorate because I have nothing better to do with all this bone.

Every so often I autodump destroy all my excess dye and grind new stuff. It works pretty well.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on March 06, 2015, 06:19:30 pm
DFHack bugfixes? But they don't provide any massive boost, and the new version doesn't need them. I lock out larger areas not currently in use. I fiddled a bit with the traffic designations, no idea if it actually helped with anything. I try to keep the item count from increasing, too. That's pretty much all I remember. The framerate definitely improves when the idler count gets larger.

Ironically enough you can increase your FPS by making your fort more open. It takes fewer pathing calcs to move a dwarf through a wide, open vista than through your typical corridor design with adjacent rooms.

And here I thought large open spaces are to be avoided. I guess it still applies to ones which serve no practical purpose. The food processing level must be a pathing nightmare. So are a few other locations, but they don't have nearly as many dwarves going through them.

I've got three weavers, one dyer, and two clothiers (one died), all legendary. They make lots of pig tail and smoke weed fiber clothing, which my bone carvers decorate because I have nothing better to do with all this bone.

Every so often I autodump destroy all my excess dye and grind new stuff. It works pretty well.

That seems good eno- wait for a second...

They (...) smoke weed fiber clothing

You might have a little problem.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on March 06, 2015, 06:48:15 pm
Heh heh heh. I love it when people notice that. They're pretty much pig tails but fireproof. They're from Blood for Armok, from way back from when it was called Fire Imp Civilizations.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on March 27, 2015, 03:54:25 pm
So I'm planning on walling off hell in Bastiongate, Wirejade style. How did you do it? Crossbows everywhere? Live demon trap so no more wander in? Sheer dwarfpower?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on March 28, 2015, 08:22:04 pm
Now what I'm wondering is how on earth you keep your dwarf pop relatively stable. If child births are a once a decade occurrence, do migrants make the dangerous journey to wirejade still?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Dwarf4Explosives on March 29, 2015, 09:03:33 am
Live demon traps are as far as I know the most common way to do it, but setting things up so that you can ballista-spam certain areas if necessary also works.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on March 29, 2015, 12:22:25 pm
So I'm planning on walling off hell in Bastiongate, Wirejade style. How did you do it? Crossbows everywhere? Live demon trap so no more wander in? Sheer dwarfpower?

Mostly by exploiting utilising peculiarities of demon pathfinding. While the big wave which spawns when you breach hell does actively assault the fortress, the ones which occasionally wander in from the edge of the map usually don't. Sometimes a group of demons appears on the other end of hell and stays there for a few months doing nothing. Or one leaves the group and goes straight for your masons. Or they spawn right next to whatever part of the wall is being worked on at the moment and force you to evacuate everyone immediately. Or they seem to be doing that, but actually just reach a different corner of hell and leave.

As a general rule, most of the time the demons will chill where they spawned, until something wanders into their line of sight or, worse enough, attack them. Like a dwarf deciding taking a break next to the demons is a fun idea. Or a hapless hauler trying to retrieve something dropped during the last evacuation. Not that they can't get up and attack for no discernible reason at any moment, so their position must be constantly monitored. Leaving the game to run in the background is likely to result in ragequitting. Keeping the military with heavy ranged support is a good idea. Sticking artifact furniture near the spawn points is a good, if a bit exploity idea, but the demons can still miss it and go for something way more squishy.

By the way, you inspired me to cage at least the baby animals (the last time I tried caging adult ones they stopped procreating). The framerate boost is very definitely noticeable - I got up to 15-16 FPS at some occasions, compared to the usual 12, maybe 13.

Now what I'm wondering is how on earth you keep your dwarf pop relatively stable. If child births are a once a decade occurrence, do migrants make the dangerous journey to wirejade still?

It's only stable if "slowly declining" counts as stable. There have been no migrants or dwarven caravans for over 50 years. Here it began. (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=123997.120) Putting it shortly, an incredibly obscure bug which occurred when the last caravan was leaving is the root cause of all this. That's the entire reason natural population growth is absolutely vital.

Live demon traps are as far as I know the most common way to do it, but setting things up so that you can ballista-spam certain areas if necessary also works.

I never had much luck using ballistas (ballistae?). Too much effort for too little gain if you ask me. Crossbows and fortifications are more reliable.

One interesting solution is massing war animals. Demons are mighty, but their numbers are low. They will only target one creature at a time and usually pummel it into a bloody pulp, and only then move on to the next one. Meanwhile, the rest of the animals can attack with impunity. Many of their attacks will miss, but eventually they should bring down anything not made of metal. With massive casualties, but hey, they're expendable. Unless the demon is a fire-breather or has deadly dust, those may be difficult to defeat this way.



A group of Slush Banshees is trying to destroy a floor hatch they can't damage, and as long as they stay unprovoked the dwarves can keep working in peace. Thanks to that the northern wall is almost finished, and that means I'm about half done with walling off hell. I will have to kill them off to clear the area for the southern part of the fortifications, but that's a while from now. The constructions in the east should be safe for the most part. Thanks to a ridge there I don't have to build such high walls, so it's hopefully going to take far less time. The wall in the north is 5 z-levels high in some places.

Three dwarves died of old age. All legendaries, which kind of comes with age - one a metalworker. I have more, but it's still a loss. Two miners, one legendary, died in cave-ins while working on what is now the obsidian farm in the magma pool. It's not easy to spot one-tile holes in muddy obsidian floor, and any collapsing tile opens a hole straight to the magma sea. At least it's working now, I guess.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The casualties were partially offset by two new kids. Same couple as before. Also one dwarf broke quite a few bones when someone deconstructed a bridge beneath him, but he got better.

The military saw some action thanks to a minotaur. It didn't take long - a spear to the left leg, a hammerstrike to the right, and another one to the head. Plus a few more in between, not that they matter.

Three adamantine artifacts! An animal trap, a crutch, and a bucket. Oh well, at least I have a nicer well now. And now that my GCS is dead I no longer have a silk farm. Time to get used to cloth again.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on March 31, 2015, 07:18:02 am
You know, I had to reread this thread to find out how you managed to build all of this in Hell without so many Dwarves dying. Then I read this:
It seems that in every update Dwarves have been casually bursting into flames. Can't be good for the health I imagine.
And remembered that they did all die. And the unlucky ones lived.

Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on May 08, 2015, 07:46:12 pm
The live demon trap worked perfectly, the Hell Bastion has been complete for like two weeks but I forgot to post here. Did I beat you or not?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on May 12, 2015, 04:40:15 pm
You know, I had to reread this thread to find out how you managed to build all of this in Hell without so many Dwarves dying. Then I read this:
It seems that in every update Dwarves have been casually bursting into flames. Can't be good for the health I imagine.
And remembered that they did all die. And the unlucky ones lived.


This is a thing of rare and exceptional beauty. Also disconcertingly accurate.

To be continued...

The live demon trap worked perfectly, the Hell Bastion has been complete for like two weeks but I forgot to post here. Did I beat you or not?

You might have for now, I haven't done much since last time beyond starting the eastern wall. And moving wool production outside the fort.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: grisha5 on July 08, 2015, 01:28:26 am
sorry for the necro...are you even playing?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on July 08, 2015, 05:56:51 am
sorry for the necro...are you even playing?
I'd assume Hetairos is and is just waiting for sufficient stuff to report about
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheBiggerFish on July 08, 2015, 11:39:19 am
*pokes*
*runs away screaming from the unleashed demons*
((You still going, there?  If this isn't in the Hall of Legends it should be...))
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on July 08, 2015, 12:13:26 pm
It is.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on July 22, 2015, 02:11:51 pm
This would've been out about three weeks ago had I managed to cram it in before I left. Sorry, everyone. There is definitely enough to report on.

First, there was a cyclops. Nosost Inkglitter the Dutiful Mountain was his name. I thought he's just going to end up smashed to death with hammers like most such visitors, but he walked straight into a cage trap. I'm not sure what to do with him now. He might make a good dining hall decoration.

So that was easy, especially in comparison to what came next.

(http://i61.tinypic.com/2qx5nvp.jpg)

Fighting fire creatures is always tricky, not because of their rather laughable toughness, but their ability to quickly inflict a lot of damage. Fiery breath might be blocked, and hopefully dwarves will avoid burning vegetation, however this is not the case for fireballs. Pray they miss or hit something on their way to the target, otherwise casualties are guaranteed. Clever traps are helpful as long as the beast walks into them.

I closed off the fortress for the first time in years, only to realise it can just fly over my fortifications. Soldiers were sent to the walls, soon followed by citizen crossbow militia. The latter took the titan out after it decided to hover over the moat and fling fireballs at everything. Total casualties were one militia dwarf, a number of alpacas and elk birds, and one dumb horse which got itself cornered by spreading fire. There was also a lot of smoke inside the fortress shortly after coming from an unknown source.

Soon after, at the beginning of the next year, there was a rare announcement.

(http://i58.tinypic.com/2jdlzqs.jpg)

Fort's population was reduced to 160 dwarves by accidents and old age. One of the few dedicated marksdwarves died, making militia even more vital for missile support. A mason was killed by a magma crab. I couldn't even find the place it crawled in through.

Construction in Hell is slowly proceeding, and I don't think I can speed it up more. There is a bunch of demons stuck below one of the adamantine spires, and I'll soon arrive at the point when I'll have to get them out of the way. The plan is to stick all the war dogs in Wirejade into one cage, place it in Hell, close the way back and open another, then release the animals. They should pass by the demons on the way there, and provoke them into attacking. Even if the demons win, they should be weakened enough for the military to take them out without casualties. I want to get rid of the dogs anyway. I have more war animals than I could ever need.

The bear stuck in the easternmost spire has just died. I'll start fiddling with the place soon. Let's hope I don' mess up the levers.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheBiggerFish on July 22, 2015, 02:30:22 pm
Welcome back!  Also, yay!
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on July 22, 2015, 02:49:55 pm
I feel I should add this isn't dead unless I proclaim it so. I'd probably upload a savegame if that were to happen.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Sarrak on July 22, 2015, 05:02:32 pm
Behold the coming of the Age of Heroes! And wait for dogfight with daemons.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on July 27, 2015, 06:24:32 pm
I always hate it when I see a champion Dwarf, emerging undefeated - only to see them ignite. I once even managed to unleash a flood from an inactive quarry farm to save a champion marksdwarf who had been set on fire... Water puts out fires, but does not undo wounds. One thing I find funny is that these fire beasts can set your cage traps on fire but once caught cannot, even if they are trapped within wooden cages. Dwarven engineering is serious stuff.

And I'm not hopeful for the war dogs, but they should at least bruise one demon.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Taupe on July 28, 2015, 09:51:00 pm
I always hate it when I see a champion Dwarf, emerging undefeated - only to see them ignite. I once even managed to unleash a flood from an inactive quarry farm to save a champion marksdwarf who had been set on fire... Water puts out fires, but does not undo wounds. One thing I find funny is that these fire beasts can set your cage traps on fire but once caught cannot, even if they are trapped within wooden cages. Dwarven engineering is serious stuff.

And I'm not hopeful for the war dogs, but they should at least bruise one demon.
It's not the cage itself that keeps the target restrained, but the very idea of captivity. It's very psychological.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on September 18, 2015, 05:02:41 pm
Strange, I was never notified about these replies and I swear the thread is marked as read whenever I post. Cages are magic indeed, after all they can be submerged in magma and as long as they don't burn or melt whatever's inside will remain unharmed.



The dogs were successful, and by that I mean they were mostly brutally murdered, the Slush Banshee punting them into walls and off ledges, only suffering minor scratches in the process. However, shortly after it and the other demons left, making the southern area of Hell safe to access, which is exactly what they were expected to do. Wirejade has been an extremely busy fort ever since, with the constantly ongoing construction of walls, scaffolding and extracting the last chunks of adamantine from the local spire. I'm thinking of making a tunnel leading there so the dwarves don't have to path through the caverns. Obsidian shortages hampered the construction sometimes, but now the farm is running again and so far keeping up with the demand. I have to pull plenty of levers.

It turns out that in eerie glowing pits you can only build if there is access from the side - a downward staircase on the level above won't work, with the tile marked as "blocked", as if there was a wall there. Not inaccessible, just blocked. Building from the pit's edge is however very much possible, which means I have to construct pathways to where I need something built, without using bridges because a supporting structure is necessary. Deep chasms are a pain to put walls on.

Population is at 152. Some dwarves died of old age, some to accidents. A glitch cave-in in the obsidian farm claimed a miner's life. I accidentally walled in an animal trainer while moving the training zone, and dehydration killed him. The oddest case was the dwarf found dead in the old throne room, sitting on the throne in a pool of his own blood. I have no idea what could've caused this. There would've almost been another casualty, but strangeness happened. A dwarf was knocked into water I was trying to remove from the obsidian farm by a cave-in, naturally unconscious, but didn't start drowning. Instead, she began to gain swimming skill, and got all the way up to Skilled (still knocked out) before I lowered the water level enough for someone to rescue her from starvation.

The eastern spire, where FBs were trapped, remains infested. Some bug is preventing the steel cockroach one I want to capture from falling into webbed traps, and the web spinner is naturally immune to them. Everything else is caged, including a demon. I don't remember if a cave-in would work. Probably not. I'll have to lure them out of there with war animals, straight to the containment area. It's going to be difficult. On the surface a minotaur child called Alnis walked into a cage, and has since grown up into an adult minotauress.

(http://i58.tinypic.com/nvpg0y.jpg)

A few batches of crundle eggs hatched, and now I'm waiting for them to lose their training so I can use them as target practice. I got some new elk birds and giant eagles too. Breeding elk birds is difficult, because they're both egg-layers and grazers, and can't eat while in the nest. I got rid of my beehives, though. They were too buggy and not worth dedicating dwarves to beekeeping for what they offered. I can now sell them and the jugs. I hope the dwarves enjoy their last batch of mead. It's kind of sad seeing the hives left abandoned in pools of royal jelly.

(http://i60.tinypic.com/2r6fkns.jpg)

And now random silliness.

Spoiler: Mayor punishes a dwarf (click to show/hide)
Now the game is telling me a war dog has been found dead, but there is no dog corpse nor dwarf to find it there. What's up with that?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Button on September 29, 2015, 04:54:10 pm
Breeding elk birds is difficult, because they're both egg-layers and grazers, and can't eat while in the nest.

Make the females you want laying eggs available as pets. When they get hungry, their owners will bring them food (if they're not otherwise occupied).
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on September 30, 2015, 03:52:26 pm
I tried that, but nobody's claiming them. I might not have any dwarves with a preference for elk birds.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on November 14, 2015, 10:34:36 am
It is done! The great wall in Hell is complete, and dwarves are now free to work undisturbed anywhere within its perimeter. The last block was laid down on 9th of Malachite, 225, about 7 months before the 100th anniversary of Wirejade's foundation. There is still some scaffolding to take down, plus smoothing, but the walls are ready. The first thing I'm going to construct will be a refuse disposal system using minecarts and glowing pits. Right now I have a dragon to incinerate what I can't sell and a shaft to the magma sea where refuse is dropped in - both would be made redundant. I'll probably repurpose one of the old ore hauling routes for trash transport from inside the fort, extending it to the pit.

Coming up next are airlock gates for releasing war animals outside the walls. They're not really supposed to win, it's how I plan to kill most of them off. What are dogs good for when you have giant tigers? Nothing, unless you like wasting FPS. I have about 600 war-trained beasts, and the plan is to reduce that number to a quarter of its size. After that, I'll try to decipher my old notes regarding minecart cannons that could be fed from above. Even if there is some exploity way to dig in slade, you can't dig down at the bottom since there is no more map to dig in. As far as I remember, it would leak a lot... perhaps I could redesign them a little utilising magma's lack of pressure.

However, all that will have to wait. The population is at a meagre 140. At least 5 dwarves died of old age, including one of my best marksdwarves. Several more are past 160 and can pass away any year now. A fire imp burned a dwarf dead before I sealed off the magma, and there may have been other incidents I don't remember. I am reassigning unmarried dwarves to their own squads and sending them down to a small dining room near the forges I'll be locking down later on. Hopefully, that should get them to mingle and keep them happy. It's a tedious process - I expected Dwarf Therapist to give me an easy way to tell apart dwarves eligible for marriage, but there's no such feature. I have to manually check one dwarf after another. Two squads are full so far.

Constructing the walls was no easy task, and I had to combat demons on several occasions. There was a section of the wall inside a glowing pit with steep walls, which forced me to build a long wooden pathway just for 4 tiles of wall near a demon spawn point. The way there was blocked with an artifact door. First came the ape devils. I drowned them in a tide of war animals. Bringing them all there was time consuming, so when the next time some white snow demons showed up I just had the whole military chop them up. Iden Armorkeys, a hammerlord usually stationed on the surface, was injured then, suffering multiple broken bones. Mosus Zenithposts was also wounded, as if a missing leg wasn't bad enough. Near the end five slug demons showed up, so I just carved fortifications into the walls and shot all but one. The have very few body parts, so shots stand a higher chance of hitting the brain - the only real way to kill an organic demon. And they're butcherable! That's what a fairly small one yields.

(http://i66.tinypic.com/29fscnm.jpg)

Their deadly blood syndrome causes dizziness, pain and rot on contact. Nothing to worry about if animals are affected, and a dwarf would be easily treated should one ever contract the syndrome.

There was a significant surge in minotaur activity. Four attempted to attack the fort - two, Sest Echoscorches the Abyssal Confusion and Rit Minespurt the Willful Strength were captured, two other ones - Lenge Bristledprides the Famous Lash of Hatchets and Öd Sharkmob the Occult Sword of Caves - slain. I wantes to trap Öd, but he ran into a pit and started fighting a bear. The somebody came to drag the bear back where it was and started shooting, and I had to send in the soldiers. Rimtar Groovedpulleys killed him with a single hammerstrike. Lenge was less lucky.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm not sure what to do with the minotaurs now. They're too weak for target practice for soldiers, and civilian militia would likely shoot them to death too fast. Can they breed? I don't think so, but I'd be happy to learn otherwise. At least the elk birds keep hatching, this time even after their mother dies in the nest.

I finally got a decent artifact, courtesy of Kol Bridgedcarnal the Discoveries of Dabbling, a spearmaster of The Livid Flags, who guard the surface - a slug demon leather shield called the Deity of Sinews. It was obviously assigned to her as soon as it was made. It's not very valuable, at only 26040☼, but quite useful. I like to think of it as the sign of Wirejade's future dominion of Hell.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(http://i63.tinypic.com/dcwlja.jpg)
One strike, two fractures? Or am I reading this wrong?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Dozebôm Lolumzalìs on November 14, 2015, 12:11:49 pm
Pretty much. It fractured the arm's bone as well as the shoulder's bone. Blunt weapons and shields are fairly large, large enough to shatter a shoulder and arm bone at the same time.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on November 14, 2015, 04:49:54 pm
That's nifty. I suppose the kobold's diminutive size helped. The odd thing is that I don't remember it happening before, and my hammerdwarves killed quite a few kobolds.



I have a few dozen dwarves locked up now, and they're gaining social skills, so they must be using them. I'll see if I can find more of suitable marriage candidates.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: De on November 14, 2015, 11:09:51 pm
For organizing the military, put them in squads of two and reduce the "minimum soldiers required on duty" to 1 in their schedule. This ought to have them sparring (and thus training MUCH faster than by demonstration) a lot more. Make the squad leaders have the teacher skill, if they have it.

You can always sort them into proper larger squads later
No no no, you'd want to have squads of 3 with it set to train for 2 or 3. Set to 1 would be one Dwarf on their own teaching to their self. Set to 2 or 3 would allow for much larger sparring rates (including on occasion 3 Dwarves sparring altogether simultaneously).

It's a moot point though, since multiple training orders can be given. So you can give 4 training orders for 2 in a squad of 9-10 for example, and it'd have the same effect as splitting the squad into smaller squads.

I've never really figured out how to give commands to individuals in a squad effectively. How do you have multiple training orders for a single squad?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Sarrak on November 15, 2015, 02:35:36 am
All hail to the Hell conqueror! Let's see if dwarf civilization survives an influx of demonic treats and clothes made from overwordly materials. As well as, you know, that damnable 'old age' thing.
Title: Re: An Uninvited Guest [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on November 15, 2015, 09:44:05 am
I've never really figured out how to give commands to individuals in a squad effectively. How do you have multiple training orders for a single squad?

In the {m}ilitary interface on the {s}chedule screen give a new {o}rder for any month, then {tab} to the order list and {e}dit the order to have 2 or 3 soldiers training. Repeat until you have enough of these orders, the {c}opy and {p}aste them over other months. That should do the job.

All hail to the Hell conqueror! Let's see if dwarf civilization survives an influx of demonic treats and clothes made from overwordly materials. As well as, you know, that damnable 'old age' thing.

Wirejade endures! As long as I can get the dwarves to pop out some kids at least. It's going to be kind of problematic otherwise.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on November 15, 2015, 02:49:38 pm
Goddamnit Hetarios! How come you're known as the king of hell and not me? I beat your wall by 6 months! I farm demons for meat! What do you have that I don't!
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 15, 2015, 03:57:20 pm
Goddamnit Hetarios! How come you're known as the king of hell and not me? I beat your wall by 6 months! I farm demons for meat! What do you have that I don't!
It's the journey that makes the life, not the destination ;)
In other words, it's what the Dwarves of Wirejade have lost in their efforts to gain
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on November 19, 2015, 07:42:32 pm
It's not just conquest. It is retribution. Just as dwarven blood was spilt to reclaim the lost halls, now demon ichor will stain Hell's slade floor. The underworld will be subjugated not just with mere ‼science‼, but with &science&! I shall construct great shrines to the gods of the Jade Artifact to consecrate its unholy ground as the monument to the dwarven spirit.

I do need to start reading Bastiongate, but that's for later. Looking forward to it. Goodnight for now.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on November 19, 2015, 08:51:41 pm
It's not just conquest. It is retribution. Just as dwarven blood was spilt to reclaim the lost halls, now demon ichor will stain Hell's slade floor. The underworld will be subjugated not just with mere ‼science‼, but with &science&! I shall construct great shrines to the gods of the Jade Artifact to consecrate its unholy ground as the monument to the dwarven spirit.
When the new version comes out, I'm planning on building shrines to each god in locations significant to their spheres. Night God in hell, Earth Goddess in the caves, War Goddess near the invader spawn point, Party God in the dining hall, Wealth Goddess in the artifact vault. Each one protected by appropriate defenses, given appropriate sacrifices, and engraved with images of the god.

I do need to start reading Bastiongate, but that's for later. Looking forward to it. Goodnight for now.
I'm glad to hear! It's a bit rambling, especially at the beginning when it's just about me reclaiming the fort. Tell me what it needs more of when you're done.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Hetairos on March 15, 2016, 03:10:33 pm
100 years! It was never supposed to go on for that long, but here we are, and I'm trying to make it last for another century. About 80 of these years are detailed here, and the dwarves of Wirejade have lost much, and created even more during this time. The original idea was to relate the spectacular and seemingly inevitable collapse of a fortress, describing how everything and everyone dies messy deaths and call it a day. But it proved far more resilient than I had expected, and I couldn't simply leave things as that. There had to be a conclusion, and after years and years of struggle we got where we are now. In many aspects, Wirejade has never been greater. But how long can it go on? Will there come a day when no one is left to walk beneath its golden colonnades? We'll see, and I'll report it here.

The fort was brought to a standstill as much of its workforce was locked in a small dining room, originally built so the metalworkers and other dwarves working far away from the fort's core would have somewhere to eat without running back and forth 100+ z-levels. I'm still not sure if it really helps with that. Anyway, the dwarves made a lot of friendships with each other, and Alath the medic even threw the first party in... a long time, possibly ever. However, no matter how long I'd leave them in only one romantic relationship developed - between the blacksmith Libash Papermatch and Fath Helmscraped, a farmer. I put them in a tiny stockpile with food and drink, and they're ecstatic and definitely talk to each other, but still aren't married after 3 or so months. Oddly enough they're not upset about sleeping on the floor.

(http://i65.tinypic.com/wjfhhz.jpg)

This frustrated me to no end, to the point I put the game away for several months. I don't why is it going like this - dwarves may be too closely related, too distant in age (DF requires a narrow window of max 10 years difference) or too incompatible character-wise. I fear I may have to trudge through the dwarf list to cherrypick potential couples, stick them in burrows and hope for the best. If only that one couple marries and has kids, the fort is doomed, even though it would take up to around 150 years for their offspring to die out of old age.

The airlocks are ready and operational. The initial project called for one on each side of the wall, but there are too many glowing pits in the south and the animals released there wouldn't be able to get anywhere. Others have already proven useful: lions were all burned to death by a passing fire demon, cheetahs successfully took down a few tick devils before getting slaughtered and cougars went up against leech demons, which blew themselves up with their own deadly dust. Tiger iron demons killed off the survivors. Thanks to this my framerate is going up, the hallways are less cluttered and I'm learning more about the combat capabilities of the demons. Wonderful! The only drawback is the amount of clean-up required. I can only hope nothing gets punched in the teeth.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(http://i66.tinypic.com/acqs9c.jpg)

The construction didn't go without accidents, of course. It wouldn't be proper. A pale brown demon got in and destroyed some doors, then fortunately left on its own. The lone animal trainer who happened to be in Hell then sneaked away thanks to the animals holding the creature back. The fire one caused a bit more trouble. I took the opportunity to test a few different ways of dealing with it. As it turns out, dwarves are relatively safe if they're not standing on a flammable tile and aren't wearing anything that can catch fire. A close combatant will still die due to fire he breaks off the creature melting his body and causing bleeding. A good old cave-in is the safest bet. There was an ape devil too, and while it was killed Mosus lost his remaining foot, and Iden Armorkeys his left hand.

Time has been hard on the fort's military. Datan Rockheld, Tekkud Paddledfocus the Contested Gallows of Order and Lor Giltsoothes the Turquoise Stake of Creating, all legendary hammerlords, passed away due to old age. Mistem Tattodyes, elite marksdwarf and Momuz Granitelessons the Teal Bride of Hawks, a swordsmaster met the same fate. Momuz got her own ornate tomb in recognition of her deeds. Tholtig Bannershorts, only 30 years old and already a legendary mason, fell and broke her spine with deadly effect, further limiting my options in the marriage game. Replacing the dead warriors should become less of a problem if I can lure in a steam demon - just have them beat on an armed dwarf for a long enough time and watch the skills go up to legendary levels in no time, at no risk.

The trash railway is up and running. It had stubbornly refused to work right for ages, until I put temporary stops on every level below the ones I had known for sure to be fine and found the broken one. Apparently semi-molten rock doesn't count as a proper wall for track ramps to stand next to, surprisingly enough. I'm not sure what to do with the dragon now, so he just sits in a cage and grows bigger.

The anniversary special is the hell fort, which is what I wanted to complete in time for the occasion. I have another idea, but I'll see if I get to it. It's not an in-game thing though. I don't know, this update simply feels kind of underwhelming, at least to me and I thought I might try to compensate for this.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: TheFlame52 on March 15, 2016, 03:44:37 pm
Still amazing
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Hetairos on March 18, 2016, 12:11:46 pm
(http://i64.tinypic.com/o0q9uc.jpg)

They took their sweet time - ten months, to be exact - but hopefully we've got a family in the making here. Congratulations to the newly-weds! I've got to find out if there are any more dwarves willing to follow.

Strange finding: the beds in the oldest rooms, so ones that have been set up for about a century now, are all showing signs of deterioration, as if they had been damaged. It's most definitely regular wear and tear. Who would've expected this to happen? Because I didn't. How few people would even end up noticing this anyway? It might only apply to wooden furniture, I can't be sure as few things in the fort have been in the same place for equally long.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: TheFlame52 on March 18, 2016, 02:07:39 pm
All organic objects wear out, not just clothing, but it takes forever.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Gwolfski on March 19, 2016, 06:26:16 am
All organic objects wear out, not just clothing, but it takes forever.
I never knew that!

So a built wooden door would fall apart after ages?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: TheFlame52 on March 19, 2016, 10:03:29 am
After about 200 years, I think. Plant fiber only takes about 50 years to fall apart, though.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Gwolfski on March 19, 2016, 10:07:37 am
Now to have a fort to survive that long...
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Hetairos on March 25, 2016, 03:15:24 pm
I have since noticed wear in a wooden wheelbarrows, bone ammo and barrels, so that corroborates what Flame's posted. And which to my dismay means all my forgotten beast totems are doomed to rot away.

On the bright side, I hooked up my current mayor with some bone carver. They're both 152, so I'm not expecting much even if they do eventually marry. What is bothering me though is the fact that it's been over a year since Libash and Fath got married, yet still haven't produced any offspring. The dead/missing units list might be too long, I'm not sure if it's relevant here or only causes issues with immigration. I hear gui/gm-editor can be used to check for pregnancy, but I have no idea what to look for. Here's a screenshot of the output in case someone can decipher it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: TheFlame52 on March 25, 2016, 03:27:43 pm
It's under 'relations'.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Hetairos on March 25, 2016, 03:37:17 pm
There's a thing.

(http://i65.tinypic.com/116s00y.jpg)

I guess that's a "no"?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: TheFlame52 on March 25, 2016, 04:06:20 pm
It is a no. What year is it in your world?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Hetairos on March 25, 2016, 04:12:38 pm
230. Is it another of those hidden limits?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: TheFlame52 on March 25, 2016, 04:25:17 pm
Nah, just wanted to see how long before that dwarf died of old age. She's got 50 years, you're fine.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Hetairos on March 25, 2016, 05:03:54 pm
I'm just going to wait a couple of years and see what happens, matchmaking in the meantime. I've found another potential couple just now. The most significant problem is how all over the place the dwarves are age-wise, which limits the number of romantic targets for them quite severely.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Gwolfski on March 26, 2016, 10:27:57 am
What about migrants?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Hetairos on March 26, 2016, 11:57:27 am
Migrants and dwarven caravans stopped coming ages ago due to some highly obscure and ill-understood bug. Wirejade is on its own.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Gwolfski on March 26, 2016, 12:31:09 pm
what version is this?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Julien Brightside on April 05, 2016, 08:22:36 am
I find it funny that you have gone from colonizing hell into marriage making.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: TheFlame52 on April 05, 2016, 02:07:26 pm
Colonizing hell wasn't challenging enough.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Hetairos on April 09, 2016, 01:35:54 pm
what version is this?

0.34.11 with Broken Arrow, DFHack r5 + Utility Plugins 0.49 and some minor tweaks like enabling certain creatures to procreate in fortress mode. In other words, mostly vanilla with some utilities and fixes.

I find it funny that you have gone from colonizing hell into marriage making.

It would be a poor attempt at colonisation if the fort were to just die out, wouldn't it?

Although the mayor isn't going to participate because his lover died.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Taupe on April 09, 2016, 01:46:22 pm
I can fix your migrant problem should you wish so. I have a line of script on my desktop to fix that very specific bug. The problem right now is that your fortress is illegible for migrant waves, but their maximum size is capped at zero, which isn't exactly optimal.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Hetairos on April 09, 2016, 03:09:37 pm
Go ahead. I will build a structure of your choice in your honour if it works! You should probably put it up on the Mantis bugtracker too.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Taupe on April 09, 2016, 03:20:14 pm
I'll give you the instructions once my home network is back online (people are doing maintenance in my basement and they unplugged the wifi at the moment).

The way the ''bug'' work is thus: The third migrant wave is usually a large one (ten+) after which they are capped at about eleven. This total goes down by one once the unit count hits about a thousand, then scale down to zero once the unit count hits three to four thousand.

This ''unit count'' adds up living dwarves, pets, others... as well as dead ones, misguidedly. This means that a decade old fortress may stop re eiving migrants because they hat a lot of cats fucking, for example. The workaround is a script that cleans the dead unit list of basically anything thats not named. Migrants then show up. Those units are not removed from the game or forgotten, theynjust dont actively display in he list.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Hetairos on April 09, 2016, 03:33:53 pm
Hang on. I believe DFHack has something similar in the form of the fix/dead-units script. I used it in the past and while it helped me at the time, I am facing a different issue.

Basically one caravan glitched out and dropped all its items upon leaving, but they were only accessible through the stocks screen, like those affected by the old bug concerning items moved around by liquids. No dwarven caravans have appeared since, nor any migrants have showed up, and they would appear regularly beforehand. I cleared the dead units' list several times after that, to no avail. As far as I can tell it's an incredibly rare and ill-understood bug.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Taupe on April 09, 2016, 05:32:32 pm
Hum, that's a bummer. Personally, I have the reverse problem, where merchants arrive at the depot, but never leave, even when new merchants show up, leading to both weirdness and water buffalo calves outnumbering my population. On the plus side, most of the human caravan guards now have titles, as they are used for thief dispatching.

Keep in mind, in 0.34 the world does not progress in the background as you do. If your fortress is 100 years old, it's possible that the rest of dwarvenkind sort of... stopped breeding new dudes and died of old age. You could try to run the following in dfhack if all merchants are the problem, not just the dwarven ones. It won't fix everything, but it may trigger newcomers in a way:

fixdiplomats

fixmerchants

In any case, hang in there, this is a beautiful tale of perseverance and survival.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: TheFlame52 on April 24, 2016, 05:11:23 pm
I reread the thread and it's just as amazing the second time. Also, I noticed one of your newlyweds is a militia captain. Are they in the military? In 0.40+ active military dwarves won't have kids, I don't know if it's like that in 0.34.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Hetairos on June 10, 2016, 08:56:01 am
Keep in mind, in 0.34 the world does not progress in the background as you do. If your fortress is 100 years old, it's possible that the rest of dwarvenkind sort of... stopped breeding new dudes and died of old age.

I don't really know how does 0.34 behave in respect to that, but I thought the game would just keep spawning dwarves at least for the caravan, as long as the civ was alive at embark. Did anyone run a 0.34 fortress that long? Any community ones? Archcrystal uses the new version, unfortunately.

I reread the thread and it's just as amazing the second time. Also, I noticed one of your newlyweds is a militia captain. Are they in the military? In 0.40+ active military dwarves won't have kids, I don't know if it's like that in 0.34.

Thanks. Fath does not belong to the actual military, just the fort's crossbow militia. Every civilian who isn't a miner or a woodcutter has a crossbow and a shield and some of them are technically squad leaders, but don't regularly spend time on duty. Sometimes they shoot kobolds, or I call upon them to train by shooting crundles or to provide fire support for the soldiers.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)



Anyway, that clearly isn't a problem, as Fath and Libash have had two babies already! I'll need to arrange a few more marriages to call the project a full success, but now it's most likely just a matter of time. The youngest adult dwarfs are 20, so the gap between generations isn't terribly huge, although enough to prevent them from intermarrying.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I've been having trouble keeping the dwarfs together and stocking the room with food and drink, in spite of any burrows and linked stockpiles. I need to sort this out before the next couple can start bonding. Burrowed dwarfs seem to idle in the general area of the burrow, but will leave it if starving or dehydrated. They won't die if simply left alone, but I'd rather avoid that for a number of reasons.

I had to find something else to do for the rest of the fort, so I began work on displacing the Forgotten Beasts occupying one of the adamantine spires. A few chained animals, an artifact armour stand and drawbridges should draw them out. I want the dwarves to ride minecarts past the containment area and shoot at them to train. It would be so much easier if I could get the speed calculator to run. The track is ready, it just needs adjustments so carts speed to the target area, then pass by slowly so the dwarves can fire as many shots as possible and return without wasting time.
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: speciesunkn0wn on June 10, 2016, 09:07:39 pm
I've finished reading this awesomeness just now. H-O-L-Y CARP. And Armok's Beard. This was epic! It absolutely deserves a TVtropes page. 100+ Year FIRST EVER FORTRESS???!!! CMOA for DF indeed. Also deserves a Hall of Legends (or whatever the proper title of that place is) post/mention/placing/whatever.

I do have a question. How did you get every civvie armed with a shield and crossbow?
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: darokindefender on June 11, 2016, 03:10:02 pm
This is an awesome fort!  8)

Truly a testament to just what can be accomplished in the game (if you're lucky and skilled, that is).

PTW
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Hetairos on June 11, 2016, 06:15:02 pm
Thanks everyone. I'm glad you're enjoying this.

I do have a question. How did you get every civvie armed with a shield and crossbow?

The key part is making a custom uniform (n → c) which consists only of a shield and a crossbow. Then you just put them all into squads and assign the uniform (e → U → Shift+Enter).
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: speciesunkn0wn on June 11, 2016, 11:11:45 pm
Thanks everyone. I'm glad you're enjoying this.

I do have a question. How did you get every civvie armed with a shield and crossbow?

The key part is making a custom uniform (n → c) which consists only of a shield and a crossbow. Then you just put them all into squads and assign the uniform (e → U → Shift+Enter).

Ooooooh. Ok. :3
Title: Re: The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS] - 100th foundation anniversary!
Post by: Loud Whispers on June 20, 2016, 06:01:49 pm
Thanks everyone. I'm glad you're enjoying this.
Just can't get enough. I do find it hilarious that at the end of the day, administrative issues in the Ministry of Romance can be just as existentially deadly to a Fortress as Eldritch beings inimical to all life.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on September 03, 2016, 09:47:02 am
I have good and bad news.

The good ones - there is a workaround (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=159297.0) for the bug that keeps migrants and caravans from coming from the mountainhomes.

The bad news are that it requires a script unavailable for my version of the game/DFHack. The regular matrimonial arrangements will therefore proceed as usual.

So far that resulted in 11 kids born. Still, deaths caused by various factors brought the fort down to a dangerously low level of 119 citizens. Among others, I lost my last dedicated mechanic to old age. And I accidentally dropped a furnace operator into an eerie glowing pit. Anyway, the last couple to enter the honeymoon suite is Cog Talktongs and Datan Boltsflights, and they've been there for a while now, apparently not quite in a hurry to seal the deal. I can with all confidence say I'm getting close to matching the natural population loss.

Now that I think about it, maybe I should move the suite somewhere there is a well. Keeping it supplied with booze has been a problem no matter how much I fiddle with stockpile and workshop links. Lack of bonus happiness from drinks might be a problem, but a nice enough well could offset that.

Minotaurs visited Wirejade a few times. I have five captive now, and put four of them in a room to see if they can breed in fortress mode. Nothing has come out of this so far and I doubt anything will, not that I was expecting much.

Iden Armorkeys, a hammerlord, got the title of the Dour Deep of Problems out of killing kobold thieves. On the opposite side, kobold thief Griris killed a named war lion and became Griris Risewalks, at least for the short while before the military showed up and he took a hammer to the skull.

I continued the work on the training facility in hell described in the last update. Once I calibrated the minecart route (which involved a bunch of carts ending up forever lost in the depths of the glowing pits), it was time for testing. Fath Dentedcoal got in the minecart and rode it all the way around the loop and again, and again, until I had to forbid it and force her to get off. With that confirmed as working, I moved on to get the Forgotten Beasts out of the spire and in the prepared area.

The plan was simple. Put a few war animals in the way to lure them in, and a piece of artifact furniture at the end. Once the beasts get there, retract the drawbridge to shut them inside. The thing is, I had used an artifact table to make them stay in the spire to begin with, and they were unwilling to leave. Taking out the table with a cave-in was the only way.

This backfired spectacularly.

As many of you know, cave-ins work in strange and often unpredictable ways. Still, I thought dropping a single wall tile down several floors won't end in anything too disastrous. I was wrong.

The dwarf who mined out the last supporting floor was caught in the dust cloud and fell straight onto the slade floor of hell. Needless to say, he did not survive. RIP Ushrir Glazeddoors. His main profession was actually animal training, and that in Wirejade means being constantly followed by a large herd of war animals. Take note - this will prove important later on.

(http://i58.tinypic.com/55snl.jpg)

These are the creatures stuck in the spire back when I had first sealed it. At the point of the cave-in only two were left alive and uncaptured: Slevina Deathmenace the Ruthless Curses, a web-spinning porcelain humanoid with three tails and and Emura Lobstermenaced the Washed Poisons, a steel cockroach with poisonous vapours. And instead of slamming them into the walls, the knockback somehow sucked them in through the hole in the floor and into hell, on the wrong side of the walls of the containment area.

They destroyed a bunch of doors and then headed straight for the forges. The recently built garbage disposal railway wasn't sealed off in time and I was forced to order everyone to quickly evacuate, leaving a few soldiers behind in case capturing the beasts was no longer feasible. Emura and Slevina broke some more doors and at that exact moment the animals which used to follow Ushrir around began to arrive at the entrance to the forges on their way back to the fort.

Slevina broke off to fight them, covering everything in webs. Already damaged by all the animals I had previously dropped into the spire as web bait for the cage traps there, it lost most limbs and was almost destroyed, yet found a corner right outside the entrance where it just pinned everything down by spamming webs faster then its foes could untangle themselves.

Since apparently that wasn't enough trouble, a minotauress paid Wirejade a visit. She promptly fell into a cage trap, much to my relief.

Meanwhile, Emura stayed behind to break some furniture, then slowly followed in Slevina's footsteps. But he only way there led through a narrow corridor filled with traps, a single tile in width. This wouldn't have been a factor had Slevina not thoroughly covered the whole thing in webbing. For a web-spinner, it's still not a concern, but all Emura had was a poisonous bite. The weapon trap had been jammed by the corpse of an unfortunate giant jaguar, which lost all its limbs to the serrated blades before death, and couldn't trigger. And with its next step, Emura walked straight into a cage trap.

(http://i65.tinypic.com/iwogeq.jpg)

With the nearly 79 tons of angry metal monster contained, I set about defeating Slevina. A frontal attack would have likely ended with my entire military suck in webs, so the situation called for clever tactics. Fortunately, there is more than one way to leave the forges, creating an opportunity for a flanking manoeuvrer. The soldiers marched out of and over and around the metalworks. Even though most of them threw themselves into webs, all I needed was at least one dwarf in the right place. The beast didn't last very long.

Cleanup took a while due to all the webs. The spire in particular was filled with webbed cage traps, some of them still armed. I had to wait for weavers finish their job before hauling out all the cages, mechanisms and skeletons. In the end, I got a nice mountain of meat, bones, tallow and other products from the butchered beasts. The soap makers are still busy with it, and I (literally) burned through a decent chunk of the wood stockpile. The whole setup meant to lure the FBs into the containment area was no longer needed as I can just release them straight from the cages, so I pulled it down too. Punched a way from the ore stockpile to the spire too, as there's no need to take a detour through the cavern.

Emura will be used as an eternal practice target for marksdwarves together with two vomit blobs I happened to capture. I don't even remember if projectiles can kill them. Two more FBs and an ape devil are in my cages, but I don't have any plans for them yet.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on September 03, 2016, 11:01:16 am
AWESOME
Title: Re: [0.34.11] The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Sarrak on September 03, 2016, 11:33:06 am
Agreed, this is marvelous.

I remember weak-material blobs happily dying to the first projectile that hits main body. But you still have Emura for training.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on September 03, 2016, 11:42:39 am
That happens with nearly intangible materials like smoke or fire. Vomit is a fair bit more durable than that. One of the blobs is already fractured.

EDIT: Cog and Datan are finally married.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Fleeting Frames on September 03, 2016, 05:15:35 pm
You could also install steel FB into main dining room, in case of gremlins.

But yeah, that's a lot of FBs.

Never used eerie glowing pits for disposal, doesn't it have some bug with infinitely falling water killing FPS? (I mean, more than usual with water flowing off the map.)

I take the relocation was attempted because you wanted to build a silk industry and marksdwarf training setup?

Though, I hope in the latter the marksdwarves wont get hit by poisonous vapours.

As for the operation idea....I guess another way would have been to use obsidianizing from above.

Still, that is hell of an amazing outcome for releasing a steel FB OR a webber FB into central stairway, let alone both!
Title: Re: [0.34.11] The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on September 04, 2016, 07:09:47 pm
There was some bug with the pits, yeah. Wasn't it related to digging into SMR from below? I'm too lazy to look that up. If you toss items into a pit, they just disappear. Same with creatures, but they get a little animation of falling in. You can set up a clever trap with a narrow walkway right over a pit and some marksdwarves - any hostiles that dodge the bolts will be likely to fall into the pit, including fliers like demons.

The training facility is up and running now. An untrained dwarf will fire twice during a single run. Slevina was a problem because I couldn't cage it. I wasn't really expecting web farming, I can just lure in a demon.

Obsidianisation would've carried a risk of killing the beasts. Not a one I was willing to take.

Really, if you read between the lines I was more lucky than clever. The contingency plan was to unleash the soldiers and hope adamantine will cut up steel fast enough.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Hetairos on January 29, 2017, 10:16:57 am
Due to save corruption I had to revert progress to before the events of this post. Most, but not all of it, is no longer relevant.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: [0.34.11] The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on January 29, 2017, 01:15:27 pm
Never feel bad about necroing this topic. Wirejade is awesome.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Glass on January 29, 2017, 03:19:18 pm
Just read through.

I approve heartily. If I ever get DF, I can only hope and pray that I manage as awesome a fort as you have - let alone that it be my first.

How did you manage to climb the learning cliff that quickly?
Title: Re: [0.34.11] The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: Fleeting Frames on January 29, 2017, 05:27:29 pm
• What is that annoying FPS point for you? Or do you run without FPS indicator?

• ....Literal magma hellcannon? Oh wow. Now that's new. And cool as hell.

Larix's minimal watergun (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=153432.msg6545902#msg6545902) might be of interest due it's lowest known cadence, but it sounds like you already have a plan.

For dealing with the lowest z-level of the map, it's worth noting itg's work in the area, such as mining slade by carving it into a fortification and obsidian-casting (link (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=135431.0)). I think dwarven power mining (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=133810.0) might also work for your version.

• I've heard that marriages occur more easily in DF2012. Though it seems you're still having problems - well, some couples just aren't compatible.


• There is artifact cap, sort of - number of revealed subterranean tiles /(48*48) - obviously relevant on thin 1x1s, but not so much on most forts with revealed caverns and magma sea for quite a while. 

You can check with dfhack if you've run into it, maybe?

• And, oh yeah. Strong ranged combatants in DF2012. But what does need to be fought, anyway?

...Immortal vomit FBs? Ew. Good gen, RNG. Good gen.

Good luck with your dragon farm.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] The (not so) last stand of Wirejade [SPOILERS]
Post by: TheFlame52 on January 29, 2017, 06:00:11 pm
I've only seen the revealed tiles artifact thing happen on really old forts. In Bastiongate people stopped making artifacts after a while, but there was a huge explosion of moods after I dug out a new layer of the mine.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade (aborted)
Post by: Hetairos on February 01, 2017, 01:21:28 pm
I think that explains the artifact situation. I had no reason to dig much for a long time. If I needed space, there were always rooms to repurpose; piles of surplus furniture and armour could be melted down in case of a metal shortage. I'm not aware of any DFHack tools which I could use to check nor do I have the knowledge to make them myself.

How did you manage to climb the learning cliff that quickly?

I semi-accidentally chose the most easymode embark site ever, then slavishly followed the quickstart guide and alt-tabbed to the wiki any time I had doubts about something. It wasn't nearly as quick a process as it may seem, it just wasn't spread over several forts. It took me in-game years to realise I can dig below the first cavern layer. I still learn new things from time to time.

• What is that annoying FPS point for you? Or do you run without FPS indicator?

Around 13-15 FPS.

• ....Literal magma hellcannon? Oh wow. Now that's new. And cool as hell.

Larix's minimal watergun (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=153432.msg6545902#msg6545902) might be of interest due it's lowest known cadence, but it sounds like you already have a plan.

For dealing with the lowest z-level of the map, it's worth noting itg's work in the area, such as mining slade by carving it into a fortification and obsidian-casting (link (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=135431.0)). I think dwarven power mining (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=133810.0) might also work for your version.

I was looking forward to that, having not build anything major in a while. I'm familiar with Larix's design and I'm nearly sure it's impossible to simplify it further. But I can't use it, and the slade mining tricks won't help me with it since there is no slade to mine there. The map just ends. It's a floor with nothing left beneath.

Of course now there is another much bigger reason I can't do anything.

• I've heard that marriages occur more easily in DF2012. Though it seems you're still having problems - well, some couples just aren't compatible.

The whole orientation thing isn't in if that's what you mean. But if they can be lovers, then they can marry, right?



Premature farewell below. On second thought, there's no real point in keeping it around.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade (aborted)
Post by: TheFlame52 on February 01, 2017, 02:01:03 pm
Well, you had a good run, but all good things must come to an end. Wirejade will always live in our hearts. And also in this thread. And in the Hall of Legends.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade (aborted)
Post by: Fleeting Frames on February 01, 2017, 02:07:41 pm
Heh, yeah. That's pretty much how I learned. Am still learning.

It's not just orientation - several people have reported relationships progressing slower in 0.42+ than in 0.34.

As for the corrupted file, ouch. I assume you've already tried tools like CCleaner? Though not sure how CPU cooling could cause save corruption.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade (aborted)
Post by: Glass on February 01, 2017, 05:01:27 pm
Oh... oh, holy Armok.

They really couldn't figure out any other way to kill your fort, could they?  :P
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade (aborted)
Post by: Hetairos on February 01, 2017, 06:04:31 pm
As for the corrupted file, ouch. I assume you've already tried tools like CCleaner? Though not sure how CPU cooling could cause save corruption.

I tried a system restore, though I didn't have any restore points old enough to do anything, assuming that could be a factor to begin with. What can CCleaner do beyond that?

It's not really the cooling unit itself. I must have broken something and now I get occasional random reboots and display problems. The screen gets covered in vertical stripes or just turns off, forcing me to hard reboot. One of those likely broke something, although I don't remember that happening while I was playing DF. I'm going to get someone to take a look at it.

Oh... oh, holy Armok.

They really couldn't figure out any other way to kill your fort, could they?  :P

I suppose. I even had a fairly complete list of things I wanted to do with the fort before I called it quits in mind. Oh well.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade (aborted) (not really)
Post by: Hetairos on February 02, 2017, 09:38:16 am
Hang on. Remember that time when I posted about a workaround for the broken caravan bug which stopped immigration into the fort (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=123997.msg7161741#msg7161741)? People thought it was a new version bug, but I had a save with it occurring in 34.11. So I uploaded it to DFFD and linked it on the bugtracker. What I'm trying to say is that I do have a backup (albeit an accidental one).

So Wirejade lives, as it did 9 in-game years ago. Nearly everything past the linked update is essentially retconned, but I'll leave it in spoiler tags. I'm going to restore the progress more or less to the point it was before the unfortunate corruption, then pick up from that point onwards.

Autobackup is on :P
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade (aborted) (not really)
Post by: TheFlame52 on February 02, 2017, 09:42:30 am
YES
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade (aborted) (not really)
Post by: TheBiggerFish on February 02, 2017, 09:43:28 am
Oh thank goodness.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade (aborted) (not really)
Post by: TheFlame52 on February 02, 2017, 09:45:37 am
A similar thing happened in Bastiongate, where a rare bug caused by the tracks of newly hatched creatures corrupted the save. I had a slightly older save from the last time I had copied the save, retired, and checked legends. The retiring and unretiring caused its own problems, but hey, I still had Bastiongate! And you don't even have to deal with those problems, which is awesome.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade (aborted) (not really)
Post by: Fleeting Frames on February 02, 2017, 11:43:34 am
Hang on. That single update contained 9 years?

That's quite the scale.

In any case, nice to have a backup, but gratz on being willing to continue.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade (aborted) (not really)
Post by: Sarrak on February 02, 2017, 01:29:49 pm
It lives again! :o
Its so nice having accidental backups
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade (aborted) (not really)
Post by: Glass on February 02, 2017, 04:59:16 pm
Hyah-hah, YES!

WIREJADE LIVES!

IT'S ALIVE!!!!
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade (aborted) (not really)
Post by: Hetairos on February 09, 2017, 06:23:08 pm
I have an extremely important announcement to make.

IMMIGRATION AND CARAVANS HAVE BEEN RESTORED!

(http://i68.tinypic.com/33ym5qb.jpg)

You can thank PatrikLundell's dismissmerchants script for this. I feel I should build something nice to commemorate this, but what?

The last caravan showed up in 160, so it's been 75 years. The first new migrant wave consisted of 6 dwarves, among them one married couple and nobody with any particularly useful skills. What am I to do with a novice trapper? She's very strong, so I had her pick up an axe and go train. Encouraging marriages will continue. Migrants will actually help with that as long as they aren't too old. No families = more leeway in choosing a partner = lesser likelihood of everyone eventually ending up too related for marriage.

The caravan was more disappointing. Two wagons, mostly laden with food. I have over 50k prepared meals, for crying out loud! Bring me some leather or gemstones. At least I have someone I can sell all the wooden trash to instead of chucking it down into the glowing pits.

Also it looks like I have to link the watercannons all over again, so don't expect a full update in a while.

EDIT: Tinypic is working again so I can add a picture.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade (aborted) (not really)
Post by: TheFlame52 on February 09, 2017, 07:22:43 pm
Any new blood is good.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade (aborted) (not really)
Post by: Glass on February 09, 2017, 07:49:06 pm
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
(our smilies will blot out the sun)

EDIT: I have no regrets.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade
Post by: Hetairos on July 25, 2018, 01:19:15 pm
I didn't really have an immediate goal to work towards for a while, and just maintaining the fortress without doing anything else seemed like a waste of both in-game and RL time. Between that, writing a thesis and a brief stay abroad I didn't really play DF all that much. Year is 247, still 2 years short of where I was time-wise before my save got corrupted. I've been playing a bit more recently and wanted to drop a brief update to show where we are now. Hopefully things can get a bit livelier soon.

One thing I got stuck on was the magma minecart cannon design. I wanted something that could operate indefinitely, but that required the speed of the cart to not change significantly cycle to cycle. I couldn't see a way to do it besides meticulous fiddling with the minecart calculator. It took me a while to remember I wanted the desing to rely on rollers. Rollers don't simpy boost the cart speed - they have a certain speed value they impart on slower moving carts. This means if I start the firing cycle with a roller and ensure the cart returns there at a sufficiently low speed, it will be reset every time, allowing it to work indefinitely as long as there is power. Once I have the power supply and control system planned out, the construction can start.

In the meantime, I've been working on some minor projects just to give the dwarves something to do. A shrine to Thusest Pridemobs, a deity of war and fortresses, is nearing completion. It's built in the shape of a small fort with a statue of the god in the middle. By the way, it turns out Hell doesn't have a whole lot of vertical space - just 5 levels counting from the very bottom, so I'll have to keep the shrines kind of squat. I also dammed the local river by dumping magma into it to fish out a bunch of items stuck at the bottom. Statues, blocks, bolts, corpses...

(http://i68.tinypic.com/20tf2p3.jpg)

There is yet another project for the future. I asked PatrikLundell, who found the solution for the caravan/migrant bug, for an idea he'd like me to realise in the fort. This was the reply (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=159297.msg7357167#msg7357167). I was thinking of combining points 2 and 4 into an Uristface-shaped shaft leading through the magma sea. For now, I don't really have an idea what would be the best way to create vertical walls in there.

At the moment, Wirejade is at 256 citizens. The immigrants require housing, and housing in turn requires furnishings. Metal industry needs to supply the raw materials for furniture, and I want it all to be gem-encrusted. The dwarven caravan brings me gems now, but my jewelers are poorly skilled, so they train by putting green glass on worn out clothes. The demand for clothing is increased too. All in all, quite a few industry branches are seeing a minor renaissance. I have been able to expand the military as well, to the point I'm running out of adamantine armour. The stockpiles are full of wafers, but my best armoursmith is merely competent and I don't want to waste them on low quality craft. I need to crank out some iron leggings.

It appears that the lack of strange moods was indeed tied to the amount of mined out tiles. After a fair bit of mining for ore and stone one dwarf got possessed and made an orthoclase sceptre. Honestly, the lack of new artifacts is not that much of a problem. Unless I micromanage my dwarves to get everyone a bit of metallurgical or other experience, most are pretty useless and I have plenty of wealth. What I could use are dwarves with high-level skills without the need for prolonged training.

I lost a few legendaries over the years. One of my best weavers got ripped apart by a passing demon when looking for webs in Hell, and several military dwarves died of old age - either in their sleep or in the middle of a sparring session.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade
Post by: Taupe on July 25, 2018, 05:37:48 pm
The idea of a Wirejade solier dying of old age is almost absurd to hear.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade
Post by: Hetairos on July 26, 2018, 05:46:15 am
The most threatening foes most of them face are kobold thieves and the occasional minotaur. Everything else is contained for the most part, except for emergencies I try my best to avoid.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 14, 2018, 04:59:58 pm
It is a blessed thing to see this Fortress still alive. Hope your thesis goes well, that tends to kill DF time :P
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade
Post by: Hetairos on December 02, 2018, 05:37:29 pm
Oh, that thing is long done. Say, what would be the best way to create vertical walls through the magma sea?
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 02, 2018, 10:19:30 pm
Oh, that thing is long done. Say, what would be the best way to create vertical walls through the magma sea?
I presume either dropping loads of water on it, or pumping out the magma long enough to have Dorfs construct the walls themselves
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade
Post by: TheFlame52 on December 03, 2018, 04:48:52 pm
Obsidianize large areas of the magma sea from the edges. If you start from the center, the unsupported obsidian will fall into the SMR and vanish.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade
Post by: Hetairos on December 09, 2018, 05:35:58 pm
Obsidianize large areas of the magma sea from the edges. If you start from the center, the unsupported obsidian will fall into the SMR and vanish.
I'm not sure I understand.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade
Post by: TheFlame52 on December 09, 2018, 05:57:21 pm
Clear out a large open space/floorless room above the magma sea. Let water into the space from one side, so that the obsidian is supported by the wall of the room as it forms. When all the of the magma has been obsidianized, drain the water or wait for it to evaporate. Then channel out the center and repeat.
Title: Re: [0.34.11] [SPOILERS] The Tale of Wirejade
Post by: Hetairos on December 16, 2018, 11:43:29 am
That just makes the usual inverted pyramid. But I guess there is no real way to avoid that, is there? I could probably cast walls inside of it and collapse it afterwards somehow.