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http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=170136.0

Hey all, been away for a while.  Haven't played since just before minecarts were introduced.  I think I can give it another go and am getting caught up on developments.

How is the stability and performance of 40.24 versus 34.XX?  I like building elaborate forts that are more likely to die from FPS doom than invaders.  Should I go with the newest hotness or stick with tried and true?

As for getting up to speed again, are there any canonical science threads to crop up over the last few years I should bookmark or utilities I shouldn't miss?

So, I'm working on a succession fortress right now.  The dwarfs are all locked up and there are 372 undead roaming the hills outside our walls.  I need to clear them out and make it safe for new migrants and traders.

It's a tower-themed fortress, so I'm planning to lure all of the zombies into a very tall dodge trap, "kill" them with a fall, and then smarsh them out of existence.  I don't have a lot of experience working with undead, so I'm hoping for your thoughts on a few things:

• How do I aggro zombies?  Is there a way to lure each zombie on the map into my contraption, or do I have to get bait within a certain distance and aggro them all individually?
• How effective are dodge traps on zombies?  Do zombies dodge?  Are zombie kobolds still trapimmune?  Are larger zombies more or less likely to "die" from large falls?
• Once the zombies are clear, is there a reliable way to trap any necromancers around?  Is there any bait they like?  I'd prefer to keep them out of my dodge trap and capture them alive.  I have three trapped and would like to add to my collection.
  
• Do you have any other tips for sterilization?

Thanks in advance for the help!  For the curious, this has to do with the (hopeful) redemption of Skyscrapes II.

Hello there!

When not playing succession fortresses, I tend to embark with grand plans, only to lose touch with my increasingly complex games as life intercedes and distracts me for weeks or months at a time.

In an effort to keep myself accountable (and to memorialize the fort for myself), I will be posting here with updates as frequently as life will allow.  I'll detail the ongoing projects and provide a bit of narrative as we go.

If you're reading along and have suggestions for how the fort should develop please share them!  I'm also happy to dorf those who wish as the opportunity arises.

With that out of the way, onward to the embark!

---

It's been a while since I've played around with lots of ice, so when this embark popped up on my finder I figured I'd go for it.

With a frozen river and an aquifer, I've decided to use ice as my primary above-ground construction material.  This will be slow going, as you can't cut ice boulders into blocks.  I'm going to play it as realistically as possible: no ice walls allowed in tiles adjacent to magma; in order to address my above-ground magma needs I'll have to use the stone underneath the aquifer.

We've got 100 levels of sky available, so I'm starting to think epic ice tower.  Clearly I'll have to engineer some type of ice generator.  That shouldn't be a problem with the abundance of water-producing tiles, but should prove satisfyingly complicated and dangerous.

Sand is available, so I expect glass will play a large role in magma management.

Not sure what metals/layer stone we have yet.  Hoping for iron ore, but I may have to rely on imported goblin armor/weapons as my primary iron resource.

It looks like it's time to start.  Welcome to Cryptmatches; strike the earth!

So, usually I don't bother making soap, but this time around I decided to help my little dudes keep clean.  But now whenever I build walls/floors (and believe me, I'm building a lot) I have to search through pages of giant olm soap, blue peafowl soap, alligator soap, bugbat soap, etc, etc

Is there any way to disable building constructions from soap?

I just inherited an old box that I'd like to install Linux on.  I don't have any grandiose plans; I expect to use it for word processing, internet surfing, casual gaming, and as a music server.  The last time I messed around with Linux was in 2001 with Mandrake (before it changed to Mandriva).  I know a little bit about the OS, but I am not an expert by any stretch.

Do you have any distro recommendations?  The hardware is about 8 years old, so I think the new Ubuntu distros may be too taxing on the graphics.  I'd also like something with a relatively intuitive interface because I'm hoping to sell my GF on it.  I'm open to obscure and fun distros as long as they're usable, so hit me with what you got!

So, in between cruel sessions of dwarficide I sometimes feed my addiction with flash games.  I just fired up Elements of Arkandia on Kongregate and saw my default character name was Urist McMage.  Chuckling to myself I went on to have some fun playing the game, which is very similar to Puzzle Quest with its Bejeweled mechanic.

Then I got this necklace and realized I just had to share:



Always glad to see DF get little props like this.

Ok, so I must be overlooking something really basic, but I can't tell what it is.  I can't make pig iron or steel at my mama forges even though I've got plenty of supplies: 129 iron bars, 8 pig iron bars, 18 coke, 45 charcoal, and over 99 marble all accessible and unforbidden.

What am I missing here?