Bay 12 Games Forum

Right folks, I am building my current fortress as a huge above-ground construction with built-in magma plumbing (and water too). This requires a great deal of planning, since later alterations will be quite difficult and time-consuming. And one of the biggest questions is how many areas need magma...

So far I have a short list of things I might want magma for.

- Room purges, e.g. jail cells or hospital wards with dangerous inmates. Maybe magma from above + floor grates as a drain?
- Obsidian casting, both for the rock and perhaps for defence.
- Magma forges will need a supply.
- Open pools of magma might make a nice decoration, especially for appropriate temples - but this seems very !!FUN!!

Is there anything obvious/creative that I have forgotten about?

Here's a thought which just struck me. I don't know if anyone has tried this already but....

What happens to a minecart that's leaving the map?

I haven't tested it personally (haven't managed to get into building a new fort in .34 yet) but minecarts seem to offer a perfect way of getting objects and dwarves to leave the map, which isn't normally possible for the player to do. You can't build tracks up to the edge of the map of course, but you can build a ramp aimed at the border...

 Why is this useful? Well, as I understand it, items on the map, even if destroyed, still contribute to FPS issues. But do items that leave the map do so? I don't think so. So flinging minecarts full of junk off the map could help your FPS. Also, for isolationist forts that don't want migrants, this could provide an automated way of getting rid of them without going to the hassle and mess of killing them (and subsequently having ghosts to deal with). Save the deathtraps for the goblins.

Anyway, just my small thought. Has anyone done !!SCIENCE!! on this?

My world was genned in 31.12, I've now updated it to 31.25 and I've got a situation on my hands.

A moody woodcrafter is demanding yarn cloth. I've never seen this stuff, and according to the wiki it comes from shearing sheep, alpacas, llamas and trolls... all of which wouldn't exist in a pre 31.18 world. Well, except for the trolls, but I've only ever seen one of those and it died a long, long time ago. Is it even possible to meet this demand then? Perhaps the caravan might bring it? Or am I doomed to a long series of mad dwarves if they demand yarn?

My 190-dorf fort is now getting serious lag issues, part of which is obviously due to its sheer size but I suspect it might also have something to do with the 70-odd cats running around as well. Now I can kill new kittens but there are always a few that become pets before I can reach them and then they're untouchable. So I've come up with a few designs to deal with them automatically. Some constructive criticism would be nice as I suspect not all of them will work... And also some of you might find them useful yourselves.

The designs are all largely based on the cats' apparent tendency to wander around the entire fort, ignoring traffic restrictions etc, meaning that they will go places that none of the dwarves will.

Design 1 : Cat accumulator and manual mincer.
This has the advantage of being usable in a moderately-trafficked area. Cats should accumulate in the lower chamber over time, whereas dwarves that fall in by accident should be able to leave at will. When the mincing lever is pulled, the bridge area is blocked off (to prevent dwarves getting caught in the mayhem) and the cage opens, unleashing the megabeast of your choice on the cats (Dragons would be particularly entertaining). When all the cats are dead the megabeast will break down one of the doors and walk straight into a cage trap, ready to be "reloaded".

The disadvantage of this method is that the method of disengaging the trap is clumsy (but I can't think of a better way of doing it without complex hydraulics) and if you're not careful a dwarf might end up in it too.

Trap design:
z2:
------------------------
-                             
d p gggggggggggggggg
d   gggggggggggggggg
-----------------------

z1:
     ------------------
     -               D T
     -        C      --
     -----------------
Key:
- wall
d door (shuts when lever is pulled)
p pressure plate, triggered by low-weight creatures, not citizens
g retracting bridge (linked to plate)
C megabeast cage (opens when lever is pulled)
D pet-inaccessible door
T cage trap

Design 2: Curiosity kills the cat

This design is a lot simpler than the first, however it relies on your dwarves following traffic designations properly and going where they are supposed to. So you might have to expect casualties. Also since it runs a repeating spike trap it may cause some lag while active (though not as much as all those cats!)
The trap works by luring the gullible cats into a restricted zone full of repeating spike traps. The dwarves won't go up there as they have a shortcut in the form of a pet-inaccessible door. And it is restricted traffic. This won't stop cats though...

-         ---------------
-                       -
---D-------------       -
-          ---------    -
-           ^^^^^       -
-          --------------
Key:
- wall
D pet-inaccessible door
^ spike trap linked to a repeater

The whole side corridor should be restricted traffic.

It can't be emphasised enough that this version is a LOT more dangerous to your dwarves than the first one. Keep an eye out to make sure that there aren't any stray items that they might want to fetch, like rocks, ores or cat corpses. Also, NEVER forbid that door. For the more paranoid overseer it might be a good idea to add a pressure-plate based safety mechanism that turns off the spikes if a dwarf goes down there, but unless you're careful then children still won't trigger it.


Disclaimer: Imperium3 Inc. accepts no responsibility for tantrum spirals caused by the use or misuse of these devices.

Just got attacked by a forgotten beast (surprisingly my first, even though the fort is quite mature), and it somehow managed to reach my main level undetected. So I activated the alert to send my civilians into a deep bunker, and ordered my troops to go and kill it.

However, apart from one hammerdwarf who attacked it single-handed, all my soldiers are in the barracks (at the other end of the fort) doing individual combat drill. WTF? I gave them the order, all I can guess is that I screwed something up with the squad settings on the alarm (which I don't understand at all). But changing them has no effect at all. So what have I done wrong?

For some reason my smelters don't have the option to make me pig iron. It's odd because I seem to have everything i need (a few iron bars, a huge heap of coke and chalk coming out of my ears). But the option just doesn't seem to be there.

Is it an old bug? (I am still using 31.14 because I didn't want to risk my already genned world)  Or am I just missing something?

As the thread title states: Why shouldn't I go to great lengths to ransack the dwarf caravans? They do after all have the best items (lots of shiny weapons and armour, gems, metals), many of which are magma safe (handy to lure them into a trap). And they won't siege me if I keep killing them. The only repercussions I can see are:

 - They are guarded by proper soldiers. This is not a problem with a little creativity, including use of water, magma, spike pits, or just sealing up the trade depot and leaving them to go insane.
 - Apparently the profit they make affects the number of migrants. This is more of an incentive than anything else, I'm fed up of goddamn lye makers and weavers turning up when I don't need them.
 - Conceivably it might also affect whether I get any more nobles. Again, I don't see anything particularly wrong with that...

So shall I break out the spike pits?