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Messages - Urist Odursegam

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DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: Of werebeasts and loyalty cascades.
« on: June 07, 2021, 10:01:13 am »
If you make a burrow covering the whole fortress minus the tavern, your dwarves will leave. If all the potential werebeasts are still inside, lock the doors, and start building memorial slabs. Sucks to be anyone who doesn't get out in time I guess. The ones that get out will tend to go to the hospital, so you might have to isolate those as well. Dwarven werebeasts can be recruited to a new squad and sent to a safe place.

And after some trial and error I finally dealt with the remaining isolated weregiraffes in my Stridefuldyes by carving fortifications in the walls of the temple where the last remaining beast was locked, and stationing my marksdwarves outside. This didn't seem to cause a loyalty cascade, as opposed to sending them to kill the beasts earlier. The temple was in an isolated part of the fortress, so I don't think there were witnesses, but I think just walking with the intent to kill the weregiraffe poet past his friends was enough to trigger a fight. Maybe the dorfs sing a jaunty tune about who they're going to kill and that vexed the others? Also - they didn't manage to kill the beast, but the unfortunate poet didn't recover from the wounds he took and didn't make it till the next transformation.

From my general reading I gather this method might also cause a cascade if an arrow is fired at the werebeast, but the victim transforms before the arrow reaches its target. While the risk of that isn't very large, you can always tell your dwarves to stand down before the transformation.

I tried stationing the militia around the werebeast, but the creature always managed to bite a few bystanders before being slain, so the cycle continued.

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DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: Idea for a fountain
« on: June 04, 2021, 04:18:22 pm »
I've actually been building fountains for my dwarves for a long while, and always toyed with the idea of sharing the design here, so your question gives me a good excuse. They're still 'fountains' in the sense that the water doesn't exactly shoot upwards, but they look quite fountainy and also generate mist. Plus they can be customised to be bigger and fancier.

The basic idea is to have a 1x1 column of pressurized water with a well on top as the fountain head (and guess how I discovered that wells flood over when filled with pressurised water), surrounded by statues for decoration. The water comes to the column through a tunnel that's filled with water coming from another, higher column, which I generally achieve with a pump stack. The water overflowing from the well can drop through one empty level and fall on water two levels below to generate mist, then it can be recycled and be sent to the fountain again.

The more detailed design for a basic fountain:

- The fountain head is a well (golden, of course) in the middle of a 3x3 block of rock or soil, with a 1x1 empty space in the middle. Let's call this level z=0. The rock around it is dug out two tiles in each direction, two levels down (so z=-1 is empty and z=-2 has a floor). The area around it on z=0 will be your fountain hall - make it as big and fancy as you want. You end up having a 7x7 fountain, like so:
Code: [Select]
z=0
+++++++++
+.......+
+.......+
+..+++..+
+..+o+..+
+..+++..+
+.......+
+.......+
+++++++++

. - empty space
+ - floor
o - well

To make it fancier place statues on the floor. It's useful to build a temporary bridge for construction purposes, but remove it before you run the fountains, as dwarves will go and use the well, and then get swept off by the current and drown.

The level below is just a dug out 7x7 space with the 3x3 column of rock in the middle, and a 1x1 empty channel in the centre:
Code: [Select]
z=-1
#########
#.......#
#.......#
#..###..#
#..#.#..#
#..###..#
#.......#
#.......#
#########

# - wall
The level below is where things get interesting. This is where the water collects, and drains to a pump stack on the side. The middle column stays the same, however - do not connect it to the drain area, channel it to one level below.
Code: [Select]
z=-2
#########
#+++++++#
#+++++++#
#++###++#######
#++#.#++++ -> to pump stack intake
#++###++#######
#+++++++#
#+++++++#
#########
The pump stack (https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Screw_pump#Pump_stack) needs to bring the water up to I think at least z=1, though I always do z=2 beacuse I like overengineering things. The water then drops through another channel down to z=-3 and goes into the fountain column, like this:
Code: [Select]
z=-3
#########
#########
###############
####++++++  <- from pump stack outlet
###############
#########
#########

The side view sliced through the middle is something like this (pump stack is a little simplified, and the bottom pump is standing on a floor).
Code: [Select]
z
 2            # %%__ #
 1            #_%% # #
 0 __  _o_  __# %%_# #
-1 ##  # #  ###_%% # #
-2 ##  # #_________# #
-3 #####_____________#

_  - floor
%% - pump

You will also need a way to fill it with water for the first time, and to do an occasional top up. You can set z=-2 as a pond (and remove it once it's filled), or connect it with a floodgate to a river. Possibly have a drain too in case you overfill it. Fill z=-2 to 6 or 7 water level. Maybe add a bit more if your z=-3 channel is long (the pump stack can be far from the fountain). It's also good to have a start/stop lever for the pump stack.

Normal operation of the fountain: water is sucked in from z=-2 into the pump stack, then spat out at z=2. It falls down the tube to z=-3, fills it up, then because of pressure rises all the way to the well at z=0, where it spills over and cascades down to z=-2, generating a lovely mist for all your dwarves to be comforted by.

Abnormal operation of the fountain: everyone drowns.

Some variations:

- You can probably make it more compact, having only one empty space between the fountain and the hall, thus having a 5x5 fountain hole, but this leaves less safety margin for overfilling. Water on z=-1 means bursts from the well could potentially spill into the hall.
- It should probably work with pump stack going only to z=1 but somehow I never tried it.
- The pump stack can be far from the fountain and closer to the power source if you have a lot of water but limited power, or if you want to build the fountain outside.
- The middle bit can be bigger, wider, with more statues, to make a grander fountain. Water could start cascading down the steps from a higher level for instance.
- You can build them outside too! Just take care nobody invades you through the water channels/pump room. Channeling + wall grates should solve it.
- Instead of using a pump stack you could try to use a river on z>0 as a source and drain it off from z=-2, but you'd have to somehow make sure it can drain faster than it fills. More research necessary.

Have fun!

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