Bay 12 Games Forum

I am having a similar problem.  I have 50 quires IN THE LIBRARY, and more tables than are in my dining room (it reports that I have 60, but I "only" have 36).  After about 4 years, I'm up to 20 scholars and have... 11 books.  Not one of my scribes has ever scribbled a damned thing.  I booted up a fresh embark on a different world and my first scribe immediately hoped to it copying the 4 books I bought from the first fall caravan.  No bloody clue why this library won't produce nothing.

If your were-creature can retain armor and weapons while transforming, thats great! A were rabbit is likely small enough to keep armor on, but I doubt it can grasp properly. 

My point is htat if they DO retain their weapons, you can send them out -right- as they transform.  If they don't... just send them out -after- and -before- they transform.  Your were-window isn't htat long, so by the time they exit your fort and kill a few gobbos, they might be ready to revert.  So for those large sieges/longer battles, I'd send them out in dorf form.  If their were form is powerful (were elephant vs zombies!) or can otherwise maintain their armaments (weregopher squads!) send them out transformed.

Again, the main advantage of your were-squad is that they regenerate.  No more warriors missing arms and legs, or who have "impaired grasp" from never-healing nervous tissue damage.  I believe it heals syndromes as well.  I also just toss people into the were room if they loose limbs.  Got your arm bit off by a surprise FB visit? Congratulations! You are now a were-soldier!

Camping siegers happened when the squad leaders got killed/captured.  I'd just trigger your defenses a bit later, or have a long 100+ tile corridor that can be triggered all at once to hit everything (instead of stationary cage traps).  Think a drowning chamber, repeating spikes, and a pit-fall trap into a room with an FB.

As far as fortress wealth... the profit margin you give the caravan AND your created/displayed wealth go into enticing migrants.  If you give virtually nothing to said caravan, you'll get 1-2 migrants on the third wave.  If you give them 100,000 in plump helmet roasts and start putting gold statues up before hte first year... you get explosions.

I'd also recommend a dwarven breeding program.  This is easiest to do in dwarf therapist, as you can get the ages and desire to marriage much easier.  Dorfs that are more than 10 years apart, have no interest in marriage, are gay, or just asexual just won't be making babies.  You can set up squads of two for the prospective couple to "spar," or just turn off all non-essential labors and herd everyone into a cramped meeting area.  Think of it like a singles bar... closer proximity forces more socialization, which then leads to marriages.  However, this also makes everyone a friend of everyone else.  So when one dwarf dies, his 20 friends feel it.  You could also turn off meeting areas and manually assign overlapping bedrooms to prospective couples.

Quote from: J_klaw on December 26, 2015, 08:47:28 pm

Alright, So I have decided to (for now) to divide my fortress between wounded and not wounded dwarfs. For a short term solution. I will let you all know how it goes. I'm sure it will be !!FUN!! at any rate 

Do be aware that the transformation heals wounds, so it's possible that the perfectly healthy and unwounded dude who inexplicably regrew his missing arm recently is, in fact, a werebeast.

Its actually deeper than even this.  Transformations (to and from were-form) will even reset hunger/thirst counters.  So when you segregate your fortress, the were-half doesn't have to bother with food and drink! I tend to make them soldiers.  Any wounds that aren't immediatly fatal heal the next month, so you either have fully healed soldiers or a new tombstone.  Either that or you set up a gulag for them.  Have them as miners, and send the ore they collect back into your fort via a double-airlock controlled by minecarts and pressure plates. 

The problem with going full-were, is that they are in fact building destroyers.  They'll tear the fortress down once a month, so very little actually gets done between rampages.  Thus, just keep a military force behind a drawbridge training 24/7.  When !FUN! arrives, send your legion of killer rabbits (with their big, sharp, pointy teeth!) at the enemy! I guess it couldn't hurt ot have a were-doctor as well.  This guy will stabilize anyone critically injured after a transformation to float enough time until they heal again.  Otherwise, you might have were-creatures bleeding to death on the ground before the next full moon.  Transformations tend to strip a dorf of his armor, so if he reverts mid battle... well better hope his wrestling skill is maxed. 

Quote from: Niddhoger on December 25, 2015, 11:27:49 pm

I still turned off wood/stone to force one to take only clay pots, but you can't simply toggle a stockpile to only take glazed earthenware (to save for brewing) instead of unglazed.  You need separate kilns and careful link settings to manage it as a clumsy workaround.

My workaround is completely ignoring the entire pottery industry.  I have more wood than I'll ever need, so I just make wood pots for food/drink storage.  Cheap, easy, lightweight, plentiful, doesn't require glazing....

I had kaolin and cassiterite on the embark, so decided I would train up my potter on some junk clay first.  Tin-glazed porcelain statues aren't made of gold, but not bad either.  I also had elves to trade with, so I figured barrels out of non-wood for prepared food stacks.  I also have several clay-instrument parts to make.  Whatever my reason, though, fixing a problem by abandoning it isn't really an option...

Searching -will- speed up stockpile fiddling, if you just wanted to turn on/off one or two things.  To get that microline stockpile set up, it'd be faster to type "micro" than tediously searching the dozens of rock types for it.  I've found myself circling through a list several times as I keep overlooking one option.  Plant stockpiles would take a bit longer, but you usually don't have all 4 dye types on an embark and are usually just looking for "dimple cups"  While they are sorted, somewhat, (all the underground crops are together, I think hte original above ground crops are too, then there is a clump of cloth-fiber plants together), they are still one giant list.  Food->plants and Food->leaves/fruit are rather useless distinctions though.  Food->dye; Food->flour; Food->cloth; Food->brewable, these would all have some overlap in them, but be much cleaner.  Having branching subcategories would be even better, instead of this one layer thing we have now. 

Speeding

I have 3 scholars in my current fort that did write a book or two before creating an artefact, but have not written any after. The two scholars that do crank out books at an alarming rate have not had a mood yet.
Still, it could be just coincidence. I'm waiting for my high intensity writers to get a mood, see if that stops them from writing more.

If so, this has to be a bug.  As mentioned, a dorf shouldn't be able to write several books if they count as an artifact.

I'm used to using my workshops as stockpiles in production chains.  I was driven crazy trying to streamline cloth production with stockpiles and bins.  Without bins, they take up too much space.  Even a QSP is too much space considering you can just leave the thread/fabric in an adjacent stockpile.  Just place all of them in a row with only one input stockpile and one exput stockpile.  Make a side-stockpile for dye if you feel like it. I suppose you could do the same with books.  Have a small plant-fiber stockpile next to a qern, that is next to a screwpress (or just set this up near your farms).  I believe a peon will then haul the sheets into the library (libraries will auto-stock writing materials like a hospital will).  There, someone will pick up said sheets and scribble on them at a table.  Afterwords, have a thread stockpile (animal hair preferred!) and a (insert book-binding material here) stockpile next to said library with a craft-shop.  Then use the thread to make a query? and then bind said query into the codex.  So long as no other stockpile will accept them, the materials should stay right at hand. The book will then be dragged back and placed on a shelf.

To be honest, I actually haven't set this up yet.  I've been busy over the season and haven't managed to dive in fully yet.  Stockpiles do indeed need an overhaul.  Tools can use an expansion, but we still can't differentiate between "bags" and "sand bags."  Large pots and barrels are considered the same option, but at least you can turn off wood to force only rock/clay pots (or vice versa).  However, there is no setting for glazed earthenware versus standard earthenware.  So if I want to use clay pots (for easier elven trading) I have to glaze ALL my food storage pots or set up a labrynth of stockpile links to keep them separate.  Or... we could just get a toggle in the menu, like for cages "g for toggle glazed earthenware" down where the "u" is for prepared meals in that stockpile.  It also drives me nuts that "containers" brings up a giant list filled with chests, coffers, bags, and w/e else.  I feel like I gotta go into stocks and forbid all the damned seed/sand bags just to place all my wooden/chests coffers down in dorf rooms... coudln't we at least get a containers->bags/coffers/chests/box sub-menu when placing one? At least separate bags from the rest, as bags have a host of other uses outside the others (seeds, sand, leaves, plaster, etc) that the others can't do.