Bay 12 Games Forum

I just had a strange werebeast attack on my fortress, but I'm unsure if the strange parts are bugs (still on 0.40.13):
The werebeast was announced while standing on the entrance bridge to my fortress (9 tiles from the edge). It then walzed straight through my traps without triggering any of them, when I thought werebeasts were not trapavoid (this one was a weretapir).
After passing through the entrance corridor (the dwaves did not pull the closing bridge levers fast enough), it just stood there, some 5 steps away from a juicy locked door (werebeasts are described as building destroyers on the wiki), until the were transformation reverted into an amphibian woman (friendly). She then started leaving, and while doing so she triggered first a stonefall trap, and then got caught in a cage trap, when I thought friendly creatures shouldn't trigger traps.
My questions now are if the strangenesses above are bugs, and what I should do with the captive. Should I just build the cage outside of my fortress and release the captive?

I think I just have lost my fortress to the FPS death when it suddenly went from a sluggish 16 or so down to unplayable 3-4. There seems to be some kind of steps in the FPS loss, as I have seen a drastic loss from basically 100 down to 30 reasonably early (and I saw that with my previous fortress as well), then a gradual loss, until this hit. The thing is that nothing of interest has happened that ought to have triggered it. I was trying to seal the third cavern when this hit came. There is no digging going on, no new water flows (the river remains the same, no flow introduced by me [not quite true: I've drained the murky pools, and they may have a water depth of 1-2 due to rain, but that engineering took place several years ago]). My woodcutter has been going slow recently due to lack of trees (and my wood stacks have dwindled due to wood burning). I DO have a lot of food and stone, about 160 animals (down from a top of 230 or so, mostly birds and dogs in two rooms with no-animal access doors (and pastures of those rooms)). I've produced a lot of stone blocks, but nothing is being produced as this hits (I was trying to get the masons to work on using the blocks). Unless there is a huge hidden army that's just arrived, the number of creatures have rather decreased than increased recently, as a human caravan just left.
I'm constantly producing clothes from all leather I can get as well as from a constant supply of cloth (1 leatherworker shop and one clothier) to replace the things the buggers throw all over the place, but I'm collecting all the discarded clothing and palm it off to the caravans (at a huge loss when it comes to the longears, as they don't have much to sell), so the clothing I have lying around is what's accumulated since my last caravan trade.
I've tried looking at the FPS wiki page, but it doesn't contain anything that looks step-like. Any ideas, or will I just have to give up the fortress?

As spring arrives, a ewe, a turkey, and a dwarf are found dead (and short time thereafter the game realizes that and reports it as well). Given the location of the ewe and the dwarf (in the fortress courtyard, with lots of traffic, and the firing range, just beside the melee squads area, with guards present as the spring set in), there ought to have been witnesses, and a lot of dwarves are running around with question marks above their heads (before the game notifies me about the deaths). The Justice screen is empty (well, except for my executed vampire major's complaint that I didn't fulfil a mandate), however, and there is no splattering of blood at any of the death locations. There are guard dogs by all entrances, so I assume any normal stealthed creature would have been detected
Is there any way I can find out what's happening? Looking at dwarf thoughts doesn't seem to provide any clues.

It has just dawned upon me that my dwarven civilization is considered extinct, although the pattern didn't quite match the description of the wiki (it says you only receive two migration waves, but I have received migrants up until I reached the 200 pop limit. However, the first group was 6 migrants, while the second one was only 4). I've received 3 dwarven caravans, but the fourth one is missing (it just turned winter without it arriving).
The question, however, is whether there is any advantage of claiming the throne? A king is supposed to appear with some advanced troops and whatnot, but as far as I understand, electing a king will just get me a useless noble that demands a lot of expensive accomodation and issues annoying edicts. Will a king actually provide any kind of benefit, such as abilities to negotiate with the other civilizations, or some other kind of interesting or useful effects?
I think outpost liason visits was supposed to eventually result in the apperance/election of a baron (and further upgrades), but 1: does that produce anything useful, and 2: would that happen if I've elected a king?

I've set up a quantum stockpile system (about 50% success rate in setting each one up, though), where I separate different things in different stockpiles. Thus, I have an armor stockpile containing e.g. leather greaves, leather armor, leather helmets, steel mail shirt, etc.
My crossbow squad picked up their leather armor just fine, but none of them have picked up their leather high boots or their leather helmets, so Dwarf Therapist displays that they lack equipment. Any idea of what's suddenly blocking pickup? I've got a piece of iron armor I've marked for melting in the pile. Dumping a helmet and then unforbid it after being dumped causes it to be returned, but it doesn't get anyone to pick it up.
I've also gotten Dwarf Therapist reports about missing very specific equipment, e.g. "+Angelshark leather waterskin+", an order that might be hard to fulfil. I think I've gotten the equipment setup to select partial matches, but I'm a bit confused as to whether "r: Over clthng   m:Partial matches" on the Military Uniforms screen means Over Clothing/Partial Matches is selected or whether it means that is what it's changes to when hitting r/m. DF isn't consistent when it comes to displaying state or action, unfortunately.
Finally, I haven't figured out how to consistently get the crossbowdwarves to equip bolts suitable for training, and certainly not how to get them to switch for action. Is there some description of how to manage this somewhere? Nor have I been able to get them to consistently equip their full allotment of bots (e.g. 50 bolts), as they pick up a single stack most of the time (although I've sometimes seen them carry two kinds of metal bolts).

- Crops are withering in my fields, despite having something like 5 idle dwarves on average, and the setting that everyone can harvest, most of the harvesting seems to be performed by children, with only occasional adult help. I've got 4 indoor 3*3 plots and 4 outdoors, with 3 full time farmers to serve them. Should I increase the number of farmers?
- Using Dwarf Therapist's Military screen, I can see the number of dwarves with threadbare clothing. Since I discovered that, I've bought all the leather I could from the dwarven caravan, and some cloth and thread (didn't have enough trade goods to sell in the Depot for more). I've got one dwarf full time making leather gear (going to run out of leather soon, though), and I've got one clothier to produce as much as possible, but my wool and plant fiber production can't keep up. Despite this, the threadbare clothing list just keeps growing. Given the first point, increasing plant fiber production seems difficult (especially since pig tails are particular about the season, but at least the outdoor hemp is growable, but you also have the farmer seed bag fight issue when planting). There ought to be some rule of thumb for how much clothing production you need, and it ought to be possible to make do only on pig tails, since that't the only thing you've got available if you're going for an isolated underground fortress, except possibly some limited amount of leather (unless there is something usable in the caves).
- Not sure if this is intended or a bug, but I dug a staircase upwards into an aquifer, and I didn't get any warning about a wet roof. Instead, the warning came as I had dug into it (damp walls). I checked: yes, damp walls in all directions. Back off and go back down. Later I discover flooding in my fortress, and a careful check shows one of my staircase walls is sand, so the warning came too late, essentially (intentional or bug?). When I discovered the flooding I sent a quick response team of masons to block it off, only to have that fail because the last wall piece was "blocked" by 1/7 depth of water. I eventually succeeded in blocking off the water anyway, and the only flood losses are exploratory tunnels. However, I find it worrisome that any amount of water blocks the building of a wall, and it might cause trouble when I'm going to plug the breach and drain the flooded areas.
- How do I get stuff from the trade depot? Now my leathercrafter walks to the depot to pick up one piece of leather, creates an item, and then goes to pick up the next piece. I would want the goods I bought to be delivered to the appropriate stockpiles, as well as the empty bins resulting from selling their contents being returned to either the furniture stockpile, or the specialized stockpile it came from. The Trade Goods hauling task seems to only apply to getting stuff TO the depot?
- I recently atom smash executed a dwarf with a drawbridge, and then made a coffin available for use. However, since there are no remains, the coffin wasn't used, and she's come back as a ghost. I've then made the coffin into a mausoleum for her (single tile; she doesn't really deserve a grave at all, and definitely not a masterworks coffin ), but the ghost hasn't disappeared yet. Is it just a matter of time?

For some reason stuff gets dropped all over the place and just lies there. I've e.g. dug a tunnel where I later found an iron mail shirt (probably one my smith made), and crossbows and armor have also been dropped in my outside garden (as well as in various places indoors). Why do they end up there, and how can I collect them? I found a bin with crossbow bolts inexplicably in the lower right corner of the map, with no idea of how it got there (managed to eventually get that one back by exploiting the trade depot to get it hauled there). I could sort of imagine lazy militiadwarves who just drop their gear when they get off duty, but since they're set to train they have no on duty reason to roam my exploratory tunnels or the outdoors.

I've also got problems with Keas that steal stuff. I've tried to send my crossbow militia after them, but they seem to be invalid targets. I keep getting reports that they steal stuff even though I've got a couple of dogs guarding the entrance to my fortress, but it could of course be stuff (usually crossbow bolts) that has been dropped outside by the phenomenon above.

Also, I have been infiltrated by vermin that die and generate miasma. I've got a cat that seems to chase vermin, but what's the point of that if their bodies then are left to rot? Is there a way to get their bodies dumped in the refuse area?

My fortress is heading towards a crisis as the alcohol is running out and the brewer claims there are no unspoiled source goods available. I also get the same kind of reactions when trying to process fibers and cook meals (I have been able to both brew and cook earlier). As far as I can tell, all food items are stored in barrels in one of my two food only storages (seeds are stored in its own storage), and should never have touched ground anywhere else. The food report states I have 48 plump helmets and they are available for Brewing but not Cooking, e.g. When it comes to eggs, I've had a fair number available for Cooking, but still a refusal to make meals out of them (is there some kind of ingredience balance requirement for meals somewhere?), but they still get consumed somehow (presumably eaten raw). I've tried to give a dwarf the order to just haul Refuse to get rid of my spoiled stuff from my food supply (if there is any), but he just twiddles his thumbs.

Next question is about Milking: How often can that be done? I've been unable to find any info about that on the Wiki. As an aside, I can mention that my milker is afraid of the sow, as he frequently abort the task due to a dangerous beast, and once even gave up cheese production due to a dangerous beast (I assume the sow gave him an odd look after being milked?)

The third one is about roadkill, i.e. animals killed by violence (lost two of my grazers to an attacking Weretapir e.g.) but never found out how to collect the corpse, although I think the answer to that probably does exist on the wiki (something about global forbidding, which probably also causes hunters to run out of ammo after scattering it all over the landscape).

The fourth one is about job prioritization: Is there a way to bump up job priorities of individual jobs to e.g. get the butcher to actually take care of the body hauled in by the hunter rather than continue to take on another haul stone job (or do something possibly even more pressing: "build" the cages with purchased grazers so they can be released before they starve to death rather than building yet another bed). I know you can turn on and off job categories on dwarves to get them to go the right job category, but that's rather blunt and requires constant micromanagement (Turn the Farmer's "Gather Plant" job on when there is nothing to be planted or harvested (easy, as the idle count is non zero), and off when there is, for instance (harder, as it requires constant checking of the jobs list)).

Is there a way to prioritize the order in which food is consumed (eating of brewing)? I would prefer to recover the kinds of seeds in short supply first, for instance.

Is there a way to label levers? I suspect you can end up with quite a lot of them, and you might forget which one does what. It's not really a good idea to let the river into your castle when you intended to raise the drawbridge, for instance.

Is there a way to see what a job is about? I might want to cancel a Hunt job if the hunter is going after the wrong kind of prey or something that's at the other end of the map (like the hunter that spent several months hauling a deer back, only to drop it a short distance outside the fortress for an unknown reason to go after a skunk instead).

A couple of oddities and annoyances (0.40.12):
Animals brought by immigrants always have names as far as I've seen, but seem just to be normal animals rather than pets.
The trade screen (ought to be barter really. I my first "trade" I gave away most of my gems since I tried to get cash to buy stuff...) has the problem that you can see what the container is made of in great detail, but you have to guess as to what they contain as the contents description is cut short. I've found no way to scroll the description sideways to see the remainder. By resizing the game window I can get the description to be cut even shorter, but not more complete.
The trade negotiation screen shows two rows for each animal type, presumably one for each gender, but does not actually display the gender, so if you want cows rather than bulls you still have to select both to be sure (or know the hidden list order), which defeats the purpose of separating the genders in the first place.