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Topics - Lozzymandias

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DF Gameplay Questions / Do marksdwarves need to see?

« on: September 18, 2023, 05:00:40 am »

My recent fortress has hit it's maturity, so we have a steady stream of forgotten beasts. The last one had a nasty vapour that caused the infamous "full body rotting" syndrome, and he managed to pass it onto two marksdwarves tasked to shoot him in the cavern gatehouse.

I had written the two affected dwarves off, but miraculously they made it to the hospital and lived long enough to have lots of surgery. I imagine they're hard to look at right now, but they're alive and walking around in full body casts. They're both blind as cave ogres now and I'm wondering they can continue their duties or do they need to get rotated out?

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Experiments

« on: October 28, 2020, 05:26:29 am »

I've recently had my first big undead siege. Walking naked corpses, walking armed corpses, intelligent undead and most interesting, a range of experiments, ranging from big scaly men to horrific 8 legged llama monsters. The wiki has some information but heres a few things that the wiki doesn't do justice.

Experiments can be sentient, or non-sentient. The non sentient ones may be butcherable. Furthermore, the sentient ones come armed (or at least have the capacity to be armed)

Experiments are mostly trap avoidant, but some of them aren't. The scaly lizardmen were sentient, armed and got mangled by the traps. The llama-spiders were not and did not.

Experiments are not all immune to pain...? Not so sure about this one but i believe i recall one of the lizard men giving in to pain in the weapon traps.

At least some of them are definitely building destroyers as the wiki says

Lastly they share with Forgotten beasts and other procedurally generated creatures the unknowability of their products. As a consequence, experiment bone can end up in the wrong refuse pile, because they cannot be specified in the refuse conditions.

Any other interesting finds people have found with experiments?

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Artifact theft

« on: April 05, 2020, 12:31:11 pm »

in the summer of 253 i suffer my first artifact theft. Much too late to stop it or learn anything about it. Okay, no biggie. I turn the hall where the artifacts are displayed into a meeting room (more witnesses), finally appoint a captain of the guard, and take precautions.

Soon after, i get a funny feeling. Check the artifact hall. One of the artifacts, a chert ring, is missing but not reported gone, despite a witness around (not a fortress dwarf).... huh.

Its not been long gone though, i immediately check stocks and find it in the hands of one of the marksdwarves. I send his squad to the artifact hall. He drops the ring. Its discovered out of place and i get the announcement. Okidoke, we now have a crime, lets drag him in for questioning.

It seems like the one witness travels along with the marksdwarf and the captain of the guard for questioning... I guess he witnessed the crime but before the announcement there was no crime to witness. he snitches on the marksdwarf then and there. and the marksdwarf fesses up. He also gives me his bosses name, a necromancer guest who's been abusing my hospitality.

So we drag him in for questioning. Like all mob bosses he's tight lipped. Don't care. Convict 'em both. Prison for the marksdwarf and a beating for the necromancer. Some info gained and justice, after a fashion, is served. Really liking this new theft mechanic

Only, when his sentence is up, freshly released marksdwarf immediately goes to steal ring again! Whats worse is that when he drops it, its just put back in its place like a new crime hasn't happened! I can't punish the duo again for the same crime!

I tried just straight up sending the marksdwarf murdering the necromancer, fitting revenge. Apparently he was part of our civilisation so that didn't go too well. Savescummed a bit and now i've got him locked in a temple while i drop a blind cave ogre on him. Hoping i won't have to do the same to the wayward marksdwarf

How do you guys generally end a plot for good?

DF Gameplay Questions / Nuances of Clothing Industry

« on: March 31, 2020, 07:15:00 am »

Old player, returning to the game after 42.05, I started a fortress and, as with all fortresses, immediately began setting up my pigtail powered clothing industry.

It wasn't till the 2nd year that a substantial amount of pigtail cloth was abundant, so i was expecting a big bottleneck, where some of the first fort members would be instantly claiming all new clothing. In practise though, i found that many dwarves were claiming new clothing regardless of whether their current clothing was worn or not (presumably satisfying aquisition needs)

This is a problem i seem to remember facing before but never really dealing with. I just had to hope that if enough clothing was created everyone would have enough for both replacing worn clothing and filling their cabinets with excess clothing. DFhack cleanowned helped, to some extent (usually causing a month long shutdown while we emptied the cabinets back into the common stockpile.)

Did anyone ever find a fix for this? some way of prioritising the replacement of worn clothing over aquisitions? is it less of an issue in newer versions?

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Were-factions

« on: December 04, 2018, 05:27:32 am »

So I had the most odd fun at the start of this fortress. The big hardcodes Spring migrant wave came with an extra surprise, a werewarthog. 6 Migrants got bit. I dutifully walled them in while I prepared a long term sealef leper colony for them (something I always wanted to try). First transformation revealed who was and was not a hog (sorry Urist Mc-eaten-by-hogs). Then the four remaining fought among themselves, 2 of them aimed for everyone else but the other two fought side by side, and won. Odd.

These two went in the leper colony once it was prepared. And for 3 transformation cycles they were the perfect housemates, peaceful friends while dwarf and hog. On the 4th they tore at each other mercilessly, one slew the other and then he bled out on his cellmates corpse.

Can anyone explain this bizarre faction anarchy?

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Meal cooking

« on: October 16, 2018, 10:00:52 pm »

So I've been chewing over how to deal with the "distracted over lack of decent meals" issue. Its never been particularly pressing but if stress is more of an issue then I suppose I need every string in my bow.

The problems with Decent Meals are:
1) quality of cooked meals means nothing, dwarves will consider a meal decent if it contains one of its preferred ingredients, many of which are inaccessible.

2) If meals are cooked, the dwarf will only seek out a meal that has its favourite food as the primary ingredient. l do not know if a dwarf will be satisfied with a meal if it chose a meal with the wrong primary ingredient but the right secondaries, I might conduct some science on that, but the odds of that happening seem slim

To this end, i see no benefit to cooking meals, except to sell. They do not make dwarves happier and they obscure dwarves access to their favourite foods. The best tactic is to only cook the foods that cannot be eaten raw (egg and quarry leaf etc) and grow and keep as wide a variety of foodstuffs as you can. What has been the rest of you guys conclusions on how to tackle the problem?

(As a coda I'm still unclear as to if a dwarf likes dog meat, dog intestine will satisfy him, or whether the only thing considered meat is "meat". I have only ever seen craving for simply meat, and not brain or liver so I assumed that was an all purpose descriptor for butchered animal comestibles, I don't know if that's right)

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Siege and stress

« on: October 16, 2018, 02:58:40 am »

I’m getting back into df after a long break, my last fortress was back in 42.xx, and I’m trying to determine if it’s worth playing a siegeable site.

Back then, the horror from seeing a load of dead goblins every siege clean up put a sizeable chunk of stress every few years, but it was manageable with bedrooms, alcohol, good food, dining rooms and temples and taverns and whatnot. The impression I’m getting now is that stress stacks with dead sapients, so a single hundred corpse cleanup can severely traumatise dwarves all in one go (and thanks to the new memory reliving mechanic, they stay stressed). Is this an accurate assessment? As far as I remember the original stress mechanic was supposed to be cumulative, but it doesn’t seem to be playing out like that

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / The Friendliest Necromancer

« on: November 05, 2017, 07:36:55 am »

Something very odd is happening with loyalty and factions in my fortress.

I caught me a dingo man necromancer ranger (who in my mind has a thick bushwhacker 'straya accent) but he was displaying some odd reactions. I locked him with view of some corpses, and a dog to put him in combat stance, but the dog didn't alarm him, neither did exposure to wildlife (and that alarms everyone but an elf i thought). Finally i locked him in the same room as an ogre i caught from a siege, along with a kitten that belonged to my fortress. None of them attacked the others. What the heck!

Finally i did some save-scumming, i let him wander throughout the fortress. One iteration, he hit the main thoroughfare and everyone left him be, he wandered a little bit through the fortress till he walked into the entrance weapon traps and prompted redecorated the lobby in red and green. Another iteration, he wandered happily through a squad, who paid him absolutely no heed, didn't run to greet him or act hostile until some switch went off in their brains and they hacked him to pieces.

Theres been some other wierd stuff, like i dropped a wild weasel in front of my firing squad, who merrily ignored it till i ordered them to shoot it, when up till now i've never seen military dwarves have anything but a kill-on-sight policy with wildlife. I am a very confused Overseer right now

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Anthem of your Fortress

« on: June 14, 2017, 06:32:07 pm »

Just as the title says. What music do you think would make a good anthem for your fortress?

Mine is a haunted wood with undead harpies, reanimation, incapacitating weather and consequently a high death rate. Thus: "Death don't have no mercy in this land" by Gary Davis, in both its sombreness and its content, is mine.

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Fell Moods and Fighting Dwarves

« on: June 04, 2017, 12:59:16 pm »

Is it me, or does the dwarf with a fell mood apparently have some divine force on his side. When he picks his victim and goes to them, there is no fighting, no struggle, Some dire magic is worked and the victim drops dead.

My untrained, untested fell mooded cook just walked up on the steelclad legendary maceman militia captain and now i need a new militia captain.

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Rot

« on: May 27, 2017, 11:15:43 am »

Since I caught three giant cave spiders, I have become something of a collector of forgotten beasts, especially fun ones with interesting syndromes.

I finally caught one with a deadly dust that causes full body swelling and then rotting. Jackpot, I think. I build him into a turret outside my gate house, all invaders have to walk past him to enter. Next siege I try him out.

Sure enough, enormous quantities of the goblins and trolls get the full body rotting treatment and the halls fill with miasma. Only they don't die? They're walking around with completely rotten bodies but they function just fine. What, literally, does rotting do to a living creature?

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Minecart shotgun mechanics changed?

« on: May 21, 2017, 11:57:27 am »

Trying to build a minecart shot!fun! in 43.xx. Before this design was adequate:

XXXX
+.^^^
XXXX

. Open space
X Wall
^ North west impulse ramp
+ Fortification

To eject creatures forcefully to the west, drop the minecart down by a level, and return it to its start location.

There days instead of flying into the open space, derailing against the minecart, firing its contents through the fortification and dropping down, the minecart sails through the fortification as if it wasn't there. What gives? How can I deal with this problem? Any solid wall I were to introduce for the minecart to derail against would also cause its load to be fired into the wall surely?

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Wanted: an emptier tavern

« on: April 25, 2017, 12:32:38 pm »

They're all here! Apparently they don't have any homes to go to! Troupes turn up, mass petition to stay in the fortress, get turned down and then they stay! Bards come wandering into the tavern and just hang around, eating framerates, getting into arguments with my one goblin poet and drinking all the beer! I appreciate the map is covered in filthy muck that causes full body blistering and the only safe place is this side of the dwarven shower, but come on guys, get some real jobs, preferrably elsewhere. I could solve the problem with a few squad orders or an "unfortunate accident" with an zombie cave dragon, but that feels like an excessively brutal solution, with the possibly to backfire.

Perhaps the game is trying to teach me a valuable lesson about turning down able bodied immigrants in hostile situations...

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Elemental Beasts been buffed?

« on: April 16, 2017, 09:09:11 am »

Allow me to narrate my first run-in with an elemental beast:

"The Forgotten Beast Snaznob has come! An enormous ululating blob composed entirely of fire, beware its noxious secretions!"

Cue trembling and fear, half the cavern catches on fire. He charges for my fortress and then explodes when the first bolt hits him. Since then i've had identical experiences with all forgotten beasts made of salt or black silt or hail or vomit, we've all been there.

Until now, in 43.xx. Vafice the vomit humanoid took 3 bolts in three limbs and not a single one broke away. Have elemental beasts and titans been buffed?

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Problems with pressure plates

« on: April 01, 2017, 07:38:53 pm »

Well this is a bit embarrassing. DF player of 2 years, i ought to have my head round pressure plates by now... Oh well, theres no fool like an old fool.

I recently abandoned my usual pumpstack approach to bringing magma up, in favour of the minecart escalator. Of course little did i realise that impulse ramps alone can't push a minecart through a 7/7 tile of magma... So my loading sluice has to be a maximum of 6/7 full of magma... Easy, I just set up a pressure plate that will trigger with 6/7 magma, link it to a bridge that controls that inflow. Everything is made of magma-proof orthoclase. Once the room is filled to 6/7 (more likely 5/7 with a few 6/7 around) the bridge will shut and the minecart can move safely through.

Only thats not what happened. After the room filled, the bridge shut. Then it opened again and shut again. Thats okay, I was expecting that. Then it opened, the room filled to 7/7 and it never shut again. And I am left mighty confused. Anyone has any idea about this? Is it definitely true that so long as the input remains on the pressure plate, it will continue to send an open signal?