Bay 12 Games Forum

Has anyone ever had lye vanish into thin air?

Multiple times I've set up work orders like this:

produce 10 ash
produce 10 lye (do not start until previous job is done)
produce 10 soap (do not start until previous job is done)

Then a few minutes later I'll get a warning that the soap job cannot be completed because lye is needed.  The job will be partially completed, and I'll end up with say, 4 soap made and no more lye or ash.  so I burn more wood to ash, make more lye (6 and 6) and resume.  Before resuming the soap job I verify I have 6 units of lye.  A few minutes later, the soap job will complain again about no lye.  Sure enough, the stocks page lists no lye at all now, and only another couple of bars of soap were made.

Now that I think about it, I think I've figured it out:  it's probably a stack problem, i.e. the soapmaker grabs a stack of Camel Tallow (14) and makes 10 bars from 10 lye/tallow, then grabs another stack of Pig Tallow(10) and can't find any lye to go with it, because he wants to make 10 tasks' worth of soap, not 10 bars.  So 9 remain on the to-do list.  Oh, work orders!

(Does that sound right?)

I have a functional hospital for the first time ever in my DF career.  I am so proud!

Several dwarves have already cycled through and seem to be doing ok, but two cases concern me:

one is a Dwarf who is in a traction bench and has been there for some time while others have come and gone.  Meanwhile, the doctor keeps going to him, leaving, then immediately looping back.  his job seems to be stuck at "diagnosing patient."  Is he stuck between two tasks or something?  Interestingly, I think the patient himself is a medical dwarf.

Also, there is another dwarf who is flashing unhealthy (red cross) and according to his medical report he is having trouble breathing.  He is not taking himself to the hospital though.  Is he going to die? 

1.)  Will dwarves actually store mugs in containers?  If I make mugs so that they don't have to guzzle their booze straight from the barrel, they will use them, but they will either drop them right near the barrel, unless I have a goblet stockpile nearby, in which case they will eventually get returned.  However, they will not store them in a container or cabinet in the dining hall, which I was led to believe they would by the Wiki.  I'm perfectly fine having a goblets-only stockpile in the dining hall, as I use stockpile customization heavily anyway, but was just curious if it was necessary.

2.)  On the stocks screen, items will be marked F if they are forbidden, but some Fs are bright and some Fs are dim.  What's the difference?  I think the Melt indicator does this too, bright or dark.

3.)  I was under siege by the undead for over a year, but my fort was sealed tight and self sufficient, so surviving was not difficult even if we were locked out of the mines for a bit.  The siege is over but during it I went through no less than 5 strange moods and had to resort to slaughtering two puppies and a baby piglet to provide emergency leather.  This less a question than a confession.  (The puppy would have been trained as a war dog as soon as he reached maturity, the piglet was going to become bacon anyway, but I wait for them to grow for greater returns.)  Also, it's a bit funny to look in the pantry and see Puppy Tallow (4).

4.)  If dwarves are working outside in harsh environments, like tundra, are they smart enough to get back inside before they expire if it's easily accessible?  I'm recovering all of the bodies and equipment from said siege, but we're in the middle of the arctic, and there is a lot to recover...