Bay 12 Games Forum

go to his inventory, scroll down to his quiver, hit enter.

It should show the bolts he's using there.

Thanks, I did remember that eventually and found they were using metal bolts for their archery practice. Still can't make any sense of the ammunition equipping screen, I've tried toggling settings but it doesn't seem to make any difference. On the day Toady makes the various menus all work in a clear, consistent and logical fashion I will make a generous donation. I think my money will be safe for a very long time.

My military haven't had much to do so far but I read up the wiki article on squad management and thought it was time to get more organised. So I go to the m->f screen intending to set my marksdwaves to use bone/wood for training and metal for combat. I had reckoned without the world's most perverse interface, cunningly designed to make a simple job confusing.

So for a given squad I add a new bolts item and set the material type to metal. The letters CT appear next to them. At the top I'm told 'C: Use in combat' and 'T: Use in training'. This suggests that pressing 'C' will set the selected item for combat use but doing so causes the 'C' to disappear (I was expecting something like a colour change to green, similar to cooking permissions). Similarly with the 'T', though I might assume I don't need to touch that as I don't want to use these bolts for training.

I'm guessing (the wiki didn't help here) that the CT actually indicates that the given item will be used for both combat and training and that pressing 'C' is in fact stopping the use of these bolts for combat, despite what the key legend is telling me. But I thought I'd better find out before sending the a squad out to fight the next Giantess with nothing but harsh language.

Sorry if this has been suggested before, did a search and didn't find anything but that doesn't mean it hasn't come up using different terminology. The basic idea is straightforward, to avoid those irritating situations where you schedule a bit of plant processing to bags and brewing drinks only to find that there are no bags or barrels around. Then you schedule some bag and barrel making to find there's no cloth and wood around. What I'd like is self-motivated dwarves who'll get on with jobs, like hunters do, providing they've been given some targets to work to. A way that came to mind is this:

1. When designating a custom stockpile have an additional option to say that it takes from a chosen workshop. In so doing the items allowable items in the pile would only be those the workshop could make.
2. For each such item set a minimum stocking level, with zero being the same as forbidden.
3. When the size of the stockpile is set it must be at least big enough to take the sum of all the minimum stock levels set.
4. Only items produced by the linked workshop are allowed on the pile. When the workshop produces an item for which the minimum stock requirement is already met it will be taken to a generic stockpile (or clutter the workshop).
5. Dwarves only take items from the pile if said item cannot be found elsewhere.
6. Other stockpiles cannot take from workshop linked stockpiles to avoid unintended over production.

Conceptually the system would require a manager and a bookkeeper in the fortress, the latter to monitor stock levels and notify the former of shortages. Jobs would then scheduled by the manager at the appropriate workshop. It might be sensible to limit the maximum size and number of such stockpiles, only one per workshop and a limit to the total number the fortress could support to avoid absurd stock levels (do that manually if you must), the idea is to make sure you've always got a few doors, beds and so on available if you need one in a hurry.

For things like wood obviously this model doesn't work but what you could do is allow wood stockpiles to have a minimum stocking level and then designate a logging zone. When the stock ran low the woodcutters would go to the logging zone and chop some more wood. I imagine this is within their capabilities as if hunters can track down goats running round the map then woodcutters should be able to home in on static trees.

They'll still flee in utter pants-wetting terror.
...
Personally, I find siege engines to be an extremely specialized way of killing threats to the fortress, and only use them when my melee or ranged militaries cannot approach the enemy, such as when facing forgotten beasts that spew poison, or when attacked by great demon spiders (from my own mod).

Thanks, I feared that would be the case. Last time I tried using them I found that by the time Siege Operators got their nose out of the beer barrel and reached their weapons it was just in time to run away as by then the goblins were knocking on the door. Perhaps Toady should add Artillerist as a military specialisation one day to make them more useful.

I wouldn't worry about it. I had my squads on a month on/month off schedule and they still whinged about a long patrol (spent in the barracks, watching demonstrations and drinking booze from the handy stockpile) and then complained about being relieved from duty. Regardless of this they're all ecstatic on account of the great bedrooms, tastefully arranged statues and fine own cabinets I've provided. Unhappiness from military duty (at least any that doesn't involve losing limbs) seems to be of minor consequence providing you attend to their other needs.

I put in work orders for soap, and I've seen it appear on the queue and slip off the queue, but the amounts aren't increasing in the hospital or z-stocks. So where did it go?

Maybe a bit obvious but do you have a designated manager with a little office to work in? I can't remember whether you can access the menu and set up jobs that won't be actioned because you don't have a manager, but that would be a very DF kind of thing. If do have everything necessary then you should either be seeing progress reports and an announcement when the order is complete or periodic red messages saying why the soap maker can't fulfil the order.

Do you have any suggestions for a reasonably-safe way to prevent cave adaptation in the civilian population?

The wiki suggests an outdoor sculpture garden and I've tried that with reasonable success. Most of my dwarves are able to tolerate sunlight for a while and get happy thoughts from looking at the sculptures in the process. The garden is on the surface inside the main perimeter with additional defensive walls so it's no more dangerous than anywhere else.