Bay 12 Games Forum

Is there a way to mod the bee sting?

Check the file named creature_insects.txt.  There are lines for pain and swelling that you can mod, although I have no idea what the parameters mean.  You might check the modding forum.  I can't believe no one has "weaponized" the bees.   

Is there any sand?  With sand you can make glass trap components and use those in weapon traps.  I don't know how good wooden spears are, but you might be able to use them in upright spear traps operated by Dwarven power at a lever.

So I know how stone stockpiles have been changed so they are automatically assigned a wheelbarrow, and I know it's just one wheelbarrow so I assigned only one dwarf to stone hauling and this is what usually happens.

Dwarf goes to stockpile, takes wheelbarrow, goes to stone, picks it up, brings it back to stockpile with the wheelbarrow. Good. Then he goes to the meeting area. As soon as he reaches it, he goes back to stockpile to pick up the wheelbarrow for the next stone.
This is a problem since my meeting area is quite a ways away from the stone stockpile. Why doesn't he go for the next stone immediately after returning with the first stone? Why does he make a trip to the dinning hall first? (he doesn't drink or eat there, I've watched him).

And what's even more frustrating is that sometimes he'll even forget to bring the wheelbarrow with him!

What can I do to remedy this?

You can increase the number of wheelbarrows on a stockpile to two or three.  That might keep the game from waiting until the one-and-only wheelbarrow has been returned before it generates another fetch-the-stone job.  At the least it will let you have three stone haulers.

Quote from: slink on May 28, 2012, 09:50:23 pm

Yes, and I didn't believe you because it had never happened to me before.  Sorry. 

I think it's hard for most typical fortress designs to encounter it, but my usual design and trade style is almost ideal to create the problem. Part of it requires trading so much stuff that it takes 2 months for the humans to actually leave after their announcement. I trade all of the worthless crap to them, but without the bins, because I'm constantly running out of bins. If you just trade the bins, they leave pretty quickly.

In the past I have had corridors 5 tiles wide.  I've reduced my corridor size to 3 tiles in 34.x.  I still was having no problems, probably because wagons were entering and leaving the fortress through relatively short, very heavily trapped, tunnels.  This is the first fortress I have made where the wagon tunnel goes all the way to the edge and is only 3 tiles wide.  Since I now have to maintain a separate, untrapped, entrance for them, I decided to keep them completely safe.  It worked for a couple of years, and then the disaster struck.  Probably, as you say, from giving them too much used clothing to pack up.  I never dispose of bins.

Quote from: slink on May 28, 2012, 12:59:25 pm

I have Human caravan wagons trying to leave while Dwarven caravan wagons are trying to enter, through a 3-wide corridor attached to the edge of the map.  They aren't just moving slowly, they aren't moving at all.  It may be the two ramps leading down are too close together for the wagons travelling in two directions to pass over/under each other.  I haven't found anything I can dig out, or bridges I can lower, that fixes this.  Anyone want to have a try at at?

Here's my save: http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=6392

Happens to me all the time. If you give the humans a new 3-wide path to leave, they will change course and take it. The dwarven wagons will continue moving, however, and may cause a new jam past where you freed things up. Eventually they'll start deconstructing wagons to clear the jam - but it takes months.


I switched over to having two depots with a 6-wide entrance that would branch into two 3-wide depot approaches. A drawbridge would control which was open. Or you could just forbid the human one when the dwarves arrive.

Yes, and I didn't believe you because it had never happened to me before.  Sorry.    The jam was very near the edge of the map and just before two consecutive ramps leading to the surface.  The first Dwarven wagon was on the ramps and the first Human one was nose-to-nose with it.  There were two corners in the tunnel before the ramps and so there was not much room to dig more tunnels but I did try.   The Humans were apparently all committed to the original exit and only jostled for better position heading towards that exit when I widened the space in the hopes that they would turn and take a new exit.  Eventually the first Dwarven wagon deconstructed and another entered the map to take its place.  This continued until all of the Dwarven wagons were destroyed.  Then the Human wagons left.

I've since dug a second exit to the edge, identical with the first, and made a wide space where they join on their way to the depot.  I don't know if that will help.  I don't like to have two depots because I have had problems before with parts of the caravan going to one and the rest going to the other, and neither ever unpacking fully.  I've also had problems when I tried to make them all go to the one depot by cutting off access to the other depot, but they'd already chosen the second depot.  They didn't seem to be able to change target.  Maybe that doesn't happen anymore?

I find your wall-top cage trap method interesting.  I once set my sky really low, at 5, and built walls almost all the way to the top.  The topmost level had to be surrounded with fortifications instead of walls.  It seemed to keep flyers out of the enclosed area.  It would be a pain to do that for 15 levels, though. 

I have Human caravan wagons trying to leave while Dwarven caravan wagons are trying to enter, through a 3-wide corridor attached to the edge of the map.  They aren't just moving slowly, they aren't moving at all.  It may be the two ramps leading down are too close together for the wagons travelling in two directions to pass over/under each other.  I haven't found anything I can dig out, or bridges I can lower, that fixes this.  Anyone want to have a try at at?

Here's my save: http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=6392