Bay 12 Games Forum

I've been away from the game for a long while, so I figured I'd give the tutorial a shot.

It is a great resource--thanks for putting it together.

I have one question/problem: when I build traps near my entrance, my Depot becomes inaccessible. Am I doing something wrong, or was there an update that makes traps block the wagon?

Thanks!

Well, when does FPS drop tend to kick in?

I am on a pretty good machine... core i7 920 running @ 4.15 Ghz, 6 gigs of RAM

So in more testing, it really does appear that picks are superior, so... how do I prevent regular miners from grabbing the picks I intend to use for military service? (Is there a way that doesn't have me manually forbidding & unforbidding things?)

I don't suppose I can make a "practice" pick eh? I don't like danger rooms...

Maybe I'll stick with swords, spears, and hammers for a bit.

I can't seem to recall... which stockpiles do I have to clear loose rock off of instead of just hiding it?

I am pretty sure the following do, but would like a full list:
 - stone stockpile
 - furniture stockpile


Any others?

I wish I could do some arena testing with picks where the dwarves aren't unskilled with them... I wonder if mining skill doesn't scale up the pick lethality as quick as a real weapon & weapon skill does...

(I.e., wondering if my test results are skewed because of the unskilled thing, and I should go with swords after all, and not picks)

Ok, I did some arena testing.

Wasn't testing picks at first.

Tested with 5 dwarves on each side, grand master in everything.

Tested with steel equipment only.

 - short swords handily beat everything else when no armor is worn. Yes, they slaughtered the poor axe wielders.

 - In armor, short swords beat everything else handily, except for war hammers, which slaughter them.

(Tested: battle axes, war hammers (steel), spears, short swords)


Went back to test picks:

Pretest: grand master everything vs grand master everything, 5 on each team, picks vs short swords:
 - short swords annihilated. Expected since picks didn't have any mining skill, since that isn't available in arena.


First test: no skills at all (since mining isn't an option)

 Outside armor, picks beat everything else, including the short swords


Second test: all non-weapon/misc obj skills at grand master:

 In armor, picks beat everything except war hammers, including the short swords


Tested with 5, 7, and 15 dwarves on each side. Takes a while with GM armor skills, and no weapon skills, but the picks won every time, except against hammers.

Thanks jmz, that makes sense. I don't think I want to do the piston though... I like having a very underground fort, and don't mind putting my forges and such right above the magma sea level.

Although I'd still be pretty spread out... I could generate a world with a few 2-3 z-level caverns, and magma only 30 or 40 down. That would help.

I don't like bothering with irrigation (other than digging a well shaft). So my farms will be in soil layers way far up... same with tree farms. I guess that means I could do livestock without horrible trouble, though whichever poor dwarf fetches livestock will likely puke all over himself and get an unhappy thought from going outside... maybe I can get enough leather from slaughtering things in the caverns?