Bay 12 Games Forum

Note that when I have dug out large areas with ramps, it took a large tollon my FPS, dropping from 70(were it is capped) to 15-20 until it was all dug out. Channeling went much faster for me.

That is likely from the pathfinding, which now has multi z levels and large areas on which it must perform calculations. I would guess DF pathfinding is a relatively simple heuristic, which means large open areas, especially with access to other large open areas on other z levels, will use a lot of CPU cycles to compute.

I wonder if you set their body temperature just below their burning point if they'll explode only when they come into proximity. 

A sub-critical mass thermonuclear kitty? Awesome.

Oh, and keep the wiki open as you play. I have played for months and still do.
v-p-l to select (v) a dwarf, set preferences (p), labor preferences (l, lowercase L), then turn on engraving.

Today I started a new fort. I decided beforehand I wanted to do a build similar to Giza, Egypt.
The Map:
The map is completely flat, with a river running through one side of it. There is a magma pipe underground in the southern section of the map. As far as weather, it straddles two zones, so it is not always uniform, however, in the winter it freezes while in the summer it gets warm enough to evaporate the pools of 7/7 water around the map. In addition to natural weather, I turned orcs into seasonal burnings; their homeotherm was turned up to 20k, leading to the once or twice yearly "purging" of vegetation, usually engulfing most or all of the map. I keep my population low by most standards; I turned the max. population cap down to 40. This results in a constant 100 fps, alowing megaprojects to be constructed much more rapidly than 100 would at 20 to 30 fps. Soil layers vary based on which part of the map you are one (since it straddles 2 areas), but at this point the areas I'm working in are: sandy loam(-1), yellow sand (-2), chalk (-3 and -4); I have not gone much deeper than -4 at this point.

Thus far:
I started by building the southern of the two pyramids in the picture below, with the livings quarters being underground. From the standard ground level, I dug down 1 level before starting to build the pyramids, putting the working areas (workshops and such) at -2, the barracks and dining room at -3 (I have them all sleep in a single barracks, since I am lazy when it comes to making rooms), and the mining operations at -4. I have walled off safe areas around the pyramids for my dwarves with wooden walls, although for the most part the map is relatively peaceful when there isn't a burn going on (although that will likely change soon, since there was a decent goblin attack recently). The pyramids themselves consist totally of chalk on the lower parts(IRL they used limestone, but chalk was as close as I could find quickly in worldgen), with the caps being made from Kaolinite (I found a pair of large deposits directly underneath the sites when mining). On the very top of the first is a 2x2 square of wall made from gold, something which will be added to the second when gold becomes available again.

Next:
I have currently started working on a tower/obelisk. This will be down in the southern part of the map, near the magma pipe. Its purpose will be to pump magma up to maximum level, then pump-pressurize it, allowing for much more rapid construction of obsidian based projects. In addition, I will be working on another on the northern side of the map which will do the same for water.

Screens (from visual fortress 3d):

More updates in the future; possibly tonight, maybe tommorow.

Wait. You mean I painstakingly dug out every square inch of this:
Just to find out there will be natural versions available to me from day 1 of the next version? 

Immigrants. Make sure when you get them (if your fort survives that long, which it probably should) close off your fort, so they do not get attacked or get emotionally attached to the terminal patient which is your fort. Build a small hole in the ground fort for your new migrants, and wait it out. If done right, you should be able to keep from reclaiming. Be sure to use a drawbridge over a channel to keep out the nasties that may attack in the mean time.

I just gave mine a diving board. Above a 10 z level drop. Into a 2 z level magma moat.

Well, one of my recent megaprojects very nearly failed... I dug out about 45k stones worth of room (a huge circular cavern with a big pillar in the middle) and, as planned went to fill the bottom 2 z layers with magma. I think a diagram will better illustrate...


WWWWWWW                WWW                   W      W=wall         _ = floor
WWWWWWW               WWWW                 W      --- = bridge   M = magma(of course)    L = lever (ill get to that in a moment)
WL_____  __----------_WWWW                 W
W___  _____WMMMMM WWWWWMMMMMMMW
WWWMMMMMMMMMMMWWWWWMMMMMMMW
Now, due to the wall, the magma would not come up through the below-magma-level-area which was my magma forge location. As it was filling extremely slowly, I decided to speed things up with 3 pumps to greatly increase the flow of magma from the pipe to the cavern. This lead to the magma becoming pressurized.
A couple things to note at this time: 1. That lever was to turn off the pumps. 2. The only way to that area was via the bridge from the central pillar (which had staircases to higher levels with bridges which went to the rest of the fort) 3. The living quarters for my dwarves were relatively far away (as in a couple hundred tiles to walk to get from the living quarters to the lever).
Now, when the magma filled up level 2 all the way... I was a bit slow in sending a dwarf to pull the lever to turn off the pumps. The pressurized lava (pressurized I think to level 4) began to fill up the 3rd level with tiles of 1's. By the time a dwarf managed to get into the central pillar to turn off the pumps (I think there were hauling stuff from a recent goblin attack at the time), most of level 3 was covered in 1's. The dwarf managed to make it to the far side of the bridge... where he was cut off by magma in front of him about 2 tiles from the end of the bridge. More lava then proceeded to cut off his escape from behind, and he was then burned to death as another tile of lava landed on him. Not only did this cut off the bridge (my only access to the chambers with the pump levers) but it also proceeded to melt the bridge, since it was made of non-magma safe materials. I then told my dwarves to mine their way in via the main stairway into the cavern (which happens to be directly above the area in question). At this point, the 1's were beginning to turn into 2's and flood 1's into the room with the lever. Luckily, a pair of dwarves managed to run past and pull the lever. Well, one did anyway, I think the other was after a sock.
Edit: here is a picture i took when level 2 was about half full, the area in question is a few levels under the main entrance to the area, which is just left of center in this picture.

Hmm... other fails... Probably one of my early forts. I tried to drain an aquifer. Bad idea. Worse than embarking with 50 cats.
Then another fail when I was playing with orc mod on another map. I had a great 3 drawbridge airlock system around my trading depot. Unfortunately for me, I hadn't hooked up the inner most drawbridge, which I did not find out until orcs had run past the first 2. That single band of orcs took my population down from over 100 to about 12. A couple seasons after that (when the tantrumming stopped for the most part, yay for now vacent noble's quarters!) an elven trading caravan came. By this time I was barely stuggling by, since due to the huge losses I had taken, I had no immigrants, and so any supplies were welcome. Unfortunately, the elves brought a goblin ambush with them, and me being over-eager for elven goods had not shut the outer bridge of the airlock system. A handful of goblins got in, slaughtered the elves, and then proceeded to take out bunches of dwarves. By the time the last goblin died, I was down to 6 dwarves. Of that 6, 4 were bedridden due to wounds, leaving a legendary miner and legendary child as the only dwarves capable of working, and since children can't be told what to do... It was more like 1.25 work-capable dwarves. Well, after a few months 2 of the 4 wounded died of hunger/thirst, leaving me with 2 wounded and 2 whole. After a few years of isolation, the 2 wounded eventually got better (and the legendary child turned into a peasant) and the dwarves managed to eek out a living. It took I think around 3 years for any migrants to brave the dangerous place which was my fort.

Rawr. Killer groundhog ftw: