Bay 12 Games Forum

I had my squad of 4 looking like they were doing "Individual Combat Training", and I had point-and-click killing quite nicely, but it's ridiculously cumbersome compared to the old system.
Then I broke into HFS and it didn't matter any more.

Migrants aren't evil. They can be given jobs.
Babies and children however are like vermin.
The bastards are the sole reason my framerate is in the low teens to single figures.
I can't believe I'm even thinking it, but I'm trying to devise ways to dispose of babies and children quickly and efficiently. My swim trainer works(ish) for drowning babies, but it's too slow. One baby at a time usually means that another one of the parasites is born as the previous one drowns.
Children are an even bigger problem. They have the gall to talk to people and as a consequence, become friends with them. They also resolutely ignore my requests to pull the lever in the departure lounge.
I was initially enthralled with the idea of breeding generations of dwarves, but it's like wading through treacle now the dorfcount is up to 242, 86 of which are babies or children.
They are a plague and they must be culled.
It's for the good of the fortress.

*facepalm*

Also, why is it that no matter how many barrels I have, they're ALL used for food, even if I fallow my fields for some tiem and brew away most of it?

I think you'll find that seeds are to blame there. It got so bad for me, I now create completely custom stockpiles, where food stockpiles have 0 barrels assigned, and drink stockpiles are allowed the maximum, but it seems to get a little... screwy.

Regarding CPUs and DF, I've recently swapped back to my Phenom based system for gaming from my Dell with a Core i7. The reason being that the Phenom-based system is running a better graphics card which just won't fit in my Dell.
I've noticed however that DF has really suffered, with it running noticeably poorer on the AMD system compared to the Intel Dell. After 40 or so dwarves, framerates regularly hitch up every so often, and the graceful lowering of framerate I got on the Intel as fortress complexity increased has a much steeper slope on the AMD.
It's frustrating, as for everything else, my AMD system outperforms my Dell completely and utterly, but DF just isn't enjoyable on it
Has anybody else noticed such a sharp difference between AMD and Intel?

The spoilered image below was the only entrance to my fortress.

A kobold got past the constant flow of traffic. Deftly tiptoed across the many cage and weapon traps. Crossed the green glass bridge with champions standing guard on it. Snuck past the chained black bears just after the bridge. Avoided all of the dwarves entering and exiting the barracks, went 2 screens deeper into the fortress, and made it out again with a clownite buckler stolen from my central armoury that constantly had dwarves pathing through it. Then he came back a few months later and stole a suit of clownite platemail.
For 2 years after that I had kobold ambush parties.
That kobold was possibly the greatest kobold thief ever.
Is there a way to track him down in Legends mode?

Not horrifying per se, but I'm still amazed by my champion Waymaligned who received a punctured (red) right lung in a fight 10 years ago. He's still going strong and has killed many gobbos since then, but his attributes don't level anywhere near as quickly as those of his contemporaries.
Probably because he keeps passing out.
Oh, and my favourite miner, Rovod, lost an eye in a fight with a dragon 14 years ago. Hasn't stopped her learning loads and popping out sprogs.

Hmm, if you placed a bauxite hatch above and linked the pressure plate to that, while keeping a non-moving bauxite grate in the tile in front of the statue, you could have it be a magma shower.

Hrrmph.
So I made a deathbox, but it's not as automatic as I'd like. I'm quite proud of my power supply for what is essentially the perpetual waterfall device, except with magma.

Top layer: Control windmill

Second layer: Control gears & other power-supplying windmills

Third layer: Perpetual magmafall pump arrangement

Final layer: Customer Processing & control levers

So Disgruntled Customer is told to pull the bauxite lever in Customer Processing to have his issue addressed, at which point the door locks him in, keeping him on top of the lever.
Then is the annoying micro-management part as Urist McBureaucrat is told to pull the blue lever outside Customer Processing. This activates the inactive control gear on the second layer, connecting the power from the Control windmill on the top layer to the inactive screw pump on the third layer. Sounds complicated, but this hanging gear assembly arrangement allows the whole thing to be turned on and off at will without disassembling the control windmill.
After Disgruntled Customer's complaints have been heard for long enough ("Well, you see, Urist McPleb has a better dining room thaaaaAAAaaaAAAaargH IT BUUUURRRRRNS!!!!"), the blue lever is pulled again, stopping the magmafall safely, at which point the grey lever is pulled, opening the door and allowing for final processing of Disgruntled Customer (who should just be a neat pile of bones by now).

While I like my power switch that doesn't destroy my windmills, I think the operation is far too fiddly. Any suggestions for automation?