Bay 12 Games Forum

I've finished design work on the first few floors, and engine room. I decided to go back to the story for a bit, because drawing all this up on paper is getting tiresome, I want to play with the fort a little. Here's the next entry from Zefon's log:

8th Moonstone 100:

We have carved out a decent living here. Funny I should use the term carved out, when we haven't had the use of a pick for the entire year. At any rate, we have a decent food and drink stockpile, a few beds, and a roof over our heads, albeit a wooden one. Tekkud has almost finished training all the dogs.

We see very little of Zasit. He occasionally comes and sleeps in one of our beds. I took a barrel of Strawberry Wine and a few pieces of cow cheese over to where he's been working. He's just digging. So far he's dug several floors of circular rooms. I wonder how far down he'll go before he stops.

I've designed a wall that will surround the project, and in the mean time we've stationed dogs at the stairway where Zasit entered his dig site. Most of our time is spent cutting trees. Stone would make such a better wall. Ah well. We rather expected to be playing wilderness survival when we took off after Zasit. I hope this construction comes out as magnificent as we suspect, and that our small part will be mentioned in the histories of the place.

I fear the nearby orcs or goblins will hear that we are here soon. We've got to get the wall finished. Back to work.

Stores meant storage. I was inconsistent.

Also, there's a roundish cliff where the tower is mined from, meaning that, the ground at the back of the tower is several z-levels higher than at the front. I should be able to keep floors 4 and below as mostly dark subterranean to do underground and tower cap farming.

He's not manager/broker/bookkeeper. I was acutally quite surprised when he was named expedition leader. I immediately gave the other tasks to another dwarf (who's name also starts with Z probably lending to the confusion.)

I get annoyed every time Zasit picks up a "Harvest Plants" task, he's only got mining active currently. Every dwarf tasks are my bane!

I think he might die of old age before he finishes. Especially since I've laid out the plan in such an inefficient manner.

The tower is a circle with a 31 tile radius, and it's going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 z-levels tall. I'm still designing the different floors, especially the engineering level that will power the central pumps. I don't want magma to go everywhere right when I turn it on, and for the spirit of the project the whole thing will be built in one go, with no test runs.

Quote from: Ieb on June 23, 2009, 04:01:22 pm

Bins. Make wooden bins, put crafts/merchandise in, then during Trade, just select the bin to be traded. It and all it's content is then traded.

Still, sometimes you might not want to sell the bins, like for example a wood scarce map or elves.

You don't have to sell the bins just because they were carried to the depot. The trade screen will show all the contents of the bins, which you can trade individually. Precious bins will be kept and restocked into your piles once trading is finished.

Rules I've developed for this project.

1. Zasit may only work on his project, and only he may work on his project.

• 1a. Zasit may not use materials gathered or created by other dwarves, with one exception. He may eat and drink with the assistance of his friends. If I can prevent him from sleeping on one of their beds, I will.
• 1b. No other dwarves may use items produced by Zasit. He has "claimed" the hillside where he works, like a regular moody dwarf claims their workshop.

2. Zasit may eat, drink, and sleep according to normal cycles. He may not take breaks.

3. The nature of the mental focus afforded by the strange mood does not allow Zasit to think outside the box. He won't build any windmills or waterwheels to simplify his efforts. All his pumping will be done by hand.

4. Typical strange moods go in three steps: Claim a workshop, gather materials, work furiously. Zasit will approximate this as well as possible.

• 4a. Claim a Workshop. The first project will be to mine out the space where the tower and reservoirs will eventually stand. The exception here is that one layer of original floor will be left to preserve the "dark subterranean" flags for part of the tower for a tower cap farm and subterranean farm plots. This roof will be removed during obsidian casting.
• 4b. Gather materials. Next Zasit will gather everything he needs to complete the project. This will proceed in phases.
  
  • First raw material will be gathered. Stone, ore, seeds, wood, leather, etc. Quantum stockpiling will likely be needed, but that's ok. A regular moody dwarf would pile everything into a single workshop before he starts to work, after all. This phase will include filling the magma and water reservoirs.
  • Next more complex materials will be created. This includes everything from furniture to windows to screw pump components.
  • Next items will be decorated. Everything in the fortress will be studded with Zasit's favorite metal, iron. The highest quality objects will also be encrusted with any gems located during excavation.
• 4c. Work furiously. This step will be construction, pumping, construction, pumping, construction, and pumping. Then mining for an age. Then engraving for another age. Then hauling for another age.

Problems: He will need an anvil. Creating items to trade for an anvil breaks the spirit of rules 1 and 3. Using the forge built by Zefon et. al. to make his own anvil breaks rule 1a. I suppose technically that rule was broken the moment he picked up his pick. I think this can be the exception that proves the rule. Zefon will be so confused when Zasit shows up in the camp, ignores him, makes an anvil, and hauls it away.

Rule 4 is going to take a LOT of planning. I'll need blueprints of every room that will ever be in the tower, right down to the furniture. I will also need blueprints for the pumping and power systems. This rule also means that my fortress won't be ready to accommodate immigrants until it's nearly complete, so my defense will be entirely up to the 6 original dwarves and their dogs. As the first ever time I've played with orcs installed, that could prove very very fun.

It might be a while before my next update while I draw up plans.

As far as I know, the sand gathering is hardcoded and you can't use sand bags in smelter reactions.

I'm sure it could be approximated. Perhaps not with the zone requirement. Put in something that makes a sand bag + bucket of water = empty bucket + clay bag, then a second reaction to make clay bag = empty bag + terracotta statue at a kiln.