Bay 12 Games Forum

Um. Could you use tightly-closed/pet impassable doors? Make structures like this:

=====
=^^^=
=+=+=
++D++
++D++
=+=+=
=^^^=
=====

Where Ds are pet-impassable doors and ^s are cage traps. Invaders will walk straight through the doors in the middle, totally bypassing the cage traps since that path is much less efficient, but animals, who can't pass through the doors, will instead go through the cages when they path through the structure.

The biggest problem with this is that buildingdestroyers would wreck the doors, so it might be beneficial to be able to seal the structure with drawbridges at either end.

But yeah that first year may be impossible in some places since you can't embark with booze on a cavernless world. Completely dry tundra just means you have to rely on imported booze and plants. But, since the earliest possible imported booze you can get will be from the elves in the 2nd spring, well yeah... impossible.

Impossible? If you're embarking on tundra, you can probably forgo axes, you can always forgo giving your dwarves any skills, and if you're really strapped for points you can make what tools you do need (like picks) onsite to save quite a lot of points. You could then bring 300 assorted units of booze; enough to keep your people watered until more traders come, especially if you keep your population low.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but as I recall indoor aboveground farm plots on soil can have plants grown on them, even if not irrigated. And since tundra has soil layers, once you've survived to meet the elves and the berries they carry, you could be able to liquor up indefinately as you would in any fort.

Armor use skill does nothing besides mitigate the massive weight of wearing full armor, thus making your dwarves move faster when wearing it. The protective benefits aren't effected by armor use skill. The protective benefits, however, are exactly what you want armor for, so you should always have all of your soldiers equipped with the best armor you have, and as much of it as you can.

Knowing what can be worn together and what can't is a somewhat arcane process. The wiki's page on Armor has the information on what can be worn with what. More importantly, it has a list of what the best protection you can possibly get is.

For the most part, you want to have your soldiers wearing plate mail high boots, gauntlets, greaves, and a helmet on top of a mail shirt or three (yes) and a metal cap or two. Having six (yes) leather hoods and cloaks and a pair of leather mittens over that, and two pairs of leather trousers and a pair of leather socks on below it, will max out your protection. That leather clothing might not offer much protection, but since it is the only thing protecting fingers, toes, ears, eyes, and the throat, they can be worth the weight.



You generally can't wear much leather armor along with plate mail. Leggings and leather torso armor are both [SHAPED], meaning they can't be worn at the same time as another [SHAPED] item on the same body part, while plate greaves and breastplates are also [SHAPED]. High boots and helms also can't be worn in multiples.

Steel maces are actually second only to silver maces, and those not by much. The differences between the metals for blunt weapons are slight (except for adamantine; hitting things with cotton candy sticks works about as well as you'd expect).

Platinum, unfortunately, won't work well for most of an axe's strikes. An axe is far more likely, IIRC 100x, to strike with the edge than with the flat or pommel, and only flat and pommel strikes get the benefit of the massive density that metal has.

If you had the foresight to install a display case mod, use the axe with it to provide large value in one of your noble's room. Otherwise, drop it somewhere it's unlikely to get stolen, forbid it, and forget it; it's mostly useless.

Nope, so you can spike kobolds, forgotten beasts, and clowns if you can "arrange" for them to go down a spiked corridor.

No, doors open when a switch-on signal is sent by a lever or pressure plate, and floodgates open when a switch-on signal is sent by a lever or pressure plate. Floodgates just have a 100-step delay, while doors don't.

A drawbridge raises, forming a psuedo-wall, when a lever or pressure plate sends a switch-on signal, so with a drawbridge and a floodgate in a horizontal passage, both hooked to one lever, you can get an airlock system that is physically incapable of being open at both ends simultaneously.

There's just no real equivalent to that for a vertical passage, however; hatches and bridges both "open" when a switch-on signal is sent to them. Floodgates can sort-of-not-really be used if you use a certain exploit that lets you remove the floor beneath them after they're built, but that takes a hell of a lot of effort and doesn't work on areas larger than 2 tiles wide since the floodgates still need an adjacent wall or floor for support. The alternative is a drawbridge, which, when raised, acts as a wall, so you can block fluids from falling into a square with one, but that causes an obstruction no matter what.

You can also use bridges (retracting or draw) if you want the delay for whatever reason, such as if you want to syncronize horizontal and vertical blockages opening.

Unfortunately, there's no vertical equivalent to the drawbridge's horizontal use (as in, a valve that closes when floodgates open and vice versa), so you have to use another drawbridge on the floor below the desired valve. That can cause trouble on its own, since it means you need a line of floors on that level, which interrupts longer vertical shafts and necessitates fluid loss in such systems.