Bay 12 Games Forum

My poor kobold was beaten to death by a pair of mushroom people. I thought I had made them incredibly weak... Maybe her skull was just incredibly thin.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

source: http://blogging.la/2008/07/01/what-to-do-about-killer-racoons/

I'm disappointed with that woman and most of the people that commented on that. Unwilling to kill a raccoon in an suburban setting which is willing to stare her down? pathetic and stupid. That individual is extremely dangerous if it's really so unafraid of her. It doesn't even have to be rabid, sick, or mentally unstable, just used to getting what it wants and thinking of humans as a very minimal threat, like a child raised by parents that refuse to beat him and let him get away with anything he wants. They're omnivorous opportunists and have no problem slaughtering anything that they think might be edible or be even a potential threat to their food supply/mating rights, and as one person mentioned in that blog, just from being very territorial. A bb gun is an idiotic choice, it's unlikely you could find one capable of breaking the skin, and eventually it will be thought of as more annoying than frightening, her fear of wounding it is more like a fear of occasionally being thought of as a jerk. She's also unwilling to call animal control because they'll kill it, which is the right solution, raccoons released long distances away are still able to find their way back, and if they think humans will let them loose, completely unharmed, every time they'll get less and less afraid of humans. The problem is that many mammals aren't actually stupid, but that they think and act way too much like we do, all the problems that can occur within human society exist in permanence outside of it.
They're capable of seriously injuring an adult by the way, they're nearly as strong and well armed as badgers, just less aggressive (except in this case, where that individual seems even more aggressive and unafraid of humans than badgers.)

I almost forgot the worst part of my first fort; the carp. I decided that it was only logical that i need running water and lots of trees, so i decided to plop down in a swampy area with a river nearby. Within minutes my fisherman was dead. I of course had no idea what the controls were or how to do anything so they eventually withered and died from starvation/survived on vermin while i was reading the wiki. (which i was only directed to after several minutes of pestering my friends about what to do)

I despise people who used the tutorials and such to learn the game, but maybe that's just jealousy stemming from the fact that they were more successful earlier on and didn't feel like they were trying to swim the English Channel just to avoid their workers drowning in an artificial version because you had no idea the game HAD such a thing as a floodgate or drawbridge or that doors were acceptable replacements for such things, much less realize that the game implemented pressure. (really a surprise, it's the only game I've ever found that makes even a small attempt to mimic fluid dynamics.)

r†sh, dwarven word for death.

Perhaps your dwarves are simply too illiterate to spell it properly.

I had a guy described as "Starts talking to inanimate objects when he's bored" conduct a meeting with his cabinet. No joke.

So they ACTUALLY use those traits? I want proof that he wasn't just standing near a cabinet with the conduct meeting job on waiting for someone that may or may not have been able to get there, like the liaison you may or may not have locked outside with the goblins.

I Can't work with metal, is there any difference between Bluemetal chestplates and say, a bluemetal shirt?

Well if we look at the laws of raw and wiki;
(http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Armor_token and your items_armor.txt file.)
Breastplates cover only the upper body. It is listed as armor. It is listed as HARD and thus never wears down from being worn, all the civilian clothes are SOFT and will wear down from usage.

Shirts cover the upper body and everything above it (head, arms, and anything else that can connect to the upper body without going through the lower body. It is listed as underwear (worn under anything listed as over-wear)

Tunics cover both the upper and lower body, and the upper legs (lbstep:1, meaning upper lower and upper legs), but nothing else.

Dresses and robes cover everything except the hands and feet. Dresses also cover the most area for the least amount of material used.

All of these give 100% protection from contaminants to all involved body parts, according to the wikiraws.
The wiki says that because of a bug in 31.03, these will protect all facial features and appendages, but that might have been addressed.

There's nothing on there that says [SOFT] and [HARD] affect an items ability to defend you (except from embarrassing moth holes on the wrong part of your panties), and the only other differences are the [LAYER:ARMOR/OVER/UNDER] and [STRUCTURAL_ELASTICITY_WOVEN_THREAD(probably the one that decides if it'll protect you from damage or not)] tags.
The biggest issue if those don't stop you is that you 1) may not be able to assign civie clothes to soldiers (I've never even tried, after this i might) and 2) even if you could they'd probably get claimed faster than you can assign them. Then you've got to convince your troops to WEAR them, and dorfs often just store them in a cabinet, and not to take them off when activated.
Probably just by being made of adamantine, the only combat-worthy material also usable in common clothing, they'll protect you pretty well.

teal deer; needs a damn test!

EDIT: typos

And what about 1 shield vs 2 shield? Or other weapons like swords or even shielded vs nonshielded wrestler?

I think they'll only use one of their shields anyway(for both blocking and attacking), like how dual-wielding weapons does nothing useful for you since you only use one of them, and wasn't there a bug where they wouldn't use either weapon if they were in the same hand?
Having a second shield/weapon in the opposite hand provides backup in case you lose your first, but will not be used until then.

Women are such predictable creatures. I'm still giving this one couple enough alone time to hopefully marry, since I don't don't want the fort to become TOO incestuous from having only one child-producing couple (dead civ, no migrants, ever). They were in their room together and apparently had a chat. The man has 'talked to a lover recently' in his profile and is ecstatic. The woman has 'talked to a friend lately' in her profile and is only happy(probably because I had to draft them to fight that beast)
Good job lady, that will definitely help build his self-confidence.   

I'm guessing that since they're being allowed to be completely idle for a long time that as soon as she's 'ecstatic' they'll get married. Love is so unpredictable though. The other unmarried couple can't take a break right now because the man is still trying to reach his shoes he left in the caverns because I couldn't convince him to get the hell inside except by drafting him, and there's STILL a flight-capable beast down there and will probably be another shortly.