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Topics - Saladman

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DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / my dwarfs like bad weapons

« on: July 23, 2013, 05:34:23 am »

Current version, LNP. No military skills on my pioneers, figuring I'll bootstrap a military with immigrants. First two waves of immigrants, I get a macedwarf and two swordsdwarfs. I humor them, I'm starting with small squads anyway. Two squads of two it is. They spar; progress is satisfactory. Third immigrant wave I get... seven more macedwarfs and two more swordsdwarfs.

So, a few questions. The wiki says immigrant skills are weighted towards those you use a lot and those you have none of. Was this weighted by those first immigrants having the skill at all, or by my training them up more, or is it random, or does my home civ have a preference for swords and maces?

Also, what now? I've got dwarfs at level 9 in fighting and [weapon], with the incoming warriors at competent/3. Should I stick it out with swords and maces, or have the new guys figure out axes and hammers from scratch?

Finally, at what point do you switch from squads of 2-3 to seeding larger squads with drill instructors? Fighting and [weapon] are going up as I said, but armor, shield and dodge are coming up slower, and Teacher slower still, so I'm guessing that point is yet to come. But its also not clear to me Teacher's going very high at all at this rate.

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Fun with waterfalls

« on: January 29, 2012, 12:17:23 pm »

I've been playing DF for a while now, and I've handled water before in irrigation, artificial cisterns and wells. But I only recently got around to making a real, honest-to-Armok waterfall.

My current fort's entrance is a 3 tile wide bridge over a small river, then a road between two towers and into the fort proper. So a waterfall at the entrance seemed like an easy way to start. I built a pump stack in each tower and floor grates just behind the bridge.

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Underneath the grates and walls I channeled a path back to the natural river on both sides, but left a solid base for the drawbridge. The pump stacks expel water from 3 z levels up over the two outer grates.

So far so good, I thought. But it didn't occur to me to de-pressurize the output. The first time I turned a pump stack on, I got a 2-tile fan of solid water at the output z-level, and briefly standing blocks of 6/7 and 7/7 water down at ground level. And it moved some spare stone blocks in the roadway several tiles, which was impressive.

At this point I felt I was so close, the quickest fix would be a protective rail along the bridge to keep my dwarfs from being washed away. I went with fortifications rather than a solid wall so the water could drain away. I knew in a general way about creatures being pushed through fortifications, but I imagined that applied more to full submersion.

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After re-learning bridges don't support constructions, and you have to build in one block at a time for support, I was ready to go. (I lost a decent mason, too. I don't know how a cave-in down to water injures a dwarf left back at the top - maybe he tried to catch it when it fell?) I turned on both stacks and ordered all my military squads to move outdoors for their first annual shower, sun exposure and happy mist thought.

It should have been a warning to me that there was so much standing water at ground level the dwarfs couldn't path out past it. But I was so very close! I shut one pump stack off and waited, and the dwarfs tentatively, one by one, ventured outside. All was going well, and I was sitting there letting it run, proud of myself, until I noticed I was a few dwarfs short. One z-level down... one hauler and three weaponlords, hanging out in the river. Not yet drowned, just "unable to follow orders." Unfortunately they did drown before miners could reach to dig ramps. Normally I hate losing skilled dwarfs, but at this point I was just laughing.

Fortunately I have room in the towers to de-pressurize, I just have to de-construct and shift the pump stacks back. And I actually like the power-hose effect for defense if I can time it right, so I'll try using floodgates for the diagonal block so I can keep the option.

All that said, I have questions. First, can dwarfs be forced down through floor grates or only out through fortifications? I'm hoping fortifications only, but I didn't actually see it happen, and they were some ways away by the time I looked, so I can't tell from that. More generally, what does a good waterfall layout look like? (My dining room's next after I get this re-done, for instance.)

DF Gameplay Questions / armor priority

« on: August 30, 2011, 08:47:29 pm »

Background: I've got a reasonably successful military going - I can take down most regular sieges now before they hit my traps. But I'm on an embark with only copper, plus goblinite and trade requests. I've got steel blades and silver hammers handled already, but my dwarfs are still in copper armor. Which is working out oddly okay so far but I do get the feeling they're taking hits they wouldn't otherwise in better armor.

So- given 45 dwarfs in squads of various sizes (some of whom can be left in the cold), what's my best use for about 20 bars each of steel, iron and bronze? I was thinking of 20 steel chain shirts, iron helms and bronze greaves, keeping the rest copper, but I'm wondering if that ranking is right or not.

Also, am I better off with a few elites in full steel plate? Am I underestimating leather armor instead of a breastplate?

DF Gameplay Questions / Legacy/standard advice

« on: August 27, 2011, 03:13:17 pm »

So, I'm about ready to start a new fort, and it would be my first 31.25 fort, I realized I never upgraded from 31.21. Several versions ago I switched to Legacy for (I think) an apparent performance edge on my (crappy) machine, but it's been long enough I kind of forget how much of an edge it was, and I don't know if it still applies in 31.25.

I guess first and most directly, is the standard/Legacy performance difference the same across all versions?

Also, does world gen FPS correlate to gameplay FPS? I tried downloading regular and Legacy 31.25 and genning a world in each simultaneously (opening and starting standard first, Legacy immediately after), and Legacy had a very slight but consistent FPS advantage. So that argues toward sticking with Legacy, if world gen FPS correlates to gameplay.

I'm not quite motivated enough to start two games simultaneously and wait for the FPS hit, I tend to micromanage in the early game and don't care to double up on it. Any advice or guesses?

DF Gameplay Questions / scheduling downtime for squads

« on: August 24, 2011, 02:31:36 pm »

Adults Only!!! Too hot for the Little Questions Thread!!!

Or maybe not, but since I didn't get an answer there:

I've had a military set up on a year round training schedule and I'm just starting to give them some down time, but is there a way to set that up automatically in the schedule? Edit order doesn't seem to give me the option, except by dropping the minimum down to one (won't go to zero). Or do I have to switch alerts to inactive manually each time?

Also, what's a good mix of down time to optimize training but avoid unhappy thoughts? (For dorfs with military and civilian skills.) I'd been assuming more Training was better, so was thinking of a two months on, one month off schedule, but am I underestimating the individual drills they do in down time?

Added: more generally, can anyone link or point me to their favorite military threads on the boards? Search kind of sucks and I'm certain I've seen stuff on the boards that's not in the wiki. I feel I'm doing well enough overall, I have military dorfs trained to the Skilled to Talented levels without using danger rooms and can take out normal sieges before they get to my trap corridor, but I still feel like I don't have training as optimized as I've seen claimed it can be. Your best practices, give them to me!

DF Gameplay Questions / bismuth bronze cornucopiae

« on: August 18, 2011, 07:25:03 pm »

So I've been churning out roasts to deal with a food explosion. I started with barrels disabled in prepared food stockpiles but allowed a few when I ran out of room. And I noticed for the first time in the trading screen I had a prepared food pot (bismuth bronze, large) with a trade value of $230,693. It's an imported pot with a base value of $60 and 12 1/2 pages of high quality roasts listed in the contents. This one food pot apparently accounts for one fifth of my fortress's entire created wealth. I'd never previously seen a food barrel go over ten items, but maybe I've just led a sheltered life.

Anyway, trade it away, or keep it, or does it matter much? I'm okay with more immigrants, and I'm also okay with trader profit, but if I understand the wiki there's a trade-off between trader profit driving next year's caravan and kept created wealth driving immigration, correct?

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / redeeming blowguns

« on: August 15, 2011, 06:11:13 pm »

I've been blessed with one of the infamous artifact blowguns, and I'm wondering how best to use it. I know about the weapon trap option but I'd like more. Is there a way to edit in production of blowdarts?

Alternately I'm considering using it as a training weapon for a swordsdwarf to beat a goblin with, but I'm still confused by weapon stats and I'm curious as to whether it's better or worse than a simple training sword in melee.

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / state of play for best weapons

« on: August 02, 2011, 03:57:24 pm »

I'm getting back in to DF after a break, and from playing previous versions I had an idea that axes were the best weapon, followed by hammers, but I'm seeing now that swords come recommended again, and picks are good, and even spears. Is there a current, tested ranking of weapons? I haven't found one in the first few pages of the forums, but I know I saw such things for earlier versions. Or are they just more balanced against each other than previously?

Also, I got too used to crossbowdwarfs being bugged and haven't yet geared any up, it sounds like I'm missing out by not doing that, correct?

DF Gameplay Questions / waterfalls and power transfer

« on: June 15, 2010, 09:02:43 pm »

I'm getting ready to build a waterfall over the entrance to my planned Legendary dining room. Layout is going slower than I expected due to my lack of understanding. Water and power source is an underground cistern only, so I do need a perpetual motion machine.

Can axles connect to any tile and orthogonal of a waterwheel? I've been in the wiki for a while now and it's still not clear to me. Also, I assume axles normally connect to the input tile of the screw pump just for practical purposes of water containment, but any orthogonal approach, right?

I was at first going to use the dwarven water reactor from the wiki until the comment about generating power on the way to a destination struck my eye. That would actually fit better if I've understood it. I assume something like this in a 2 z-level, one tile wide channel:
1st floor
2nd floor
# water in/below
X pump screw 1
X W
* W water out
* W waterwheel
* #
X
X pump screw 2 (and base of pump stack)
*

Actually, just laying that out I'm guessing and hoping I've answered my first question. Running a straight line axle to pump 2 had better work, or this is going to be a pain. And if I channel out the ceiling on the tile where pump 1 and the waterwheel overlap, that counts for touching machinery transferring power, correct? This would eventually become a closed system, feeding the waterfall at the top and drawing on collection at the bottom.

Lastly, is there any drawback to waterfalls directly over the only entrance to the dining hall? I've been assuming dwarfs will still path over if they've got grates to stand on, but it occurs to me I should check.

DF Gameplay Questions / smelting/ore %s

« on: May 15, 2010, 09:56:11 pm »

2010: I've just recently gotten bronze production going, I had to dig deep for tin. And my only copper ore is tetrahedrite - that's the one you can smelt for copper with a 20% chance of silver. Does making bronze bars from ore pass up the 20% chance for silver? Also, is making bronze from ore a better use of fuel than making bronze from bars? I'm guessing the answers are yes and yes, meaning there's a trade-off either way, but I want to be sure.

DF Gameplay Questions / All axe or mixed-weapon squads?

« on: May 06, 2010, 02:42:37 pm »

So, I'm five years in on my first surviving fortress, and I'm just now starting to think about a military. (I resorted to spamming cage traps for protection while I figured things out, after my first expedition was slaughtered by a goblin ambush.) I understand the battle axe is the best weapon in 2010, but I've got a couple of questions.

First, I have a couple of decent hammerdwarf immigrants, and I'm thinking about giving them silver hammers in a squad with four axedwarfs to finish things off. Worth it, or retrain them as axedwarfs?

Second, I have miners to spare, including one legendary and another who's close with novice armor use and dodge. Does their mining skill translate into pick combat skill on a 1-for-1 basis? I'm thinking of putting them in a second squad with picks, again with four axedwarfs for backup. Understanding picks aren't as good as axes, is this going to do anything, or is it a waste?