Bay 12 Games Forum

Magma creates mist?
If you're referring to this:
Magma pumps
That's smoke, from the many many many orcs being burned.

Why are you typing in DF?

I've never had strange moods require a specific kind of item, don't know why people say it happens.
99% likely that he wants silk thread or cloth.

The problem is that the proper stockpile has no room for bins in it.  It's full.  You need to move some of them away, so that your dwarves can move the bins full of goblets there.

@spider silk;
You're better off taming a giant one, or importing silk.  I find normal cave spider silk to be a pain in the ass to farm.

Wind power is just overall bad.  Build dwarven reactors.

Anything with a piercing attack becomes blunt if it cannot penetrate armor.  Large Spiked Balls are a great example of this; made of silver, they almost never cause any stabbing or slashing damage, but will crush bones and do internal damage through armor.

I've never had bolts made of silver, I don't know if they'd be any good (but I would think they are, seeing as adamantite ones are only bad because they're so light)

Basically upgrading your forces should go like this:

Melee Weapon
silver warhammers > steel swords/axes (unless enemies have steel on, in which case, stick with silver warhammers) > adamantite swords/axes/pikes (they will cut through any armor that isn't made of adamantite)
If short on steel, save it for armor, make silver hammers.
If you don't have steel or silver, iron can be used to hold you over (iron hammers), but dwarves in armor are actually fairly deadly in unarmed combat.

Ranged Weapon
wooden bolts > iron bolts > silver bolts > steel bolts (steel bolts hit really hard, AND penetrate armor easily; they are the best in my experience, but silver might do better against steel-armored enemies)
Again, if short on steel, save it for armor, make silver bolts.

Armor
Chest/head are most important.  (should be a *duh* moment, but some people actually don't seem to know this)  After those come limbs.
leather (easy to get, and easy to mass-produce for your militia early on) > copper (copper's really bad.  ONLY use it if you have no tin for bronze) > bronze > iron (as with copper, only if you cannot make steel for some reason) > steel > adamantite
As someone else here said I believe, make helms and chainmail first.  Chainmail covers the upper arm and the whole torso, making it less likely that you'll end up with arm-less dwarves.  Helms should be a no-brainer (they save your brains, no pun intended)

Feel free to comment on my setup.