Bay 12 Games Forum

Edit out their brains. And make sure you edit it out from the save file raws. With that they should, well, drop like flies. Worked with gobbos a version or three ago.

Quote from: j0nas on February 26, 2011, 08:20:24 pm

Who has been going around advising people to use traps?  That has been an absolutely horrible approach for years on end.

Vermin in my fortress seem to congregate largely around their trapped fellows far away from my food stockpile. Not all, but many.

So if I caught a couple cave spiders and gave them their own room I could use that to harvest cave spider silk?

Danger rooms with door access on two sides. The lever attached to the spike/spear traps is inside one of the rooms. Assign the owner to pull the lever repeatedly, lock the doors once (s)he's there, then once the pet arrives lock the other door. A few lever pulls later and you've no longer got an adopted pet to worry about.

One technique I read (that I haven't had a chance to test for myself yet) was to breach the caverns. Then after a hallway of cage traps, build a wooden door. GCS are supposed to be Building Destoyer 1, which means they'll (supposedly) go after wooden buildings (like that wood door) to destroy.

Well, another thought that isn't as easy to set up would involve using a pump to block the flow. Supply the power to the pump by using vertical axes attached to a windmill/waterwheel/secondary pump. Then when you want water supply the power.
Side view
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXV
OX____F_______PP
XXXXXXXXXXXXXpX
O = Ocean
X = Wall
_ = Floor
F = Floodgate
P = pump
p = pump source
V = Vertical Axle (you could also use a Gear Assembly)
A dwarven sacrifice to breach the Ocean, the floodgate in place so that you can wall off the impending water flow. You'll also have to deal the possibility of a building destroyer breaking that pump. The left tile of the pump can be walked on, the right tile can not.

Quote from: FuzzyZergling on February 25, 2011, 10:05:29 pm

Also, be aware that turning off all three caverns will also turn off all underground plants. You will never get seeds, so you will never be able to farm underground.

You cannot plant your own stuff from existing seeds you bring?

-MB

Underground flora won't exist in the first place. No underground plants, trees, GCS, etc.

Why do miners max out with different experience totals? Therapist says ones at 20 with 29.9k and the other at 20 with 31.4k

They continue to accumulate experience, even though there's only 20 skill levels.

1) Farming was changed around so that it takes a lot for everything to grow. It looks like crops take at least a full season to grow. The crop yield is dependent on the level of the Farming skill. The higher the skill, the more likely that you'll get a larger stack when harvest time comes.

2) Cave wheat and sweet pods in their natural forms are inedible. They can be milled at a quern (requires the Milling labor) (built from the Mason workshop) to procure flour and sugar respectively. Those can then be cooked in a Kitchen (with the Cooking skill.)

These can also be brewed in the Still workshop, with the Brewing labor, along with plump helmets and Pig tails. Pig tails are otherwise inedible, and are used in a Farmer's Workshop (process plants) to make pig tail thread.

Quarry bushes must be processed into a bag (which must be empty beforehand). It also requires the plant processing labor at the Farmer's Workshop. Each unit of quarry bush will yield a stack of 5 quarry bush leaves.

3) Designate a zone (i) that has grass. Then designate that zone as a pe(n). Then desig(N)ate which animals will go to that pen.

4) Create a Butcher shop near the refuse pile. Make sure the Butcher labor is enabled. There might also be a point where the corpse becomes too rotten to be butchered even though it might not say so. (There's also a possible matter of how it was killed, but I'm unclear on that aspect.)

5) Harvesting fish requires the Fishery workshop and the Fish Cleaning labor.

6) Hunters will stalk a target and (try to) kill it. I'm not sure about capturing, haven't played around with either of those.

7) Aquifers can be a lot of fun, but I'd advise using an aboveground source of water, like a brook or a stream, while you're learning the ropes. Then again, Losing is Fun!

You'll want pumps (one enormous screw, one block, one pipe section for each pump) which can be built from the (M)achine selection. Make sure that you've got some place for all that water you'll be pumping out. You'll need the Pump Operating labor enabled to use them. To plug the aquifer, you'll need to build walls around the dig site. This is easier when the aquifer is in a stone layer since all you'll need to do is d-(s)mooth the stone.

To access that layer, you could build ramps or a set of staircases. Constructing those can be done from the b-(C)onstructions menu.

Another option, one that I've no experience with as yet, is to construct walls (and staircase) above where you want to punch into the aquifer. Dig the area out (channeling works well to keep the dwarves dry) and collapse the constructed walls into the aquifer layer.

I have quite a horrible doubt... the right key to validate the trade is 'o', right, to make your offer and see how the opposite merchant will react, right ?  It doesn't mean "offer those items for free, while not getting all the stuff you selected from the merchant", does it ?

Sadly, it does. The key you're looking for is (t)rade.

Some suggestions for food/booze, in case you didn't know about it before:

1) Plant gathering. While it's not that exciting, it can be a godsend in the beginning. Get one dwarf with that skill and let him/her gather a chunk of the bushes on the surface. That'll provide an instant supply of edible foods. Plus some (a lot of it, I think) can be brewed into alcohol.

2) Underground Farm Plots + Seeds. Bring plump helmets and build a farm plot on an underground soil layer (if it's available). Plump helmets are not only edible in their current state, they can also be brewed into Dwarven Wine.

2.5) Aboveground Farm Plots. Once you've gotten some experience keeping invaders away, build some aboveground farm plots. You can take the seeds you got from plant gathering on the surface and grow more yourself. You can also build walls and a roof (floor on the Z-level above) to secure it.

Make sure that you've got the Farming labor enabled. Also note that aboveground crops can't be planted on underground plots, and vice versa.

3) Animals. Bring a couple of cows (or some other large-ish beast.) Butcher 'em, they'll provide lots of meat. If you're using the latest version and plan on getting your own herd, make sure that you designate them their own pasture. Buthering animals produces other items (like bones) and a skin. Build a Tanning workshop near the Butcher shop and the skin/hide will get produced into a unit of leather. (Respectively, the Butcher and Tanning skills.)

3.5) Cheese. Cows don't just provide meat. You can milk them and turn that milk into cheese. There are a few other animals that also provide milk: yaks, water buffalo, llamas, alpaca, pigs, sheep, one- and two-humped camels, horses, and reindeer. (Llamas, sheep, and alpaca have a third item they can produce: wool. That can in turn be turned into yarn thread, which is then used in the textile industry.) Note that all of those actions happen in the Farmer's Workshop.