Bay 12 Games Forum

I have a unhappy dwarf who has been under a tremendous amount of stress for years, complaining about a lot of things, one of which was lack of decent meals (despite the fortress having a real smorgasbord of masterwork meals). When he threw a tantrum, he was looking for a fist fight. His victim, a recruit fled to the temple complex of Istrath, where the fight happened. The tantruming dwarf broke the recruit's arm and scratched his head open, tearing the eyelid.

Moments later the game paused and an ominous message appeared: Vucar Nekutkûbuk, Macedwarf has been cursed by Istrath!

So, now what? Is he a vampire or a werebeast? Should I kill him now? Wall him in? Can it be reversed?

Rant:
The fortress has about five more dwarves who often slip into depression, become oblivious or throw a tantrum. This might be the beginning of a tantrum spiral. I've never had these in 11 years playing DF, but it seems that stress might be a bit off balance in 47.04. I have temples, libraries, taverns, guildhalls, everyone has decent quarters, fine clothes, I give every soldier their favorite weapon, now I started to track pet preferences to see if I can buy some pets for the unhappy suckers. I don't know what else to do. This version is a bit ... experimental.

This is the story of Steelpalace, an ambitious military outpost of the Ink of Meteors.

---

"Here", pointed the queen to a location on a scroll of map of the far west. "In the Desert of Flames, in the Sorcerous land."



"That's in the middle of elf territory." I was surprised. As if we had not enough troubles here already.

"They are not our enemies," she replied.

"Nor our trade partners. What's our mission there?" I asked.

"Find us a new home. We are by far the smallest of all dwarven nations in this world. In the last 100 years, three of our major Fortresses have been destroyed by forgotten beasts. The numbers of goblins of the Hex of Strategies are growing. The last war with them has cost us our best soldiers and the life of my mother, the late queen Mistem Autumnhelm. Our current peace treaty might not last for much longer. I fear for the future of Ink of Meteors." The eyes in queen Meng Specialrings' worried face looked back at the X on the map, staring absently.

"Why there? The route is very difficult, across the polar desert. Will our caravaneers even make it?"

"They will try. Found a colony on the northern foothills between Jungles of Charity and the Rare Jungles. The mountains there are harsh but if our geologists are right, we might find just what we need so desperately." Meng's eyes narrowed as she was sliding her fingers down her beardless chin.

I raised my eyebrows as I started to understand. "You mean ..."

"Shush! Don't jinx it. But if you find it, give the place a name worthy of our new mountainhomes."

My expectations were high. A safe supply of steel is indeed crucial for the survival of Ink of Meteors. So is a good army. Filled with responsibility and pride I assumed the attention posture and saluted our queen. "I'll do my best!"

---

Further chapters of our story:

• A bittersweet start
• Strike the earth

I am starting to learn about the Lua API to DFHack. Whenever a Lua script wants to access some information from the game, it finds it somewhere in the df global object.

What I don't quite understand is how do you know where to find which things. The structure of the df global object is defined in the df-structures xmls. (The way how this formal structure description works is laid out in the Data Structure Definition Syntax).

It seems to me that all top-level type definitions, no matter which one of the xmls they are mentioned in, are found directly under df.

Example1: df.units.xml mentions a top-level <struct-type type-name='unit_preference'>. The way to access this struct from the Lua API is df.unit_preference, rather than df.units.unit_preference

Example2: df.globals.xml mentions a top-level <enum-type type-name='weather_type' base-type='int8_t'>. The way to access this enum from the Lua API is df.weather_type, rather than df.globals.weather_type

So obviously, the the reason why you guys split the copious amounts of top-level types, objects or tables into different xml files is purely to keep those together, which are often used together? One such xml file with structure definition does not represent a certain node somewhere in the df object tree, right?

I have accidentally dug into an aquifer during a cold or freezing season. The water running out of instantly froze and created a Damp Ice Wall. I know that If I smooth the aquifer walls, it will no longer leak, but sadly I can't reach the aquifer walls now since they are surrounded by Ice Walls. Will smoothing the Ice Walls prevent them from thawing?

I am trying to make quicklime at my magma kiln which is has a working magma heat source.

The task to make quicklime is highlighted red and is unselectable. It says it needs calcium carbonate, empty bag, and a fuel.
I have several empty bags in an unlinked bags stockpile, I have many marble stones in an unlined marble stockpile, and I have 10 bars of charcoal in a bin in an unlinked bars stockpile.

Any ideas what is still missing?

Please help me figure out why my still is not brewing.

When you open the savegame you will see a still right next to a Plants stockpile and a Rock Pots stockpile. These stockpiles aren't linked to anything, the still isn't linked to anything, yet the still says it needs an empty food storage to brew drinks. 

Why?

In a fight with a weremoose I read that the weremoose has bitten my huntig dog inthe lower body, tearing apart the muscle and tearing apart the left kidney.

Will this dog transform into a weremoose later?

With your help I have designed and built a moderately successful magma trap in my former Fortress Lancedbrains. It trapped invaders in a hallway, then dropped magma on them, and later water on top of it. Mined out, all worthless things gone in an instant, what remained was just the precious iron.


That was an embark with a shallow magma see deep underground. The problem with it was that it took several iterations of this trap to eliminate the whole siege. Usually only a handful of enemies could be trapped in the chamber of death at a time.

Now with a new fortress we embarked on a magma pipe which starts at the bottom of cavern layer 1 — not too far below three aquifer layers. Any ideas how I could use the generously high magma pipe to destroy a whole siege in one run?

I am trying to design a hallway of death, meandering vertically several z-levels from the bottom to the top. Sort of like a water pump stack does with water, this hallway would do with a long stream of enemies. The trick would of course be that instead of floor tiles, this hallway would have magma-safe grates. Once the marching siege parade is stacked and trapped several z-levels high, I'd drop some magma on them. The troops on the top would not be exposed to magma too long, but I figure they'd die from burning and having tissues melting away. Probably there would not be any casting into obsidian needed. I just need a way how to get rid of a river of magma quickly. Do you think I can drain it quickly if I'd lead it to the maps edge? perhaps having a steep ramp leading down to the map's edge to speed up the magma flow. Would the magma just disappear there like aquifer water does?