Bay 12 Games Forum

Yeah, I think enough has been fixed by now with 40.06 that you can probably start a fortress no problem without running into any problems. And unless a serious bug ends up being found you should be able to transfer the save forwards, meaning you get even more bug and optimization improvements as you go along.

Its stable yes.  So many bugs are gone, so many others minor.  But lack of invaders is a deal breaker to many many players.  DF without invasions bores me to tears.

I reverted back to 34.11 a few days back to await the 40 line getting fixed up.  If you do want to play 40 versions then remove all the [FLIER] tags to fix flier pathing and therefore wild animal respawns and prepare to yawn.  Seriously, after the first year goblin squad you will see very little beyond wildlife and traders (though ive spotted a few were's/fb's).  Removing FLIER lets new wild animals enter the map but is not the direct cause of no invader sentients.  Animals can still get stuck up trees and tie up the wildlife respawns, but can usually be scared down with the new discipline system just by putting a dwarf close-by, or build a tower to shoot them out of the tree-tops.

34.11 wasnt that bad to be honest.  You've got some milestone bug fixes in that release. 

Your hospital already 'works' since 0.31 though your chief medical ought have no labours other than diagnose (and other medicals) to get it running promptly, picking him based on personality traits is key, crutches should work though hospital stockpiling/candy sutures may be broke without dfhack fixes. 

Your kill orders clear themselves, dwarves wont wall themselves in when constructing enclosed spaces and the military uses its carried food/drink more often while not counting as naked despite armor.  Archery training does work in 34.11.  A marksman squad needs a regular barracks somewhere set for training in addition to archery targets also set to train.  Then they will shoot sometimes, drill melee (hammer) and other skills the rest of the time.  They will not shoot without both rooms assigned (i think it still works like that tbh, i always have both rooms as a throwback and can never not get them to shoot.  Absolute no-skill archers may not shoot, seems to need a little skill so i let non-hunters hunt for a season before squadding them).

You've also got the night creatures revamp (including vamps), the newest animal training system with civ knowledge and minecarts plus the hauling system revamp and claimed item expiry, all epic updates. 

One of my favorite 34 updates was the fix to make immigrants after first 2 waves more often be historical figures.  So migrants with some skill in a field and warriors from civs-at-war rather than dozens of randomly generated adaquate milkers/threshers.

Really all you lose is the 'active world'.  Which does us no favors right now with invaders being borked somewhere as all this awesome is happening out there and the closest you can come is listening to the liaison tell you about it.  In addition 34.11 is exceptionally well supported by modders, Masterwork is still running off that, so maybe an opportunity to experiment a bit while you wait for a more challenging vanilla release.

Having a devil of a time getting souls to store in hourglasses.  Made some rock hourglasses at the craftsdorf, built a soul-syphon, built Graveyard.  Set a 'lock searching for souls on repeat.  Problem is that when the soul generates in the Graveyard it never gets tasked.  The 'store soul' is an auto-generator it seems but none of the warlocks/witches in my little enclave will do that job even with all other labours off.  It sits there till it withers.  Will try using them directly next.

What am I missing here to get them to actually do this storing?  Checked with Therapist and the praying labour is there as it should be, syphon is accessible as are hourglasses.

Anyone else see this lately?

Something has changed with moods, for starters I think i've noticed moody dwarves claiming a workshop before they reach it if it's currently empty, which is new yes?  If it's busy they arrive and claim, im sure they always used to go to the workshop before claiming and that they can now remotely claim a free workshop.

That aside i've noticed another trick with them summoning mood items, definately new.  Example: My craftsdwarf just went moody and claimed the crafts shop, wasnt paying attention to see when he made his claim...regardless.  He wants wood, rock and rough gem.  I've not mined any gems, so he stalls out.  I notice and designate a gem tile to be mined.  Tile flashes yellow, miner arrives and starts work.  Before I even register the tile break and the gem spawn I get announcement, recentre and pause for mood construction start, he teleported that damn gem across 40 z-levels.  Spotted it the other day with bone but it was a very short distance and was barely paying attention so wrote it off.

Known?

Your underground tree-farms are still viable guys.

Remember however, that with the 40_05 update and the ceiling-poke fix you now need a proper multi-z hall for tree-farming underground.  If you just have a single z level dug out in soil then you will get saplings taking root but they will not mature (as they can no longer punch the ceiling and a 1z tree is non-viable.)  Channel out 2 or more z levels together and it works, build a mini-cavern!

If you dont have enough soil layers to make a multi-level tree hall then you are gonna have to muddy some stone.

I've not seen much wood on caravans either, but I wonder how they are being filled these days.  Once upon a time they checked your stocks list when they reached your map and instantly morphed to be carrying lots of what you were low in, this was very visible with wood trading in DF2012.  I imagine this is gone is 2014 since all these items we are being brought should have been properly produced somewhere.  You dont see many woodcutter immigrants, so i guess the sites are all strapped for wood.  Theres always plenty of fish, plants and meat available, but then most dwarves are farmers, rangers or fisherworkers.

Seen this a couple of times in this latest version. 

I embark with 4 sheep, 2 goats and 4 dogs.  Sometimes all breed, sometimes only 1 or 2 of the species will breed.  In one fort none of the 3 animals bred.  With a fort that had non-breeding dogs I slaughtered both (embarked with them) then replaced them from the caravan and they started breeding.  Migrants pets, wild captures and traded pets all seem to behave themselves, I'm noticing this mostly with 'embarked-with' animals.  Doesnt seem much you can do except slaughter the defective animals and replace them.

Q1.  That bug is as old as time, Mouse designation doesnt work out to the edges of the screen.  Not much to do but work around, no  idea why it is so, but has always been (as long as i've been here)

Q2. Playalong vids may be short in supply for this version, its very new and this game has been in dev a loong time, many of the players fade in and out.  Shouldnt matter much if you are watching older videos.  look for .34 ideally, much of the work since then has been bug fixing and stabilising (apart from the latest active world stuff)

Q3 underground water in the caves is fine if it reaches a map edge, otherwise its not infinite.  You wont need that much just for wells and such though.  Embarking with surface water can help, its all a bit moot if you dont run out of booze/injure a dwarf, so however works for you.  Aquifers off saves you the heartache of breaching them, but if cavern water were removed (which it can be through modding) then your dwarves become unable to grow underground crops (they never surface farm in worldgen) and you get worlds with no dwarves (which cant be played without a lot of modding effort)

Q4.  The flashing when designating is I guess the damp stone/earth tiles.  They are blinking to let you know that water is adjacent to them (if you imagine a 3x3x3 cube with a tile of water or magma in the centre then all the other tiles would flash warm/damp).  If you are mining deep underground this is often the only warning you get before emptying an entire cavern lake into your fort.  A miner will cancel a designation on a tile that he discovers to be damp or warm and it will blink thereafter in the designate menu.  If you redesignate the job then he will carry it out regardless of the consequences, beware.

My suspect is your surface critters.  You normally have 7-10 of them at a time.  Yes the fish are occupying some of these slots.  Fishing however is not dependant on or related to these aquatic critters, you ougt to be able to hit them with marksdwarves from the banks.  The corpses can in theory be butchered if you can get to them, but just killing them with prompt new arrivals.

Seiges may be right out of the window at the moment, still not seen one in _05.

Im also inclined to agree with the above thought that cavern and surface pops are independant.  They both work much the same, more wont spawn till the last vanishes in some way but are not connected to each other.