Bay 12 Games Forum

Akura: Beekeepers will sometimes go stand where a hive used to be, even if someone else already grabbed it. Don't have more than one beekeeper. In fact, avoid beekeeping--it's more work than it's worth, what with needing to make hives, screw presses and jugs (which have no, minimal, and no use outside of beekeeping) and only getting a little alcohol, a tiny bit of cooking material, and some tiny bit more crafting material out of it, as well as needing two completely and one mostly specialized professions to do it, one of which (a completely) the skill level actually matters for.
Also, banning something you wouldn't do just prevents her from making another mandate. Treasure it.

Nyxalinth: Dude, the first cavern layer isn't always within 20 levels. Try looking, oh, 100 down and then complain.

Farm lots of plump helmets--say, a 10x10 plot or two--and some pig tails and rock nuts. You should have all of your bases covered then. Embark with a planter, plus an herbalist and some food to get you started. That works for me, along with butchering spare critters; aside from occasionally adding a farm plot or dealing with seeds, I never need to worry much about food again.

I don't think traders will refuse deals if you sell them tons of large gems, but I could be wrong. It might be that the traders get more and more annoyed each time they have to make a new offer.

Caverns have been done, but not often. Do it with enough panache and you'll be good. Heck, I'd join, regardless of panache status..

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on September 01, 2012, 05:07:38 pm

Quote from: dominusnovus on September 01, 2012, 04:38:06 pm

It would be a shame if every single power-able workshop would need a powered counterpart; seems like it would clog up the menu a bit.

Maybe. No more than having a magma option for every furnace is, probably, especially with hotkeys and the probability that not all workshops will have powered options. How much good would autohammers be for much of anything? Autoknives might be good for murder, but not for butchery or cleaning skin or fish. And so on.

Well, that right there illustrates the issue.  Take a forge, for example.  There would be a powered version and a non-powered version.  There's also a magma version and a non-magma version.  So, where would a powered magma version fit in?

Also, an auto hammer would basically be a trip hammer; a very useful device for a forge.

I'll freely admit to not having much of a clue about forging, aside from watching someone make a nail like they would back in the 18th century colonies recently, but it seems that forging something, especially a sword, requires a bit of dexterity and precision that a hammer pounding away unceasingly in the same exact way every few seconds would lack. I'll grant that power could have its uses in forging--bellows, certainly--but I'm not sure if a hammer, specifically, would help.
As to powered magma furnaces, you answered your own question. Heck, maybe there would be a separate powered workshops tab under the buildings menu (or the buildings-workshops submenu, pick your poison).

Well, there's a few possibilities.

1. Luck.
2. Live training. Say, the Turks see a rabbit and send their soldiers out to kill it.
3. Danger rooms. The wooden training spears would rot, and the stone mechanisms would probably break down or erode into unrecognizable stuff.
4. Some of the rooms might have been improperly identified barracks, training areas, or whatever.
5. The ruins aren't inhabited anymore, are they?

Could which, the angels thread or megabeasts demanding tribute in exchange for life and defense?

Has it occurred to you just how many cavern creatures in Dwarf Fortress are just underground-living variants of surface creatures? Here's a mostly-complete list:
Note that this list does not mention subterranean animalmen, creatures with multiple component creatures, creatures with uncertain but probable surface origins (such as voracious cave crawlers and
Two things I noticed about most of these critters:
1. They were mostly found in cavern layers 1 and 2.
2. Most are just "Cave X" or "Giant X" or something like that.
This probably makes it all the easier to make new cave beasties from scratch.

Here's the gist of my idea:
Many of the aforementioned beasts would be removed from the raws. Some favorites, like the GCS, helmet snake, and giant toad, should be left in alongside blind cave ogres and cave dragons (which have different depths than the rest, which matters--see below), and the non-cave-animal creatures. Some of the subterranean animalfolk would also need to be removed.
To replace them, a new system would come into play to make new cavern creatures. Creatures from biomes near caves, plus some from anywhere, would be randomly selected and copied into new files, sorta like how titans and forgotten beasts are put into files. The creatures would be given a new CREATURE: name, as well as getting a bunch of changes, which should and/or could include:
More ideas could be included.

The benefits of this idea include:
-More variety in cavern life
-Easier implementation of modded wildlife into DF's caverns
-Possibly, more Fun. Cavern layer 1 is often described as usually less dangerous than the surface, because the risks of hidden thieves or ambushes outweigh the occasional GCS or troll. Random animals could shake this up. Elephants were terrifying on the surface; imagine what they'd be like underground and blind! Well, about the same, except you can't see them.
-More mystery in the early caverns. Currently, caverns are just another place to settle, except that (since every fort has caverns under it) everyone knows the ins and outs of it. Again, adding random cave critters could easily make things more interesting.
-More interesting caravan choices and goblin mounts. The dwarven caravan is currently treated as little more than a way to easily get steel. Imagine if they brought deep bears and giant cave carp! The same goes for goblin mounts, except that goblins mounted on oversized, pale fish doesn't sound very intimidating.
-Verisimilitude. This way, most animals which live in the caverns could have gotten there, and any kind of animal can live there. This goes double in the case of low-fantasy creatures like unicorns and beak dogs; if giant, predatory mole rats and blind bears can live in caverns, why can't horses with horns and two-legged pack predators and such live there, too?

Summary: I propose that a system be implemented to allow random creatures to be added to the caverns, similar to current "Cave X" and similar creatures. This will mainly serve to add variety in its various forms, but will have other side benefits as well.