Bay 12 Games Forum

Most of the wood I've felled or traded for has gone to making beds, bins, and barrels. There's not much left over for steel (charcoal), potash (farming), pearlash (clear glass for a big window project), or ash (ceramic glaze). This brings up two questions:

1. in future forts, what would be the best storage material other than wood? Assuming that I have easy access to magma to power forges and kilns, do stone, metal, green glass, or clay-based pots have any drawbacks? Are they much heavier and therefore slow down my haulers? Does the weight of an alcohol container affect how long it takes a dwarf to drink from it?

2. is there any way to burn existing bins and barrels down to ash? I'm practically drowning in tetrahedrite, so replacing the existing stock with copper pots and bins would be easy. It would save me a lot of time (and wounded pride for not going the metal route in the first place) to avoid waiting on underground tree farms to reach maturity and instead 'reclaim' the wood in bins and barrels by making it into ash products. I'm not philosophically opposed to modding in a new reaction or workshop if that's what's required.

i was gonna give a big long answer to the first 2 parts there, but then that bit about drowning in tetrahedrite there in the 3rd part told me you were on the right track.

use wood for beds, shields, coal, and ash, NOTHING else. (except maybe training weapons if you're into that sorta thing)
no more barrels.
rock pots from the craft shop dude.
never make another barrel again.
same goes for bins. Just hold it down until ya smelt a couple chunks of galena. Virtualy every map has it, and it gives ya silver and lead. use the silver for blunt weapons or spiked balls for traps, or even crafts if ya got a good metalsmith, you know all this already im assuming.
what YOU want is the lead. Just have someone churn out lead bins till you're flush, then toss pots, doors, and whatever else you're currently needing in the mix and let him work till he's legendary, which wont take long if your forts need as many bins as mine.

by that time, you should be needing nice rooms for some brand new nobles...

happens to me rather commonly.
just keep making worlds till you find one.

rock pots are the greatest gift the mighty Armok has ever given us.

ive played about 20-30 forts so far and have NEVER seen one of these.
the only proof i have that they actually exist is the startling number of threads about them on this board.

yeah, dont start cooking meals until you've A- got some sizable food stocks, or B-have some eggs.
eating plump helmet = 1 seed
brewing plump helmet = 5 seeds
cooking plump helmet = no seeds

i slew and subsequently butchered a FB made of vomit. it gave 2 pieces of refuse called (FB name)'s vomit.
THAT would probly fall through a floor hatch, but i doubt it would give the "covered in vomit" affect you're probly hoping for.

if this happens ALOT, they'll get pissy, but that's about it.

a way less bloody way to rob the caravan though is...

construct a hospital and fill it with all the shit it needs, EXCEPT cloth and thread. don't designate it as a hospital just yet.
wait till the merchants enter the map. NOW designate it as a hospital.

watch what happens.