Bay 12 Games Forum

I've never done anything with .lua before but I'm told this is a working example and I'm simply not sure where to put it if I use it as a template. Does it go in dfhack/lua/plugins?

So, my current fortress is going to be made entirely out of cast obsidian. I've dug out an area about 60x60 by 20z levels, and I've built a wall "mould" 10z levels up on the surface, so my cast-obsidian area will be 10z tall aboveground and 20z deep belowground. In the belowground area I've built a single support on each Z-level, with the top and bottom ones hooked to a lever, and I've channeled out the floor around each edge, using grates for worker access to collect all the ore before I collapse the rest of the floors and start casting.

However, it suddenly occurs to me that when I collapse the supports to make a massive open pit, my entire fortress area will be designated Outside/Light/Aboveground, and stay that way forever. Is there any way to reverse this using 3rd party utilities? Otherwise, what are my options for protecting against it? I could build a roof over the pit before I collapse the floors, but if I make it out of constructed floors and don't designate it row-by-row, are the stupid Dwarves likely to build on diagonals and cause cave-ins? If I build the roof partially out of bridges, will those bridges block the pit from becoming Light/Aboveground?

edit ; my testing has shown that Light/Aboveground will spread downwards even when roofed, so roofing my aboveground mould is not an option. I'm going to have to delay collapsing the surface floor until after I've cast all the subterranian levels save the shallowest with a premature tap running from my pumpstacks, which means my first underground level will have to be Light/Aboveground. That's acceptable, but I've unfortunately already channeled out the edges of the surface level, meaning my underground fortress will be ringed with Light/Aboveground, and anyone leaving the fortress by an underground exit (like into the caverns or mining tunnels) will get a booster shot against Cave Adaptation in a glitchy and unsatisfying way.

So, is there any sort of hack out there that will recalculate which areas of the map are Aboveground and which are Subterranian?

So far every fort I've done has had a massive surfeit of food, despite never embarking with any, and never fishing, hunting, farming (except for plants marked for brewing-only), or breeding livestock specifically for meat, milk or eggs. I've easily gone 5+ years with huge populations living off nothing but the two embark animals, the stray livestock the migrants bring with them, and the badgers and macaques that get killed by caravan guards and my perimeter traps.

So, barring any catastrophe to strike one's food stockpiles, I'm asking if anybody has ever had the slightest problem keeping their fort fed?

I just lost a 100+ dwarf fortress. It was ridiculously secure, totally self-sufficient and seemed likely to hold out against any threat... until a tower-cap decided to grow right in the middle of my obsidian caster's drainage tunnel, blocking the outtake somehow and flooding my entire fort. Too many miners were swept into the caverns while digging out new drainage holes, too many civilians plummeted to their deaths down my main stairwell, and too many dwarves died of thirst while trapped in various sections. Far too many were bashed to death by their angry neighbours. Now there's just a handful of tantruming psychopath dwarves left.

So, my question is what's the best way of plant-proofing a tunnel that will get wet? Will smoothed/constructed floor be enough? Could I build a paved road along it, or will that make dwarves want to run around in the sewers? Or should I "pave" the floor with bridges?

I'd like to suggest some additional behaviours for starving dwarves, to expand on the current vermin-hunting and vomit-eating behaviour.

- Firstly, that certain foods be marked with an [unpalatable] tag and a dwarf will only select them to be cooked or eaten when there are no other foods to cook or eat, and will recieve an unhappy thought. These foods could include bones, prepared intestines from any animal, all meat products coming from carnivorous animals, tallow, most raw river-fish, and any prepared meals derived from these. If food requirements are added for non-grazers, these undesirable foods could become the first choices for pet food.

- Once all foods are gone and a dwarf is hungry, the vermin-hunting begins.

- Once a hungry dwarf progresses to starving due to lack of luck with his vermin-hunting, and there's still no food available, vomit and rotting meat go onto the menu, along with health hazards for the dwarf consuming it. If there's no rotten meat or vomit to be found, they go to their next option.

- If there are any communally-owned (stray) animals, one will be randomly selected by one of your dwarfs (but herbivores are preferential to carnivores), taken to the butcher and slaughtered without your permission. This is a crime and will be punished, but for now the dorfs can eat.

- If there are no stray animals, the dwarf will eventually kill and eat his beloved pet. This will produce a VERY unhappy thought. If the dwarf doesn't have a pet, he may attempt to kill and eat somebody else's, causing fistfights, emnity and tantrums, and earning him a judicial punishment.

- No strays, no pets, are there any sentient corpses lying around? Or caged sentient creatures? This will naturally produce another unhappy thought for the breaking of taboo, and the dorf might even be killed while trying to drag the goblin out of the cage and kill him to eat. Some dwarves, depending on their personality, may elect to starve to death rather than take this extreme.

- The final, desperate taboo, and one that some dwarves would rather starve to death than choose to break. An unburied dwarf corpse may be consumed at the cost of an extremely unhappy thought, and a very unhappy ghost. Cannibals will be punished to the utmost severity of the law (ie. hammering), but only after the food crisis has passed.

- There aren't any dead, unburied dwarves around? A dwarf this desperate will now commit murder in order to eat his victim.