Bay 12 Games Forum

I tried a search, but got nada; is there some workaround to get dwarves to consistently use large pots in food stockpiles? For drink it's no biggie, since the brewer is the one who fills them, but I've got great swathes of unstored tallow literally one step away from a stockpile that's exclusively for empty large pots. I have a couple of prepared food/plant pots, both of which seem to contain a backbreaking amount of items, but something else is screwy here. I've tried unstockpiling them, designating a food stockpile under them, dumping and claiming them - all to no avail.

I just want my quantum storage, dammit!

Seem to have a bit of a problem. One of my dwarves recently sustained an injury to his arm - torn artery and motor damage. But he walks around like it's fine. wont go to the hospital to have it checked out. I have a fully stocked hospital - thread, crutches, splints, water and beds and a chief medical dwarf. Why wont he go get help!

This happens occasionally - if a dwarf has a non-debilitating injury that can't be treated (such as his motor nerve damage, there) they will sometimes just ignore the hospital entirely. If his arterial bleeding were worse, he'd probably go. I think it may also have something to do with their innate healing: I've had dwarves get up before treatment was complete and proceed to walk off some pretty nasty injuries.

what do you mean "without anything to smelt?" limonite is, along with hematite and magnetite, one of the most useful metals ever. period.

Hmm, egg on my face, I meant Lignite, which seems to count as a metal for the purposes of the finder.

I  noticed that mineral distribution has changed again.  I am used to setting up my fortress next to a magma pipe and making everything out of gold and steel however I noticed after digging 20 or so layers deep I have not been able to find a single mineral that can be smelted.  What’s worse is that I forgot to bring my traditional 7 picks so that my starting dwarfs can quickly carve out a fortress.  This has resulted in an interesting fortress.   There is limited wood, currently no metals, very little food (I am getting into the second year and farm isn’t even done yet).  My now 10 dwarfs have carved out a meager existence .   The 5 chickens that I brought with me have supplied the backbone for food (still trying to figure out how one egg = one meal), and thankfully my starting ale held out for the first trade caravan.   So my long winded question is basically since there appears to be a change in mineral distribution where do I find all the minerals, how deep are they?

You'll have noticed that the embark finder displays different things when scrolling over a site, compared to what it told you in older versions. Instead of giving a layer-breakdown of the site, it will instead say things like 'Flux Stone' 'Shallow Metal' 'Deep Metal', etc.

If it doesn't mention metal, there will be no metal.

Also, completely useless metal ores (cinnabar, for example) also show up in the listing, undifferentiated from hematite/native gold/whatever. The best thing you can do is:
- Firstly, make a blood offering to your chosen God. It's just the most effective method.
- Secondly, use the new search overlay to find as many sites with 'shallow metals' (the pluralization is important) and 'flux stone' as possible.
- Thirdly, don't get too attached to your dwarves before embarking, because you don't want to feel guilty when you kill them after striking limonite and cobaltite.

Or, get the new version I've just noticed, and change the mineral parameters.

Have you tried deconstructing and then reconstructing them? I don't know much about fortress reclaim, but it seems to me that the workshops/depot might not count as being 'owned' by you, since you didn't build them.

I partially assign things according to preferences and attributes, but generally I don't spend any points in mining/woodcutting (very easy to skill, wood is cheap) and I tend to pair one high-usage skill with a low-usage one. For example, I have a guy who's Grower/Chief Medical Dwarf; it's very rare for people to get hurt, and doesn't take up a lot of time when they do, so all his time is free to tend the crops. My current embark team is:

Military (1 axedwarf, 4 dodge, 1 fighter, 3 armour, 1 shield) - Does mining/hauling, then trains with migrants as soon as they arrive (I don't use danger rooms)
Armorsmith / Mason
Blacksmith / Carpenter (also does some mining)
Weaponsmith / Brewer
Stonecrafter / Cook
Engraver / Mechanic
Grower / Doctor

I didn't realise that steel anvils were always available but hidden without enough points; I thought that it depended on what you parent civ had, and I've resorted to selecting a different starting civ a few times until I've got my anvil.

Apparently, it's because the game only checks whether civs are able to make alloys, not whether they have the raw materials. So your parent civ might not have any metals like copper, gold, or iron, but they'll always have bronze, steel and electrum etc...

It's probably an oversight, but then the current scarcity of metals (which I actually rather like) is only really there because trade is going to be overhauled in the (fairly) near future.

Is there some way you can equip a military to avoid being damaged by creatures made of fire/steam? I know you're not exactly supposed to survive the incredible levels of fun that come from digging too deep, but seeing fifteen Legendary++ dwarves get helplessly melted and bleed out - in spite of hacking their opponents apart and seemingly blocking or dodging every actual swing - is a slightly anticlimactic final battle.