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Topics - Stormfeather

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DF Gameplay Questions / STEAM: Weirdness with guests fighting during siege?

« on: December 25, 2022, 03:34:26 pm »

So I hadn't noticed this in my previous fortress I played to practice/learn the New Ways once the Steam version came out, but this time around I've had two sieges, and both times the sieges themselves didn't last long at all, but I ended up having some of the guests (or perhaps people who had petitioned to join my fortress, I'm not sure) start fighting with some of my dwarfs resulting in both civilian and guest death.

I think maybe it has something to do with the fact that on this fort I noticed the fact that you can click an "add civilians to burrow" thing that I've been using, to keep from having to go through and add each dwarf one by one. And then after I unsuspend the burrow to have the civilians run for cover, somehow it causes some fighting?

The guests I noticed aren't marked as hostile - they're just fighting to the death for some reason. And they don't seem to want to just flee the map either, like a hostile would if it's fleeing my military.

It's getting annoying, and I'll probably stop clicking the "add civilians to burrow" thing to see if that helps, but that has its own aggravations. Anyone else notice anything like this, or have any other workarounds/ideas just WHY this is happening?

DF Gameplay Questions / STEAM: Can't mine with macros?

« on: December 21, 2022, 12:50:40 am »

So in the classic version previously I made pretty heavy use of macros for digging (I basically have some standard floor setups I generally use, macro them and then just use them in new forts). But when I'm trying to use them for a new fort (now that I know I think decently well what I'm doing in this version) it's just... not working. I have mining turned on (and set to mine everything), place the cursor where I want it relative to where I want to dig, and the cursor moves all over the screen but nothing actually gets marked for mining.

I've even made a test macro to try to see if I somehow screwed the previous ones up and can't see how. I've tried clicking on various combos of things (starting with regular mining on, off, making sure the rectangle option was selected, trying the paint option...) Just... nothing works.

Do the macros only work with things that still use the keyboard instead of the mouse? Is that the problem? Is it currently just impossible to set up a macro to mine in certain patterns? Anyone play with this and get it to work or have the same issue?

DF Gameplay Questions / Any tips for dealing with aquifer bugs?

« on: June 02, 2021, 11:49:18 pm »

Sorry if this is old ground, I looked around but couldn't find anything on the subject.

I'm coming back from a long break from the game, and of course first two embarks I try, I run smack into what I have since looked on Mantis and found to be bugs - aquifers showing up without being listed on embark, and said aquifers spreading so that you can't even really deal with them.

Are there any hints on how to deal with this? I'd kinda wanted to play again, but this has killed both of my fortresses as I was trying to get them off the ground. I can't really deal with aquifers anyhow. Since they're slow ones, I would think it'd be a good way to learn how to deal but the way they spread makes that a no-go.

Are there any tips for how to avoid them on embark? Are the bugged surprise aquifers as common as they're seeming to me so far, or did I just get really unlucky? Is there anything I can do other than dig however many levels past and avoid all the damp stone (which is annoying when it disrupts planned layers I've already started digging out, but if they're not horribly many z levels can maybe be done?)

Help!

DF Gameplay Questions / Plots & Conspiracies

« on: February 09, 2020, 08:29:19 pm »

Anyone have any good idea of how these work yet?

I actually had one of these pop up in my current fort. One of my artifacts vanished, with no idea of who took it, and it showed up on my Justice screen as "theft." Selecting it, I had the option of interrogating various people (and animals...) for info. I did try having some interrogated to see if I could get any info, but some knew nothing, and some refused to cooperate (because the sheriff apparently misjudged their character, giving us some reason I guess to pay more attention to sheriff traits as far as... some sort of social skill(s) anyhow).

I then had a second artifact that was stolen about a year later maybe, but this time someone saw the transaction taking place. One my my dwarfs (one of my nobles in fact, my bookkeeper) was handing off a second artifact to a human non-resident guest. Even though the human was a non-resident I was able to punish them both for the theft. I then interrogated the bookkeeper on that first unsolved theft, and "for the love of" the interrogator (the sheriff, both of them from the starting seven) she confessed to a plot to steal that first artifact after being corrupted by the same human as stole the second one. I them punished the bookkeeper for the theft and finally closed the case, because I couldn't seem to punish the non-resident guest who started the trouble and actually ended up with the artifacts.

So now I actually have counterintelligence popping up for the conspiracy (!), but I'm not sure what (if anything) can be done with it. I mean it's intriguing and interesting to look at it, but I'm not sure if I can then use the info to do anything. I'm especially interested because it looks like there are more plots involved there, one of which I assume is probably the second artifact theft. I'd LIKE to get my two artifacts back, but the only possible way I can think of to do it is to just have my military dwarfs kill the human, to see if he still has them on him, but I'm worried about causing more trouble in the long run if I do that in case it ticks off the human civilization/causes loyalty issues (which I already have enough problem with stressed dwarfs), or whatever.

In case anyone's interested here are some images of some of the counterintelligence and so on. Forgive me if this is old news - I THINK it was added in this version (well, .01), and couldn't find info in the wiki, but I could of course be wrong.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Are all religions/guilds a "nomadic elven group"?

« on: February 08, 2020, 02:08:03 pm »

Pretty much what the title says. I've had one religion and three guilds that I've been building locations for in my fort, and as a side effect have been setting orders to build statues for their temples/halls related to that group. In the process, I've noticed that each of the four thus far in the "details" screen for the statues describes the group as a "nomadic elven group."

Mostly I'm wondering if this is a bug that should be reported (by me or by whoever might beat me to it), or just some quirk of my worldgen or something.

DF Gameplay Questions / How much do macros carry over?

« on: January 29, 2020, 01:09:18 pm »

Hey, so as I just mentioned elsewhere, I tend to binge a while, then stop playing a bit so I sometimes come back after a few versions or what have you. And something I've always wondered but not found (and not bothered to ask before) is just how good macros are at carrying over between versions. I do have a few macros for digging general layouts that I tend to use in my fortresses and such, and since I don't know if I could just copy them over without breaking things, I generally tend to just re-do them from scratch in a new release (although I think I have occasionally just carried them over in new smaller versions that just fix a few things).

Soooo... looking at my files, my last version on this PC before this was 44:12 (which surprises me honestly, although I do think I had a more recent one on my laptop). So now I'm wondering if there's any chance my macros would still be good - I don't know how much just simple things like digging get possibly broken/changed between large version changes. Is there any way to know without just copying them over and possibly breaking things? Is there not much chance of it anyhow? I just really have no idea if/how some simple things like digging macros might get changed around, and thought I'd float it by some of y'all that are better with the coding side of things (or just know from experience).

DF Gameplay Questions / Are chained hostiles supposed to frighten dwarfs? And can beak dogs be bred?

« on: January 02, 2018, 10:50:04 am »

Pretty much what it says in the topic - I caught a bunch of beak dogs in cage traps during the latest goblin siege at my fort. Since I love training and breeding animals (to the point where FPS and I aren't on speaking terms probably), I had thought to build one of my nest box pastures (since I'm not sure how beak dogs breed), and chain 2 males and 2 females around each box, hoping they might breed, then I could train the young and do whatever (re-cage, just kill) the untameable adults.

While I actually chained the first male, however, without problems, even once it was chained it just scared all my dwarfs and interrupted all their tasks. I had THOUGHT that chained hostiles didn't do any interruptions/scare the citizens of the fort, I seemed to remember things like goblins being chained in peoples' dining rooms and such. Am I wrong?

Only other thing I can think of is to build some of the cages in the pasture zone, attach them all to a lever outside, lock the doors, wait to see if they breed, then if they do build a bunch of cage traps outside and open the doors, let them all get trapped, and train the young. Anyone know if this would even have a chance of working however? Not sure if hostiles would breed like this, not sure if beak dogs even can breed, or if they'd be for some reason untameable (the wiki suggests they can't be tamed, but that could be a holdover from older versions)... any input?

Edit: in retrospect, the question shifted a bit so I'm changing the title of the post slightly.

DF Gameplay Questions / Any downsides to caged friendlies?

« on: December 19, 2017, 09:07:46 pm »

So I had a werewolf invade my map, fear the night blah blah blah... he was dancing all over my cage traps as a werewolf, but then turned back into a human and immediately got caged. So now I have a caged "human" listed as friendly.

My first thought is to put him in the zoo, let my dwarfs ooo and aaah over the trapped werewolf changing every full moon, but since he's listed as Friendly as a human, will there be any downside to this? I don't think Friendly units could starve/die of thirst anyhow, but he especially shouldn't due to shifting form. But will there be any annoyed humans knocking on my drawbridges or anything because I've got one of their folk prisoner?

DF General Discussion / "Visiting" dwarven baby

« on: December 11, 2017, 04:55:44 pm »

I ran into a weird situation I haven't seen before in my current fort - I now apparently have a visiting dwarven baby for some reason. Not really sure why - dunno if another dwarf visitor brought him along, or gave birth while here, or what. But he's now just kind of wandering around my fort on the same level as my tavern, unattended. Actually, mostly wandering around my dwarven bathtubs that I set up so that any dwarf going to his/her room will have to walk through one, which is why I noticed him in the first place - he was getting in my way trying to fill them up and wandering up the channels keeping me from closing the floodgates and such. I was curious why he wasn't being carried around, went to check on him in my citizen list, and he's not there. Actually he is on the "others" list, but instead of a Guest he's listed as Friendly.

So now I'm just wondering what happens to the tyke when he gets old enough to take care of himself (if the fort makes it that far). Since he's not a Guest, he probably won't petition for citizenship I'd imagine. Not sure if he'll just wander off the map again, or just forever wander the halls of my fortress, never actually belonging.

DF General Discussion / What do you look for/need in an embark?

« on: November 28, 2017, 06:09:48 pm »

Okay, just out of total curiosity and wanting to see how other people play (and maybe even change my own style)... what do you look for in an embark? (Fortress mode, obviously.)

What do you NEED to have to consider an embark site? What do you really prefer? What's something you look for IF you can find it with the other stuff but it's not really necessary?

For me, I pretty much need to have dwarfs, elves, humans, and goblins all near my embark zone. Not sure why, but my game does not feel in any way complete unless I have all the possible traders, and the excitement of possible conflict. (Considering trying a tower instead of/in addition to goblins at some point, but honestly not all that sure how those work.)

I did until recently need the LACK of an aquifer. I still find it kind of hard to wrap my head around actually getting through those things, and they're a pain in the neck, but I've at least started occasionally trying them out. I figure I'll get more practiced with them in time. I still really prefer to not have them, though. I'd rather not deal with them unless it's the only way I can get a pretty much ideal embark site.

I very seldom embark in a place that isn't a temperate zone, although that's not as necessary. I like the middling challenge - it's not so absolutely challenging as extreme temperatures, and it still freezes up at times, so I pretty much need to create a cistern/water system and well for use in the hospital and such.

I really prefer soil, the deeper the better, so that I have some layers to play around with for underground pastures, possibly tree farms if I feel the need for them, etc. It's fun to sometimes challenge myself with less soil though and figure out other options (like just trying to enclose a surface pasture).

Metals... I don't think I ever have embarked in a zone without at least ONE metal to play with, and the more the better obviously, but as long as I have at least one type of metal I'll usually then prioritize some other things over a bunch of additional types.

I also really prefer clay (and sand, but I don't think there's any way to see if a zone has that before embarking), and would like to have flux stone if I can get it, but both of those can go to the wall if that's the only way to get my other preferences.

I also try to avoid "calm" zones if at all possible, since I love playing with a meat/animal industry, and enjoy capturing the wild creatures to try to tame them and breed them. (Yes, my forts tend to die of FPS death, why do you ask?)

I try to have a river or brook if I can, so I can more easily create my water system/cistern/eventually (hopefully) mist generator for my meeting area. (See above about FPS death)

I managed to embark in a good-aligned area a couple times and liked it for the extra creatures/plants, not sure if I ever tried an evil zone, but honestly it's tough to find an ideal embark spot that's also aligned in some way, so very seldom get to play with those.

I think I'm probably way too exacting/picky for my embark options. >_< So while we're at it, any suggestions for fun (or !FUN!) alternatives to try?

DF Gameplay Questions / New visitor types

« on: November 24, 2017, 12:35:23 am »

So I've been noticing new types of visitors in my fort (as others have, in another thread I saw). Peddlers and Beast Hunters and Monster Slayers just to name the three most recent I've had.

I'm just curious whether anyone has figured anything out about these guys - are they only cover stories for spies? (And for that matter do you get spies if you're not at war? And if they are spies, are they also in disguise so they look like dwarfs even if they're not?)

If they're not spies, and are just new types of guests, anyone have any petition to join the fort? Do they "work" as bards, or mercenaries, or something completely different? Just wondering if anyone's managed to get any sort of info (or even good guesswork) yet.

DF Gameplay Questions / Is it possible to starve (or kill from thirst) a werebeast?

« on: November 23, 2017, 08:07:52 pm »

So I started my brand new fort in (eeee) 44.01 (eeeeeee *ahem* sorry), and within the first couple months (I think in fall?) already had an elven werezebra show up and start throwing his weight around. Unfortunately I had a fisherdwarf too close to him to get into the alert burrow in time, and he got attacked before the thing turned back into an elf and skedaddled.

So now I have a fisherdwarf werezebra lying around in my hospital. He's not causing problems at this particular moment, since he's still bedridden (and the doctor seems to have stopped wanting to put him in traction now that I finally built a traction bench), but I'm worried that he'll get healed, then go start attacking my other dwarfs, possibly creating more werezebras and... yeah. !Fun!

So I thought since I don't have any other wounded dwarfs currently I could lock the hospital doors (once my doctor was out), and just starve the poor guy. I mean, I feel cruel, but better than the possible death of a fortress, right? Except that unless I missed something, when he turned from dwarf to zebra and back, he no longer seems to be thirsty (which he was before). So does this mean that I just can't starve him, or make him die of thirst?

I guess my other options if he gets healed would be to either lock him in a room off to himself permanently (I actually built one off my justice area just for him), or station him under a bridge to have a tragic accident. But this still leaves the chance that he could change and attack someone before I get him where he needs to be, so it's less than ideal.

Any input?

DF Gameplay Questions / Help me understand the "find desired location" fields?

« on: December 09, 2016, 01:30:16 pm »

So I've been playing on and off (and on... and then off for a while... then back on for a few weeks and... you get the idea) for years now, and I've used the "find desired location" a fair bit when I'm having trouble finding a preferred embark. But some of the stuff has always confused me, and I figure it's about time I get around to asking for some help. So if y'all don't mind I'll go through each one and give my understandings of them (which could be wrong and please correct me if they are), and point out the ones I'm really confused on.

X and Y dimensions are fairly straightforward I assume - it's trying to assume the size of your embark so it knows what to look for.

Savagery I believe is pretty much the number of wild animals, yes? Or is there more to it than that?

Evil seems to be the general alignment, so I think Low is a "good" aligned biome, High would be Evil, and Medium would be no alignment either way?

Elevation... this is straightforward in a sense, but I don't know exactly how it considers them. Like, would "Low" be only plains, with absolutely no hills/mountains? Or would it just be mostly plains? Is "high" ONLY mountains, or just an embark with at least some of them? Is medium hills?

Temperature is one that I'd really like translated as to which toggle corresponds to what temperature. I tend to like to play on temperate embarks as a preference (though it's not set in stone that I have to), so would that be "Medium"? Would Low be "Cold" and High "warm"? But then where do the extremes fall?

Rain sounds fairly straightforward, although I don't really pay too much attention to it, as long as an embark isn't "dry."

Drainage I just have no idea. I mean I know what drainage is obviously, I'm just not sure how it applies to an embark.

Flux Stone Layer is again fairly straightforward - some source of flux stone to make steel with

Aquifer is again straightforward, except since it's a binary choice I wonder just how it counts it - is it counted as "yes" there's an aquifer if just one pixel has an aquifer in it? Does it need the aquifer to cover the entire embark? more than 50%?

River again is easy, although I do wonder if it counts streams

Shallow Metal and Deep Metal are some of the ones that I use, but I would like to know just how it handles single vs. multiples. Does "Yes" mean "one OR MORE metals?" while multiple means there's definitely more than one? That's how I've been assuming it to work, but you know what they say about assuming.

Soil is another one that I'd like to clarify since I like to use it - if I'm reading it correctly, the "≤ Little" entry for instance would mean either no soil or very little. But that doesn't seem to make too much sense, since it'd seem to be more useful for people wanting to play with soil that they could look for "at least" a certain amount of soil. And for that matter, I'm not really sure in this screen or the actual embark screen what the different labels equate to exactly - how many layers is "a little"? How much is "some"?

Clay is obvious - either you have clay on your embark or you don't.

Really for most of the binary types, I'm assuming that having it on the embark AT ALL counts as a "yes," but I'm just not sure. And I'm kinda hesitant to post this at all since it's mostly asking for small bits of clarification or confirmation on a bunch of things, but it's been bugging me for a while!

Bonus semi-related question while I'm at it - are there any suggestions for creating more embarks with a larger number of neighbor types within range? I enjoy the trading, and I like having the challenge of goblins to keep me on my toes. It seems lately though like it's gotten fairly hard to actually get all the neighbors (well, Dwarves/Elves/Humans/Goblins) on one embark. I figure doing world creation with a higher number of civilizations should help, but anything else? For instance I know when kobolds were kinda bugged, it was suggested to do a shorter number of years before embark so that they didn't have as much chance to go extinct, but I have no idea if that'd be a factor here. Or for all I know having a longer pre-embark period would be good, to give races a chance to spread out more - I really don't know! So any suggestions as far as that goes are welcome.

DF Gameplay Questions / Any way to breed captured enemy monsters?

« on: May 17, 2016, 09:28:56 am »

So for whatever reason, one of my Fun Things (not FUN!... well, not usually) to do in DF is to try to capture and breed as many different types of animals as I can. Recently, I had an invasion with Beak Dogs along, and although I only have a male right now (and did have two males), I thought I'd set up a pasture type thing to try to see if they'd breed and I could capture and tame babies, even though they themselves are untamable.

I thought I'd try to attach them to chains next to each other in the same small pasture space, with cage traps around the entrances to catch any young ones for taming. But I'm running into the problem that having a beak dog even on a chain causes nearby dwarves to freak out and not do anything. I can't finish up the cage traps around the entrances to the pasture, I doubt I could even have the beak dog successfully moved to another chain, without the pasturing dwarf freaking out as they get near. My second male beak dog had to get killed because as it was getting brought to its chain and they got near the first one the dwarf leading it freaked out and let it loose.

Is there anything I can do at this point, other than filling my poor chained beakie with arrows? Any way in the future to breed these things?

Semi-related note: I also had a captured goblin give birth. Is there anything I can do with the baby other than just cage it? I figure probably not, but what with visitors and possible long-term goblin inhabitants, I thought I'd ask and see if there's anything I've missed.

DF Gameplay Questions / Please, explain filtering via pump to me!

« on: April 22, 2015, 10:55:29 am »

Okay, so I'm coming back and playing again after taking a long break shortly after personalities came in. My current fort is in an area without a river or other source of fresh, running water. There are enough pools that I've been able to make a water cistern, but since it's from pools, it's stagnant, which is non-ideal.

I read that pumping water through a screw pump is supposed to change stagnant water into fresh, by the magic of, uh, dwarfy physics. And that any stagnant water in a cistern, with fresh water added to it, will become fresh.

So I tried building a screw pump on the level over my cistern to pump the water through, and reintroduce it to the cistern. But it's all still stagnant water, including (as far as I can tell) the water that's just been pumped out of the screw pump.

So is this just old info, and Toady fixed it because it was a bug? Or am I doing something wrong, or what?