Bay 12 Games Forum

I've read that a good way to train architects is to lock them in a room with a bunch of stone and designate a bunch of bridges. They'll design the bridges (and haul the rocks), but won't build them (assuming they don't have masonry turned on), then you undesignate and re-designate and let them start over. If you designate the same bridges over and over, they shouldn't even have to haul the rocks after the first time, so they'll spend full time designing. Might want to stick some food and booze in there as well.

I think (but I'm not certain) that DT derives its memory layout from dfhack, rather than attempt to work the entire thing out separately. It used to be that when a new release came out, you could use a scanner built into therapist to get the memory layout. Or at least, use it to get a start at getting the memory layout, assuming it hadn't changed too much. But it didn't always work well. So I'm assuming that Splinterz just got tired of duplicating the effort that was also being done for dfhack and decided to piggyback on their work. So now therapist isn't usable until someone gets the new memory layout for dfhack done, and then Splinterz does some extra work to convert it to what therapist needs. Presumably this work is far less than generating a layout from scratch. (Someone who actually know what goes on is more than welcome to chime in here)

This still results in therapist being usable with a new release far earlier that dfhack, because there is usually more to do with dfhack besides just identifying the new memory layout. All the dozens and dozens of dfhack scripts and plugins need to be checked out and fixed if necessary. And the dfhack devs seem pretty conservative about actually releasing new dfhack versions.

If you are willing to compile dfhack, you can get a version that works on a new version before they release an alpha (but you take your chances on it, because it is pre-alpha, which means possibly broken). You just have to monitor their git repo and see when they get their memory layout in. Or you could wait until a therapist release comes out, which would mean that dfhack's memory layout is in.

So far I don't think they've felt confident enough to do a real, non-alpha dfhack release since 42.XX came out. So therapist is way ahead in that aspect.

He said he has marksdwarves riding the carts. It sounds like it might be a decent way to get them to stop charging into melee, if nothing else.

I'm more and more thinking marksdwarves are just a waste of time. Almost every bolt gets blocked, and those that don't seldom do much damage. Maybe it would help if my marksdwarves would shoot the copper bolts that I have marked as "combat use" and not the wood bolts that are marked "training use only". And then there is their tendency to charge into melee with a full quiver instead of staying back and shooting. Given all the effort it takes to get them to actually shoot useful bolts, I'm more and more thinking I'd be better off just taking away their crossbows and handing them real weapons so they can do something useful.

Then there are macedwarves, who also seem pretty low on the utility scale (but better than marksdwarves). They seldom seem to break bones like hammers do, and they don't lop off limbs. All the bruising they do might be useful against goblins, but against undead and weres (which are what I'm been facing mostly lately) they don't seem to accomplish much at all. Had a fort where the first 2 migrants with military skills were both macedwarves, so I started my first squad with them. Then an axedwarf showed up, followed immediately by a bunch of undead. The axedwarf had a copper axe and no armor, the macedwarves had silver maces and full armor. In the end, the axedwarf killed all of the undead, except for one that got killed by a lucky blow to the head from a mace. But I saw dozens of headshots from maces fracture the skull, but not enough to drive it through the brain like hammers would have done. What can a mace do that a hammer can't do better?

I don't really pay that much attention to mine, now that you mention it. He usually has a few other skills left over from the days when the fort was so short-handed (not a height joke - really!) that everyone had to wear a few hats.

Hmmm, just checked my current fort, but it appears that my original carpenter hasn't survived. Oh yeah, he got killed by a forgotten beast back in 253. I remember now, it was when I first opened up the passage from the caverns into my automated forgotten beast trap. He was one of the crowd that just had to run out into the caverns to pick up all the corpses of critters that had been killed by the forgotten beast. And while they were rushing out, the forgotten beast was rushing in, and met them just outside of the traps. Here's a hint guys: if the caverns are full of corpses, maybe there's a reason for it.

Anyways, by the time I don't have much use for a carpenter anymore, my original carpenter (assuming he's still alive) is usually a fairly decent cook or brewer or farmer or something along those lines, so I just let him/her continue in those side professions, while still being available to make the occasional ☼willow bin☼ or ☼oak shield☼ as needed.

I don't think it's too much to ask that people read the previous page before asking questions, and especially before demanding status reports from a developer who gives his time voluntarily.

Here's your status report:
Splinterz is currently working on whatever he damn well feels like working on, and the ETA for a dwarf therapist that works with .06 is whenever it gets done.

And no, there's nothing like therapist that's currently working with .06. There is something similar built into dfhack, but dfhack generally takes even longer to be available for new releases, so don't get your hopes up. And the one in dfhack isn't nearly as nice as therapist.

Had a minor brawl in my tavern. My mason went up against my two miners. Mason ended up with a compound fracture in his arm. Or actually, not so much *in* his arm, it being a compound fracture. 

New rule in my fortress: If the miners get drunk and start claiming that theirs is the most important profession in the fortress, just nod and agree with them.