Bay 12 Games Forum

As in stuff from the caverns.

Basically, I wanna tunnel down to the GMS and if I do break into a cavern (since I don't want to use any cheats at all such as dfreveal)... can I just make walls (with a mason) and it'll block out anything that flies? Assuming there is still a celling above the wall?

Oh and assuming walls can't be destroyed: I was thinking of having a bit of sunlight shinning on one of my main working areas (so the dwarves don't get that sickness thing from being underground too much). But will sieges or anything come with things that can destroy the walls?

Hiya, basically my volcano is about... 6 Z levels above where I embarked. What I want to do is just take *some* of the magma down a few levels.

Or rather, create a channeled area where I can place a magma forge over it.

The problem is, the only thing I can think of is channeling the area and removing the ramps but even if I create stairs to get my mine back out, the magma would still go up the stairs, right?

So with the exception of using doors or floodgates... what can I do?

Hey, firstly there's a bug with taming animals or something... does anyone know exactly what animals so I can edit the files?

I'm just wondering if there is a downside to giving a dwarf with no experience in a job, a certain job. I'm not talking about dangerous things like medical stuff. Say like a mason or a weaponsmith... or make a dwarf just use pumps and haul and the likes. Other than it taking more time overall, is there any downside apart from lower quality goods?

Secondly, assuming I get a legendary soap maker or something and I decide it's worthless as of now, can I make him a miner and take off all other jobs for that Dwarf without him getting into a bad mood since he can't make soap?

Also, what jobs, other than medical and perhaps leadership/training/trading shouldn't I let new Dwarves do? As in, with a low mason skill the stone items will not be of high quality but it can be trained whereas with a low medical skill... my Dwarves will be butched like crazy.

I want to get more wood; does it respawn in the underground and overworld? If so, do you guys just use stone for the majority of your fortresses (as in items), keep in mind, I  barely make it to the first wave of immigrants before I think I've wasted a lot of the wood in my close areas.

Is there anyway to get a certain colour of stone? As in a golden coloured stone or a red stone to make walls from other than hoping to find it? Even by trading would be fine.

How does the domestic animal/egg and butchering stuff work? I mean sometimes in one game, I had one hen and one rooster, and she took up one nest box but in another, I chose three hens and one rooster and three nest boxes and nothing. As in the first time, she took up the nest box within say ten minutes of playing. The three hens were still there after the first immigrants arrived and not one nest box was claimed. Any reason for this?

But anyway, regarding the egg and butchering thing. I understand that you can designate the nest boxes to be ignored so the eggs will hatch (I think that's right) but... is there a way to control how many eggs hatch or see how many eggs are left in the box, assuming I left my dwarves take some eggs from the nest box?

About those damn plump seeds, I'm just completely confused. I mean I get them growing and store them. But anytime I try to brew a drink, it's telling me there isn't storage or fresh seeds (or basically the seeds are bad or something, forget the exact message). But even if I make about 8 or 9 barrels, sometimes I still get the message there isn't free storage after I instruct the Dwarf to brew me a drink (yes, there are seeds in the farm and the food storage). Oh and it says on the wiki I need bags... how do I create them or do I need to buy them at embark and trade?

Is there anyway to actually permantly avoid sieges (or at least conflict)? As in something like having a 40 tile long entrerance to my fortress and have it so if I see a siege or something, I can just pull up a drawbridge. But do the sieges ever go away, as in: Goblins arrive, they wait a few months and then leave? If so, around how long? If not... other than fighting, is there a way to get rid of them qithout having to fight? Like say I only had 40 dwarves or so, just a bunch of traps or magma? Speaking of magma, if I used that to pump onto the invaders, is there anything harmful about 1 depth magma?

And finally, the butchering thing, is there a downside to having a no skilled butcher other than we get worse overall food?

And thank you for any help I get.

I don't know if they do or not. I used the lazy newb pack to remove the exotic tag and can now tame panads and the likes but I'm wondering if they will do both the same job as a cat (hunt vermin) and secondly, do they need to be fed?

What about dogs and cats in general? Do they eat?

Reason I'm asking this is: I recently stuck on adventure mode again and noticed that most of the rooms (so to speak), tend to be "built" up, rather than mined out.

As in, it's like minning a whole Z-level and then if you were to have a dinning hall, you would build the wall and then convert it into a dinning room. I've noticed it too with the carvens in fortress mode.

So, I'm not sure if I'm doing it wrong by minning out rooms from the rocks.

I'm not really asking for what is "right". But I would like to get some insight on what others do.

Also, those of you who do mine out rooms, do you mine around the rest of the stone so it's like a room within a mined area or do you leave the rest of the walls?

For example:   

wwwww
wwwww
wwRww
wwRww

w = w, R = Room

Or do you just have it like:
CCCCC
CCCCC
CwRwC
CwRwC

C = clear/mined land, w = wall, R = room

I'm completely lost. I've done as the wiki told me to but still, they never trained. (I couldn't change the number from 10 to 3). So, having to make do with 10, I set it so my squad had 10 dwarves in it. Three of them had training axes but the others didn't have anything. I had a military leader but still, nothing.

So assuming I just want to start with say... 3 axe dwarves through training (I don't mind taking one axe dwarf at the embark screen but I'd prefer to train up the immigrants), how do I do it? I'm very confused and it's sort of worrying since I actually can't defend my fortress and I really would prefer not to have to spend the game with invasions turned off.

As in, will it give me an advantage?