Bay 12 Games Forum

Hi!

Just to make this quite clear: You can put weapon traps and other nice things on constructed floors while roads do not permit that. So, they are really useful if you want to have a trap-protected path for the caravans.

Deathworks

Hi!

Oh lol Shurikane, that one elf sure looks lonly in there doesn't it?

You know, I desperately tried to forget the thought the description Shurikane gave of what is going to happen next. And then you come in and give me thoughts that are even worse (T_T)

Deathworks

Hi!

I am with the magma-is-too-much-trouble faction.

First of all, I don't have a murderous fortress, so I don't set up things to kill civilians and traders. And for everything else, there are the good old weapon traps, thank you. (And if I were to challenge something along the lines of forgotten beasts, I would probably go for a cave-in trap) Thus, magma is not useful for me as a weapon.

Secondly, I am more interested in playing Dwarf Fortress as a game of construction rather than survival. Thus, I prefer easy sites, usually heavily forested with lots of plants in a temperate to cold climate. Thus, I have a basically unlimited supply of wood that can easily fuel my furnaces.

Third, I tend to play with a small setup, trying to get few immigrants during the first year, and having a low population cap (< 7). Thus, I have very slow fortress growth which gives me time to hoard fuel. In addition, this also increases the effect the regular import of bituminous coal has on my economy.

For these reasons, there is no real need for magma in my fortresses.

On the negative side, there are the following things:

Dwarves are not careful enough when handling flames or when ablaze themselves. This makes magma itself a highly dangerous substance that can easily ruin an interesting fortress.

Secondly, magma is known to be inhabited by creatures that also wield fire. So, even when carefully designating your mining, there is a risk involved with breaching the magma.

Third, and this only applies to the most recent version, of course, breaching the magma requires first breaching all the cavern layers. And personally, I consider the cavern layers a very nice, game-like feature of the game where the player can freely move on to the next challenge when they have established their current situation. If I made magma important for me, I would basically forfeit this freedom of setting my own pace for the challenges of the game.

So, for me that is 0 pro and 3 contra arguments, leading to a clear "Nope.".

Deathworks

Hi!

That said,I don't think they knew the drill equipment was failing.At,what,18,000 feet under the sea,it was?
you Can't exactly just pull the line up and check for damage,or put any sensors that are very sophisticated down there to check.

I was referring to the CBS (I think) interview in the OP. One of the people from the well brought forth hefty allegations - like them ignoring that the rubber parts of a valve came up through the drilling and that the BP manager insisted on using a speedy method that absolutely required that valve to be intact down there and not in pieces on the table.

Of course, I am not a professional in oil drilling, but if parts of my machinery come up in tatters, I might consider being more careful rather than being even more reckless. (^_^;;

That is just how I saw it. EDIT: I just wanted to clarify that and am not really interested enough in this to argue about it (living 500m above sea level in Germany, that is somewhat far off for me).

In general, I don't mind if people try dangerous solutions - if the people who make the decision are also the people who are most likely to be affected.

Deathworks

Hi!

We should be able to salt paths at some point.

Mmmmhhh, a new idea to capture mountain goats, I guess?

Well, one of the dwarves in my latest fortress likes rock salt so it would be nice to combine him with your salt for the ideal noble :) :)

Rotten: About your suggestion before, I never use magma or breach it, so this setup would be a bit difficult to accomplish. Anyhow, I have started a new fortress, and now I am taking note which dwarf would be best for new noble positions. I rather work all the adamantine lovers 24/7 so they never make friends and thus never become mayors instead of worrying about mishaps during elimination attempts.

Deathworks

Hi!

I just had a huge facepalm on a meta-game level.

After discarding the first world in 31.04 because all the sites I wanted came with aquifers, my first fortress in 31.04 suffered from no turtles resulting in 2 out of 4 artifacts failing making me give up on that fortress/world.

The next fortress again had no turtles. And even though I had 3 successful moods and no losses, I gave up on this after some experimentation in acquiring shells.

Now, I genned another world to find again that there are no turtles on my site. I am still in my first year and I like the site (although absolutely flat, it started out with the pools frozen - something that has become rare for me in 31.xx and which will come in handy as it does have an aquifer down there somewhere). And just as I saved, I suddenly remembered that there is the [ARTIFACTS:] setting -> major face palm

Deathworks

Hi!

Well, setting aside the mysteries of the forum software, the "struck down" message is, as far as I know, always used when an attack immediately kills a creature. It merely marks that the creature was directly killed by violence (by another creature or a trap, as far as I know). I am not quite sure, but it may even occur when a creature is killed by a cave-in or by falling into a pit (I have been looking after my dwarves, so it has been a while).

There is also "bleeding to death", "suffocating", "has died of old age", but I don't think there is even a generic "has died".

Deathworks

Hi!

Okay. Then I recommend that you re-activate the magma layer.

I just asked in case you wanted to attain something by changing that. In that case, we would have needed to find a way to reach your goals with the magma layer there.

By the way, unless it changed from the older versions, the default values are reset whenever you change the size of a map. At least in versions until including 40d, you could simply increase the width of a world and then then decrease it again and you would have the default settings again. I have not tested this in 31.xx, but it seems reasonable for it to be still there.

Deathworks