Bay 12 Games Forum

http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/settling_disputes/dt25_02.html

That's worn as in "falling apart", not worn as in "the dwarfs are wearing it."

I'm trying to understand how best to manage cloth.  The situation is this:  I have lots of cloth (both plant fibre and silk) in my stockpiles.   Much of this cloth is fine, but some of it is worn (say, xRope Reed Clothx, XRope Reed ClothX).  This worn cloth can still be used to make items out of and it can still be dyed.  However, it is not worth as much (in and of itself) as if it was in good condition.
I would like to get rid of all the worn cloth, so I set up a refuse stockpile to accept cloth.  However only items which are XXRope Reed ClothXX are taken into the refuse stockpile.
Also, noone seems to use the slightly worn cloth for anything, so my clothing workshops are full of piles of worn cloth.  Nobody moves these to any cloth stockpile. 
This is also the case at my Dyers workshop, which is full of piles of worn cloth that nobody will move anywhere.

Does anyone have any good ways to manage cloth stockpiles?

(on a related note, I don't know whether worn cloth used to make an artifact makes any difference to the final value of the artifact, and I don't know what triggers cloth to become worn in the first place, and whether suitably worn bundles of cloth will eventually disappear completely when they get too worn - anyone know the answers?)

I have lots of dwarfs in my fort and several statue gardens.  There is usually a very large amount of work to be done, including masonry (making rock blocks), masonry (building walls), mining (for stone) and hauling (move stone to the masons).  Nearly all the dwarfs have the masonry and stone hauling labours turned on.

In practice, they do not waste any time partying.  At all.  While the building is in progress, all the dwarfs (except nobles, FG, RG and military) go to work, constantly.  They do not waste any time.  When the building stops, they go back to partying.

When they do party, it helps them gain skills (and hence indirectly stats) and (I believe) helps them form friendships and romantic liaisons.  Noble dwarfs with high social skills are (I believe) more effective at preventing unhappiness.  Also, if a statue garden includes any particularly spiffing furniture the dwarfs will get happy thoughts, and if you have different types of good furniture (eg. if you dump all those artifact millstones, floodgates, hatches etc. into your statue gardens) they will get several happy thoughts.

Also, you can be fairly sure that your statue gardens will have at least one member of the Guard hanging around, so you can use them to position your defences.  (assuming you value the presence of the Guard; I do, you may prefer not to have a Guard)

Aaanyway, reason I'm saying this is that I keep seeing people saying how awful parties are, and I just don't think that's the case.  It may once have been true, but parties don't currently harm your dwarfs productivity.

I also don't believe that dwarfs having friends from partying has a serious effect on tantrum spirals.  If anything it may (properly managed) have a positive effect, because your dwarfs will have social skills that can help reduce tantrums, they can get *lots* of happy thoughts from partying, and they will all be more resilient to injury (as they will have higher stats).

Thoughts?

So there I was, congratulating myself on the smooth running of the fort, when I noticed a yellow flash on the ticker: someone throwing a tantrum.  I look at the "a" log:

Unib Betanfath, Child, has been struck down.
Lolor Toralinod, Child, has been struck down.
"Catty" Razzon, Siege Engineer cancels Recover Wounded: Interrupted by Skeletal Giant Eagle
Amost Atiskib, Child has been struck down.
"Furny" Rakustken, Clothier is throwing a tantrum!

Argh!  They were attending a party in a small room in the very centre of the fortress.  The damn eagle must have used ninja skills to sneak in, past all the fortress guards and royal guards, past a hundred and fifty dwarfs without being noticed in the slightest - there were no other messages about interruption until Catty tried to rescue one of them - and then tore apart the three children in seconds.  Their bodies are scattered around in small bits.

Catty dispatched the eagle with an axe to the skull, but the real bad news is that the three were siblings... the only children of poor Furny the Clothier.  Who is understandably going mental. 

Ninja skills, though.  That was the l33735t eagle in the land.     And to add insult to injury it was called "Simpletone".   

(edit)

Oh, grim!  She went to the scene of the slaughter and picked up Lolor's right lower arm, and was hauling it to the tomb when suddenly she went into a tantrum and hurled it across the fort, leaving a trail of blood.   

When browsing through the stocks screen, the effect of having large numbers (many thousands) of stones or blocks is obvious - the game grinds to a halt for a few seconds before showing the page.

My question is, does having a construction built of thousands of stones or stone blocks impact on normal game speed?  I guess it is whether, when a construction is built, it is then treated any differently to a revealed but untouched rock wall - it is an "object" instead of a terrain feature, so may use up a few extra cycles here and there - insignificant for one block wall, significant for ten thousand block walls...

Anyone know for sure?

I'm curious as to what bookkeeper settings people use.  Is there any advantage to using settings lower than the maximum? (aside from having more time on the hands of one dwarf!)

My dwarfs had built and installed a wall made out of clear glass windows.  There were ten windows in the wall.  It was next to a ten tile long bridge (the bridge running parallel to the windows).
Suddenly when I next looked at the glass, six out of the ten windows had gone... just disappeared.  They hadn't been dismantled accidentally and moved, and there were no unhappy dwarfs breaking things.  I was confused.

Anyone know what could have destroyed them?  They were accessible to the local wildlife, but the only things around were a few skeletal mountain goats.

(edit)
And just to expand, the remaining windows are now x*clear glass window*x and X*clear glass window*Xs, so they've obviously all been pounded by something.

My weaponsmith went into a fey mood, so I was delighted.  She toiled away and eventually created an artifact copper pick (very nice one too, with an engraving of a burning goblin ).

Unfortunately, my miners don't want anything to do with it.  I've tried the usual tricks to get them to take it (forbidding/removing all other picks, disabling and renabling the mining labour) but they won't.

I'd settle for one of my champions using it as a weapon, but they won't touch it either.

Anyone know a way to get the dwarfs to use it?  I've heard that dwarfs won't use an artifact unless they have an appropriate high skill level, but the skill listed in the raw is "mining" and all the miners are legendary already.