Bay 12 Games Forum

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I WAS WAITING FOR THE-

QUICK!!! DRAZOTH!!! VISIT NEW JERSEY!!!

People generally try to escape New Jersey; its the depressing light at the end of the tunnel. Though I suppose someone has a preference for "loves New Jersey for its toxic waste dumps" ... or gambling.

Disclaimer: I'm a New Yorker

I don't really have enough for a full update, but here's the swimmaster. I need to make a few tweaks to how it works, but for the most part, I'm happy with the design.



Basically how it works is there are a bunch of retracting bridges over a pool of 6/7 water positioned in such a way that a dwarf has to path through several tiles to get out via the ramp near the bottom. The lever at the full end is set to Pull/Repeat at high priority and is not connected to anything. The missing walls at the top are an artifact of an earlier design that I didn't finish, and can be ignored. Here's how it works.

1. Dwarf enters the swimmaster crossing the right-most pressure plate when he takes the "Pull the Lever" job
2. He gets about half way to the lever when the bridges retract.
3. If he fails to climb, he plops into the water below, and has to path out
4. The dwarf will cancel the job with "Dangerous Terrain", making it available for someone else to grab.
5. Another dwarf will get pulled into the swimmaster while the first dwarf paths out via the ramp in the corner.
6. Occasionally however, the dwarf will manage to climb and hang in midair. In that case, he'll path to the lever.
7. The second pressure plate by the lever controls the door at the left.
8. The dwarf will repeat for a bit on the lever for a few moments, then try and leave. The door will only be open while he's on the pressure plate kicking him back out to the beginning
9. Traffic designations make sure dwarfs always path through the swimmaster

Here's the fortress swimming stats after about 2 months

I feel an urge to dismantle the FTW device in favor of a properly trained military. And the need to avoid making more dwarfite

So after a few abortive attempts, Scorchedgravel now has the Swimmaster 5000, which is a pressure plate monstrosity that also trains climbing a little bit while its at it (though that trains very slowly). Everyone except Nix is now an adequate swimmer. Works completely automatically, and I can use workshop profiles to control who is swimming. I can't get children to use it since they won't pull levers anymore unfortunately. I *might* try a meeting area to see if I can get those kids to go somewhere useful, but I kinda doubt it. Given I can train swimming very quickly now, its kinda moot, and I might as well let them reach legendary as agility means they'll move really fast.

Also another flying webber showed up -_-;

I however learned when dwarfs get stunned, they drop their infant, and babies will not move at all in 6/7 water. I had to drain the swimming area to recover MoonyTheHuman before he drowned. It also generates mist so my dwarfs are even more happy now.

I can't help but think that after Spearbreakers fell, an {africian|europian} falcon went and picked up a mug from the remains. After years of exposure, the madness of the mug distorted the simple creature into the abomination it is today.

That pearlash one is going to be brutal due to the three step production chain. Clear glass is probably second to mead in terms of complexity.

(I need to play Scorchedgravels now)

The downside to 23a is that "bored now", at least in my case, became a serious issue over time. Make sure you use one of the bugfixed EXEs, and I recommend a military or traps before going past the cave river. The chasm can be rather deadly

Also note that a migrant will come with an anvil the first summer. That tripped me up the first time I played 23a.

You might also want to dig out 40d, which still has a good number of the original 23a mechanics, but adds biomes and 3D, but still had the economy and immigrant nobles (with the exception that the manager/bookkeeper could be appointed).