Bay 12 Games Forum

My craftsdwarf just had three or four or five masterpieces stolen by some monkeys when I wasn't looking. He kind of went off the deep end for a while, and realizing that I didn't really need those stone crafts in the first place I put him to work making furniture. After quite a few tantrums and almost a year of moping, his mood improved.

What I noticed, however, was that his mood improved almost as soon as he changed from being a stone crafter to being a mason.

My suggestion is this: the bad thought from art defacement should be reduced in magnitude if the art that's being defaced isn't the dwarf's primary skill. After all, would a mechanic feel as bad if one of his masterpiece statues was destroyed by accident?

This would also lead to a more realistic way of working off bad moods; if you can get a dwarf to get good enough at another skill, the bad thoughts will fade - just like when people suffer a traumatic experience in their current line of work, and find another one that takes their mind off it.

I seem to have a weird problem with buildings that require a non-stone item. I first noticed it with wells; no matter how many buckets I had my carpenter make, I could never build one - I'd always get the screen saying "Wells require a bucket and a block of stone", or something like that. At first I didn't care, because I can get a still running before I run out of my initial supply of alcohol, but then once the metalsmith shows up I'm unable to build a workshop from him; I get that same message, except this time it says that I need an anvil even though the thing is right there.

Note that I can build most other workshops, as well as things like bridges and levers, just fine.

Is there some subtlety to the construction of these things that I'm missing, or should I just re-install DF?

(edit: I realized that since the game is in alpha, I should probably have a more descriptive title than "weird problem")

[ September 09, 2007: Message edited by: Tacroy ]

This might be because I'm not playing a clean install, but for some reason in this save I've migrated from .33b to .33c "Wagon" is now a valid option under "Corpses" and "Body Parts" in the refuse stockpile.

I kind of want to make wagon leather boots, just to freak out the elves.

I generally take the view that it's a lot easier to make magma move than to force my dwarves to move, so when I set up magma workshops I generally use long corridors to transport the magma where I want it. At the moment magma flows are kind of ridiculously slow, so I end up getting impatient and building my smelters and forges before the magma's done filling in the underground channels.

This causes problems; even though the magma underneath my furnaces is on most of the time, if it ever turns off the furnace is disabled and all of the orders queued up in it are cleared.

This is really irritating behavior, especially when a noble needs a statue right now.

I think better behavior, if it's not too difficult to implement, would be for magma workshops to suspend all their queued jobs while there isn't enough magma, and unsuspend them when there is. This would keep jobs from disappearing without feedback due to random magma fluctuations.

It would be neat if there were some additional uses for magma up in the higher levels of the fort. I was thinking that perhaps warm tiles should get a value bonus (i.e, "oooh, warm floors."), and perhaps it could even be something that nobles require (not "demands warm floors in room", but as part of the basic room requirement, that is "royal throne room with warm floors") This would encourage dangerous magma-based construction projects in the vicinity of nobles, which is something I think everyone enjoys.

I was thinking about how to make a Maxwell's Floodgate using pressure plates, and an interesting idea occurred to me: it would be really neat if one could link pressure plates and levers to workshops, with the effect of "Queue <job> when activated". With a couple more additions (like an "activate when item on me is removed" setting for pressure plates), one could automate things like bolt and food production - or alternatively, one could use water logic to have in-game effects aside from drowning unlucky goblins.

Oooh, and just now I thought of another idea: it would be sort of neat, though rather fourth-wall breaking, if you could add a mechanism to triggers that would pause the game. It'd be useful if you're experimenting with goblins and water cannons for instance, to see if they actually fly. It could be explained as "Sound alert (will pause game)" and require a metal bell or something, as well as the mechanism.