Bay 12 Games Forum

I've done the badger farming thing.  They don't breed fast enough to really run an industry on their own, but they make an interesting supplement.  And they compare favorably against dogs for meat, fat, and bone returns.

No it will not.  Atom smashers plainly and cleanly remove objects from existence, unless they're creatures too big for it.  Magma is a much more elaborate and drawn-out process with waste smoke and condition tracking, and certain complete failure for anything that can withstand that temperature, which is a surprisingly large number of things.

The shield bash generally shouldn't be a primary or even frequent attack form, anyway.

You just haven't embraced the dorfen spirit of innovation, stubbornness and total indifference to nature yet, that's all.  If your embark site isn't to your liking, make it conform.

That kind of stockpile doesn't normally take bins, because those items don't go in bins.

Brooks, unique among the various river types, have a strange quasi-floor on top of them, which is why dwarves can walk over them without drowning nor even getting wet.  As you've seen this floor can get muddy... it also blocks water wheel access to the water, and must be channeled away if you want to use the brook for that purpose.  I doubt the brook is actually frozen.

Regarding the farm plot error message, ignore it.  Error messages for farm plots in general are a bit weird and inaccurate, and the ones for above-ground plots are egregiously so.  Just check back later on any plot location you're not sure of, see if it's being planted or not.

Exposing an underground tile to light and then roofing over it by constructing a floor on the level above does leave it lighted and above-ground.  You can never grow underground crops there again, nor will you see volunteer cavern plants pop up there, but you can build above-ground crops there, and if you aren't quick about putting down the plots you might see surface grass and tree volunteers pop up.

gender: male
age: 31
race: several
profession: trained as a CNA, an electrician, and a few other things, but currently unemployed
social class: lower
perferred sock color: don't care
favorite way to kill a goblin: thoroughly... method doesn't matter as long as he ends up in a dozen or more pieces

If there's any good size game around, and the area isn't a deadly hellhole, let your hunters do their thing.  If you didn't get any hunter migrants, make some crossbows and bolts and enable hunting on some of your more agile dwarves.  You'll want a craftsdwarf workshop doing Make Bone Bolts R to keep them supplied with ammunition after they get started.

If you're lucky enough to have a large (or quickly replenishing) supply of something really big, you will be drowning in meat before you know it.  Back in the time of the rhino war, I had three butchers and three kitchens running non-stop and barely keeping up.  I bought out whole caravans with nothing but rhino flesh.

EDIT: You'll want quivers too, come to think of it.