Bay 12 Games Forum

Using the liquids command in DFHack, you should be able to create an obsidian floor (or several, just in case) mid-air. Enter the loo'k' screen and then use gui/liquids in DFHack for maximum ease.

7 Peasants.

Honestly, the only reason I ever bother to Prepare Carefully is if I want to bring geese or certain materials, and that's where all my points go. There aren't really any skills that are important to have right off the bat, and the ones that are vitally important (mining, growing, etc.) are going to be trained over time anyway. Why waste my time assigning points at the beginning?

i sort of see where i'm going wrong now, but i still have questions:

does this mean i should get the 'knapper' skill to get sharp rocks to throw? should i take on quests alone because my friends cannot sneak?

ill have a go at some of these, but knowing me, they may not work 

Companions are great for taking on vampires, night creatures, lone named wild animals, and other singular targets. Mob the cheetah/vampire/naked peasant and take him/her/it down. They are also good for sewer/dungeon fighting, where line of sight is more restricted so a) your companions aren't running all over everywhere and b) you need a little protection from suddenly stumbling upon thirty bandits by yourself.

They can be great against camps, if you have a lot of them, but until you can muster a decent army (or can handle open combat against a camp on your own, which is very late-game) I'd recommend going solo against camps. Generally what happens is that your companions rush in, scatter some enemies, get killed, and generally don't do much to help you clear the place out. You can sit and throw rocks from sneak all day and eventually headshot everyone, as long as you make sure to keep your distance.

It's not just about killing him. The punishment must fit the crime.

What I meant was, why not set the ballista to fire instead of just "prepare to fire." Having a large weapon aimed at you but never actually going off doesn't seem like a fitting punishment for cold-blooded murder, to me. He'd just get used to it after a while.

There are always 30+ idlers, except when a large amount of dumping is required.

Sounds like a military waiting to happen. Have you ever had an Elite Wrestler? Now's your chance.

Honestly though, more idlers means a more efficient fortress, in general. You have [n] dwarves doing the work of [n+30] dwarves. If your fort was less efficient, you'd have more people hauling and dumping things, and thus fewer idlers.

Another thing I need to figure out is how to get a steady supply of booze. I can never manage to have the barrel/pot generation and booze production equal the demand, especially when the pots and barrels are constantly being filled with fish, meat, and plants.

First thing I'd say is stop producing so much. Reassign some of your butchers/fishers/farmers to stonecrafting or woodcrafting until you have enough pots*, then assign them one or two at a time to the military until your supplies balance out.

Second thing I'd say is figure out the 'workflow' plugin of DFHack and use it profusely. I think I say that in every production-related thread, but seriously: the plugin allows you to tell your dwarves "when the supply of [insert object/supply here] drops below a certain level, begin producing it until it reaches the maximum I give you." Which means you can set a workflow order on your Brew Drink job to keep the number of available drinks reasonable for the number of dwarves you have; e.g. if you have 100 dwarves and want drinks available for a third to half of them at a time, you can set workflow to keep between 35-50 stacks of beverage available. When the drink stack count drops to 34 available stacks, the plugin starts up your Brew Drinks until you have 50 again. That way you only ever have a maximum of 50 barrels/pots tied up with drinks, (plus the negligible number in use at the time the available ones reach your limit) leaving the rest for your other foods. Likewise you can put a workflow order on your Make Barrel or Make Rock Pot jobs and your dwarves can keep 10-15 pots (or whatever number you like) available, without flooding your fort with empty containers.

If the fort ever gets the required dwarfpower, i'll put the ballista on 'prepare to fire' permanently.

An honor guard, eternally at the ready in case the Overseer ever decides to execute the prisoner with a "fire at will" order. I like the thought, but why not just shoot him?

This may be the most personally useful thing I've ever seen on the wiki. I've wanted to do a migrant-free fort for a while, but didn't want to go through the trouble of setting up a migrant-lock and also still wanted to get caravans. Definitely putting this to use now.

On a different note: I sometimes amaze myself with my noobishness. I've been playing for at least three years now... I should be able to figure stuff like this out for myself

I was trying to train up my wrestling against a Wild Boar and got kicked in the head.