Bay 12 Games Forum

Something worth considering though is stealing someone else's embark. On the embark screen, if you press 'R'eclaim, you can load up a premade fortress loaded with supplies, rooms, and even a straight path(through any aquifers and caverns) into the magma sea(read as 'unmarked volcano'). You can even dig up constructions(d-n) for free materials and building space. The only problem with reclaims is that you don't control map size, there might be hostile enemies present at startup, and there are a LOT of items lying around. I don't know how much that affects FPS, but it's not like you lose anything by trying since you can just abandon if it's too painful. Reclaims are one of my favorite embarks now.

Outside of reclaims, Volcano is a really good priority for early players. Having instant magma kilns/glass/furnaces/forges is a huge boon. Clay and sand are infinite building materials, even when there aren't any trees or the local aquifer is preventing you from getting stone.
Consider Warm environments to prevent your water source(if it's a river, aquifers don't care) from freezing. Make sure you don't go Hot or Scorching though, or the water will just dry up.
(Good is not nice. The creatures there can be just as dangerous as in evil biomes, you just don't have to worry about undead yak skin attacking you.)
Make sure to bring raw materials as well. 20 units each of tetrahedrite, lignite, olivine/gabbro and logs will be more useful to you in the long run than a dozen crutches, splints and whatever else the vanilla embark drops in your wagon.
Bringing egg layers is very valuable as well. Eggs+Quarry bush leaves or booze = super valuable food for trading.
Flux is a must, if you want steel. If there's no flux, you can melt all the ore and siege litter you want, you'll be stuck with iron and miniscule amounts of steel that you get from traders.

So I've made a rather interesting discovery about 0.42, though given the magnitude of it, I imagine people already know. Apparently, if you manage to "acquire" a book with the secrets of life and death and put it in a library, dorfs (and visitors) can and will read it, thereby becoming necromancers, rendering them totally immune to drowning, suffocation, and aging (as if a dwarf in a player fortress has ever died of old age) and allowing clueless fisherdwarves caught outside during a massive siege to completely wipe the floor with the gobbos by virtue of being close to the corpse stockpile.

Just remember to keep your mortal dwarves away from the corpse stockpile. For obvious reasons.

Some random fruit picker went missing, presumed fallen in the volcano based on how the master-work ladder he was carrying ended up destroyed.  I open up legends mode, and a Dragon is credited with destroying the ladder. Confused, I conduct an experiment. A plant gathering zone is set up on the volcano brim, and a bunch of peons are sent to pick there. Sure enough, one falls in and reaches the bottom layer of the magma sea. As soon as he touches the "lava flow" level, his master-work clothing is destroyed, causing a notification. Again, legends mode states the same dragon is responsible for burning the clothing.

How... odd. Anyone else encountered this?

Most people find this from merchants trading masterworks. I hadn't realized ALL masterwork destruction was bugged in this way though.

Quote from: pikachu17 on April 08, 2016, 02:58:01 pm

My Birdo adventurer just ripped three bogeyman heads off of their owners
unfortunately he became a shadow husk

Killing bogeys? That's pretty hardcore, even as a giant slayer I wouldn't dare fight bogeys - screw them.

Did bogeymen get buffed? I remember they used to be good practice for learning to fight, since they spawned nearly indefinitely and couldn't hurt you once you had armor. Lately though I've had trouble hitting them with my attacks, even if I could dodge theirs.

I had one attack where bogeymen followed me into the Civic mound of a nearby hillocks, and they killed some poor peasant right there for everyone to see before I could kill it.

Perhaps the pickaxe gave them blisters?

Quote from: King Kitteh on April 05, 2016, 05:20:20 pm

but as soon as I got the miners to dig out some rock they died of poison, which signifies that they cried.

So, dwarves cry when they mine. Maybe they don't want to injure the rocks?

When a need is met, emotional creatures feel "unfettered." Strong emotion like this causes them to cry. So, when your adventurer kills those evil bandits and starts crying, it's not because he feels sorry. It's because he "improved his fighter skill" or because he "got in a fight recently". Assuming you have the right needs, of course.

Your dwarves were satisfied at work, i.e. did their jobs. (Mining)

Common answer
Steel = Silver < Gold < Platinum.
As far as I know, there's no downside to using these "soft" metals because durability isn't an issue.

Quote from: Starweaver396 on April 03, 2016, 07:19:05 pm

I retired my adventurer to see if I could build a fort for her, but went to check legends just because...

One of my three companions that I assaulted a Necromancer's tower with survived, somehow. I went back to the tower and killed all the remaining zombies, scoured the area and couldn't find her. I feel bad because I totally left her for dead. (Which is probably why she survived. Fast travel sometimes keeps people alive.) I would love to find this poor soul, but I don't really know where to look. It seems I have a new goal.

check her home town, the world is alive now so she probabbly went back home, or maybe shes off adventuring on her own.

Finally found her body. I guess Legends isn't entirely accurate? I don't use it a lot but I figured it would always know if someone was dead or not...

I noticed a funny fact: in .34.11, marksdwarves without proper training range became hammerdwarves eventually.
I had a full squad of marks who I let train with those melee squads. They even sparred with each other using their crossbows as a hammers.

That's intended, and still happens in this version as well.