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[TheHossofMoss]

Note to self: when all students are best friends with each other, it's not a good idea to let one of them be insta-vaporized by a Forgotten Beast. With half the school now flashing red, I'm announcing a special summer break for partying and sleeping in own rooms. I'd hate to have a tantrum spiral with these guys...

The students are now very close to Legendary. Few Grand Masters with lots of High Masters and Masters coming behind. Once I'll deal with the current unhappiness the first graduations should not be far.

Grand master and high masters in what skill? 

[Staalo]

Grand master and high masters in what skill? 

Fighter and Dodger. Armor user is lagging one or two levels behind with most students but that too is coming up nicely.

[Skullsploder]

That's great news! Anyway, I still would like to have them separated for future morale purposes. Work is starting on the prototype individual rooms.  Could you please post your boarding school design? Just screencaps would be perfect. I just want to see the most effective components of it and see if I can scale them down for solitary.

[Repseki]

Yes, some pictures of your Child Care layout would be great.

I was thinking of trying individual rooms as well, possibly with a dinning room included, hoping they will spend some time in their instead of making to many friends.

How is your system connected to the rest of your fort? I only made a short lived small area, but had some issues with other dwarves wandering through.

[Staalo]

Ok, the unhappy student crisis seems to be passed and courses are resuming after the summer break. There were some tense moments with one miserable student but the whole thing finally resolved without bloodshed.

Screenshots, you ask? Welll...

Spoiler: The Searingmines Dwarven Boarding School (click to show/hide)

This might need some explaining since it's basically hacked into stone without much preplanning and it's been expanded and modified everytime I've tried some new ideas.

On top is the medical personnel quarters and the combined hospital/sleeping area. The hospital has actually seen surprisingly little use; apart from two miners injured in cave-in there have been maybe one or two actual student medical cases. For sleeping purposes this area has been enough for at least 80 students.

To far left is what is left of the last iteration of scare closets; none of them seemed to work that well. Then again, I haven't had any suitably scary monsters on this map during the whole seven years. That means I haven't managed to get any Discipline training done even when the students are approaching Legendary combat skills. Right next to the empty scare closet area is the prepared meal stockpile.

To the right is the dining area. To far right, in the access tunnel leading to mist generators and other machinery you can see a student in what seems to be a perpetual state of falling; I'm waiting to see if he'll crash into a wall like some others have done earlier.

At the bottom is the drink stockpile. Since dwarves now drink  faster than in 34.11 there's actually no need for a bigger stockpile.

In the middle, of course, is the training area. The whole central area has been filled with spike traps, each with a single wooden training spear. I noticed later that I could have put way more spears into the traps with no added risk. I filled some of the area with statues and later filled it with some more to get it actually ready for students; luckily even this area will be enough for all the children of Searingmines.

One level up would be the bank of twenty mist generators for Swimming training but those are now offline because, well, they didn't actually train much Swimming. I might switch them on again if there's any need for additional happy thoughts.

In my next fort I'll probably build an actually thought out and designed version of this, using lessons learned in this test bench setup.

[Reelya]

Note to self: when all students are best friends with each other, it's not a good idea to let one of them be insta-vaporized by a Forgotten Beast. With half the school now flashing red, I'm announcing a special summer break for partying and sleeping in own rooms. I'd hate to have a tantrum spiral with these guys...

The students are now very close to Legendary. Few Grand Masters with lots of High Masters and Masters coming behind. Once I'll deal with the current unhappiness the first graduations should not be far.

I think it's best to train them in male/female pairs. They grow up, get social skills, get married. Then, segregate the men as a soldier caste and women as an industrial caste. That avoids babies in combat, and keeps the population growing, while also minimizing tantrum spirals amongst your soldiers.

[ImagoDeo]

I posted an update. Staalo's method seems to be working quite well.

There are two things to add:

• Discipline
• Tragedy training

Discipline can probably be trained through military training once the tots leave the daycare. However, if the goal was to develop a general dwarven culture of hardened individuals (and not just an elite military force), then we need a way to train it while the daycare is still running.

Tragedy training is also critical for this method. I recommend dropping puppies or goblins down a chute into the training zone, onto a statue or something. The recent near-tantrum-spiral that Staalo mentioned proves that we need some way of preventing all those friendships from sabotaging our efforts.

Solitary confinement isn't necessary so long as we can get our children not to care about anything anymore.

[Staalo]

Yes, my original idea was to elevate all future citizens to a "new normal", by training the children in everything dwarven children can be trained at.

Since this fort seems broken in a way that it isn't getting any invasions or interesting visitors, I've changed my plans somewhat. I'll run Searingmines only to get the current generation graduated, putting them through military as they mature. This will gain them their Discipline and weapon skills, and also lets me to equip them with uniforms to suit their Legendary Armor user skills.

After every single one of the current 92 students is fully trained and kitted with best gear I can produce, I'll abandon the fort and see how the activated world will handle my superdwarves. I hope I'll see lots of familiar faces at my future forts.

I've already started stripmining the mountain and clearcutting the surface; let's see if I can produce enough steel for about... a hundred full suits or so.

[Skullsploder]

On tragedy training, micromanagement, and automation:

Cats can adopt without ever seeing a dwarf, right? If they can't it doesn't really matter. For minimising micromanagement in tragedy training (e.g. if you had a bunch of indidividual cells and couldn't keep manually pitting animals in them), then you could set up a 4-tile pasture, like so:

Code: [Select]

======
=H+ccD
======

H hatch
+ floor
= wall
D access door
c chain with cat attached (one with male, one with female)
Link the hatch to a werebeast clock or similar, or even a slow repeater, designate a meeting zone over the hole and what you'll get is the resultant kittens wandering occasionally onto the hatch before it opens, without the breeding pair ever being compromised. Link that hole to a long chute ending in a platinum statue built on a platinum floor and you get happy students and splattered kitties. Use the access doors to replace breeding pairs should they die of old age (once every 12 years for cats, appropriate, yes?)

Smooth the walls of the chute though, of course. You don't want kitties clinging to it on the way down.

[TheHossofMoss]

Grand master and high masters in what skill? 

Fighter and Dodger. Armor user is lagging one or two levels behind with most students but that too is coming up nicely.

Holy papa Smurf that's awesome. Praise Armok.

[Staalo]

The Searingmines Dwarven Boarding School

Upon Recommendation of the Faculty,
and by Authority of Hot Lanterns,
Confers Upon

Èzum Practicedboard

the Degree(s) of

Legendary Dodger
Legendary Fighter

With all the rights, privileges and responsibilities pertaining thereto.
In witness thereof, the seal of the School and the signatures of the
authorized officers of Hot Lanterns are affixed at Searingmines, Regal Volcano.

1st Sandstone, 207

<wine-stained thumbprint>
Rigoth Roarletter, Duke

<illegible scribble>
Iden Bloodtin, mayor

<vicious stab mark through paper>
Ineth Canyonparched, militia commander

...

So yeah, not a full graduation yet but I had to celebrate somehow...

[BadLemonsXI]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Searingmines Dwarven Boarding School

Upon Recommendation of the Faculty,
and by Authority of Hot Lanterns,
Confers Upon

Èzum Practicedboard

the Degree(s) of

Legendary Dodger
Legendary Fighter

With all the rights, privileges and responsibilities pertaining thereto.
In witness thereof, the seal of the School and the signatures of the
authorized officers of Hot Lanterns are affixed at Searingmines, Regal Volcano.

1st Sandstone, 207

<wine-stained thumbprint>
Rigoth Roarletter, Duke

<illegible scribble>
Iden Bloodtin, mayor

<vicious stab mark through paper>
Ineth Canyonparched, militia commander

...

So yeah, not a full graduation yet but I had to celebrate somehow...

Nice.

[Reelya]

@Skullsploder: you don't need breeding pairs in each animal cell, you just need a mother cat. Keep a couple of males around somewhere and they should do for all females. There is no need for the two to come into contact, unless Toady recodes this one day so Quantum Pregnancy no longer works. Just keep one female cat in a separate breeding chamber, and don't kill her kittens, so you can replace the males and females if they get too old.

[Skullsploder]

Awesome Staalo! I think that's the first truly successful result Dwarven Daycare has ever had xD

@Reelya: Problem is I don't want dwarves wandering into the breeding chambers to the meeting zones of death, and in order for females to get pregnant the males have to be able to path to the females - which isn't possible through a locked door. Work has started on the first 4 cells, including one 15z kittysplatters shared by all through a common corner. Each cell will have: a climbing wall with booze on top that rinses every few ticks to prevent them ever reaching the top, a well one z deep with a ramp (so they train swimmer when they fall in), a quantum food stockpile, a table, a chair, 2 beds, and a nest box. Each student will be sharing the room with their future spouse.

They will also be sharing the room with several turkeys.

[Reelya]

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/v0.34:Meat_industry

Are you sure about the pathing requirement for animal breeding? Because the wiki states that

a collection of 1x1 pits could be an effective way of stopping pathfinding while retaining breeding.

As far as I can find from sources, female animals should always breed as long as they're not in a cage and there's an uncaged male somewhere on the map.

For example, the classic Sea Serpent breeding system did not have a path from the male serpent to each female. And considering the pathing FPS issues that we already have I can't see Toady adding extra processing any time soon.