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Total Members Voted: 11

Voting closed: May 26, 2019, 07:50:41 pm

[IonMatrix]

Damn it is craftsdawrfboi actually playing?

[Spriggans]

Damn it is craftsdawrfboi actually playing?

Doesnt look like it.
Who's next ?

[gchristopher]

I'm next in line. Anyone heard from OP PsychoAngel? Don't want them to duck responsibility for deciding to skip!

[Craftsdwarf boi]

Yes I am

[Craftsdwarf boi]

I am constructing glorious mega-projects that will result in the deaths of dozens (perhaps)
Also, I am too lackadaisical to micromanage adamantine farming
The military has benefited greatly from the production of an adamantine spear.

[gchristopher]

I contacted PsychoAngel, and they were okay with calling a skip. 3 months with not much in the way of updates isn't so great. I'm going to make the attempt and see if we can get things quacking again. (Craftsdwarf boi, how do you feel about picking up the turn when you've got a bit more time to flap your wings at it?)

First off, how are the ducks doing?


Image source: fowllanguagecomics.com

Oh right, not a lot has happened, but they are in a rather nice fortress with a lovely temple of duckitude, Scrooge McDuck is swimming in coins, and there's not an evil cloud in sight.

Well, then it's the 4th of Malachite, year 8. The ducks all got together and brainstormed their most important goals and deepest desires.



Of course! That's going to be a tall order, with only 5 steel bars and the adamantine reserved for crucial duck-statue purposes. Glass is available, but that's a long ways for a pump stack.

Regardless, it's time to heat things up in Wavebirds!


Source: sparrowbirdd at DeviantArt

Maybe that cool duck monument by the ocean can have lava pouring from its beak? I mean, what are the odds THAT would set the whole forest on fire?

Regardless, the dwarven duck devotees have a myriad of practical concerns as well, includi-

Uh oh - a cage was emptied - A GREMLIN has appeared! Drive it off!

Don't worry, they got this:



That's right. Mess with the Ducks, and you PAY THE BILL.

(I don't understand that part where someone uses their upper arm to grab a nose. Dwarven martial arts are weird.)

[gchristopher]

All goals need a plan, right? Well, our intrepid dwarves are great at duck appreciation, but not so great at planning.

Fortunately, the Duckverseer, after a longish visit to the booze stockpile, has begun quacking out a series of oddly comprehensible instructions, which range from maddeningly vague, to suspiciously specific!



I think he plagiarized some of that, honestly.

Fortress Update, 6-1, Year 8:

An absurd number of very very specific digging designations have been completed and digging has begun. If even a single details is wrong, anything from nothing to a gigantic magma spill could happen. Let's hope the birdbrains were right on this one!

The dwarves have built a stone greenhouse for gardening. (Don't ask me how they get light through stone. Dwarves are magic.) Viewed from above, a familiar crest pokes out through the trees!



I forgot to set popcap. (argh). Migration brought the population up to 92 citizens. Working on that and the morale problems. Most everyone not involved in the big project are working on hauling items from the upper stockpiles to the new lower areas that were dug out recently. This should leave the upper dirt areas free for leafy duck pleasure gardens or maybe defensive shenanigans for some future overseer.

The main dining room has been designated as a meeting hall and tavern. ("The Prime Tummies" <--  great random tavern name!!)

There's a lot of dorfs available for dorfing and ducks for ducking. Anyone else interested?

[gchristopher]

Journal of Ezum Sharavuz, Chief Mechanic of Wavebirds

"Praise the Ducks! All glory to them. Heed their Quacks!

Well, looks like I'm in charge of the magma project. I'm the Chief Mechanic now because apparently I'm the only one who can turn a gear without ending up in the hospital.

This project is a nightmare, bridges, floodgates, pumps, waterwheels, rollers, and high speed minecarts full of magma. I'll keep a log of what happens. If you're reading this, I guess at least this part of the fortress hasn't burned or melted!

Year 8:

QUACK

6-1 Miners have started digging the spirals. We've got some pretty strong dwarves now. It's going fast. I still don't know where we're going to get the iron for minecarts, though.

7-22 Some traders stopped by. The old duck secretary went up with everything we've got and came back with good news! Not only did they bring a crapton of leather, they brought some hematite, iron and steel bars, and several anvils! That will go a long ways toward making this work. The miners are almost done and half the fort is down deep carving and building ramps. So far no injuries, but that's easier when there's no moving parts yet.

8-10 I can't believe this has gone so fast. We've still got work to do on the magma cistern, but the shunt to let water down from our aqueduct to the magma-level waterwheels is almost ready to be locked down and tested.

QUACK

8-18 That's the order. Here goes. PULL THE LEVER.

We opened the floodgate and water poured down into the depths and.. nothing happened. Oh wait, those gears aren't connected, I'll go down and fix that...

QUACK

09-02 PULL THE LEVER, again. (The other lever, the one that didn't work. Pull it some more.)

09-12 It's doing something! (And I'm not dead. Kinda surprised on that count) 

Put a cart in! Push it into the input ramp.

----WHUMP---

Oh crap, the cart is stopped by the cart catcher. I forgot about that, it's supposed to be an on-off mechanism for the cart spiral.

QUACK! QUACKquack QUACK!

YES BOSS! PULL MORE LEVERS! (Try to remember what we were doing? Checking that access doors are forbidden?)

09-14 The cart moves some magma! Wow! Let's push more carts in!

Here's the cart magma loader area in action:



09-27 We started pumping magma from the cistern into the supply channels for our forges!

(Also, oh crap, I forgot that flying magma doesn't fill cisterns above one level deep. We'll have to empty it and change the inlet. That's going to be slow.)

QUACK?

Sorry boss, we're working on it. Just a few quick fixes and we'll be able to restart the machine.

11-06 I just got back from checking the magma levels under the forges. Having to modify the cistern slowed us down, but the magma is deep enough to stop evaporating!

QUACK?

11-07 That's it! The first furnace just reached working temperature. The magma's still flowing in!



QUACK!

11-14 Success!! There's some details to fix with the cart stopper, and I think the cistern could be better, and it would run a lot faster if we had more minecarts, but we've got fully powered magma forges and furnaces up here!



Wavebirds has reached the magma age. How's that sound, boss?"

QUACK!!!

Notes: That took about 5 months in-game, mostly made possible by the large population to share the hauling and construction work. There's some cleanup work left, but that's pretty decent. Out of Ezum's view, most of the fort is still occupied moving down into the stone area. Next up is figuring out how to keep honoring the ducks for their quacks. Maybe a system of refreshing waterfalls? Ducks hate FPS, right?


...

...

...

11-21, Year 8:



To be continued...

[Spriggans]

Yes ! It lives !!

Very nice drawings btw.

[Craftsdwarf boi]

Rip my timeline
P.S nice fort, i was planning to do all of that too.

[gchristopher]

Rip my timeline

Thanks for being a good sport! And there'll be plenty to do, I'm mostly following what prior people laid out and consolidating. I haven't come up with a plan for any big additions yet.

I'm out of town this weekend, and things have gotten kinda serious in Wavebirds, but I'll try to keep up. Let's start with combat reports!

Year 8, 11-24: A sloth bear has started sniffing around the courtyard. It might be trying to steal eggs.



The sloth bear is immediately confronted by a War Duck and the bear is overcome with terror and flees!

Year 8, 12-03: The sloth bear comes back. This time the War Duck chases it, determined to teach the bear a lesson for good!
Close by, a frightened pangolin curls up into a ball, terrified by the fierce quacks.



The War Duck pursues, and is much faster than the bear, forcing it into combat!




Oh no. Oh heeeeeelllllll no. The militia mobilizes to assist the brave duck! About precisely as fast as you can say "hold my beer," Administrator and Speardwarf Mistem Budamurdim charges out of the fortress and begins to chase the now extra-double-terrified sloth bear down the beach.



Year 8, 12-04: A day later, Mistem is still chasing the sloth bear, which has made a wide circle and is now running back up the beach in the opposite direction. The rest of the militia have yet to show up.



Exhausted by the circuitous chase (and, of course, the furious quacks), the bear collapses and is fatally overtaken by the vengeful speardwarf.



Tonight in Wavebirds, sloth bear roast.

Year 8, 12-24: Other stuff happened and still needs to be reported, but the pangolin is still curled into a ball outside the front gates, in a state of duck-induced catatonia?

Of course, the most important question here is: what title should be bestowed on the brave war duck, the true hero of this encounter?

[gchristopher]

I'm going to be out of town for the weekend, then I'll work on finishing the turn. Here's a few notes, questions, and a giant warning:

Notes:

- Romi Ayanurete the FB didn't come in, because Spriggans warned that the caverns were open. There's access bridges now. Romi's out there killing toads and trolls but having a surprisingly hard time with giant bats.
- Imic, the most stressed out dwarf in the fort, is slowly becoming happier, as a result of slightly better living conditions and a much lighter workload.
- The central stairwell design has made retrofitting a simple waterfall mist generator easy.
- There's going to be a little merchant-visit themed surprise project.

Questions: (feedback, please!)

- Does anyone know exactly how eggs are fertilized? petcapRemover and manually clearing some nests doesn't seem to be enough to permit fertilized eggs to be laid. Do you think there might also be a limit on the number of juvenile animals/hatchlings before it'll let more eggs be fertilized? (Using dfhack to check their status as N.Fert)
- For stress, what do you think about designating "Emotional Support Ducks" and burrowing the N most-stressed dwarves to a minimal area to guarantee that they learn to be happy through more duck time?
- For those dwarves, would it be okay to consider using dfhack to change their animal preference to ducks? (If they already have an animal preference.) Call it "Brain Duckwashing?"
- Should the freshwater ponds in the Temple of Duckitude be retrofit with refreshing waterfalls also? (Might be some FPS cost there.) What about random duck showers there and elsewhere? (With no evil weather, showers are really not a critical survival concern.)
- On the topic of dwarven stress, do the dwarves need a roller coaster, even though roller coasters don't actually generate any happy thoughts? (Big miss there, Toady One! Suggestion posted!) (Also, of COURSE they need a roller coaster. That'd be a great way to finish the turn. How do you make a roller

Giant Warning:

Our duck-loving dwarves will be forced to cope with a harsh reality on the first day of year 9:

[MAXAGE:7:9]

Sometimes the best things in life are fleeting.

[Spriggans]

-idk how hatching works. You need male and females, and nest boxes. Thz dwarves must not take the eggs for them to hatch. Thats all I know.

- yes ! Make a duck-candy land to heal stress. That sounds lovely !

- Im OK with dfhack for this.

- If you can make waterfalls in duckburg safely, go for it. But iirc, dwarves are not there too often, only ducks are. So it might be a lot of work for not much (if stress healing is the only concern hete. If style is the matter, I'd say : go for it ! )

[PsychoAngel]

If I remember correctly, females need access to a nest box in order to lay eggs, and males need access to the eggs in order to fertilize them. Funnily enough, that wasn’t the case until around v0.44. Before then, males just had to be on the map and eggs would just magically end up fertilized. We could set up some breeding rooms where multiple males have access to nest boxes, forbidding passage inside after eggs are laid. Going by the wiki, if eggs do not hatch in two seasons, they’re safe to harvest regardless of fertilization since the female needs to be incubating uninterrupted.

[gchristopher]

Okay! Back, and working on all of those. I still suspect too many hatchlings are preventing a proper ducksplosion. Still need to write up day 1 of year 9.

For adding a library, is it obvious enough what's going on in this statue?