- v50 information can now be added to pages in the main namespace. v0.47 information can still be found in the DF2014 namespace. See here for more details on the new versioning policy.
- Use this page to report any issues related to the migration.
Frequently Asked Questions
 | This article was migrated from DF2014:Frequently Asked Questions and may be inaccurate for the current version of DF (v50.15). See this page for more information. |
v50.15 · v0.47.05 This article is about the current version of DF.Note that some content may still need to be updated. |
This page documents commonly asked questions and answers. Some of these questions were taken from the Bay12 Gameplay Questions page.
General[edit]
Game Basics
| What is the Z-Axis? |
| What is the point of the game? |
| Fun |
| How quickly does time pass in Dwarf Fortress? |
Game Interface
Beginner's guide
Environment[edit]
Magma
Wood
Water
Fortress[edit]
Buildings, Constructions and Rooms
Moods
| What's the easiest way to check dwarves happiness? |
| How do I get my dwarves to sleep peacefully? |
| How can I keep my dwarves happy? |
| What does "taken by mood" mean? |
Workshops
| How do I make steel? |
| How do I make glass? |
| How do I make cloth? |
| How do I make soap? |
| My items are 'stuck' in a workshop; how do I stop this from happening? |
Error Messages
Skills[edit]
Farming
Military
Mining
Smithing
Gameplay: Uncategorized[edit]
Water Questions
Q: If you drain water into naturally flooded caverns, will it flow off the map? Or will they eventually start to fill up?
A: It will flow off the edge of the map.
Bones
Q: I've got someone in a mood and he wants bones. Well, there's a dead bear skeleton just outside the fort, and I've got lots of tame animals tethered or wandering around.
A: First off, make sure you've got a butcher's shop, and a dwarf with butchering labor enabled. Then go to the "animals screen"(from {z} screen), and toggle "ready for slaughter" for those you want to kill. Your butcher will also automatically butcher every dead animal in the refuse stockpile. This includes extracting bones from "partial skeletons". Make a refuse stockpile by the butcher's, and enable refuse gathering from the outside(o->r->o, iirc).
Mining
Q: I have 3 miners in my fort, 1 is a migrant (He's the working miner) the other 2 came on embark. The original 2 won't mine anything. (I checked and they're holding picks) The new guy is steady mining all the time. What gives?
A: If you're mining a tunnel which is only 1 square in width, only 1 dwarf will mine. Ensure they all have picks equipped. Did you perchance assign mining through Dwarf Therapist? Either way, unassign, unpause, and then reassign mining labor. Could be all that's required. In some of my own tests, it wasn't even necessary to unpause - just going into v-p-l, selecting Mining (or Wood Cutting) and hitting Enter twice was enough to fix it.
Immigrants
Q: Is there any way to edit the frequency or max/min amount of migrants that join your fortress? I keep keeping double digit migrations and I hate being forced to expand quickly. I know I can just draft some into military positions, but I have a picky principle on better to not have labor than to waste labor.
A: See Immigration
Groups
Q: I've recently noticed while browsing Legends that some of my dwarves started a group, "The Noiseless Thing". It doesn't say it worships anything/anyone, but dwarves entered it en masse (though I don't think all of them). Should I be worried? I also have not found anything when searching for "group" on the subject on this wiki.
Saving
Q: Dwarf Fortress automatically quits the game after saving and then loading it up again takes a while. So saving frequently is really inconvenient, however, due to how unstable the game is at the moment, I find it necessary to do so. As such, is it possible to save without quitting?
A: Autosave can be configured in your d_init.txt file to save at the beginning of every year or every season, or to turn off autosaving entirely. If Autosave is on, it can be configured to back up your previous save game before saving. Additionally, DFHack offer an option to Quicksave, you can do so by typing 'quicksave' in its terminal to save the game immediately.
Sound
Q: Every time I start the game the sound is at 255/255. Is there any way to make it start at a different level?
A: In your init file, you can turn sound off by default with [SOUND:NO] or set the sound to a specific volume with [VOLUME:100] or whatever level you want. The init file can be found in the Dwarf Fortress folder under data/init/init.txt
Using DF Wiki (Editing policies)[edit]
While browsing the wiki, users are encouraged to contribute by adding information, correcting mistakes, improving links between articles, and researching unconfirmed or incomplete facts. If you're new to the game, you are even more likely to encounter errors, be confused by inconsistencies or phrasing, or have unanswered questions that should be answered here. While you gather your answers — from the [[::Forums|forums]], on [[::IRC|IRC]], through playing and testing, or by other means — and figure things out, you're in a unique position to improve the information here for the next person.
A good wiki is not just about quality information, but also quality presentation and accessibility. There are many editing customs which contribute to quality and consistency of the wiki. Please take a few minutes to read the Rules. You can also look through the Style Manual and some of the other discussions on the centralized discussion page found through navigation panel on the left. For technical help with editing features, such as linking and formatting, click the Help link, also on the left navigation panel.
Facts should be verified to be complete and accurate, preferably in game, before adding to the wiki. When in doubt, but you think it's useful information, just add it and someone will fix it later. If an item of information is not verified, it should be labeled for verification.
Each topic has a Talk page where you can ask questions, discuss your ideas and reasoning with others until the facts are worked out, or say anything that doesn't belong in the actual topic page. Remember this is not a forum, so don't expect replies or even to be noticed if you didn't use a verify label in the topic page. Always sign your talk page comments with ~~~~, and read the talk page guidelines. Note that not all topics have an existing Talk page. Clicking a verify link or the Discussion tab on the topic's main page will create one (see Starting a New Page below).
Starting a New Page: There are various ways to start a new page. However, only the "Autoconfirmed" user group may do so. You will be automatically added to this group once you have contributed a reasonable number of edits (currently 3). Until then, you may request the creation of new pages on this request page.
Writing answers policy[edit]
If you know of a page on the wiki that answers a question already, don't just redirect to it. Edit the FAQ and change the link to point to it directly.
Whether you link to a page, or create a new page to answer the question, don't forget to add the template code! That would be: {{Name of FAQ}}