40d Talk:Cross-training

Pump operator notes

Not sure the toughness note is really that important. The gym is just used for dwarven stat gains, so dwarves are beefy enough to excell at whatever you throw at them. It scarcely matters how well they pump, just so long as they get to Legendary to be reassigned to the military or something else. I've noticed gym graduates make fantastic hunters for example. --ThunderClaw 17:47, 3 November 2008 (EST)

Well, it makes pump-training far more effective for dwarves that are already tough: they can hit legendary in a season or two, where other dwarves take about a year. So if you have a finite number of dwarves you can spare for training, choose tough ones. Strong ones can be put in plate and made to spar, or turned into siege operators.

Currently I'm training all my haulers, in shifts. Ones that gain toughness get to keep pumping until they're ready for the military. Strong ones get stone hauling duty. Everyone else gets food, item, or refuse duty.--Maximus 20:06, 3 November 2008 (EST)

I now give all my haulers the custom profession ROTC. --RomeoFalling 07:50, 8 November 2008 (EST)

I've been trying cross-training, and I'm not really seeing much point at the moment. The thing is, sparring practices three skills at the same time: Armor user, the weapon you're using, and shield user. The gym's rate of stat gain is almost the same as regularly sparring dwarves. And military dwarves are useful for something. Greep 09:05, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

The "point" is several - 1) that some players don't want to put non-Attribute (or at least, non-Tough) dwarves directly into sparring; 2) that some players want military with more than "one-skill-worth" of training attributes under their belts; 3) that some players want to see what the attribute mix is on a dwarf before allocating to training (vs hauling/etc); and, 4) it's cross-training. Military dwarves aren't useful for anything but military - that's the "cross" part. There are several suggestions other than pump operator - use them or not - your call. --Albedo 18:39, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Alright, I guess gym training just isn't for me. But as for the one skill worth of attribute training, I thought attributes continued to rise even after legendary + 5. Like an uber miner would eventually gain 16 attributes? That's what the stat page seems to indicate Greep 06:16, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

If you make two pumps, one above the other (Y axis, not Z), facing apposing directions, dig 2 channels at each end, making a 2X8 space, you can not only increase toughness and pump operator skill, but get happy waterfall thoughts. --Drunken dwarf

Dwarf Powered Mill notes

Actually, it is better not to cook seeds. As seeds have quantity cap at 200 seeds for each plant, milling will not produce seeds after you hit the cap. It saves a visible amount of food hauler's work. Denspb 02:58, 25 February 2009 (EST)

Managing

Assigning a dwarf to manager may be even better than clerking. I had two useless dwarves. Assigned one to clerk, another to manager+broker. Disabled hauling jobs for the manager. I then went to the manager screen and queued up a full screen of "Make Soap x30." I chose soap because I don't even have an alchemist's workshop and I didn't want any jobs assigned to existing workshops and disrupting work flow. I lost track of how many times I had to go back in and cancel/re-issue the soap orders. The manager reached legendary while the clerk was still a pathetic high master. I didn't measure steps, but their offices and bedrooms were all very close together, should be around 5-10 steps difference for each dwarf to go get food/drink.

Other factors:
-Clerk has a husband (no kids), manager is single
-Clerk went on break at least once
-Hauling was still enabled for the clerk, not sure if she did any jobs though
-At the beginning, Clerk had no skills, Manager had Normal Skill Wood Carving (not much good on my treeless map)
-Manager met with human diplomat and traded at depot during training

--Mjo625 17:18, 2 March 2009 (EST)

Chit-chatting

Having no meeting halls (well rooms, statue gardens etc) at all, and just having a single 1x1 meeting area REALLY boosted my haulers stats. I might not be the most efficient assigner of work orders, but some of the time most of my haulers were out of work and just spent their time at the meeting area chatting. I had a lot of proficient-or-higher in EVERY social skill within a couple of years. This might be an exploit. Thoughts? Tardface 22:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes and no. Chatting dwarfs make friends... and if some dies... Well, you'll have a nice domino effect. Dwarf don't like to lose friends. --Karl 23:12, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

So, dwarves will actually be happier overall if you don't let them have any friends? :) Tardface 23:15, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

In the long-run (which inevitably includes many random deaths) yes.. very much so. Rather few, are the fortresses that can survive a death among legendary haulers, and fewer still are those than can survive several. --Edward 21:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Not really. Random deaths are not exactly inevitable unless you want them to be, and party forts are pretty resilient when it comes to a couple odd deaths: everyone is racking up "talked to a friend lately" thoughts like crazy, so even if a few deaths push them down to miserable they will bounce back up to ecstatic in about a minute. The danger is that if you have more than a couple of deaths at once, the immediate surge in unhappiness may cause spontaneous insanity, which will lead to more deaths... Rpb 11:09, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Thoughts don't stack on themselves, so you can only get one "talked to a friend recently" thought at one time. The wisdom of having dwarves too busy to make friends is still the best, hands down. --ThunderClaw 16:53, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Swimming

Has anybody considered stationing dwarves in an area with 4/7 water, thus giving them skill in swimming? Beds could be constructed in this area prior, turned into a barracks and if a food/booze stockpile is placed there aswell, the dwaves could be locked in there and would then perform all the normal sparring activities while at the same time constantly gaining swimming skill. --Overspeculated 00:13, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I successfully trained dwarfs in 7/7 water before. I filled a 5x5 space one z level down from a 15x15 statue garden with water and surrounded with ramps. Although the dwarfs frequently fell in, they were never far away from the sides and thus never drowned. (Although a cow managed to drown there and create quite a funk with the miasma since no one would wade in to dump the corpse--I'm still not sure how that happened since the dwarfs had no problem with it.) 3lB33 01:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but would military dwarves still perform sparring activities if their barracks was 4/7 under water? (where they can wade or swim) eventually raising that level once they are good enough at swimming. I'm testing it out as soon as I get my flooding mechanism done (I'm still new to this game so that takes quite a while for me) --Overspeculated 12:58, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Forest Gulag

I have set my fortress in an area with:

1. volcano
2. steep "low mountain" (entrance is on top of course)
3. sand
4. canyon (like "Grand Canyon")
5. chasm (on the "wrong side" of the Grand Canyon thankfully)
6. A forest covers my side of the "Grand Canyon"
7. Elephants wander through periodically, and I have some tame ones now too.

What I want to know is, what is the best way to use the forest to build experience. I'm happy to clear-fell the forest then start again from the beginning, but the fact is I am having a hard time so far keeping the wagon pathway clear as it is. I NEED MORE AXES! (getting there.)

For my non-woodcutter dwarves: what should they do with the lumber to get the most experience without making junk all over the place?

Do I make a stack of asherys, to make potash, to make clear glass "later"? Garrie 11:04, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Given the lack of answers to date my best bet seems to be:

1. clear-fell forest
2. Construct carpenter workshop from wood. Assign workshop to not lower skilled carpenters.
3. Build wooden weapons usable for weapon traps
4. have other dwarves constructing mechanisms
5. construct weapon traps using wooden weapons

Garrie 10:35, 7 October 2009 (UTC)