Dwarf Fortress Wiki - User contributions [en]

40d:Subterranean

2008-04-02T17:39:52Z

Bhudson: removed falsehood about glass floors

A [[map tile]] is considered '''subterranean''' if it is below natural rock or soil. Almost every tunnel [[digging|dug]] by your [[miner]]s will create ''subterranean'' tiles. The exception is channels dug from the surface; attaching a subterranean tile to ''evil'' [[light]] from the surface makes the tile become part of the dreaded [[above ground]].

''Subterranean'' is the opposite term for [[above ground]]. The terms are used opposingly in dwarf fortress when viewing a tile using the {{Key|k}} look at menu. Subterranean can be combined with [[dark]] as well as [[inside]], but ''not'' [[light]] or [[outside]].

*''This article is deliberately overstated and theatrical.''

40d:Count

2008-03-20T15:31:26Z

Bhudson: link to duke

{{Noble
| noble=Count
| quarters=Great Bedroom
| dining=Great Dining Room
| office=Throne Room
| tomb=Mausoleum
| stands=2
| racks=2
| chests=3
| cabinets=2
| arrival=
* Wealth{{verify}}
| function=
* Promote [[fortress]] to County capital
}}
Your [[count]] (or Countess) arrives with her/his [[Count_Consort|consort]].
A [[baron]] who is resident in the fortress may be promoted to count instead. The count can be promoted to [[duke]].

[[Category:Nobles]]

40d:Adventurer mode

2008-03-07T06:49:16Z

Bhudson: link to quick-ref more visibly, since it's so critical

In '''adventurer mode''', you pick a race ([[elf]], [[dwarf]] or [[human]]) and start out in either a [[Site|town]] of your race or in a previous [[fortress]] you played on. You can receive [[quest]]s, venture into the wilderness to find [[caves]], abandoned towers and other [[Site|villages]]. You can even visit your old [[Fortress|fortresses]] and find whatever riches were left to be guarded by the [[creatures]] that fated your [[fortress]].

The user interface differs somewhat from fortress mode; you may want to refer to the [[Adventure Mode quick reference|quick reference]] guide.

== Your first adventure ==

=== Picking a race ===
When it comes to picking a race, there is difference in [[skills]]. [[Dwarves]] cannot wear [[human]] sized [[armor]], and are somewhat limited in the [[weapons]] they can wield due to their size. [[Elves]] have a slightly different set of [[skills]]. [[Humans]] are generally fairly well-balanced, and are the easiest to acquire quests from. Each race fares differently in combat; you may wish to look at the races' pages for the finer details.

=== Choosing skills ===
Basically, if you want to start with a [[weapon]], you need to avoid having the most points spent in unarmored/[[wrestling]]. If you, for example, choose to start out with most points in [[swordsman]], you will start out with a [[sword]]. When you have chosen your preferred set of [[skills]], you can press {{key|Enter}} to embark. The higher the [[skills]] in [[weapons]]/[[armor]] determine the quality of the equipment you start out with.

If you start out with a high [[weapon]] [[skill]] (except bows and crossbows) and also an above novice [[armor]] and/or [[Armor#Shields and Bucklers|shield]] [[skill]], you'll start out with [[armor]] and/or [[Armor#Shields and Bucklers|shield]] as well.

=== Setting out ===
If you chose human, you will start out inside the Mayor's house. You will see the Mayor (purple) and probably several [[drunks]]. Press {{key|k}} and talk to the Mayor. Press 'services' for a [[quest]]. You can talk to the drunks and recruit them to your party for some additional combat aid. Be sure to read the [[Adventure Mode quick reference]] or use the help files for more information on the commands in Adventure mode.

=== Trading ===
In towns you can find merchants inside some buildings. Talk to them to trade with them. After buying an item, you must pick it up manually from somewhere in the shop. {{K|l}}ook around for an item without $ signs around it. Don't pick up items with $ signs; that's theft, which is punishable by death.

=== Equipping your adventurer ===
After acquiring [[armor]] from one source or another, you'll most likely want to equip it. To do this, first make sure it is in your possession--not on the ground. You can then {{key|w}}ear it, granted you don't already have too much on that equipment slot already. You can {{key|r}}emove or {{key|d}}rop inferior equipment as necessary.

[[Weapons]] and [[Armor#Shields and Bucklers|shields]] are handled differently. There is no explicit equipment command. Instead, they are automatically equipped when you either {{k|g}}et them from the ground or {{k|r}}emove them from your [[backpack]] - provided the hand that would wield them is free. So, in order to change [[weapons]], you would {{k|d}}rop your current [[weapon]] and then either {{k|g}}et the new [[weapon]] or {{k|r}}emove the new [[weapon]] from the [[backpack]]. Once you have equipped the new [[weapon]], {{k|g}}et your old [[weapon]] and it will be tucked away safely in your [[backpack]]. [[Armor#Shields and Bucklers|Shields]] work the same way.

Note that the world of DF seems to have a lot of left handers, so do not be surprised if your character holds the weapon with the left hand and the [[Armor#Shields and Bucklers|shield]] with the right hand.

== Traveling the world ==

=== How-to ===
You can walk around the whole world tile by tile if you wish, but given the size of the world, you might want to consider using another method. Pressing {{key|T}} will let see a very zoomed out map of the surrounding area. Moving about on this map is much faster, as well as it heals your adventurer, keeps him from starving, dehydrating, or getting tired. To exit this screen and explore the area you've reached, press {{k|>}}.

If there is more than one feature such as a [[Site|town]] or group of [[creatures]] on that map tile you will get to choose which one you want to arrive near.

Also while traveling on the world map, there is a chance that your adventurer can get randomly ambushed by enemies. When that happens, you must survive by either fighting them off or hide from them.

Jumping off [[Cliff|cliffs]] is not normally advisable; however, it is possible to do so by holding {{key|Alt}} while pressing the appropriate movement key. Jumping off [[Cliff|cliffs]], depending on how high you jumped, will most of the time cover your eyes in blood, which lessens visuals.

=== Finding quest locations ===
After receiving a [[quest]], you will be able to track its location using the {{key|Q}}uest log. Initially it will just give you the location on the {{key|T}}ravel map, though a lesser-known feature is its use in finding the cave entry (or other such target) once you're already in the [[Site map|local map]]. Bring up the quest log again, highlight the quest objective you're after, and {{key|z}}oom to it. It should then provide you with a local map of your current area, complete with a 3x3 box of flashing squares. This box indicates the general location of the cave's mouth. You'll still have to do some searching, but at least it's narrowed down for you. You can bring up this map at any time that you're in the local area of a quest objective.

=== Visiting abandoned fortresses ===
If you start an adventure in a world with one or more abandoned [[Fortress|fortresses]], you can take your adventurer to see the sites of your previous endeavors. When you find one of your old [[Fortress|fortresses]], you will find that everything is a mess. Items are scattered about, things are smashed up and there are probably new hostile inhabitants that you will need to fend off. Visiting your old [[Fortress|fortresses]] might prove to be rewarding, since you can find [[armor]] and [[weapons]] you made (if you made any). The best thing to be found in your [[fortress]] would probably be any left behind [[Legendary artifact|artifact]] [[weapon]] or [[armor]]. This is also probably the best (and only?) way to get [[Legendary artifact|artifact-quality]] [[weapons]] and [[armor]].

Also remember to check out any [[Engraving#Engravings|engravings]] you made while in [[fortress mode]]. When checking out [[Engraving#Engravings|engravings]] in adventure mode, they reveal a lot more specific information about the event that is engraved.

== Combat ==
Fighting is extremely detailed in adventure mode! This adds a lot of fun in the battle, since there are so many ways to injure your opponents/victims.

=== Ranged ===
If you have a [[weapon | bow]] or [[weapon | crossbow]], you can shoot arrows or bolts at enemies. You can also throw anything you can carry at enemies. Ranged attacks are highly efficient when you hit.
To fire your bow or crossbow, press {{key|f}}, and move the marker to the enemy you wish to fire upon, and press {{key|Enter}}. Same with throwing stuff, only press {{key|t}} and choose which item to throw, then choose the victim.
''Note: Throwing is slightly bugged, but in a good and fun way. You can throw captured flies, socks and even [[vomit]] if you want, with lethal effects. (Water piercing lungs, flies piercing hearts etc..)''

=== Close combat ===
To fight a [[creature]] by hitting it, you just need to walk towards the [[creature]]. Alternatively, you can press {{key|A}} and choose your target. After you've pressed {{key|A}} and are given the list of targets to attack, you can use {{key|Enter}} to choose between a normal attack and [[wrestling]] before selecting which opponent you wish to target.
A normal attack will make the adventurer hit the target with whatever [[weapon]] he holds. If he is holding no [[weapon]], he will bash with his [[Armor# Shields and Bucklers|shield]]. If he has neither a weapon nor a [[Armor# Shields and Bucklers|shield]], he will either punch his target or grab a random appendage.
In [[wrestling]], you must spend a few rounds locking the target's limbs to be able to break and splinter them (good times). Alternately, you could try gouging, pinching, or strangling them instead.

=== Wounds ===
Your adventurer will get wounded by enemies or falling (jumping) off cliffs. The best (and only?) way to heal, is to press {{key|T}}, and travel at least 1 tile in any direction. Your adventurer will be fully healed then, unless your character has wounds to the neck or head. Read more about wounds [[Wound|HERE]].

== Tips for survival ==
Dying is easy in adventurer mode, especially if you've just started out. Following these simple tips will increase your chance to survive, and reach those nice stats and legendary [[skills]]! These tips are for the faint of heart only. If you like the challenges of the game, feel free to do the opposite of what these tips say.

=== Basic Needs ===
Your adventurer gets hungry, thirsty, and drowsy, make sure your [[waterskin]] is always filled(fresh [[water]] at the [[Temple|temples]]), you carry 1-2 stacks[5] of food, and get some sleep sooner or later.

Fresh [[water]] can be found sometimes at [[Temple|temples]] and always in [[River|rivers]]. [[Water]] from [[Murky pool|pools]] is not considered fresh [[water]].

In order to obtain [[water]], you need a [[waterskin]]. Unless you are an [[elf]], you will start with a full one at the beginning of the game, but you can also buy additional ones in the [[Site|towns]].

Move right next to the [[water]] source and press {{k|I}} (capital 'i', that is) to interact in a complex manner with an item. You will be shown your [[inventory]]. Select your [[waterskin]] by pressing the letter shown to its left. If the [[inventory]] is so long that the [[waterskin]] is not shown, you may need to press {{k|/}} or {{k|*}} on the number pad to move through the pages. If you have done everything correctly, the game should offer you one or more options from which specific tile you wish to draw the [[water]]. Simply select one choice by pressing the letter to its left and the remaining free space in the [[waterskin]] will be filled with [[water]].

Note that you can not refill [[Waterskin|waterskins]] that are inside of [[Backpack|backpacks]]. You need to {{k|r}}emove it from the [[backpack]] first. Also note that you can't put [[Waterskin|waterskins]] you are holding directly into the [[backpack]] (it is not accepted as a container for that purpose). First, {{k|d}}rop the [[waterskin]] and then {{k|g}}et it again. It should be put inside the [[backpack]] automatically.

Solid food will eventually rot away. However, if you move on the travel map, you will not consume any food or water. Only if you stay on a [[Site map]] for a longer time will you first feel thirst and later hunger. A normal random [[encounter]] usually never last long enough to even generate thirst. Searching a [[quest]] [[cave]] can take longer (they are quite winding), but usually, you will not go beyond thirst if you only want to find the [[quest]] monster and kill it. Thus, carrying large stocks of food is not recommended, unless you plan something that will take a lot of time.

(''Warning:'' NEVER, EVER sleep in a hostile place, next thing you know you will be cloven asunder by your own sword, or some nasty critters will be feasting upon you)

=== <s>Living Shields</s> Companions ===

If you recruit some members to your party, you will not only gain extra damage output. You will also have someone else to take the damage instead of YOU!
When you first start out, the easiest <s>human shields</s> friends to recruit are the drunks! They are found in human towns inside the tavern with the Mayor (The building you start in if you play a human). They will gladly come with you and block some blows for you. Drunks will usually attempt low-skill wrestling and (mostly) damage-less punches. Don't expect them to last long when you meet that Giant you are supposed to kill.

To recruit someone into your party, press talk{{k|k}}, move the cursor over them, and press {{k|enter}}. Then in the conversation that follows, simply pick 'Join' from the list of options to ask them to accompany you. Children, peasants, the Mayor and Guards don't want any part of this silly adventuring malarkey.

More detailed searches of towns of various races can yield other adventurers with some actual skills. The generally have a single weapon skill ([[Maceman]], [[Swordsman]], [[Spearman]] and so on) and some armor appropriate to the wealth of the town they were occupying. You will also find Guards around towns, and while they are combat-capable they will not shirk their duty in order to accompany you on your adventures.

=== Avoid the impossible ===
Some things are harder than others. Decide for yourself is this is due to unbalancing of the game, realism or simply to add to the variety of challenges.

==== [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelob Shelob]'s in-laws, aka Giant Cave Spiders ====
Unless you are a legendary or better (ok its not possible to go beyond legendary..) bow-/crossbowman, you should at all costs AVOID giant cave spiders!! They shoot a web at you, making you immobilized while they rip your limbs off one by one. Then when you finally break free from the web, and can attack again, you've probably lost your arms while lying on the floor and the spider is about to throw you by your head up into the roof. Cave Spiders bleed to death eventually, but they know no fear nor pain, meaning they will not black out even if you manage to inflict serious damage including severed limbs. They are also capable of surviving red-level wounds to the body and legs and multiple severed limbs for long enough to eviscerate an adventurer. Leave these for the living shields to deal with while you slip out the other way, ideally from the cave entirely, never to return.

Even if you are a legendary projectile weapon user, reconsider attacking a giant cave spider because in the tight quarters of a cave you might be shooting it from stealth when a giant rat or something similarly stupid walks next to you and triggers your loss of cover. The spider would then punish your arrogance immensely.

''Note'': If absolutely required they ARE killable, but you need luck, and lots of it. Adept swordsman + Proficient shield user + Skilled ambusher manages to sneak up on it and then counterstrike + block does the job. In a suicide swordsman test run I had dethoraxation(decapitation for spiders) = instakill on the first counterstrike, second GCS got a mortal wound before it webbed me and bled to death while trying to chew through me, only broke sword wielding hand and leg. Third spider broke my shield hand and had me mortally wounded in no time after that, although i eventually killed it after unwebbing myself. That makes it ~2.5/3 chances to win, not bad for a rookie. And i was healed after each successful spider kill.

''To conclude'': Basically, as long as your shield wielding hand is intact(and shield skill is high of course) you have pretty good chances of survival in 1 on 1, otherwise you're dead. Any extra armor(in my case exceptional full plate + normal armor skill) also helps in glancing off their bites.

Another interesting thing is that before fighting one of them i threw a spear at it and it lodged in the wound, and it seems that the spider has a priority to break my grip as it repeatedly successfully broke my grip every time(that happened ~5-6 times in a row) i grabbed the lodged spear. That points to a possible distraction for a GCS in case of soloing it.

==== Arrows ====
Don't take on quests where you need to kill elite bow-/crossbowmen! Generally, avoid flying arrows! Why? Because bow/crossbowmen have the tendency to see farther than you can. They are therefore able to fire at you from beyond your sight, making it hard to see where the arrow(s) are coming from. You may therefor end up chasing the shooter in the wrong direction, giving the shooter even MORE time to turn you into a pin-cushion. Of course, this is only the case if you manage to survive the first 3-4 arrows, because arrows are BAD for anyone but the shooter's health. Piercing hits like arrows are much more likely to damage internal organs, and while you might shrug off a moderate blunt hit to the chest a similar piercing hit could directly damage one or both lungs or your heart and instantly kill you.

If you do accept a quest against an elite bowman or crossbowman and manage to reach melee range, immediately grapple its weapon, ideally by dropping yours and pulling the weapon out of its grasp entirely before throwing it away.

=== Training yourself ===
Gaining stats ([[Attributes|strength, agility, toughness]]) helps a lot when fighting. How to best train yourself?

==== Throwing ====
To find rocks simply hit "l" and look at any rock coulored tiles some of these will be simply called by the rock name (e.g. limestone) and cannot be picked up but some will be called pebbles. Rocks are practically free ammo. When you find a tile with pebbles, pick up a lot of them (there are infinite rocks), and start throwing them. You can simply throw them at the tile you are standing at. Every throw will gain you 30 points toward the skill "Throwing", and will after a while increase your stats (Strength, agility, toughness). You will need to throw 600 rocks to reach legendary Thrower (starting with no skill).

Thrown objects are also a cheap way to injure enemies before they reach you if you are a melee fighter.

You can also throw other stuff you find, like flies, beetles, worms, and even vomit. If you have a tendency to chop off enemy limbs, you can even throw these limbs. Killing zombies with their companion's severed heads and feet is always good for a laugh. Iron men are fun, because they leave behind a nice statue for the taking which can be thrown. Arrows and weapons seem to be particularly deadly when thrown, but even the most innocuous or silly items can come up with a kill.

Most thrown objects deal blunt type damage, so they will break and bruise limbs, but arrows and weapons can deal their normal damage types. This is particularly useful to consider when trying for a desperate one-shot kill on a [[Giant Cave Spider]] that's about to web you and shred you into little chunks, as piercing attacks like thrown arrows and spears damage internal organs (making them more likely to get a one-hit kill, as an enemy can live through having the outside of their head moderately damaged but not from having the same amount of damage done to their brain) and thrown axes or swords can sever body parts and leave deep gashes (leading to massive bleeding or slit throats).

==== Bow/Crossbow-skill ====
This skill trains in the same fashion as throwing. You gain skill per shot, not per hit. This is a more expensive skill to train than throwing because you need to buy (or find) arrows/bolts, but is also a much more deadly skill. Fired projectiles do much more damage than thrown ones, and are also piercing type weapons which can do crippling damage to internal organs. The majority of thrown weapons are blunt and will do much more superficial bruising and bone-breaking damage. Shooting arrows at enemies is fun, because it is very efficient. Sadly, that also goes for enemy bow/crossbowmen. You will often be shot in the leg and crippled by an enemy you can't even see, who will then proceed to shoot you in the face until you die - which won't be very long afterwards unless you manage to find something to hide behind.

Make sure to take extra <s>meat shields</s> companions along with you if you're planning on using ranged weapons, it'll take time before you level the appropriate skill to bash things with your weapon in melee so it's imperative you stay out of the fighting till then. Drunks are particularly useful here, as they love to dive on things and collapse into a massive wrestling pile which you can take pot-shots at. Don't worry, you can't hit your guys. Not that you'd care.

==== Wrestling ====
Since melee weapon skills are hard train because not every hit gives points towards the skill, why not train your [[wrestling]]? When you are alone with a unconscious creep, why not break some limbs before finishing it off? Creeps are always going to try to break your arms and legs, so having a bit of skill in wrestling will help break those locks a lot. Also, training wrestling is a quicker way to better stats (strength, agility, toughness) because gain points per move instead of per "hit". Wrestling also handles dodging skill which is very handy to have.

==== Swimming ====
Having no swimming skill in Adventure Mode is not a particularly good thing if you intend to go near water. Anyone with no swimming skill who falls or is pulled/pushed into water will begin to drown immediately if it is over 4/7 deep, and will also be unable to climb out of water this deep - usually resulting in instant death.

To voluntarily jump into a pond or river you have to {{k|Alt}}-move off the edge of the land. This will present you with a choice of walking out into the open space above the water (immediately and unsurprisingly followed by a one-story fall) or moving directly into the water. To get back out, {{k|Alt}}-move into the riverbank/pond edge.

As long as you have at least some Swimming skill, you will be able to move around in deeper water and will gain Swimming skill for every tile you move. Without Swimming, you will have to find depth 4 water to voluntarily paddle about in with your water wings on for your first skill points. Any deeper and you'll start to drown, any shallower and you can't swim in it. Hit {{k|m}} to set your swimming options.

All in all this makes Novice Swimming an excellent starting skill, as you can (eventually) get Legendary skill simply by swimming back and forth in two squares of water and get lots of stat points in the process. However, this is mind-numbingly dull so good luck with that. One should also keep in mind that water in cooler areas may suddenly freeze when the sun starts to go down, and thus instantly kill any creatures within. As such, it's a good idea to do your training laps somewhere warm.

It also seems that you are not able to move out of water of less than (7/7) onto the river bank.

In addition, while you are swimming, you can not move to the travel map! You must first leave the water.

==== Ambushing ====
The Ambusher skill is the parent to the {{k|S}}neak ability, which makes you character move more slowly and stealthily to avoid being noticed. Sneak cannot be activated if an enemy can currently see you, but you can use it immediately if you break line of sight somehow. Sneaking around will increase your Ambusher skill even if nobody is around to see you.

Sneaking is particularly useful for avoiding ranged attacks, as even Novice skill allows you to get within four or five squares of an enemy before they spot you reliably. Standing next to sombody without them spotting you is difficult even with legendary skill. However, even if they spot you moving next to them they will only get one shot at you which is a lot better than the hundreds they would have had if you'd been blundering around in the dark too far away to even see them when they opened fire.

The skill also has a valuable part to play in the noble art of running away. As long as you can get out of sight of all the enemies after you at once - such as around a corner indoors, or ducking behind a tree outside - you can start sneaking and head off in another direction. If your skill is too low however the enemies might be close enough to see you as soon as you try to sneak off.

The most useful part of sneaking is undoubtedly the 'stealth throw'. While firing a missile weapon or attacking in melee will get you noticed immediately, throwing things at people will not. Stock up on dead enemies' weapons, clothing and severed body parts and you can pretend you're some gruesome comedy version of Sam Fisher. You know you want to.

=== Summary ===
*Recruit some living spearcatchers
*Avoid flying arrows
*Throw rocks/statues/socks/bugs at enemies that still haven't reached you
*Train your stats before taking on your first quest-monster

[[Category:Guides]]
[[Category:Adventurer mode]]

40d:Digging

2008-03-07T06:36:28Z

Bhudson: /* Dig Priority */ removed obsolete info about bug 000734

'''Digging''' is a group of actions available from the [[:category:designations|{{K|d}}esignations menu]]. Digging is performed by dwarven [[miner]]s in order to create empty spaces, hollow out material or dig stairs and ramps. All dig actions require a dwarf with the miner skill and an available [[pick]].

=== Digging in 3D ===

The map is divided in ''layers''. Tiles on each layer are composed by whatever is on that tile, and the floor (or absence of floor) below it. A virgin rock tile is composed of a wall of rock and a floor of rock, for example. The ''ceiling'' of a tile is the same thing as the floor of the layer above that tile.

The most basic dig action is {{K|d}} '''mine'''. When this option is selected you can mark areas to be hollowed out from the current layer. Any useful material such as rock or ore is deposited on the ground excavated by the tile. Digging a tile preserves both the floor and the ceiling of that tile. 

[[Image:DF_Terraform.PNG|thumb|500px]]

A similar action to dig is {{K|h}} '''channel'''. With this option it is possible to either select floor tiles (already dug out with {{k|d}}ig) or 'full' tiles. When dug out, the floor (as well as a wall if it exists) on your layer will be removed and the tile on the layer below will be dug out. Creating a channel could be described as 'strip mining'.

Because it has the potential of removing two layers of wall and one of floor, channeling has the potential to be the fastest mining method. However, be careful that multiple miners working on the same channel don't undermine each other, causing them to fall through to the tile below. If this happens you may need to build a stair or a ramp in order for the fallen miner to escape.

Indiscriminate mining may cause [[Cave-in]]s.

=== Stairs & Ramps ===

For dwarves to move upwards and downwards between levels the construction of [[stairway]]s and [[ramp]]s is required. The most reliable way to assist your constructions is to dig an [[upward stairway]] on the lower level and [[downward stairway]] above. '''[[Stairs]] down''' only remove the floor, and '''Upward stairways''' do not affect the floor or the ceiling. '''Up/Down stairways''' act as a combination of both.

You can also construct these out of rocks or wood, but well placed dig commands are quicker. Digging downwards from the surface, first dig a {{K|j}} '''downward stairway'''. If you wait for this to be dug you will then see a visible block on the layer below where the stairway connects. In this tile dig an {{K|u}}'''pward stairway'''. Your dwarves will now be able to access both levels using these stairs. It is advisable to build one of these before channeling in order for your dwarves to escape.

It may be convenient to build an {{K|i}} '''up/down stairway'''. This automatically creates a downward stairway on the floor above if you have not done so.{{Verify}} This style creates an X symbol in place of a < on the default tileset, but leaves a > symbol on the floor above. You can also make a long series of up/down stairways directly above/below each other to make a long staircase that encompasses many levels.

Upward [[Ramp]]s remove the ceiling above them and create a down-ramp automatically. They can't be used by dwarves unless built specifically. Up-ramps can be found in the same submenu of the {{K|d}}esignation menu as up- and down-staircases.

Ramps should be avoided until you need to provide access to caravans as dwarves on the upper level cannot perform actions such as dig, or build when standing on the ramp ''(imagine they are 'half way' up the ramp)''.

Stairs and Ramps can be removed using the {{K|z}} '''remove up stairs/ramps''' command, ''if those ramps were originally built by digging''. Select this and mark the stairs/ramps to be dug out.

==Dig Priority==

Dwarves mine in veins: after mining a tile, a miner will pick the "next" tile (a tile that is adjacent to the one just mined). If there are several possible "next" tiles, the miner seems to pick randomly{{verify}}; this can break a large area into a large number of veins, which is inefficient.

To pick a vein (which is to say, a tile designated for some kind of dig job), dwarves seem to use a strategy similar to the one used for chopping trees or selecting plants to gather. Generally, they seem to pick the deepest, northwestern-most vein{{verify}}. Notably, dwarves do not pick the closest vein.

Dwarves have a priority over which side they will mine out from. Unless there is something in the way, miners will try to walk around unmined areas to reach these preferred sides, even if that path is very long. In order from most preferred to least preferred, dwarves prefer to stand on the tile to the: <blockquote>West > East > North > South > NW > SW > NE > SE</blockquote> of the tile being dug.

Because dwarves all use the same method to choose veins, dwarves tend to dig tiles near other dwarves. This makes having multiple dwarves dig together a bit problematic, as they will often get in each others' way.

Z-axis preferences untested, though it appears to me that dwarves prefer to dig out lower areas from a diagonally located area (i.e. not standing on the down stairs while digging out the up stairs directly below the down) {{verify}}.

These details are accurate for version 38b; they are likely to change in later versions.

==Map Structure==
If you are still confused about tunnels, floors and ceilings created by the mine command then look at the following diagram:

TOP VIEWS: SIDE VIEW:
LAYER 3 FROM ->
██████..- 5 ██████
██████..- 4 ██████
->██████..- 3 ██████__
██████..- 2 ████
██████..- 1 █████████

LAYER 2
████████.
████████.
->████.....
████████.
████████.

Key:
█ Solid rock
. Floor, visible from this layer
- Empty space, with a floor below
_ Ceiling (undermined section)

The Top Views try to show how digging into the mountain (on Layer 2) leaves a ceiling (floor) on the layer above. This is represented on the Side View by a thin line. Try to think of the mountain as a series of boxes where with a thin lid ontop of each. At any place the box can be filled or empty, and the lid above be there or not there. For example, you can create a wall and build a floor ontop of it. (Building a wall creates a floor on the next level by default, but this doesn't stop you building another floor construction ontop of it!)

''Revised theory'': Imagine the 3D world as a grid of boxes. Each box can have one of three states; [[Wall]]ed, [[Open space]], [[Floor]].
*Each cube can only be in one of these states.
*If a tile is Walled it is inaccessible, but the box above can be walked on (if an Open space or a Floor).
*If it is [[Open space]], then it has no Floor and may be accessible.
*If a Floor is present, then the box is accessible.
*Additionally, floor constructions can be built in an Open space or a Floor box provided there is access from the side
--[[User:Markavian|Markavian]] (Please discuss)

== See also ==
* [[Map tile]]s - Different types of walled, floor and open spaces
* [[Mining]] - A description of the miner skill, used for digging

[[Category:Guides]]

40d:Armor user

2008-03-04T03:50:06Z

Bhudson: link to speed article

'''Armor User''' is the skill related to the wearing of [[Armor|armor]] in [[Combat|combat]]. Dwarfs with this skill will be [[Speed|slowed]] by heavy armor less than usual, in proportion to the skill level. Armor user skill is gained when a dwarf wearing armor is successfully hit in combat, either [[Soldier|sparring]] or in the field, wrestling or with a weapon.
[[Category:Combat Skills]]
[[Category:Items]]

40d:Adventurer mode

2008-02-27T08:39:00Z

Bhudson: /* Trading */ how to tell what item to take

In '''adventurer mode''', you pick a race ([[elf]], [[dwarf]] or [[human]]) and start out in either a town of your race or in a previous fortress you played on. You can receive [[quest]]s, venture into the wilderness to find caves, abandoned towers and other villages. You can even visit your old fortresses and find whatever riches were left to be guarded by the creatures that fated your fortress.

== Your first adventure ==

=== Picking a race ===
When it comes to picking a race, there is difference in skills. [[Dwarves]] cannot wear human sized [[armor]], and are somewhat limited in the [[weapons]] they can wield due to their size. [[Elves]] have a slightly different set of skills. [[Humans]] are generally fairly well-balanced, and are the easiest to acquire quests from. Each race fares differently in combat; you may wish to look at the races' pages for the finer details.

=== Choosing skills ===
Basically, if you want to start with a weapon, you need to avoid having the most points spent in unarmored/[[wrestling]]. If you, for example, choose to start out with most points in [[swordsman]], you will start out with a [[sword]]. When you have chosen your preferred set of skills, you can press {{key|Enter}} to embark. The higher the skills in weapons/armor determine the quality of the equipment you start out with.

If you start out with a high weapon skill (except bows and crossbows) and also an above novice armor and/or shield skill, you'll start out with armor and/or shield as well.

=== Setting out ===
If you chose human, you will start out inside the Mayor's house. You will see the Mayor (purple) and probably several [[drunks]]. Press {{key|k}} and talk to the Mayor. Press 'services' for a [[quest]]. You can talk to the drunks and recruit them to your party for some additional combat aid. Be sure to read the [[Adventure Mode quick reference]] or use the help files for more information on the commands in Adventure mode.

=== Trading ===
In towns you can find merchants inside some buildings. Talk to them to trade with them. After buying an item, you must pick it up manually from somewhere in the shop. {{K|l}}ook around for an item without $ signs around it. Don't pick up items with $ signs; that's theft, which is punishable by death.

=== Equipping your adventurer ===
After acquiring armor from one source or another, you'll most likely want to equip it. To do this, first make sure it is in your possession--not on the ground. You can then {{key|w}}ear it, granted you don't already have too much on that equipment slot already. You can {{key|r}}emove or {{key|d}}rop inferior equipment as necessary.

== Travelling the world ==

=== How-to ===
You can walk around the whole world tile by tile if you wish, but given the size of the world, you might want to consider using another method. Pressing {{key|T}} will let see a very zoomed out map of the surrounding area. Moving about on this map is much faster, as well as it heals your adventurer, keeps him from starving, dehydrating, or getting tired. To exit this screen and explore the area you've reached, press {{k|>}}.

If there is more than one feature such as a town or group of creatures on that map tile you will get to choose which one you want to arrive near.

Also while traveling on the world map, there is a chance that your adventurer can get randomly ambushed by enemies. When that happens, you must survive by either fighting them off or hide from them.

Jumping off cliffs is not normally advisable; however, it is possible to do so by holding {{key|Alt}} while pressing the appropriate movement key. Jumping off cliffs, depending on how high you jumped, will most of the time covers your eyes in blood, which lessens visuals.

=== Finding quest locations ===
After receiving a quest, you will be able to track its location using the {{key|Q}}uest log. Initially it will just give you the location on the {{key|T}}ravel map, though a lesser-known feature is its use in finding the cave entry (or other such target) once you're already in the local map. Bring up the quest log again, highlight the quest objective you're after, and {{key|z}}oom to it. It should then provide you with a local map of your current area, complete with a 3x3 box of flashing squares. This box indicates the general location of the cave's mouth. You'll still have to do some searching, but at least it's narrowed down for you. You can bring up this map at any time that you're in the local area of a quest objective.

=== Visiting abandoned fortresses ===
If you start an adventure in a world with one or more abandoned fortresses, you can take your adventurer to see the sites of your previous endeavors. When you find one of your old fortresses, you will find that everything is a mess. Items are scattered about, things are smashed up and there are probably new hostile inhabitants that you will need to fend off. Visiting your old fortresses might prove to be rewarding, since you can find armor and weapons you made (if you made any). The best thing to be found in your fortress would probably be any left behind artifact weapon or armor. This is also probably the best (and only?) way to get artifact-quality weapons and armor.

Also remember to check out any engravings you made while in fortress mode. When checking out engravings in adventure mode, they reveal a lot more specific information about the event that is engraved.

== Combat ==
Fighting is extremely detailed in adventure mode! This adds alot of fun in the battle, since there are so many ways to injure your opponents/victims.

=== Ranged ===
If you have a [[weapon | bow]] or [[weapon | crossbow]], you can shoot arrows or bolts at enemies. You can also throw anything you can carry at enemies. Ranged attacks are highly efficient when you hit.
To fire your bow or crossbow, press {{key|f}}, and move the marker to the enemy you wish to fire upon, and press {{key|Enter}}. Same with throwing stuff, only press {{key|t}} and choose which item to throw, then choose the victim.
''Note: Throwing is slightly bugged, but in a good and fun way. You can throw captured flies, socks and even vomit if you want, with lethal effects. (Water piercing lungs, flies piercing hearts etc..)''

=== Close combat ===
To fight a creature by hitting it, you just need to walk towards the creature. Alternatively, you can press {{key|A}} and choose your target. After you've pressed {{key|A}} and are given the list of targets to attack, you can use {{key|Enter}} to choose between a normal attack and [[wrestling]] before selecting which opponent you wish to target.
A normal attack will make the adventurer hit the target with whatever weapon he holds. If he is holding no weapon, he will bash with his shield. If he has neither a weapon nor a shield, he will either punch his target or grab a random appendage.
In [[wrestling]], you must spend a few rounds locking the target's limbs to be able to break and splinter them (good times). Alternately, you could try gouging, pinching, or strangling them instead.

=== Wounds ===
Your adventurer will get wounded by enemies or falling (jumping) off cliffs. The best (and only?) way to heal, is to press {{key|T}}, and travel at least 1 tile in any direction. Your adventurer will be fully healed then, unless your character has wounds to the neck or head. Read more about wounds [[Wound|HERE]].

== Tips for survival ==
Dying is easy in adventurer mode, especially if you've just started out. Following these simple tips will increase your chance to survive, and reach those nice stats and legendary skills! These tips are for the faint of heart only. If you like the challenges of the game, feel free to do the opposite of what these tips say.

=== Basic Needs ===
Your adventurer gets hungry, thristy, and drowsy, make sure your waterskin is always filled(fresh water at the temples), you carry 1-2 stacks[5] of food, and get some sleep sooner or later.

(''Warning:'' NEVER, EVER sleep in a hostile place, next thing you know you will be cloven asunder by your own sword, or some nasty critters will be feasting upon you)

=== <s>Living Shields</s> Companions ===

If you recruit some members to your party, you will not only gain extra damage output. You will also have someone else to take the damage instead of YOU!
When you first start out, the easiest <s>human shields</s> friends to recruit are the drunks! They are found in human towns inside the tavern with the Mayor (The building you start in if you play a human). They will gladly come with you and block some blows for you. Drunks will usually attempt low-skill wrestling and (mostly) damage-less punches. Don't expect them to last long when you meet that Giant you are supposed to kill.

To recruit someone into your party, press talk{{k|k}}, move the cursor over them, and press {{k|enter}}. Then in the conversation that follows, simply pick 'Join' from the list of options to ask them to accompany you. Children, peasants, the Mayor and Guards don't want any part of this silly adventuring malarkey.

More detailed searches of towns of various races can yield other adventurers with some actual skills. The generally have a single weapon skill ([[Maceman]], [[Swordsman]], [[Spearman]] and so on) and some armor appropriate to the wealth of the town they were occupying. You will also find Guards around towns, and while they are combat-capable they will not shirk their duty in order to accompany you on your adventures.

=== Avoid the impossible ===
Some things are harder than others. Decide for yourself is this is due to unbalancing of the game, realism or simply to add to the variety of challenges.

==== [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelob Shelob]'s in-laws, aka Giant Cave Spiders ====
Unless you are a legendary or better (ok its not possible to go beyond legendary..) bow-/crossbowman, you should at all costs AVOID giant cave spiders!! They shoot a web at you, making you immobilized while they rip your limbs off one by one. Then when you finally break free from the web, and can attack again, you've probably lost your arms while lying on the floor and the spider is about to throw you by your head up into the roof. Cave Spiders bleed to death eventually, but they know no fear nor pain, meaning they will not black out even if you manage to inflict serious damage including severed limbs. They are also capable of surviving red-level wounds to the body and legs and multiple severed limbs for long enough to eviscerate an adventurer. Leave these for the living shields to deal with while you slip out the other way, ideally from the cave entirely, never to return.

Even if you are a legendary projectile weapon user, reconsider attacking a giant cave spider because in the tight quarters of a cave you might be shooting it from stealth when a giant rat or something similarly stupid walks next to you and triggers your loss of cover. The spider would then punish your arrogance immensely.

''Note'': If absolutely required they ARE killable, but you need luck, and lots of it. Adept swordsman + Proficient shield user + Skilled ambusher manages to sneak up on it and then counterstrike + block does the job. In a suicide swordsman test run I had dethoraxation(decapitation for spiders) = instakill on the first counterstrike, second GCS got a mortal wound before it webbed me and bled to death while trying to chew through me, only broke sword wielding hand and leg. Third spider broke my shield hand and had me mortally wounded in no time after that, although i eventually killed it after unwebbing myself. That makes it ~2.5/3 chances to win, not bad for a rookie. And i was healed after each successful spider kill.

''To conclude'': Basically, as long as your shield wielding hand is intact(and shield skill is high of course) you have pretty good chances of survival in 1 on 1, otherwise you're dead. Any extra armor(in my case exceptional full plate + normal armor skill) also helps in glancing off their bites.

Another interesting thing is that before fighting one of them i threw a spear at it and it lodged in the wound, and it seems that the spider has a priority to break my grip as it repeatedly succesfully broke my grip every time(that happened ~5-6 times in a row) i grabbed the lodged spear. That points to a possible distraction for a GCS in case of soloing it.

==== Arrows ====
Don't take on quests where you need to kill elite bow-/crossbowmen! Generally, avoid flying arrows! Why? Because bow/crossbowmen have the tendency to see farther than you can. They are therefore able to fire at you from beyond your sight, making it hard to see where the arrow(s) are coming from. You may therefor end up chasing the shooter in the wrong direction, giving the shooter even MORE time to turn you into a pin-cushion. Of course, this is only the case if you manage to survive the first 3-4 arrows, because arrows are BAD for anyone but the shooter's health. Piercing hits like arrows are much more likely to damage internal organs, and while you might shrug off a moderate blunt hit to the chest a similar piercing hit could directly damage one or both lungs or your heart and instantly kill you.

If you do accept a quest against an elite bowman or crossbowman and manage to reach melee range, immediately grapple its weapon, ideally by dropping yours and pulling the weapon out of its grasp entirely before throwing it away.

=== Training yourself ===
Gaining stats ([[Attributes|strength, agility, toughness]]) helps alot when fighting. How to best train yourself?

==== Throwing ====
To find rocks simply hit "l" and look at any rock coulored tiles some of these will be simply called by the rock name (e.g. limestone) and cannot be picked up but some will be called pebbles. Rocks are practically free ammo. When you find a tile with pebbles, pick up a lot of them (there are infinite rocks), and start throwing them. You can simply throw them at the tile you are standing at. Every throw will gain you 30 points toward the skill "Throwing", and will after a while increase your stats (Strength, agility, toughness). You will need to throw 600 rocks to reach legendary Thrower (starting with no skill).

Thrown objects are also a cheap way to injure enemies before they reach you if you are a melee fighter.

You can also throw other stuff you find, like flies, beetles, worms, and even vomit. If you have a tendency to chop off enemy limbs, you can even throw these limbs. Killing zombies with their companion's severed heads and feet is always good for a laugh. Iron men are fun, because they leave behind a nice statue for the taking which can be thrown. Arrows and weapons seem to be particularly deadly when thrown, but even the most innocuous or silly items can come up with a kill.

Most thrown objects deal blunt type damage, so they will break and bruise limbs, but arrows and weapons can deal their normal damage types. This is particularly useful to consider when trying for a desperate one-shot kill on a [[Giant Cave Spider]] that's about to web you and shred you into little chunks, as piercing attacks like thrown arrows and spears damage internal organs (making them more likely to get a one-hit kill, as an enemy can live through having the outside of their head moderately damaged but not from having the same amount of damage done to their brain) and thrown axes or swords can sever body parts and leave deep gashes (leading to massive bleeding or slit throats).

==== Bow/Crossbow-skill ====
This skill trains in the same fashion as throwing. You gain skill per shot, not per hit. This is a more expensive skill to train than throwing because you need to buy (or find) arrows/bolts, but is also a much more deadly skill. Fired projectiles do much more damage than thrown ones, and are also piercing type weapons which can do crippling damage to internal organs. The majority of thrown weapons are blunt and will do much more superficial bruising and bone-breaking damage. Shooting arrows at enemies is fun, because it is very efficient. Sadly, that also goes for enemy bow/crossbowmen. You will often be shot in the leg and crippled by an enemy you can't even see, who will then proceed to shoot you in the face until you die - which won't be very long afterwards unless you manage to find something to hide behind.

Make sure to take extra <s>meat shields</s> companions along with you if you're planning on using ranged weapons, it'll take time before you level the appropriate skill to bash things with your weapon in melee so it's imperative you stay out of the fighting till then. Drunks are particularly useful here, as they love to dive on things and collapse into a massive wrestling pile which you can take pot-shots at. Don't worry, you can't hit your guys. Not that you'd care.

==== Wrestling ====
Since melee weapon skills are hard train because not every hit gives points towards the skill, why not train your [[wrestling]]? When you are alone with a unconscious creep, why not break some limbs before finishing it off? Creeps are always going to try to break your arms and legs, so having a bit of skill in wrestling will help break those locks a lot. Also, training wrestling is a quicker way to better stats (strength, agility, toughness) because gain points per move instead of per "hit". Wrestling also handles dodging skill which is very handy to have.

==== Swimming ====
Having no swimming skill in Adventure Mode is not a particularly good thing if you intend to go near water. Anyone with no swimming skill who falls or is pulled/pushed into water will begin to drown immediately if it is over 4/7 deep, and will also be unable to climb out of water this deep - usually resulting in instant death.

To voluntarily jump into a pond or river you have to {{k|Alt}}-move off the edge of the land. This will present you with a choice of walking out into the open space above the water (immediately and unsurprisingly followed by a one-story fall) or moving directly into the water. To get back out, {{k|Alt}}-move into the riverbank/pond edge.

As long as you have at least some Swimming skill, you will be able to move around in deeper water and will gain Swimming skill for every tile you move. Without Swimming, you will have to find depth 4 water to voluntarily paddle about in with your water wings on for your first skill points. Any deeper and you'll start to drown, any shallower and you can't swim in it. Hit {{k|m}} to set your swimming options.

All in all this makes Novice Swimming an excellent starting skill, as you can (eventually) get Legendary skill simply by swimming back and forth in two squares of water and get lots of stat points in the process. However, this is mind-numbingly dull so good luck with that. One should also keep in mind that water in cooler areas may suddenly freeze when the sun starts to go down, and thus instantly kill any creatures within. As such, it's a good idea to do your training laps somewhere warm.

==== Ambushing ====
The Ambusher skill is the parent to the {{k|S}}neak ability, which makes you character move more slowly and stealthily to avoid being noticed. Sneak cannot be activated if an enemy can currently see you, but you can use it immediately if you break line of sight somehow. Sneaking around will increase your Ambusher skill even if nobody is around to see you.

Sneaking is particularly useful for avoiding ranged attacks, as even Novice skill allows you to get within four or five squares of an enemy before they spot you reliably. Standing next to sombody without them spotting you is difficult even with legendary skill. However, even if they spot you moving next to them they will only get one shot at you which is a lot better than the hundreds they would have had if you'd been blundering around in the dark too far away to even see them when they opened fire.

The skill also has a valuable part to play in the noble art of running away. As long as you can get out of sight of all the enemies after you at once - such as around a corner indoors, or ducking behind a tree outside - you can start sneaking and head off in another direction. If your skill is too low however the enemies might be close enough to see you as soon as you try to sneak off.

The most useful part of sneaking is undoubtedly the 'stealth throw'. While firing a missile weapon or attacking in melee will get you noticed immediately, throwing things at people will not. Stock up on dead enemies' weapons, clothing and severed body parts and you can pretend you're some gruesome comedy version of Sam Fisher. You know you want to.

=== Summary ===
*Recruit some living spearcatchers
*Avoid flying arrows
*Throw rocks/statues/socks/bugs at enemies that still haven't reached you
*Train your stats before taking on your first quest-monster

[[Category:Guides]]
[[Category:Adventurer mode]]

40d:Farming

2008-02-15T20:07:22Z

Bhudson: removed old tag -- it's up to date for 38a now.

[[Image:Df-crops-diagram.png|thumb|200px|General farming flowchart.]]
'''Farming''' is the most universal source of [[food]] in Dwarf Fortress. On maps with plentiful [[shrub]]s, [[animal]]s or bodies of [[water]], [[plant gathering]], [[hunting]] or [[fishing]] can also produce a lot of food; however, these practices often do not scale to the level needed to feed a full-sized fortress. Farming is a highly efficient, reliable, renewable and scalable source of food -- and, after [[cooking]], of compact but valuable trade goods. [[Plants]] grown on farms are also excellent for [[brewing]] [[alcohol]], and some have other uses.

== Finding farmland ==

You cannot plant seeds on a bare rock floor, only on [[mud]] or [[soil]]. The easiest way to farm, by far, is to find some soft, arable soil, which is available in great quantity outside the fortress on most maps (the notable exceptions being mountainous maps). If arable soil is unavailable, you will need to set up an [[irrigation]] scheme to deposit mud on the bare rock, which can then have farm plots placed upon it.

== Aboveground or underground? ==

You can plant either underground or aboveground, depending on the type of [[plant]]s you want to grow. The starting [[seed]]s your dwarves may bring with them can only be planted underground. If you want to farm aboveground, you will need to gather seeds from outdoor [[shrub]]s, which can then be planted. Caravans will also sometimes bring additional bags of seeds.

The farm plot should be either entirely above ground or entirely subterranean. A mixed-class farm plot will allow you to choose any crop for planting, but the chosen crop will be planted only on tiles capable of growing it. Worse, planters will not skip over the infertile tiles, leaving the rest of the plot fallow whether it can support the crop or not.

== Defining the farm plot ==

Once you have a suitable location for farming you can have your farmer(s) prepare a [[farm plot]]. That's the actual bit of soil to be tilled.

Enter the {{K|b}}uild menu and place farm {{K|p}}lots. Use {{K|u}} and {{K|k}} to increase the size of the plot, and {{K|m}} and {{K|h}} to decrease it. When the plot is sized and positioned correctly, pressing {{K|Enter}} will place it. Your grower(s) will now rush in and prepare the field, clearing out rubble and other impediments when necessary.

How much farm space do you need? Surprisingly little. A 5x5 plot will provide enough food to bring you through your first winter, and even smaller fields are sufficient if you stretch out the food by [[brewing]]. If there is rubble in the room, leave a little extra space; otherwise, the farmers tend to stack the boulders under your farm room doors and cause them to get stuck ajar, which if you're not careful can lead to flooding the next time the field is irrigated. You can also avoid putting doors right next to the farm.

Digging out larger farm rooms than you need can be useful in other ways as well: muddied areas can spontaneously produce [[tower-cap]]s (a source of wood), spider webs (a source of [[silk]]), and [[shrub]]s of the same type as your [[crops]].

A 10x20 plot should, with several dedicated farmers, provide enough food to feed a full 200-dwarf fortress.

== Planting ==

Once a farmer builds the plots, it's time to plant. Go into the plot's {{K|q}} menu and select the type of seed to plant. Your farmers will then take care of the rest. Note that your farmers will not work the plot the whole year without being told to do so: you must designate a crop for ''each'' season. You can designate each season ahead of time by using {{K|a}}, {{K|b}}, {{K|c}}, {{K|d}} from the plot selection screen. You cannot designate crops for seasons already past; you will need to remember to do this in the following spring. You do not have to plant the same thing each season, and some plants are only available during certain seasons.

In the first year, you should focus your production on berries aboveground, or [[plump helmets]] underground, because they can either be eaten raw or brewed. [[Quarry bush]]es, [[cave wheat]] and [[sweet pod]]s require processing before they can be eaten. [[Pig tail]]s and [[dimple cup]]s can produce cloth and dye respectively. Dimple cups are the only underground crop that can neither be brewed nor otherwise processed into food (except for its seed, which can be cooked).

You cannot buy berry seeds upon embarking. If you choose to plant berry shrubs, designate a dwarf with [[herbalism]] to gather plants outside until you get some suitable plants, then brew them to get the seeds. Make sure the outside farm plot is designated in the same [[biome]] that the plants were gathered from.

Should you wish to plant nothing for a season, you can select {{K|z}} "fallow" from the farm plot menu; this is useful when your larder is overful. If you possess [[potash]], you can fertilize the field to increase yield (see below).

== Increasing yield ==
Any crop may bear more or less fruit, or (as is sometimes the case with unskilled growers) it may even bear no fruit at all, thus wasting the seed. A higher yield will have many benefits along the whole assembly line of further food processing: workers will always work one one "stack" at a time – if (for example) a brewer has "sweet pod [5]" to work with, he will produce "dwarven rum [25]" and somehow squeeze it all into a single barrel.

The yield from a single seed depends on:
*[[grower]] [[skill]] of the farmer who planted it.
*whether the plot was fertilized. Fertilization increases yield up to about 1.5 times{{Verify}}.

Dabbling growers will frequently produce stacks of only one, and sometimes even zero plants. Legendary growers will often produce "plant name [5]" stacks from a single seed on a non fertilized field.

To fertilize a field {{K|q}} on it and choose {{K|f}}'''ertilize''' command. The amount of potash needed to fully fertilize a field depends on its size; it is listed on the farm plot.
Using {{K|q}} to view the farm plot, look for the field that looks like N/M ft. N is the amount of fertilizer applied so far, while M is the maximum fertlizer that can be applied. {{K|s}}'''eas Fert''' option tells your dwarves to automatically fertilize a field after each season change.

== Harvesting ==

A few weeks after planting a seed, a crop will sprout on that spot. Crops must be harvested within another few weeks or they will wither. By default, all dwarves will harvest, including [[children]] and even [[nobles]]. This may or may not be desirable: on the one hand, it makes sure that no crops will wither; on the other, it may lead to far away dwarves interrupting their work and running a long way in order to harvest a single plant.

Harvesting plants earns dwarves [[experience]] in the "growing" [[skill]], so do not be surprised if all your dwarves soon become "dabbling" (or better) growers. Because of that, peasants with no other occupation become farmers almost automatically. Do not be afraid that they might trample your fields: the skill is of no importance during harvest, and no matter how much skill they earn they will still only plant crops if you allow them to in their individual "labor" menu.

If you chose to turn off "All dwarves harvest" in your {{K|o}}rders menu, only dwarves with the "Farming (Fields)" labor enabled will harvest. However, they will often choose to plant new seeds instead of reaping the existing crop, so you risk that some amount may wither. After harvesting a plant (plucking it out of the ground), dwarves will carry it to the nearest [[stockpile]] unless you have "Dwarves ignore food" set in your {{K|o}}rders menu, in which case they will leave the plant blinking on the field. If not moved to a stockpile within a few weeks, it will wither.

== Caveats (warnings) ==

=== Food hauling ===

If you manage to get large-scale farming up and running, you will need to employ many food haulers in order for the food produced on your farms to be edible, even if it has already been harvested. This is because in the current version of the game, items tagged for pending tasks (including Move to Stockpile and Store in Barrel) are unavailable for any other use -- such as eating. An entire fortress of dwarves can starve while they wait for somebody to ''move the food''.

One way to deal with this problem (at least during the heavy farming/harvesting seasons) is to disable hauling of both stone and wood in the top-level {{K|o}}rders menu. This way, most of those jobs will clear out of the job queue, and you will be left mostly with "Store in Barrel" type jobs. You can also increase the number of dedicated food haulers.

=== Storage ===

It can be difficult to manage barrels to store food and drink, and bags to store seeds and processed foods. Combat this by [[Cooking|cooking]] food to consolidate it into larger stacks that won't rot outside of a barrel (it just needs to be indoors on a food stockpile). In the {{K|p}} menu, you can also reserve some empty barrels that will not be used for food storage; instead, they will only be used for brewing and syrup processing tasks. Leaves, sugar, and flour are not edible; to use them up and free the bags they, you must cook. You can also cook excess seeds (albeit only up to 4 at a time), to reclaim the bags they occupy. Make sure not to cook your last cropseed!

== See also ==

* [[Crops]]
* [[Irrigation]]
* [[Skills#Growing|Farmers]]

[[Category:Agriculture]]
[[Category:Jobs]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Guides]]

40d:Farming

2008-02-15T20:06:34Z

Bhudson: farm for trade

{{old|0.23.130.23a|, the 2D version, though it has been updated some since then}}
[[Image:Df-crops-diagram.png|thumb|200px|General farming flowchart.]]
'''Farming''' is the most universal source of [[food]] in Dwarf Fortress. On maps with plentiful [[shrub]]s, [[animal]]s or bodies of [[water]], [[plant gathering]], [[hunting]] or [[fishing]] can also produce a lot of food; however, these practices often do not scale to the level needed to feed a full-sized fortress. Farming is a highly efficient, reliable, renewable and scalable source of food -- and, after [[cooking]], of compact but valuable trade goods. [[Plants]] grown on farms are also excellent for [[brewing]] [[alcohol]], and some have other uses.

== Finding farmland ==

You cannot plant seeds on a bare rock floor, only on [[mud]] or [[soil]]. The easiest way to farm, by far, is to find some soft, arable soil, which is available in great quantity outside the fortress on most maps (the notable exceptions being mountainous maps). If arable soil is unavailable, you will need to set up an [[irrigation]] scheme to deposit mud on the bare rock, which can then have farm plots placed upon it.

== Aboveground or underground? ==

You can plant either underground or aboveground, depending on the type of [[plant]]s you want to grow. The starting [[seed]]s your dwarves may bring with them can only be planted underground. If you want to farm aboveground, you will need to gather seeds from outdoor [[shrub]]s, which can then be planted. Caravans will also sometimes bring additional bags of seeds.

The farm plot should be either entirely above ground or entirely subterranean. A mixed-class farm plot will allow you to choose any crop for planting, but the chosen crop will be planted only on tiles capable of growing it. Worse, planters will not skip over the infertile tiles, leaving the rest of the plot fallow whether it can support the crop or not.

== Defining the farm plot ==

Once you have a suitable location for farming you can have your farmer(s) prepare a [[farm plot]]. That's the actual bit of soil to be tilled.

Enter the {{K|b}}uild menu and place farm {{K|p}}lots. Use {{K|u}} and {{K|k}} to increase the size of the plot, and {{K|m}} and {{K|h}} to decrease it. When the plot is sized and positioned correctly, pressing {{K|Enter}} will place it. Your grower(s) will now rush in and prepare the field, clearing out rubble and other impediments when necessary.

How much farm space do you need? Surprisingly little. A 5x5 plot will provide enough food to bring you through your first winter, and even smaller fields are sufficient if you stretch out the food by [[brewing]]. If there is rubble in the room, leave a little extra space; otherwise, the farmers tend to stack the boulders under your farm room doors and cause them to get stuck ajar, which if you're not careful can lead to flooding the next time the field is irrigated. You can also avoid putting doors right next to the farm.

Digging out larger farm rooms than you need can be useful in other ways as well: muddied areas can spontaneously produce [[tower-cap]]s (a source of wood), spider webs (a source of [[silk]]), and [[shrub]]s of the same type as your [[crops]].

A 10x20 plot should, with several dedicated farmers, provide enough food to feed a full 200-dwarf fortress.

== Planting ==

Once a farmer builds the plots, it's time to plant. Go into the plot's {{K|q}} menu and select the type of seed to plant. Your farmers will then take care of the rest. Note that your farmers will not work the plot the whole year without being told to do so: you must designate a crop for ''each'' season. You can designate each season ahead of time by using {{K|a}}, {{K|b}}, {{K|c}}, {{K|d}} from the plot selection screen. You cannot designate crops for seasons already past; you will need to remember to do this in the following spring. You do not have to plant the same thing each season, and some plants are only available during certain seasons.

In the first year, you should focus your production on berries aboveground, or [[plump helmets]] underground, because they can either be eaten raw or brewed. [[Quarry bush]]es, [[cave wheat]] and [[sweet pod]]s require processing before they can be eaten. [[Pig tail]]s and [[dimple cup]]s can produce cloth and dye respectively. Dimple cups are the only underground crop that can neither be brewed nor otherwise processed into food (except for its seed, which can be cooked).

You cannot buy berry seeds upon embarking. If you choose to plant berry shrubs, designate a dwarf with [[herbalism]] to gather plants outside until you get some suitable plants, then brew them to get the seeds. Make sure the outside farm plot is designated in the same [[biome]] that the plants were gathered from.

Should you wish to plant nothing for a season, you can select {{K|z}} "fallow" from the farm plot menu; this is useful when your larder is overful. If you possess [[potash]], you can fertilize the field to increase yield (see below).

== Increasing yield ==
Any crop may bear more or less fruit, or (as is sometimes the case with unskilled growers) it may even bear no fruit at all, thus wasting the seed. A higher yield will have many benefits along the whole assembly line of further food processing: workers will always work one one "stack" at a time – if (for example) a brewer has "sweet pod [5]" to work with, he will produce "dwarven rum [25]" and somehow squeeze it all into a single barrel.

The yield from a single seed depends on:
*[[grower]] [[skill]] of the farmer who planted it.
*whether the plot was fertilized. Fertilization increases yield up to about 1.5 times{{Verify}}.

Dabbling growers will frequently produce stacks of only one, and sometimes even zero plants. Legendary growers will often produce "plant name [5]" stacks from a single seed on a non fertilized field.

To fertilize a field {{K|q}} on it and choose {{K|f}}'''ertilize''' command. The amount of potash needed to fully fertilize a field depends on its size; it is listed on the farm plot.
Using {{K|q}} to view the farm plot, look for the field that looks like N/M ft. N is the amount of fertilizer applied so far, while M is the maximum fertlizer that can be applied. {{K|s}}'''eas Fert''' option tells your dwarves to automatically fertilize a field after each season change.

== Harvesting ==

A few weeks after planting a seed, a crop will sprout on that spot. Crops must be harvested within another few weeks or they will wither. By default, all dwarves will harvest, including [[children]] and even [[nobles]]. This may or may not be desirable: on the one hand, it makes sure that no crops will wither; on the other, it may lead to far away dwarves interrupting their work and running a long way in order to harvest a single plant.

Harvesting plants earns dwarves [[experience]] in the "growing" [[skill]], so do not be surprised if all your dwarves soon become "dabbling" (or better) growers. Because of that, peasants with no other occupation become farmers almost automatically. Do not be afraid that they might trample your fields: the skill is of no importance during harvest, and no matter how much skill they earn they will still only plant crops if you allow them to in their individual "labor" menu.

If you chose to turn off "All dwarves harvest" in your {{K|o}}rders menu, only dwarves with the "Farming (Fields)" labor enabled will harvest. However, they will often choose to plant new seeds instead of reaping the existing crop, so you risk that some amount may wither. After harvesting a plant (plucking it out of the ground), dwarves will carry it to the nearest [[stockpile]] unless you have "Dwarves ignore food" set in your {{K|o}}rders menu, in which case they will leave the plant blinking on the field. If not moved to a stockpile within a few weeks, it will wither.

== Caveats (warnings) ==

=== Food hauling ===

If you manage to get large-scale farming up and running, you will need to employ many food haulers in order for the food produced on your farms to be edible, even if it has already been harvested. This is because in the current version of the game, items tagged for pending tasks (including Move to Stockpile and Store in Barrel) are unavailable for any other use -- such as eating. An entire fortress of dwarves can starve while they wait for somebody to ''move the food''.

One way to deal with this problem (at least during the heavy farming/harvesting seasons) is to disable hauling of both stone and wood in the top-level {{K|o}}rders menu. This way, most of those jobs will clear out of the job queue, and you will be left mostly with "Store in Barrel" type jobs. You can also increase the number of dedicated food haulers.

=== Storage ===

It can be difficult to manage barrels to store food and drink, and bags to store seeds and processed foods. Combat this by [[Cooking|cooking]] food to consolidate it into larger stacks that won't rot outside of a barrel (it just needs to be indoors on a food stockpile). In the {{K|p}} menu, you can also reserve some empty barrels that will not be used for food storage; instead, they will only be used for brewing and syrup processing tasks. Leaves, sugar, and flour are not edible; to use them up and free the bags they, you must cook. You can also cook excess seeds (albeit only up to 4 at a time), to reclaim the bags they occupy. Make sure not to cook your last cropseed!

== See also ==

* [[Crops]]
* [[Irrigation]]
* [[Skills#Growing|Farmers]]

[[Category:Agriculture]]
[[Category:Jobs]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Guides]]

40d:Farming

2008-02-15T20:04:52Z

Bhudson: /* Storage */ more info

{{old|0.23.130.23a|, the 2D version, though it has been updated some since then}}
[[Image:Df-crops-diagram.png|thumb|200px|General farming flowchart.]]
'''Farming''' is the most universal source of [[food]] in Dwarf Fortress. On maps with plentiful [[shrub]]s, [[animal]]s or bodies of [[water]], [[plant gathering]], [[hunting]] or [[fishing]] can also produce a lot of food; however, these practices often do not scale to the level needed to feed a full-sized fortress. Farming is a highly efficient, reliable, renewable and scalable source of food. [[Plants]] grown on farms are also excellent for [[brewing]] [[alcohol]], and some have other uses.

== Finding farmland ==

You cannot plant seeds on a bare rock floor, only on [[mud]] or [[soil]]. The easiest way to farm, by far, is to find some soft, arable soil, which is available in great quantity outside the fortress on most maps (the notable exceptions being mountainous maps). If arable soil is unavailable, you will need to set up an [[irrigation]] scheme to deposit mud on the bare rock, which can then have farm plots placed upon it.

== Aboveground or underground? ==

You can plant either underground or aboveground, depending on the type of [[plant]]s you want to grow. The starting [[seed]]s your dwarves may bring with them can only be planted underground. If you want to farm aboveground, you will need to gather seeds from outdoor [[shrub]]s, which can then be planted. Caravans will also sometimes bring additional bags of seeds.

The farm plot should be either entirely above ground or entirely subterranean. A mixed-class farm plot will allow you to choose any crop for planting, but the chosen crop will be planted only on tiles capable of growing it. Worse, planters will not skip over the infertile tiles, leaving the rest of the plot fallow whether it can support the crop or not.

== Defining the farm plot ==

Once you have a suitable location for farming you can have your farmer(s) prepare a [[farm plot]]. That's the actual bit of soil to be tilled.

Enter the {{K|b}}uild menu and place farm {{K|p}}lots. Use {{K|u}} and {{K|k}} to increase the size of the plot, and {{K|m}} and {{K|h}} to decrease it. When the plot is sized and positioned correctly, pressing {{K|Enter}} will place it. Your grower(s) will now rush in and prepare the field, clearing out rubble and other impediments when necessary.

How much farm space do you need? Surprisingly little. A 5x5 plot will provide enough food to bring you through your first winter, and even smaller fields are sufficient if you stretch out the food by [[brewing]]. If there is rubble in the room, leave a little extra space; otherwise, the farmers tend to stack the boulders under your farm room doors and cause them to get stuck ajar, which if you're not careful can lead to flooding the next time the field is irrigated. You can also avoid putting doors right next to the farm.

Digging out larger farm rooms than you need can be useful in other ways as well: muddied areas can spontaneously produce [[tower-cap]]s (a source of wood), spider webs (a source of [[silk]]), and [[shrub]]s of the same type as your [[crops]].

A 10x20 plot should, with several dedicated farmers, provide enough food to feed a full 200-dwarf fortress.

== Planting ==

Once a farmer builds the plots, it's time to plant. Go into the plot's {{K|q}} menu and select the type of seed to plant. Your farmers will then take care of the rest. Note that your farmers will not work the plot the whole year without being told to do so: you must designate a crop for ''each'' season. You can designate each season ahead of time by using {{K|a}}, {{K|b}}, {{K|c}}, {{K|d}} from the plot selection screen. You cannot designate crops for seasons already past; you will need to remember to do this in the following spring. You do not have to plant the same thing each season, and some plants are only available during certain seasons.

In the first year, you should focus your production on berries aboveground, or [[plump helmets]] underground, because they can either be eaten raw or brewed. [[Quarry bush]]es, [[cave wheat]] and [[sweet pod]]s require processing before they can be eaten. [[Pig tail]]s and [[dimple cup]]s can produce cloth and dye respectively. Dimple cups are the only underground crop that can neither be brewed nor otherwise processed into food (except for its seed, which can be cooked).

You cannot buy berry seeds upon embarking. If you choose to plant berry shrubs, designate a dwarf with [[herbalism]] to gather plants outside until you get some suitable plants, then brew them to get the seeds. Make sure the outside farm plot is designated in the same [[biome]] that the plants were gathered from.

Should you wish to plant nothing for a season, you can select {{K|z}} "fallow" from the farm plot menu; this is useful when your larder is overful. If you possess [[potash]], you can fertilize the field to increase yield (see below).

== Increasing yield ==
Any crop may bear more or less fruit, or (as is sometimes the case with unskilled growers) it may even bear no fruit at all, thus wasting the seed. A higher yield will have many benefits along the whole assembly line of further food processing: workers will always work one one "stack" at a time – if (for example) a brewer has "sweet pod [5]" to work with, he will produce "dwarven rum [25]" and somehow squeeze it all into a single barrel.

The yield from a single seed depends on:
*[[grower]] [[skill]] of the farmer who planted it.
*whether the plot was fertilized. Fertilization increases yield up to about 1.5 times{{Verify}}.

Dabbling growers will frequently produce stacks of only one, and sometimes even zero plants. Legendary growers will often produce "plant name [5]" stacks from a single seed on a non fertilized field.

To fertilize a field {{K|q}} on it and choose {{K|f}}'''ertilize''' command. The amount of potash needed to fully fertilize a field depends on its size; it is listed on the farm plot.
Using {{K|q}} to view the farm plot, look for the field that looks like N/M ft. N is the amount of fertilizer applied so far, while M is the maximum fertlizer that can be applied. {{K|s}}'''eas Fert''' option tells your dwarves to automatically fertilize a field after each season change.

== Harvesting ==

A few weeks after planting a seed, a crop will sprout on that spot. Crops must be harvested within another few weeks or they will wither. By default, all dwarves will harvest, including [[children]] and even [[nobles]]. This may or may not be desirable: on the one hand, it makes sure that no crops will wither; on the other, it may lead to far away dwarves interrupting their work and running a long way in order to harvest a single plant.

Harvesting plants earns dwarves [[experience]] in the "growing" [[skill]], so do not be surprised if all your dwarves soon become "dabbling" (or better) growers. Because of that, peasants with no other occupation become farmers almost automatically. Do not be afraid that they might trample your fields: the skill is of no importance during harvest, and no matter how much skill they earn they will still only plant crops if you allow them to in their individual "labor" menu.

If you chose to turn off "All dwarves harvest" in your {{K|o}}rders menu, only dwarves with the "Farming (Fields)" labor enabled will harvest. However, they will often choose to plant new seeds instead of reaping the existing crop, so you risk that some amount may wither. After harvesting a plant (plucking it out of the ground), dwarves will carry it to the nearest [[stockpile]] unless you have "Dwarves ignore food" set in your {{K|o}}rders menu, in which case they will leave the plant blinking on the field. If not moved to a stockpile within a few weeks, it will wither.

== Caveats (warnings) ==

=== Food hauling ===

If you manage to get large-scale farming up and running, you will need to employ many food haulers in order for the food produced on your farms to be edible, even if it has already been harvested. This is because in the current version of the game, items tagged for pending tasks (including Move to Stockpile and Store in Barrel) are unavailable for any other use -- such as eating. An entire fortress of dwarves can starve while they wait for somebody to ''move the food''.

One way to deal with this problem (at least during the heavy farming/harvesting seasons) is to disable hauling of both stone and wood in the top-level {{K|o}}rders menu. This way, most of those jobs will clear out of the job queue, and you will be left mostly with "Store in Barrel" type jobs. You can also increase the number of dedicated food haulers.

=== Storage ===

It can be difficult to manage barrels to store food and drink, and bags to store seeds and processed foods. Combat this by [[Cooking|cooking]] food to consolidate it into larger stacks that won't rot outside of a barrel (it just needs to be indoors on a food stockpile). In the {{K|p}} menu, you can also reserve some empty barrels that will not be used for food storage; instead, they will only be used for brewing and syrup processing tasks. Leaves, sugar, and flour are not edible; to use them up and free the bags they, you must cook. You can also cook excess seeds (albeit only up to 4 at a time), to reclaim the bags they occupy. Make sure not to cook your last cropseed!

== See also ==

* [[Crops]]
* [[Irrigation]]
* [[Skills#Growing|Farmers]]

[[Category:Agriculture]]
[[Category:Jobs]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Guides]]

40d:Farming

2008-02-15T19:56:28Z

Bhudson: /* Planting */ dimple cup fix

{{old|0.23.130.23a|, the 2D version, though it has been updated some since then}}
[[Image:Df-crops-diagram.png|thumb|200px|General farming flowchart.]]
'''Farming''' is the most universal source of [[food]] in Dwarf Fortress. On maps with plentiful [[shrub]]s, [[animal]]s or bodies of [[water]], [[plant gathering]], [[hunting]] or [[fishing]] can also produce a lot of food; however, these practices often do not scale to the level needed to feed a full-sized fortress. Farming is a highly efficient, reliable, renewable and scalable source of food. [[Plants]] grown on farms are also excellent for [[brewing]] [[alcohol]], and some have other uses.

== Finding farmland ==

You cannot plant seeds on a bare rock floor, only on [[mud]] or [[soil]]. The easiest way to farm, by far, is to find some soft, arable soil, which is available in great quantity outside the fortress on most maps (the notable exceptions being mountainous maps). If arable soil is unavailable, you will need to set up an [[irrigation]] scheme to deposit mud on the bare rock, which can then have farm plots placed upon it.

== Aboveground or underground? ==

You can plant either underground or aboveground, depending on the type of [[plant]]s you want to grow. The starting [[seed]]s your dwarves may bring with them can only be planted underground. If you want to farm aboveground, you will need to gather seeds from outdoor [[shrub]]s, which can then be planted. Caravans will also sometimes bring additional bags of seeds.

The farm plot should be either entirely above ground or entirely subterranean. A mixed-class farm plot will allow you to choose any crop for planting, but the chosen crop will be planted only on tiles capable of growing it. Worse, planters will not skip over the infertile tiles, leaving the rest of the plot fallow whether it can support the crop or not.

== Defining the farm plot ==

Once you have a suitable location for farming you can have your farmer(s) prepare a [[farm plot]]. That's the actual bit of soil to be tilled.

Enter the {{K|b}}uild menu and place farm {{K|p}}lots. Use {{K|u}} and {{K|k}} to increase the size of the plot, and {{K|m}} and {{K|h}} to decrease it. When the plot is sized and positioned correctly, pressing {{K|Enter}} will place it. Your grower(s) will now rush in and prepare the field, clearing out rubble and other impediments when necessary.

How much farm space do you need? Surprisingly little. A 5x5 plot will provide enough food to bring you through your first winter, and even smaller fields are sufficient if you stretch out the food by [[brewing]]. If there is rubble in the room, leave a little extra space; otherwise, the farmers tend to stack the boulders under your farm room doors and cause them to get stuck ajar, which if you're not careful can lead to flooding the next time the field is irrigated. You can also avoid putting doors right next to the farm.

Digging out larger farm rooms than you need can be useful in other ways as well: muddied areas can spontaneously produce [[tower-cap]]s (a source of wood), spider webs (a source of [[silk]]), and [[shrub]]s of the same type as your [[crops]].

A 10x20 plot should, with several dedicated farmers, provide enough food to feed a full 200-dwarf fortress.

== Planting ==

Once a farmer builds the plots, it's time to plant. Go into the plot's {{K|q}} menu and select the type of seed to plant. Your farmers will then take care of the rest. Note that your farmers will not work the plot the whole year without being told to do so: you must designate a crop for ''each'' season. You can designate each season ahead of time by using {{K|a}}, {{K|b}}, {{K|c}}, {{K|d}} from the plot selection screen. You cannot designate crops for seasons already past; you will need to remember to do this in the following spring. You do not have to plant the same thing each season, and some plants are only available during certain seasons.

In the first year, you should focus your production on berries aboveground, or [[plump helmets]] underground, because they can either be eaten raw or brewed. [[Quarry bush]]es, [[cave wheat]] and [[sweet pod]]s require processing before they can be eaten. [[Pig tail]]s and [[dimple cup]]s can produce cloth and dye respectively. Dimple cups are the only underground crop that can neither be brewed nor otherwise processed into food (except for its seed, which can be cooked).

You cannot buy berry seeds upon embarking. If you choose to plant berry shrubs, designate a dwarf with [[herbalism]] to gather plants outside until you get some suitable plants, then brew them to get the seeds. Make sure the outside farm plot is designated in the same [[biome]] that the plants were gathered from.

Should you wish to plant nothing for a season, you can select {{K|z}} "fallow" from the farm plot menu; this is useful when your larder is overful. If you possess [[potash]], you can fertilize the field to increase yield (see below).

== Increasing yield ==
Any crop may bear more or less fruit, or (as is sometimes the case with unskilled growers) it may even bear no fruit at all, thus wasting the seed. A higher yield will have many benefits along the whole assembly line of further food processing: workers will always work one one "stack" at a time – if (for example) a brewer has "sweet pod [5]" to work with, he will produce "dwarven rum [25]" and somehow squeeze it all into a single barrel.

The yield from a single seed depends on:
*[[grower]] [[skill]] of the farmer who planted it.
*whether the plot was fertilized. Fertilization increases yield up to about 1.5 times{{Verify}}.

Dabbling growers will frequently produce stacks of only one, and sometimes even zero plants. Legendary growers will often produce "plant name [5]" stacks from a single seed on a non fertilized field.

To fertilize a field {{K|q}} on it and choose {{K|f}}'''ertilize''' command. The amount of potash needed to fully fertilize a field depends on its size; it is listed on the farm plot.
Using {{K|q}} to view the farm plot, look for the field that looks like N/M ft. N is the amount of fertilizer applied so far, while M is the maximum fertlizer that can be applied. {{K|s}}'''eas Fert''' option tells your dwarves to automatically fertilize a field after each season change.

== Harvesting ==

A few weeks after planting a seed, a crop will sprout on that spot. Crops must be harvested within another few weeks or they will wither. By default, all dwarves will harvest, including [[children]] and even [[nobles]]. This may or may not be desirable: on the one hand, it makes sure that no crops will wither; on the other, it may lead to far away dwarves interrupting their work and running a long way in order to harvest a single plant.

Harvesting plants earns dwarves [[experience]] in the "growing" [[skill]], so do not be surprised if all your dwarves soon become "dabbling" (or better) growers. Because of that, peasants with no other occupation become farmers almost automatically. Do not be afraid that they might trample your fields: the skill is of no importance during harvest, and no matter how much skill they earn they will still only plant crops if you allow them to in their individual "labor" menu.

If you chose to turn off "All dwarves harvest" in your {{K|o}}rders menu, only dwarves with the "Farming (Fields)" labor enabled will harvest. However, they will often choose to plant new seeds instead of reaping the existing crop, so you risk that some amount may wither. After harvesting a plant (plucking it out of the ground), dwarves will carry it to the nearest [[stockpile]] unless you have "Dwarves ignore food" set in your {{K|o}}rders menu, in which case they will leave the plant blinking on the field. If not moved to a stockpile within a few weeks, it will wither.

== Caveats (warnings) ==

=== Food hauling ===

If you manage to get large-scale farming up and running, you will need to employ many food haulers in order for the food produced on your farms to be edible, even if it has already been harvested. This is because in the current version of the game, items tagged for pending tasks (including Move to Stockpile and Store in Barrel) are unavailable for any other use -- such as eating. An entire fortress of dwarves can starve while they wait for somebody to ''move the food''.

One way to deal with this problem (at least during the heavy farming/harvesting seasons) is to disable hauling of both stone and wood in the top-level {{K|o}}rders menu. This way, most of those jobs will clear out of the job queue, and you will be left mostly with "Store in Barrel" type jobs. You can also increase the number of dedicated food haulers.

=== Storage ===

It can be difficult to manage barrels and bags for storage of food and seeds; forts with limited wood can have their supply overwhelmed. Combat this with [[Cooking]] food to consolidate it into larger stacks that won't rot outside of a barrel (just need to be indoors on food stockpile)

== See also ==

* [[Crops]]
* [[Irrigation]]
* [[Skills#Growing|Farmers]]

[[Category:Agriculture]]
[[Category:Jobs]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Guides]]

40d:Farming

2008-02-15T19:55:32Z

Bhudson: /* Planting */ a few updates and elaborations for new truths

{{old|0.23.130.23a|, the 2D version, though it has been updated some since then}}
[[Image:Df-crops-diagram.png|thumb|200px|General farming flowchart.]]
'''Farming''' is the most universal source of [[food]] in Dwarf Fortress. On maps with plentiful [[shrub]]s, [[animal]]s or bodies of [[water]], [[plant gathering]], [[hunting]] or [[fishing]] can also produce a lot of food; however, these practices often do not scale to the level needed to feed a full-sized fortress. Farming is a highly efficient, reliable, renewable and scalable source of food. [[Plants]] grown on farms are also excellent for [[brewing]] [[alcohol]], and some have other uses.

== Finding farmland ==

You cannot plant seeds on a bare rock floor, only on [[mud]] or [[soil]]. The easiest way to farm, by far, is to find some soft, arable soil, which is available in great quantity outside the fortress on most maps (the notable exceptions being mountainous maps). If arable soil is unavailable, you will need to set up an [[irrigation]] scheme to deposit mud on the bare rock, which can then have farm plots placed upon it.

== Aboveground or underground? ==

You can plant either underground or aboveground, depending on the type of [[plant]]s you want to grow. The starting [[seed]]s your dwarves may bring with them can only be planted underground. If you want to farm aboveground, you will need to gather seeds from outdoor [[shrub]]s, which can then be planted. Caravans will also sometimes bring additional bags of seeds.

The farm plot should be either entirely above ground or entirely subterranean. A mixed-class farm plot will allow you to choose any crop for planting, but the chosen crop will be planted only on tiles capable of growing it. Worse, planters will not skip over the infertile tiles, leaving the rest of the plot fallow whether it can support the crop or not.

== Defining the farm plot ==

Once you have a suitable location for farming you can have your farmer(s) prepare a [[farm plot]]. That's the actual bit of soil to be tilled.

Enter the {{K|b}}uild menu and place farm {{K|p}}lots. Use {{K|u}} and {{K|k}} to increase the size of the plot, and {{K|m}} and {{K|h}} to decrease it. When the plot is sized and positioned correctly, pressing {{K|Enter}} will place it. Your grower(s) will now rush in and prepare the field, clearing out rubble and other impediments when necessary.

How much farm space do you need? Surprisingly little. A 5x5 plot will provide enough food to bring you through your first winter, and even smaller fields are sufficient if you stretch out the food by [[brewing]]. If there is rubble in the room, leave a little extra space; otherwise, the farmers tend to stack the boulders under your farm room doors and cause them to get stuck ajar, which if you're not careful can lead to flooding the next time the field is irrigated. You can also avoid putting doors right next to the farm.

Digging out larger farm rooms than you need can be useful in other ways as well: muddied areas can spontaneously produce [[tower-cap]]s (a source of wood), spider webs (a source of [[silk]]), and [[shrub]]s of the same type as your [[crops]].

A 10x20 plot should, with several dedicated farmers, provide enough food to feed a full 200-dwarf fortress.

== Planting ==

Once a farmer builds the plots, it's time to plant. Go into the plot's {{K|q}} menu and select the type of seed to plant. Your farmers will then take care of the rest. Note that your farmers will not work the plot the whole year without being told to do so: you must designate a crop for ''each'' season. You can designate each season ahead of time by using {{K|a}}, {{K|b}}, {{K|c}}, {{K|d}} from the plot selection screen. You cannot designate crops for seasons already past; you will need to remember to do this in the following spring. You do not have to plant the same thing each season, and some plants are only available during certain seasons.

In the first year, you should focus your production on berries aboveground, or [[plump helmets]] underground, because they can either be eaten raw or brewed. [[Quarry bush]]es, [[cave wheat]] and [[sweet pod]]s require processing before they can be eaten. [[Pig tail]]s and [[dimple cup]]s can produce cloth and dye respectively. Dimple cups are the only underground crop that cannot be eaten (except for its seed, which can be cooked).

You cannot buy berry seeds upon embarking. If you choose to plant berry shrubs, designate a dwarf with [[herbalism]] to gather plants outside until you get some suitable plants, then brew them to get the seeds. Make sure the outside farm plot is designated in the same [[biome]] that the plants were gathered from.

Should you wish to plant nothing for a season, you can select {{K|z}} "fallow" from the farm plot menu; this is useful when your larder is overful. If you possess [[potash]], you can fertilize the field to increase yield (see below).

== Increasing yield ==
Any crop may bear more or less fruit, or (as is sometimes the case with unskilled growers) it may even bear no fruit at all, thus wasting the seed. A higher yield will have many benefits along the whole assembly line of further food processing: workers will always work one one "stack" at a time – if (for example) a brewer has "sweet pod [5]" to work with, he will produce "dwarven rum [25]" and somehow squeeze it all into a single barrel.

The yield from a single seed depends on:
*[[grower]] [[skill]] of the farmer who planted it.
*whether the plot was fertilized. Fertilization increases yield up to about 1.5 times{{Verify}}.

Dabbling growers will frequently produce stacks of only one, and sometimes even zero plants. Legendary growers will often produce "plant name [5]" stacks from a single seed on a non fertilized field.

To fertilize a field {{K|q}} on it and choose {{K|f}}'''ertilize''' command. The amount of potash needed to fully fertilize a field depends on its size; it is listed on the farm plot.
Using {{K|q}} to view the farm plot, look for the field that looks like N/M ft. N is the amount of fertilizer applied so far, while M is the maximum fertlizer that can be applied. {{K|s}}'''eas Fert''' option tells your dwarves to automatically fertilize a field after each season change.

== Harvesting ==

A few weeks after planting a seed, a crop will sprout on that spot. Crops must be harvested within another few weeks or they will wither. By default, all dwarves will harvest, including [[children]] and even [[nobles]]. This may or may not be desirable: on the one hand, it makes sure that no crops will wither; on the other, it may lead to far away dwarves interrupting their work and running a long way in order to harvest a single plant.

Harvesting plants earns dwarves [[experience]] in the "growing" [[skill]], so do not be surprised if all your dwarves soon become "dabbling" (or better) growers. Because of that, peasants with no other occupation become farmers almost automatically. Do not be afraid that they might trample your fields: the skill is of no importance during harvest, and no matter how much skill they earn they will still only plant crops if you allow them to in their individual "labor" menu.

If you chose to turn off "All dwarves harvest" in your {{K|o}}rders menu, only dwarves with the "Farming (Fields)" labor enabled will harvest. However, they will often choose to plant new seeds instead of reaping the existing crop, so you risk that some amount may wither. After harvesting a plant (plucking it out of the ground), dwarves will carry it to the nearest [[stockpile]] unless you have "Dwarves ignore food" set in your {{K|o}}rders menu, in which case they will leave the plant blinking on the field. If not moved to a stockpile within a few weeks, it will wither.

== Caveats (warnings) ==

=== Food hauling ===

If you manage to get large-scale farming up and running, you will need to employ many food haulers in order for the food produced on your farms to be edible, even if it has already been harvested. This is because in the current version of the game, items tagged for pending tasks (including Move to Stockpile and Store in Barrel) are unavailable for any other use -- such as eating. An entire fortress of dwarves can starve while they wait for somebody to ''move the food''.

One way to deal with this problem (at least during the heavy farming/harvesting seasons) is to disable hauling of both stone and wood in the top-level {{K|o}}rders menu. This way, most of those jobs will clear out of the job queue, and you will be left mostly with "Store in Barrel" type jobs. You can also increase the number of dedicated food haulers.

=== Storage ===

It can be difficult to manage barrels and bags for storage of food and seeds; forts with limited wood can have their supply overwhelmed. Combat this with [[Cooking]] food to consolidate it into larger stacks that won't rot outside of a barrel (just need to be indoors on food stockpile)

== See also ==

* [[Crops]]
* [[Irrigation]]
* [[Skills#Growing|Farmers]]

[[Category:Agriculture]]
[[Category:Jobs]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Guides]]

40d:Farming

2008-02-15T19:45:44Z

Bhudson: /* Aboveground or underground? */ caravans

{{old|0.23.130.23a|, the 2D version, though it has been updated some since then}}
[[Image:Df-crops-diagram.png|thumb|200px|General farming flowchart.]]
'''Farming''' is the most universal source of [[food]] in Dwarf Fortress. On maps with plentiful [[shrub]]s, [[animal]]s or bodies of [[water]], [[plant gathering]], [[hunting]] or [[fishing]] can also produce a lot of food; however, these practices often do not scale to the level needed to feed a full-sized fortress. Farming is a highly efficient, reliable, renewable and scalable source of food. [[Plants]] grown on farms are also excellent for [[brewing]] [[alcohol]], and some have other uses.

== Finding farmland ==

You cannot plant seeds on a bare rock floor, only on [[mud]] or [[soil]]. The easiest way to farm, by far, is to find some soft, arable soil, which is available in great quantity outside the fortress on most maps (the notable exceptions being mountainous maps). If arable soil is unavailable, you will need to set up an [[irrigation]] scheme to deposit mud on the bare rock, which can then have farm plots placed upon it.

== Aboveground or underground? ==

You can plant either underground or aboveground, depending on the type of [[plant]]s you want to grow. The starting [[seed]]s your dwarves may bring with them can only be planted underground. If you want to farm aboveground, you will need to gather seeds from outdoor [[shrub]]s, which can then be planted. Caravans will also sometimes bring additional bags of seeds.

The farm plot should be either entirely above ground or entirely subterranean. A mixed-class farm plot will allow you to choose any crop for planting, but the chosen crop will be planted only on tiles capable of growing it. Worse, planters will not skip over the infertile tiles, leaving the rest of the plot fallow whether it can support the crop or not.

== Defining the farm plot ==

Once you have a suitable location for farming you can have your farmer(s) prepare a [[farm plot]]. That's the actual bit of soil to be tilled.

Enter the {{K|b}}uild menu and place farm {{K|p}}lots. Use {{K|u}} and {{K|k}} to increase the size of the plot, and {{K|m}} and {{K|h}} to decrease it. When the plot is sized and positioned correctly, pressing {{K|Enter}} will place it. Your grower(s) will now rush in and prepare the field, clearing out rubble and other impediments when necessary.

How much farm space do you need? Surprisingly little. A 5x5 plot will provide enough food to bring you through your first winter, and even smaller fields are sufficient if you stretch out the food by [[brewing]]. If there is rubble in the room, leave a little extra space; otherwise, the farmers tend to stack the boulders under your farm room doors and cause them to get stuck ajar, which if you're not careful can lead to flooding the next time the field is irrigated. You can also avoid putting doors right next to the farm.

Digging out larger farm rooms than you need can be useful in other ways as well: muddied areas can spontaneously produce [[tower-cap]]s (a source of wood), spider webs (a source of [[silk]]), and [[shrub]]s of the same type as your [[crops]].

A 10x20 plot should, with several dedicated farmers, provide enough food to feed a full 200-dwarf fortress.

== Planting ==

Once a farmer builds the plots, it's time to plant. Go into the plot's {{K|q}} menu and select the type of seed to plant. Your farmers will then take care of the rest. Note that your farmers will not work the plot the whole year without being told to do so, you have to designate a crop for ''each'' season, and you have to do it ''again'' after the year is over. You can designate each season ahead of time by using {{K|a}}, {{K|b}}, {{K|c}}, {{K|d}} from the plot selection screen. You do not have to plant the same thing each season, and some plants are only available during certain seasons.

Early on, you should focus your production on edible shrubs or [[plump helmets]], although note that the seeds for the former can't be brought in your starting supplies, and the latter can only be planted underground. [[Quarry bush]]es, [[cave wheat]] and [[sweet pod]]s require processing before they can be eaten, and [[pig tail]]s and [[dimple cup]]s produce cloth and dye respectively.

If you choose to plant shrubs, designate a dwarf with [[herbalism]] to gather plants outside until you get some suitable plants, then brew them to get the seeds. Make sure the outside farm plot is designated in the same [[biome]] that the plants were gathered from.

Should you wish to plant nothing, you can select {{K|z}} "fallow" from the farm plot menu. If you possess [[potash]], you can fertilize the field to increase yield.

== Increasing yield ==
Any crop may bear more or less fruit, or (as is sometimes the case with unskilled growers) it may even bear no fruit at all, thus wasting the seed. A higher yield will have many benefits along the whole assembly line of further food processing: workers will always work one one "stack" at a time – if (for example) a brewer has "sweet pod [5]" to work with, he will produce "dwarven rum [25]" and somehow squeeze it all into a single barrel.

The yield from a single seed depends on:
*[[grower]] [[skill]] of the farmer who planted it.
*whether the plot was fertilized. Fertilization increases yield up to about 1.5 times{{Verify}}.

Dabbling growers will frequently produce stacks of only one, and sometimes even zero plants. Legendary growers will often produce "plant name [5]" stacks from a single seed on a non fertilized field.

To fertilize a field {{K|q}} on it and choose {{K|f}}'''ertilize''' command. The amount of potash needed to fully fertilize a field depends on its size; it is listed on the farm plot.
Using {{K|q}} to view the farm plot, look for the field that looks like N/M ft. N is the amount of fertilizer applied so far, while M is the maximum fertlizer that can be applied. {{K|s}}'''eas Fert''' option tells your dwarves to automatically fertilize a field after each season change.

== Harvesting ==

A few weeks after planting a seed, a crop will sprout on that spot. Crops must be harvested within another few weeks or they will wither. By default, all dwarves will harvest, including [[children]] and even [[nobles]]. This may or may not be desirable: on the one hand, it makes sure that no crops will wither; on the other, it may lead to far away dwarves interrupting their work and running a long way in order to harvest a single plant.

Harvesting plants earns dwarves [[experience]] in the "growing" [[skill]], so do not be surprised if all your dwarves soon become "dabbling" (or better) growers. Because of that, peasants with no other occupation become farmers almost automatically. Do not be afraid that they might trample your fields: the skill is of no importance during harvest, and no matter how much skill they earn they will still only plant crops if you allow them to in their individual "labor" menu.

If you chose to turn off "All dwarves harvest" in your {{K|o}}rders menu, only dwarves with the "Farming (Fields)" labor enabled will harvest. However, they will often choose to plant new seeds instead of reaping the existing crop, so you risk that some amount may wither. After harvesting a plant (plucking it out of the ground), dwarves will carry it to the nearest [[stockpile]] unless you have "Dwarves ignore food" set in your {{K|o}}rders menu, in which case they will leave the plant blinking on the field. If not moved to a stockpile within a few weeks, it will wither.

== Caveats (warnings) ==

=== Food hauling ===

If you manage to get large-scale farming up and running, you will need to employ many food haulers in order for the food produced on your farms to be edible, even if it has already been harvested. This is because in the current version of the game, items tagged for pending tasks (including Move to Stockpile and Store in Barrel) are unavailable for any other use -- such as eating. An entire fortress of dwarves can starve while they wait for somebody to ''move the food''.

One way to deal with this problem (at least during the heavy farming/harvesting seasons) is to disable hauling of both stone and wood in the top-level {{K|o}}rders menu. This way, most of those jobs will clear out of the job queue, and you will be left mostly with "Store in Barrel" type jobs. You can also increase the number of dedicated food haulers.

=== Storage ===

It can be difficult to manage barrels and bags for storage of food and seeds; forts with limited wood can have their supply overwhelmed. Combat this with [[Cooking]] food to consolidate it into larger stacks that won't rot outside of a barrel (just need to be indoors on food stockpile)

== See also ==

* [[Crops]]
* [[Irrigation]]
* [[Skills#Growing|Farmers]]

[[Category:Agriculture]]
[[Category:Jobs]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Guides]]

40d:Farming

2008-02-15T19:40:04Z

Bhudson: /* Increasing yield */ removed claim that yield always exceeds one, since that's false

{{old|0.23.130.23a|, the 2D version, though it has been updated some since then}}
[[Image:Df-crops-diagram.png|thumb|200px|General farming flowchart.]]
'''Farming''' is the most universal source of [[food]] in Dwarf Fortress. On maps with plentiful [[shrub]]s, [[animal]]s or bodies of [[water]], [[plant gathering]], [[hunting]] or [[fishing]] can also produce a lot of food; however, these practices often do not scale to the level needed to feed a full-sized fortress. Farming is a highly efficient, reliable, renewable and scalable source of food. [[Plants]] grown on farms are also excellent for [[brewing]] [[alcohol]], and some have other uses.

== Finding farmland ==

You cannot plant seeds on a bare rock floor, only on [[mud]] or [[soil]]. The easiest way to farm, by far, is to find some soft, arable soil, which is available in great quantity outside the fortress on most maps (the notable exceptions being mountainous maps). If arable soil is unavailable, you will need to set up an [[irrigation]] scheme to deposit mud on the bare rock, which can then have farm plots placed upon it.

== Aboveground or underground? ==

You can plant either underground or aboveground, depending on the type of [[plant]]s you want to grow. The starting [[seed]]s your dwarves may bring with them can only be planted underground. If you want to farm aboveground, you will need to gather seeds from outdoor [[shrub]]s, which can then be planted.

The farm plot should be either entirely above ground or entirely subterranean. A mixed-class farm plot will allow you to choose any crop for planting, but the chosen crop will be planted only on tiles capable of growing it. Worse, planters will not skip over the infertile tiles, leaving the rest of the plot fallow whether it can support the crop or not.

== Defining the farm plot ==

Once you have a suitable location for farming you can have your farmer(s) prepare a [[farm plot]]. That's the actual bit of soil to be tilled.

Enter the {{K|b}}uild menu and place farm {{K|p}}lots. Use {{K|u}} and {{K|k}} to increase the size of the plot, and {{K|m}} and {{K|h}} to decrease it. When the plot is sized and positioned correctly, pressing {{K|Enter}} will place it. Your grower(s) will now rush in and prepare the field, clearing out rubble and other impediments when necessary.

How much farm space do you need? Surprisingly little. A 5x5 plot will provide enough food to bring you through your first winter, and even smaller fields are sufficient if you stretch out the food by [[brewing]]. If there is rubble in the room, leave a little extra space; otherwise, the farmers tend to stack the boulders under your farm room doors and cause them to get stuck ajar, which if you're not careful can lead to flooding the next time the field is irrigated. You can also avoid putting doors right next to the farm.

Digging out larger farm rooms than you need can be useful in other ways as well: muddied areas can spontaneously produce [[tower-cap]]s (a source of wood), spider webs (a source of [[silk]]), and [[shrub]]s of the same type as your [[crops]].

A 10x20 plot should, with several dedicated farmers, provide enough food to feed a full 200-dwarf fortress.

== Planting ==

Once a farmer builds the plots, it's time to plant. Go into the plot's {{K|q}} menu and select the type of seed to plant. Your farmers will then take care of the rest. Note that your farmers will not work the plot the whole year without being told to do so, you have to designate a crop for ''each'' season, and you have to do it ''again'' after the year is over. You can designate each season ahead of time by using {{K|a}}, {{K|b}}, {{K|c}}, {{K|d}} from the plot selection screen. You do not have to plant the same thing each season, and some plants are only available during certain seasons.

Early on, you should focus your production on edible shrubs or [[plump helmets]], although note that the seeds for the former can't be brought in your starting supplies, and the latter can only be planted underground. [[Quarry bush]]es, [[cave wheat]] and [[sweet pod]]s require processing before they can be eaten, and [[pig tail]]s and [[dimple cup]]s produce cloth and dye respectively.

If you choose to plant shrubs, designate a dwarf with [[herbalism]] to gather plants outside until you get some suitable plants, then brew them to get the seeds. Make sure the outside farm plot is designated in the same [[biome]] that the plants were gathered from.

Should you wish to plant nothing, you can select {{K|z}} "fallow" from the farm plot menu. If you possess [[potash]], you can fertilize the field to increase yield.

== Increasing yield ==
Any crop may bear more or less fruit, or (as is sometimes the case with unskilled growers) it may even bear no fruit at all, thus wasting the seed. A higher yield will have many benefits along the whole assembly line of further food processing: workers will always work one one "stack" at a time – if (for example) a brewer has "sweet pod [5]" to work with, he will produce "dwarven rum [25]" and somehow squeeze it all into a single barrel.

The yield from a single seed depends on:
*[[grower]] [[skill]] of the farmer who planted it.
*whether the plot was fertilized. Fertilization increases yield up to about 1.5 times{{Verify}}.

Dabbling growers will frequently produce stacks of only one, and sometimes even zero plants. Legendary growers will often produce "plant name [5]" stacks from a single seed on a non fertilized field.

To fertilize a field {{K|q}} on it and choose {{K|f}}'''ertilize''' command. The amount of potash needed to fully fertilize a field depends on its size; it is listed on the farm plot.
Using {{K|q}} to view the farm plot, look for the field that looks like N/M ft. N is the amount of fertilizer applied so far, while M is the maximum fertlizer that can be applied. {{K|s}}'''eas Fert''' option tells your dwarves to automatically fertilize a field after each season change.

== Harvesting ==

A few weeks after planting a seed, a crop will sprout on that spot. Crops must be harvested within another few weeks or they will wither. By default, all dwarves will harvest, including [[children]] and even [[nobles]]. This may or may not be desirable: on the one hand, it makes sure that no crops will wither; on the other, it may lead to far away dwarves interrupting their work and running a long way in order to harvest a single plant.

Harvesting plants earns dwarves [[experience]] in the "growing" [[skill]], so do not be surprised if all your dwarves soon become "dabbling" (or better) growers. Because of that, peasants with no other occupation become farmers almost automatically. Do not be afraid that they might trample your fields: the skill is of no importance during harvest, and no matter how much skill they earn they will still only plant crops if you allow them to in their individual "labor" menu.

If you chose to turn off "All dwarves harvest" in your {{K|o}}rders menu, only dwarves with the "Farming (Fields)" labor enabled will harvest. However, they will often choose to plant new seeds instead of reaping the existing crop, so you risk that some amount may wither. After harvesting a plant (plucking it out of the ground), dwarves will carry it to the nearest [[stockpile]] unless you have "Dwarves ignore food" set in your {{K|o}}rders menu, in which case they will leave the plant blinking on the field. If not moved to a stockpile within a few weeks, it will wither.

== Caveats (warnings) ==

=== Food hauling ===

If you manage to get large-scale farming up and running, you will need to employ many food haulers in order for the food produced on your farms to be edible, even if it has already been harvested. This is because in the current version of the game, items tagged for pending tasks (including Move to Stockpile and Store in Barrel) are unavailable for any other use -- such as eating. An entire fortress of dwarves can starve while they wait for somebody to ''move the food''.

One way to deal with this problem (at least during the heavy farming/harvesting seasons) is to disable hauling of both stone and wood in the top-level {{K|o}}rders menu. This way, most of those jobs will clear out of the job queue, and you will be left mostly with "Store in Barrel" type jobs. You can also increase the number of dedicated food haulers.

=== Storage ===

It can be difficult to manage barrels and bags for storage of food and seeds; forts with limited wood can have their supply overwhelmed. Combat this with [[Cooking]] food to consolidate it into larger stacks that won't rot outside of a barrel (just need to be indoors on food stockpile)

== See also ==

* [[Crops]]
* [[Irrigation]]
* [[Skills#Growing|Farmers]]

[[Category:Agriculture]]
[[Category:Jobs]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Guides]]

40d:Farming

2008-02-15T06:51:03Z

Bhudson: /* Increasing yield */ how much fertilizer? and fix two typos

{{old|0.23.130.23a|, the 2D version, though it has been updated some since then}}
[[Image:Df-crops-diagram.png|thumb|200px|General farming flowchart.]]
'''Farming''' is the most universal source of [[food]] in Dwarf Fortress. On maps with plentiful [[shrub]]s, [[animal]]s or bodies of [[water]], [[plant gathering]], [[hunting]] or [[fishing]] can also produce a lot of food; however, these practices often do not scale to the level needed to feed a full-sized fortress. Farming is a highly efficient, reliable, renewable and scalable source of food. [[Plants]] grown on farms are also excellent for [[brewing]] [[alcohol]], and some have other uses.

== Finding farmland ==

You cannot plant seeds on a bare rock floor, only on [[mud]] or [[soil]]. The easiest way to farm, by far, is to find some soft, arable soil, which is available in great quantity outside the fortress on most maps (the notable exceptions being mountainous maps). If arable soil is unavailable, you will need to set up an [[irrigation]] scheme to deposit mud on the bare rock, which can then have farm plots placed upon it.

== Aboveground or underground? ==

You can plant either underground or aboveground, depending on the type of [[plant]]s you want to grow. The starting [[seed]]s your dwarves may bring with them can only be planted underground. If you want to farm aboveground, you will need to gather seeds from outdoor [[shrub]]s, which can then be planted.

The farm plot should be either entirely above ground or entirely subterranean. A mixed-class farm plot will allow you to choose any crop for planting, but the chosen crop will be planted only on tiles capable of growing it. Worse, planters will not skip over the infertile tiles, leaving the rest of the plot fallow whether it can support the crop or not.

== Defining the farm plot ==

Once you have a suitable location for farming you can have your farmer(s) prepare a [[farm plot]]. That's the actual bit of soil to be tilled.

Enter the {{K|b}}uild menu and place farm {{K|p}}lots. Use {{K|u}} and {{K|k}} to increase the size of the plot, and {{K|m}} and {{K|h}} to decrease it. When the plot is sized and positioned correctly, pressing {{K|Enter}} will place it. Your grower(s) will now rush in and prepare the field, clearing out rubble and other impediments when necessary.

How much farm space do you need? Surprisingly little. A 5x5 plot will provide enough food to bring you through your first winter, and even smaller fields are sufficient if you stretch out the food by [[brewing]]. If there is rubble in the room, leave a little extra space; otherwise, the farmers tend to stack the boulders under your farm room doors and cause them to get stuck ajar, which if you're not careful can lead to flooding the next time the field is irrigated. You can also avoid putting doors right next to the farm.

Digging out larger farm rooms than you need can be useful in other ways as well: muddied areas can spontaneously produce [[tower-cap]]s (a source of wood), spider webs (a source of [[silk]]), and [[shrub]]s of the same type as your [[crops]].

A 10x20 plot should, with several dedicated farmers, provide enough food to feed a full 200-dwarf fortress.

== Planting ==

Once a farmer builds the plots, it's time to plant. Go into the plot's {{K|q}} menu and select the type of seed to plant. Your farmers will then take care of the rest. Note that your farmers will not work the plot the whole year without being told to do so, you have to designate a crop for ''each'' season, and you have to do it ''again'' after the year is over. You can designate each season ahead of time by using {{K|a}}, {{K|b}}, {{K|c}}, {{K|d}} from the plot selection screen. You do not have to plant the same thing each season, and some plants are only available during certain seasons.

Early on, you should focus your production on edible shrubs or [[plump helmets]], although note that the seeds for the former can't be brought in your starting supplies, and the latter can only be planted underground. [[Quarry bush]]es, [[cave wheat]] and [[sweet pod]]s require processing before they can be eaten, and [[pig tail]]s and [[dimple cup]]s produce cloth and dye respectively.

If you choose to plant shrubs, designate a dwarf with [[herbalism]] to gather plants outside until you get some suitable plants, then brew them to get the seeds. Make sure the outside farm plot is designated in the same [[biome]] that the plants were gathered from.

Should you wish to plant nothing, you can select {{K|z}} "fallow" from the farm plot menu. If you possess [[potash]], you can fertilize the field to increase yield.

== Increasing yield ==
Any crop may bear more or less fruit, or (as is sometimes the case with unskilled growers) it may even bear no fruit at all, thus wasting the seed. A higher yield will have many benefits along the whole assembly line of further food processing: workers will always work one one "stack" at a time – if (for example) a brewer has "sweet pod [5]" to work with, he will produce "dwarven rum [25]" and somehow squeeze it all into a single barrel. Note that each time you harvest you will get a higher yield than the amount you planted so your farming can expand as your fortress grows.

The yield from a single seed depends on:
*[[grower]] [[skill]] of the farmer who planted it. Legendary growers will produce "plant name [5]" stacks from a single seed on a non fertilized field
*whether the plot was fertilized. Fertilization increases yield up to about 1.5 times{{Verify}}.

To fertilize a field {{K|q}} on it and choose {{K|f}}'''ertilize''' command. The amount of potash needed to fully fertilize a field depends on its size; it is listed on the farm plot.
Using {{K|q}} to view the farm plot, look for the field that looks like N/M ft. N is the amount of fertilizer applied so far, while M is the maximum fertlizer that can be applied. {{K|s}}'''eas Fert''' option tells your dwarves to automatically fertilize a field after each season change.

== Harvesting ==

A few weeks after planting a seed, a crop will sprout on that spot. Crops must be harvested within another few weeks or they will wither. By default, all dwarves will harvest, including [[children]] and even [[nobles]]. This may or may not be desirable: on the one hand, it makes sure that no crops will wither; on the other, it may lead to far away dwarves interrupting their work and running a long way in order to harvest a single plant.

Harvesting plants earns dwarves [[experience]] in the "growing" [[skill]], so do not be surprised if all your dwarves soon become "dabbling" (or better) growers. Because of that, peasants with no other occupation become farmers almost automatically. Do not be afraid that they might trample your fields: the skill is of no importance during harvest, and no matter how much skill they earn they will still only plant crops if you allow them to in their individual "labor" menu.

If you chose to turn off "All dwarves harvest" in your {{K|o}}rders menu, only dwarves with the "Farming (Fields)" labor enabled will harvest. However, they will often choose to plant new seeds instead of reaping the existing crop, so you risk that some amount may wither. After harvesting a plant (plucking it out of the ground), dwarves will carry it to the nearest [[stockpile]] unless you have "Dwarves ignore food" set in your {{K|o}}rders menu, in which case they will leave the plant blinking on the field. If not moved to a stockpile within a few weeks, it will wither.

== Caveats (warnings) ==

=== Food hauling ===

If you manage to get large-scale farming up and running, you will need to employ many food haulers in order for the food produced on your farms to be edible, even if it has already been harvested. This is because in the current version of the game, items tagged for pending tasks (including Move to Stockpile and Store in Barrel) are unavailable for any other use -- such as eating. An entire fortress of dwarves can starve while they wait for somebody to ''move the food''.

One way to deal with this problem (at least during the heavy farming/harvesting seasons) is to disable hauling of both stone and wood in the top-level {{K|o}}rders menu. This way, most of those jobs will clear out of the job queue, and you will be left mostly with "Store in Barrel" type jobs. You can also increase the number of dedicated food haulers.

=== Storage ===

It can be difficult to manage barrels and bags for storage of food and seeds; forts with limited wood can have their supply overwhelmed. Combat this with [[Cooking]] food to consolidate it into larger stacks that won't rot outside of a barrel (just need to be indoors on food stockpile)

== See also ==

* [[Crops]]
* [[Irrigation]]
* [[Skills#Growing|Farmers]]

[[Category:Agriculture]]
[[Category:Jobs]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Guides]]

40d:Crop

2008-02-11T00:56:13Z

Bhudson: link to 'golden salve' -- but what is it?

[[Image:Df-crops-diagram.png|thumb|100px|Flowchart]]
'''Crops''' are plants that may be grown at [[Farming|farm plots]]. There are two types of crops: above ground and subterranean. The [[seed|seeds]] of subterranean crops may be brought from the starting screen or purchased from the dwarf traders. Above ground crops may be gathered by dwarves with the [[plant gathering]] labor enabled or purchased from human traders.

Processing plants (at a [[farmer's workshop]]) uses the legend:

* P - Process
* B - Process to [[Barrel]]
* b - Process to [[Bag]]
* V - Process to [[Vial]]
* M - [[Mill]]ing (requires a bag)

{| class="wikitable" cellspacing="0" border="1" cellpadding="5"
|-
! Crop Name
| '''Growing''' '''Seasons''' || '''Habitat''' || '''Plant''' '''Value''' || '''Brewable''' || '''Brew''' '''Value*''' || '''Edible''' '''Cookable''' || '''Edible''' '''Raw''' || '''Extracts''' || '''Extract''' '''Value'''
|-
! [[Plump helmet]]
| All || Subterranean || 2 || Dwarven wine || 10 || Yes || Yes || None ||
|-
! [[Pig tail]]
| Sum Fall || Subterranean || 2 || Dwarven ale || 10 || No || No || [[Pig tail]] [[thread]] (P)|| ?
|-
! [[Cave wheat]]
| Sum Fall || Subterranean || 2 || Dwarven beer || 10 || Milled || No || [[Dwarven wheat flour]] (M) || 20
|-
! [[Sweet pod]]
| Spr Sum || Subterranean || 2 || Dwarven rum || 10 || Milled, Processed || No || [[Dwarven syrup]] (B), [[Dwarven sugar]] (M) || 20, 20
|-
! [[Quarry bush]]
| Spr Sum Fall || Subterranean || 2 || No || || Processed || No || 5 [[Quarry bush]] leaves (b) || 12?
|-
! [[Dimple cup]]
| All || Subterranean || 2 || No || || No || No || Dimple [[dye]] (M) || 20
|-
! [[Muck root]]
| All || Wetland (Wet) || 2 || Swamp whiskey || 5 || Yes || Yes || None ||
|-
! [[Bloated tuber]]
| All || Wetland (Dry) || 2 ||Tuber beer || 10 || Yes || Yes || None ||
|-
! [[Kobold bulb]]
| All || Wetland (Wet) || 2 || No || || No || No || Gnomeblight (V) || 100
|-
! [[Prickle berry]]
| All || Not Freezing (Dry) || 2 || Prickle berry wine || 5 || Yes || Yes || None ||
|-
! [[Wild strawberry]]
| All || Not Freezing (Dry) || 2 || Strawberry wine || 10 || Yes || Yes || None ||
|-
! [[Longland grass]]
| All || Not Freezing (Dry) || 2|| Longland beer || 10 || Milled || No || [[Longland flour]] (M) || 20
|-
! [[Valley herb]]
| Spr || Temperate Grassland (Dry) || 5 || No || || Yes || No || [[Golden salve]] (V) || 100
|-
! [[Rat weed]]
| All|| Not Freezing (Wet)|| 2 || Sewer brew || 5 || Yes || Yes || None ||
|-
! [[Fisher berry]]
| All || Not Freezing (Wet) || 2 || Fisher berry wine || 10 || Yes || Yes || None ||
|-
! [[Rope reed]]
| All || Not Freezing (Wet) || 2 || River spirits || 10 || No || No || [[Rope reed]] [[thread]] (P) || ?
|-
! [[Blade weed]]
| All || Not Freezing (Dry) || 2 || No || || No || No || Emerald [[dye]] (M) || 20
|-
! [[Hide root]]
| All || Not Freezing (Dry) || 1 || No || || No || No || Redroot [[dye]] (M) || 10
|-
! [[Sliver barb]]
| All || Not Freezing (Dry) (Evil) || 2 || Gutter cruor || 5 || No || No || Black [[dye]] (M) || 20
|-
! [[Sun berry]]
| All || Not Freezing (Wet) (Good) || 2 || Sunshine || 25 || Yes || Yes || None ||
|-
! [[Whip vine]]
| All || Not Freezing (Dry) (Savage)|| 2 ||Whip wine || 15 || Milled || No || [[Whip vine flour]] (M) || 25
|}
<nowiki>*</nowiki> The Brewed value of a single plant, which is the value of five Drinks. For comparison with Extracts.

==See Also==
* [[Farm plot]]
* [[Shrub]]
* [[Farming]]

[[Category:Agriculture]]
[[Category:Crops]]

40d:Tilesets

2008-02-10T02:49:19Z

Bhudson: /* Character sets */ "the list is here", as with /* Graphics sets */

''You may be looking for the [[List of user character sets]] or [[List of user graphics sets]].''

'''Tilesets''' are images the game uses to display its graphics; each tile is used to show text and represent things. Users create custom tilesets for a number of reasons, including increased visibility, aesthetics, or small size. Tilesets come in two flavors: "'''character sets'''" (or simply "tilesets") and "'''graphics sets'''".

== Overview and installation ==

=== Character sets ===

A character set is an image in BMP format that contains the 256 different tiles, corresponding to the IBM Code-page 457 ASCII+Extended characters, which are used to display the main graphics. [[List of user character sets|Here is the list]] of user-made standard tilesets. To install any of these tilesets, follow these steps:

# Download the tileset. (The list is [[List of user character sets|here]])
# Convert it into a 24-bit BMP file. Do NOT just change the extension to .bmp; you must use a program like MS paint to save it as a .bmp.
# Put it in the data/art directory of your Dwarf Fortress installation.
# Open data/init/init.txt
# If you want to use the tileset in fullscreen mode, locate and modify the [FULLSCREENX:800], [FULLSCREENY:600], and [FULLFONT:curses_800x600.bmp] configuration lines to match the specifications from the [[List of user tilesets|tileset list]]. The FULLFONT directive should match the filename of the tileset you downloaded. If you want to use the tileset in windowed mode, search for the [WINDOWEDX:640], [WINDOWEDY:300], and [FONT:curses_640x300.bmp] lines instead, and change them to the correct values.
# It is also recommended you change [BLACK_SPACE:NO] to [BLACK_SPACE:YES] to prevent stretching of the graphics.
# Save the file, then you're ready to play!

=== Graphics sets ===

Character sets only change certain graphics, while others are left out. The confusingly-named [[graphics sets]] are used to change the appearance of [[creatures]] in the game, such as dwarves and unicorns. These are usually designed to work together with certain character sets. The Dystopian Rhetoric graphics set comes with it's own DF installer; to install any others (or to install that one manually), you follow a similiar process to the above:

# Download the graphics set. (The list is [[Graphics sets|here]].)
# Convert it into a 24-bit BMP file using your favorite image editing program.
# Put it in the raw/graphics/example directory of your Dwarf Fortress installation, so it overwrites the existing file.
# Open /raw/graphics/example_text.txt
# Replace the contents with the appropriate text for the graphics set you downloaded. Save the file.
# Open data/init/init.txt
# Locate the [GRAPHICS:NO] line and change it to [GRAPHICS:YES].
# Change the resolution and font directories as above, this time for the lines starting with GRAPHICS instead. So, if you want to use fullscreen mode, modify [GRAPHICS_FULLSCREENX:800], [GRAPHICS_FULLSCREENY:600], and [GRAPHICS_FULLFONT:curses_800x600.bmp] to suit the standard tileset you want to use. For windowed mode, the lines to change are [GRAPHICS_WINDOWEDX:640], [GRAPHICS_WINDOWEDY:300], and [GRAPHICS_FONT:curses_640x300.bmp].
# Be sure to change [GRAPHICS_BLACK_SPACE] to the same setting as [BLACK_SPACE].
# Save the file, then you're ready to get mangled by a great-looking elephant!

== Custom tileset design ==

The gameplay viewport is 80 characters wide, and 25 characters tall. Therefore, a tileset's target resolution will be TILE_X_LENGTH * 80 by TILE_Y_LENGTH * 25. Since the tileset is arranged into a 16x16 grid of tiles (256 tiles total), the tileset image size will be TILE_X_LENGTH * 16 by TILE_Y_LENGTH * 16. Here are some common tile sizes:

* A tileset with 10x12 tiles will be 160x192 pixels large, and the target resolution will be 800x300.
* A tileset with 16x16 tiles will be 256x256 pixels large, and the target resolution will be 1280x400.

When creating a custom tileset, it's often easiest to start with an existing one, and edit it to your liking. Tilesets generally fall into three categories: rectangular tilesets, square tilesets, and 16x16 square tilesets. Rectangular tilesets have tiles that are taller than they are wide. The text in these tilesets is generally easier to read, but the map appears squished horizontally. Square tilesets usually provide more attractive graphics, but are slightly less readable. The 16x16 square tilesets are just a sub-set, which are grouped together because most [[Object Tilesets]] use 16x16 tiles. The graphics in Dwarf Fortress can be somewhat diversified and enhanced through the use of graphics sets.

Many tiles are used by the game in multiple ways, and this makes customizing the graphics difficult. The same icon is used for chairs and the north end of one-tile-wide vertical bridges. Ashes and broken arrows look the same, and many game entities (such as levers, floodgates, bags, and bins) share characters that are also used in Dwarven names or other bits of text in the interface.

=== How colors other than white and magenta work ===

When the game draws a tile, it will select a foreground color, a background color, and a tile based on the item being drawn. The background color will be used in place of magenta (Hex code #FF00FF or RGB 255 0 255). All other colors in the tile will be treated as a mask against the foreground color. Pure white (#FFFFFF) will always show the foreground color, while light grey (#CCCCCC) will be a slightly darker version of the foreground color, and dark grey (#888888) will be a dark version of the foreground color. Black (#000000) will always be black. It is impossible to use different shades of the background color.

In general, just remember these rules:

* Bright magenta (#FF00FF) is the background.
* Bright white (#FFFFFF) is the foreground.
* Darker shades of white and grey (#C0C0C0, #808080, etc) will display darker shades of the foreground color. It is possible to use any shade of grey, including ones like #333333 and #C2C2C2.
* Black (#000000) will always be black.
* It's probably best to avoid color in normal tilesets.

For an example, the game is drawing an exposed turquoise cluster with color bright blue (#0000FF). While loading the tile image, it encounters the color light grey (#CCCCCC). The color used in its place will be:

{| style="margin-bottom:20px; text-align:left; width:90%"
|-
! Color component || Foreground color || Color mask from tile || Calculation in hex || Calculation in decimal
|-
| Red || #0000FF || #CCCCCC || 0016 * CC16 / 10016 = 0016 || 0 * 204 / 256 = 0
|-
| Green || #0000FF || #CCCCCC ||0016 * CC16 / 10016 = 0016 || 0 * 204 / 256 = 0
|-
| Blue || #0000FF || #CCCCCC || FF16 * CC16 / 10016 = CB16 || 255 * 204 / 256 = 203
|-
| Final Color || || || #0000CB || 0 0 203
|}

Color masks with inequal amounts of R, G and B are calculated in the same fashion. The game is now drawing a speardwarf with color brown (#C0C000). It encounters the color cyan while loading the tile (#008080). The color used instead of cyan will be:

{| style="margin-bottom:20px; text-align:left; width:90%"
|-
! Color component || Foreground color || Color mask from tile || Calculation in hex || Calculation in decimal
|-
| Red || #C0C000 || #008080 || C016 * 0016 / 10016 = 0016 || 192 * 0 / 256 = 0
|-
| Green || #C0C000 || #008080 ||C016 * 8016 / 10016 = 6016 || 192 * 128 / 256 = 96
|-
| Blue || #C0C000 || #008080 || 0016 * 8016 / 10016 = 0016 || 0 * 128 / 256 = 0
|-
| Final Color || || || #006000 || 0 96 0
|}

As illustrated by this example, colors in the tileset can result in colors that aren't in the foreground color or the tile graphic. In this case, a brown foreground color with a cyan pixel color in the tileset results in a final color of green.

Theoretically, the way the game handles color masks could be used to display different graphics for items that use the same tile (but whose respective colors use different color component channels). For example, if a bright red object and a bright blue object use the same tile, the tile can use bright red for all pixels that only the red object uses, bright blue for all pixels only the blue object uses, and bright magenta (but NOT #FF00FF, it would have to be #FE00FE or something similar) for all pixels both objects use. In this fashion the two objects that share a tile would look completely different. In practice however, this is probably impossible because so many objects share the same tile, the chances of the potential foreground colors sharing a red, green, or blue color component are too great.

== What tiles are used for what ==

''''This section needs to be redone for the new DF version. Any Volunteers?''''

'''VERY IMPORTANT:''' Before removing ", others?" at the end, make absolutely sure that there are no other uses for the tile, and ''always'' add it if you are not absolutely sure that there are no other uses for the tile. Any edits not following this rule will get reverted.

Items marked with * can have their tile changed in the raw files.
Items marked with # can have their tile replaced by a [[graphics set]] image. This includes all non-vermin creatures (not sure about vermins).

====Row 01 (000-015)====
{|
|-
|
| No use
|-
| {{TST|☺}}
| Civilian dwarves#
|-
| {{TST|☻}}
| Military dwarves#
|-
| {{TST|♥}}
| Dimple Cups*, others?
|-
| {{TST|♦}}
| Cut gems, large gems, others?
|-
| {{TST|♣}}
| Tower-caps*, Acacia trees*, Mangrove trees*, Maple trees*, quarry bushes*, others(no other tree)?
|-
| {{TST|♠}}
| Plump Helmets*, Oak trees*, quarry bush leaves*, others?
|-
| {{TST|•}}
| Stone, solid workshop tile for several workshops like the magma smelter, lakes in main map, caves in the main map, others?
|-
| {{TST|◘}}
| Solid workshop tile for several other workshops like the magma forge, tanner workshop, catapult cup, others?
|-
| {{TST|○}}
| Well, bracelet, ant colony, millstone, quern, others?
|-
| {{TST|◙}}
|
|-
| {{TST|♂}}
| Male sign, bags, others?
|-
| {{TST|♀}}
| Female sign, amulet, others?
|-
| {{TST|♪}}
| Weapon rack (obsolete?) 
|-
| {{TST|♫}}
| Armor stands, others?
|-
| {{TST|☼}}
| Gems, coal, currency symbol, masterpiece quality symbol, spider webs, turtle*, 'sun' symbol in engravings, gear assemblies, others?
|-
|}

====Row 02 (016-031)====
{|
|-
| {{TST|►}}
| Head of ballista facing east, others?
|-
| {{TST|◄}}
| Head of ballista facing west, others?
|-
| {{TST|↕}}
|
|-
| {{TST|‼}}
| Cages, on-fire symbol, others?
|-
| {{TST|¶}}
| Mugs, largest elven cities?, some tree types, others?
|-
| {{TST|§}}
| Restraints, whip vine, others?
|-
| {{TST|▬}}
| Logs, others?
|-
| {{TST|↨}}
| Some tree types, others?
|-
| {{TST|↑}}
| Interface text (bridge and aqueduct direction), others?
|-
| {{TST|↓}}
| Hungry/thirsty/drowsy/unhappy indicator, bridge placement raising direction indicator, others?
|-
| {{TST|→}}
| Interface text (bridge and aqueduct direction), others?
|-
| {{TST|←}}
| Interface text (bridge and aqueduct direction), others?
|-
| {{TST|∟}}
| Withered plants, others?
|-
| {{TST|↔}}
|
|-
| {{TST|▲}}
| Head of ballista facing north, tree?, ramp, others?
|-
| {{TST|▼}}
| Head of ballista facing south, ramp, others?
|-
|}
====Row 03 (032-047)====
{|
|-
|
| No use
|-
| {{TST|!}}
| Strange mood mark, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|"}}
| Shrub, quotation marks, kobold's glowing eyes*, others?
|-
| {{TST|#}}
| Chasm, pits, Basalt wall, Sandstone wall, floor grates, others?
|-
| {{TST|$}}
| Coins, others?
|-
| {{TST|%}}
| Prepared food, unknown underground area, siltstone, working screw pump, others?
|-
| {{TST|&}}
| Demons#, others?
|-
| {{TST|'}}
| Rough floors, unknown underground, others?
|-
| {{TST|(}}
| Foreign object opening tag, tile in bowyer's workshop, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|)}}
| Foreign object closing tag, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|*}}
| Ore, superior quality tags, key reference, others?
|-
| {{TST|+}}
| Smooth floors, injured status, finely-crafted tags, text, indicates construction on level below, others?
|-
| {{TST|,}}
| Rough floors, unknown underground, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|-}}
| Scepters, arrows in flight, well-crafted tags, keyboard reference, others?
|-
| {{TST|.}}
| Rough floors, text, unknown underground, others?
|-
| {{TST|/}}
| Weapons, bolts, others?
|-
|}

====Row 04 (048-063)====
{|
|-
| {{TST|0}}
| Coffins, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|1}}
|
|-
| {{TST|2}}
|
|-
| {{TST|3}}
|
|-
| {{TST|4}}
|
|-
| {{TST|5}}
|
|-
| {{TST|6}}
|
|-
| {{TST|7}}
|
|-
| {{TST|8}}
|
|-
| {{TST|9}}
|
|-
| {{TST|:}}
| Strawberries, Prickle Berries, plants (type?), snowstorms, others?
|-
| {{TST|;}}
| Workshop(which ones?), others?
|-
| {{TST|<}}
| Stairs up, opening tag in some item names, others?
|-
| {{TST|=}}
| Stockpiles, Flint Wall, others?
|-
| {{TST|>}}
| Stairs down, closing tag in item names, arrowhead on broker precision page, others?
|-
| {{TST|?}}
| "Task assigned" indicator, looking for path(?), others?
|-
|}
====Row 05 (064-079)====
{|
|-
| {{TST|@}}
| Sheriff#, berserk dwarf#, adventurer#, fortress guard#, royal guard#, dwarven merchants#, caravan guards#
|-
| {{TST|A}}
| Alligator#, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|B}}
| Bears#, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|C}}
| Cow#, camels# text, others?
|-
| {{TST|D}}
| Dragon#, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|E}}
| Elf#, elephant#, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|F}}
|
|-
| {{TST|G}}
|
|-
| {{TST|H}}
| Horse#, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|I}}
| Support, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|J}}
|
|-
| {{TST|K}}
|
|-
| {{TST|L}}
| Leopard#, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|M}}
| Magma man#, mule#, muskoxen# text, others?
|-
| {{TST|N}}
|
|-
| {{TST|O}}
| Trade depot post, detailing system, text, wall ends, others?
|-
|}
====Row 06 (080-095)====
{|
|-
| {{TST|P}}
|
|-
| {{TST|Q}}
|
|-
| {{TST|R}}
|
|-
| {{TST|S}}
| Sasquatch#, giant desert scorpion#, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|T}}
|
|-
| {{TST|U}}
| Human#, Unicorn#, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|V}}
|
|-
| {{TST|W}}
|
|-
| {{TST|X}}
| Bin, floodgate, shop post, nausea/winded/stunned/unconscious/migrant indicator, text, up/down stairs, others?
|-
| {{TST|Y}}
|
|-
| {{TST|Z}}
| Asleep indicator, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|[}}
| Clothes, armor?, others?
|-
| {{TST|\}}
|
|-
| {{TST|]}}
| Clothes?, armor?, others?
|-
| {{TST|^}}
| Trap, pressure plate (trap?), others?
|-
| {{TST|_}}
| Channel designation, text, others?
|-
|}
====Row 07 (096-111)====
{|
|-
| {{TST|`}}
| Rough floors, unknown underground, others?
|-
| {{TST|a}}
| Antman?
|-
| {{TST|b}}
| Batman?
|-
| {{TST|c}}
| Cat#, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|d}}
| Dog#, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|e}}
|
|-
| {{TST|f}}
| Frogman#, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|g}}
| Goblin#, Goat#, Gremlin#, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|h}}
| Harpy#, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|i}}
| Fire imp#
|-
| {{TST|j}}
|
|-
| {{TST|k}}
| Kobold#, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|l}}
|
|-
| {{TST|m}}
| Mandrill#, mussel, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|n}}
|
|-
| {{TST|o}}
| Well construction, bridge construction, text, working millstone, others?
|-
|}
====Row 08 (112-127)====
{|
|-
| {{TST|p}}
|
|-
| {{TST|q}}
|
|-
| {{TST|r}}
| ratman
|-
| {{TST|s}}
| Snakeman#, Slugman#, Snailman, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|t}}
| Troglodyte#, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|u}}
|
|-
| {{TST|v}}
|
|-
| {{TST|w}}
| wolf
|-
| {{TST|x}}
|
|-
| {{TST|y}}
|
|-
| {{TST|z}}
|
|-
| {{TST|{}}
|
|-
| {{TST||}}
|
|-
| {{TST|}}}
|
|-
| {{TST|~}}
| Unfinished rough stone road, river, magma, fluids, dirt road, farm construction, sand, furrowed soils, others?
|-
| {{TST|⌂}}
| Animal trap, low mountains on world map, part of mechanic's workshop?, others?
|-
|}

====Row 09 (128-143)====
{|
|-
| {{TST|Ç}}
| Mechanisms, others?
|-
| {{TST|ü}}
|
|-
| {{TST|é}}
|
|-
| {{TST|â}}
|
|-
| {{TST|ä}}
|
|-
| {{TST|à}}
|
|-
| {{TST|å}}
|
|-
| {{TST|ç}}
| Totems, text?, others?
|-
| {{TST|ê}}
|
|-
| {{TST|ë}}
|
|-
| {{TST|è}}
|
|-
| {{TST|ï}}
|
|-
| {{TST|î}}
|
|-
| {{TST|ì}}
|
|-
| {{TST|Ä}}
|
|-
| {{TST|Å}}
| Idols, text, others?
|-
|}
====Row 10 (144-159)====
{|
|-
| {{TST|É}}
|
|-
| {{TST|æ}}
| Toys, others?
|-
| {{TST|Æ}}
| Coffers, Quivers, backpacks, others?
|-
| {{TST|ô}}
|
|-
| {{TST|ö}}
|
|-
| {{TST|ò}}
| Unactivated levers, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|û}}
| Bucket, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|ù}}
|
|-
| {{TST|ÿ}}
|
|-
| {{TST|Ö}}
|
|-
| {{TST|Ü}}
|
|-
| {{TST|¢}}
| Closed hatches, others?
|-
| {{TST|£}}
| Ore in walls, others?
|-
| {{TST|¥}}
| Lobster*, others?
|-
| {{TST|₧}}
|
|-
| {{TST|ƒ}}
|
|-
|}
====Row 11 (160-175)====
{|
|-
| {{TST|á}}
|
|-
| {{TST|í}}
|
|-
| {{TST|ó}}
| Activated levers, text, others?
|-
| {{TST|ú}}
|
|-
| {{TST|ñ}}
|
|-
| {{TST|Ñ}}
|
|-
| {{TST|ª}}
|
|-
| {{TST|º}}
| Cloth, others?
|-
| {{TST|¿}}
| Instrument, others?
|-
| {{TST|⌐}}
| Withered plants, others?
|-
| {{TST|¬}}
|
|-
| {{TST|½}}
|
|-
| {{TST|¼}}
|
|-
| {{TST|¡}}
| Flask, waterskin, others?
|-
| {{TST|«}}
| Ballista arrow tail for west-facing ballistae, decoration mark, others?
|-
| {{TST|»}}
| Ballista arrow tail for east-facing ballistae, decoration mark, others?
|-
|}
====Row 12 (176-191)====
{|
|-
| {{TST|░}}
| Partially dug rock, gases, workshop tiles(which ones?), others?
|-
| {{TST|▒}}
| Partially dug rock, gases, workshop tiles(which ones)?, side tiles for catapult, window, others?
|-
| {{TST|▓}}
| Partially dug rock, gases, workshop tiles(which ones)?, others?
|-
| {{TST|│}}
| Overworld rivers, well chain/rope, rotating axles, others?
|-
| {{TST|┤}}
| Overworld rivers, top-right tile for Loom, others?
|-
| {{TST|╡}}
| Tree in winter, part of bridge system, others?
|-
| {{TST|╢}}
|
|-
| {{TST|╖}}
| Ends of smooth walls, Waterfalls, others?
|-
| {{TST|╕}}
| Ends of smooth walls, others?
|-
| {{TST|╣}}
| Walls, waterfalls, others?
|-
| {{TST|║}}
| Walls, bridges, waterfalls, wooden doors, axles, others?
|-
| {{TST|╗}}
| Walls, bridges, others?
|-
| {{TST|╝}}
| Walls, bridges, others?
|-
| {{TST|╜}}
| Ends of smooth walls, waterfalls, others?
|-
| {{TST|╛}}
| Ends of smooth walls, others?
|-
| {{TST|┐}}
| Overworld rivers, others?
|-
|}
====Row 13 (192-207)====
{|
|-
| {{TST|└}}
| Overworld rivers, others?
|-
| {{TST|┴}}
| Overworld rivers, others?
|-
| {{TST|┬}}
| Overworld rivers, others?
|-
| {{TST|├}}
| Overworld rivers, top-left tile for Loom, others?
|-
| {{TST|─}}
| Overworld rivers, rotating axles, others?
|-
| {{TST|┼}}
| Doors, overworld rivers, (flashing) floor detailing/engraving in progress, others?
|-
| {{TST|╞}}
| Bridges, trees in winter, catapult tile, others?
|-
| {{TST|╟}}
|
|-
| {{TST|╚}}
| Walls, bridges, others?
|-
| {{TST|╔}}
| Walls, bridges, others?
|-
| {{TST|╩}}
| Walls, others?
|-
| {{TST|╦}}
| Walls, others?
|-
| {{TST|╠}}
| Walls, waterfalls, others?
|-
| {{TST|═}}
| Walls, bridges, planted fields, center catapult tile, axles, others?
|-
| {{TST|╬}}
| Walls, bridges, fortifications, (flashing) wall detailing/engraving/fortifying in progress, others?
|-
| {{TST|╧}}
|
|-
|}
====Row 14 (208-223)====
{|
|-
| {{TST|╨}}
| Bridges, waterfalls, others?
|-
| {{TST|╤}}
| Table, others?
|-
| {{TST|╥}}
| Chairs, bridges, waterfalls, others?
|-
| {{TST|╙}}
| Ends of smooth walls, waterfalls, others?
|-
| {{TST|╘}}
| Ends of smooth walls, others?
|-
| {{TST|╒}}
| Ends of smooth walls, others?
|-
| {{TST|╓}}
| Ends of smooth walls, waterfalls, others?
|-
| {{TST|╫}}
| Some types of floodgates (metal? wood?)?, others?
|-
| {{TST|╪}}
| Some types of doors (metal?), others?
|-
| {{TST|┘}}
| Overworld rivers, others?
|-
| {{TST|┌}}
| Overworld rivers, others?
|-
| {{TST|█}}
| Any solid color tile
|-
| {{TST|▄}}
| Siege machine parts, others?
|-
| {{TST|▌}}
| Ballista, others?
|-
| {{TST|▐}}
| Ballista, others?
|-
| {{TST|▀}}
|
|-
|}
====Row 15 (224-239)====
{|
|-
| {{TST|α}}
| Fish, top-center fishery tile, meat (except?), others?
|-
| {{TST|ß}}
| Leather, others?
|-
| {{TST|Γ}}
| Weight symbol, tropical trees, others?
|-
| {{TST|π}}
| Cabinet, some forts on overworld map (Goblin? Undead?), others?
|-
| {{TST|Σ}}
| Trap weapon, others?
|-
| {{TST|σ}}
| Anvil, others?
|-
| {{TST|µ}}
| Plants*(which?), crown, others?
|-
| {{TST|τ}}
| Pig tails*, Tower cap sapling others?
|-
| {{TST|Φ}}
| Sweet pods*, bloated tuber*, others?
|-
| {{TST|Θ}}
| Beds, something on the minimap (what is it?), others?
|-
| {{TST|Ω}}
| Statues, Dwarven cities on map, others?
|-
| {{TST|δ}}
| Earrings, kennel tile, restraints, others?
|-
| {{TST|∞}}
| Boulder, middle-right butcher tile, unmined andesite*, unmined pumice*, others?
|-
| {{TST|φ}}
| Thread, others?
|-
| {{TST|ε}}
| Crossbow? Tile in bowyer's workshop, others?
|-
| {{TST|∩}}
|
|-
|}
====Row 16 (240-255)====
{|
|-
| {{TST|≡}}
| Bars, excellence quality symbol, zones, others?
|-
| {{TST|±}}
| Unfinished road, others?
|-
| {{TST|≥}}
| Spent ammo (catapult stones count), ashes, others?
|-
| {{TST|≤}}
| Spent ammo (catapult stones count), ashes, others?
|-
| {{TST|⌠}}
| Willow tree*, other trees?, others?
|-
| {{TST|⌡}}
|
|-
| {{TST|÷}}
| Barrel, screw pump, others?
|-
| {{TST|≈}}
| Rough stone road or bridge, river, lava, glop, fat, tallow, farm, vomit, [[Blood|blood]] pools others?
|-
| {{TST|°}}
| Ring, sea foam, others?
|-
| {{TST|∙}}
| Vermin*, object on lower level, others?
|-
| {{TST|·}}
| Seeds, others?
|-
| {{TST|√}}
| Weapon racks, tall grass in main map, tick (selecting production materials, confirmed items on manager window), others?
|-
| {{TST|ⁿ}}
| Something in main map(what is it?), others?
|-
| {{TST|²}}
| Body parts, chunks, small corpses, bone, shell, skins, skulls, others?
|-
| {{TST|■}}
| Blocks, first image seen for a creature falling into the chasm, trees on level below, others?
|-
|
| No use
|}



[[Category:Modding]]
[[Category:Interface]]

40d:Dungeon master

2008-02-03T02:30:35Z

Bhudson: features need not be hidden in 33g, but it's a bug. Also, cosmetics on the rest.

{{Noble
| noble=Dungeon Master
| quarters=Quarters
| dining=Dining Room
| office=Office
| tomb=Burial Chamber
| stands=1
| racks=1
| chests=1
| cabinets=1
| arrival=
* 50 population
* Discover site feature
| function=
* Tame exotic animals
}}
''"The dungeon master ponders fell beasts and treasure."''

The dungeon master is a [[noble]] and, like the [[expedition leader]], is not a position that can be replaced by the player. S/he arrives as an immigrant and is not elected. The dungeon master arrives in a fortress' first immigrant wave after reaching a population of 50 and discovering a site feature (as [http://www.bay12games.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=7&t=002748 confirmed] by Toady One). Toady has signaled the intention that the site feature should initially be hidden; the dungeon master would only arrive after the feature is discovered; this may later be fixed.{{version|0.27.169.33g}}

The presence of this noble allows taming of exotic animals.

The dungeon master arrives with skills from both the metalsmith and ranger groups. These skills are:
*Animal trainer
*Animal caretaker
*Furnace operator
*Metal crafter

Additionally, Dungeon masters have armor crafting, weapon smithing and metal smithing turned on even though they possess no base skill.
[[Category:Nobles]]

40d Talk:Broker skills

2008-02-03T02:18:09Z

Bhudson: /* Effect of skills */ sign

:I combined these skills since all the entries are the same. [[User:Jikor|Jikor]] 08:02, 8 November 2007 (EST)

It is gained by:
* Proposing an unsuccessful trade at the depot.

:This seem to controdict the earlier statement that this is a way that the skills are '''not''' gained. Is this skill an exception or what? I think we should make this article clearer. --[[User:Mizipzor|Mizipzor]] 09:25, 8 November 2007 (EST)

::In my first fort I tried to buy out the dwarven caravan with not enough goods, after enough attempts (removing one item each time), the caravan took offence and left. My broker gained the comedian skill after that. So unsuccessful trades do gain skills (not sure if its a random skill or depends how you offended the caravan), anyway the assertion in this article appears to be wrong. [[User:Coelocanth|Coelocanth]]

:::I just copied the text from the previous articles on the subject I haven't really tested these yet. [[User:Jikor|Jikor]] 06:09, 9 November 2007 (EST)

::::I am sure that the 'appraiser' skill is trained before the actual trade. My broker went to sleep at the unlucky moment and I allowed anyone to trade with 6-wagon human caravan. The dwarf that came to trade wasn't even dabbling at appraising and when I pressed 'trade' at the depot - he saw all the items' prices. So I actually cancelled trade that time and looked at the dwarf again - he was now competent appraiser. I guess that some experience in appraising skill (maybe 1?) is gained when a dwarf determines the price of each single merchant item for the first time. Later I bought out that whole caravan and the dwarf became dabbling in a handful of other skills. I guess that each successfull and each rejected trade attempt gives some amount(10?, 20?, 50?) in their corresponding 2 partially overlapping sets of social skills. Some experiments can be conducted to determine the exact amounts of skill gains.--[[User:Another|Another]] 07:55, 9 November 2007 (EST)

:::::I can confirm this. Appraiser goes up just from opening the trading menu, before you've even started putting together an offer. As a result it goes up much faster than any of the other skills, especially once the big caravans start rolling in.

Judge of Intent seems to go up on just about every attempted trade, even failed attempts. It seems to go up slightly faster than most of the other skills, which seem to be applied somewhat randomly, based off your broker's personality and possibly other factors (personalities of the foreign merchants?) For instance, my broker has been gaining Persuader, Negotiator, and Intimidator, with ocassional smaller gains in Comedian. [[User:Rpb|Rpb]] 20:21, 10 November 2007 (EST)

Do any of the broker skills actually do anything past novice? I had thought appraiser (or maybe another one) gave a bonus to the value of your goods but I'm not seeing it anymore - probably I had been trading something they asked for without realizing it. Unless you order something heavy (like stone blocks or metal bars) caravans almost always seem to bring enough to enable novice appraiser so you can see the prices, and seeing as the mood thing doesn't really matter much there does not seem to be a lot of point in using a dedicated broker at all. --[[User:BurnedToast|BurnedToast]] 23:51, 11 November 2007 (EST)
:I don't know if appraiser or judge of intent do anything once past novice. Getting the other skills up a couple ranks does make it a lot easier to get full value on your trades (the traders are much less likely to reject deals or make counter-offers asking for more stuff), so if you're stingy about what you trade away you might as well have a dedicated broker. Even then there seems to be a definite point of diminishing returns, though, as my broker only has 2-4 ranks in four skills and he almost always gets the traders to accept on profit margins of 1-5% or less. Which is probably a good considering their slow rate of advancement, since he started with 5 ranks in negotiation skills and has taken 6 years of dedicated brokering to get the other ranks.[[User:Rpb|Rpb]] 23:59, 11 November 2007 (EST)
::I noticed that, with a low skill, the trader would often ask for more of what you are presenting him before he agrees to trade. Which is probably because I always try to give them the same kind of stone stuff, mainly stone crafts, and the trader look for profit ''and'' diversity. At a time, in a map in which I had no wood and was bent on trying to purchase bins and barrels only to have them in my inventory 'cause I wasn't able to start my metal industry yet, the merchant was also bent in asking for the bins of my trade goods also, along with a few other items I would have rather prefered keeping in stock but didn't mind that much. I had to raise his profit for him to be willing to oversee those demands. In my current fortress, the highest starting skill I gave to my leader was judge of intent. I'll see later on if it make a difference in the haggling process. I am guessing that, with a high enough skill level, my leader will be the one asking for more stuff instead of the inverse. Or maybe it's also related to another talk skill... --[[User:Eagle of Fire|Eagle of Fire]] 13:14, 12 November 2007 (EST)

Does it make sense for the "Liar' skill to redirect to the broker skills page? From what I can tell the liar skill isn't trained by trading, or any current noble function.
:I'm pretty sure that it is, but your broker's skill usage is determined by their personality. i.e. if you put someone who is dishonest towards others in charge of trading, then they'll use the Liar skill.[[User:Rpb|Rpb]] 11:38, 16 November 2007 (EST)

== Effect of skills ==

This article says how dwarves learn, but not what the skills *do*. Problem is, I was looking it up because I didn't know, so I can't fill in that info. [[User:Bhudson|Bhudson]] 21:18, 2 February 2008 (EST)

40d Talk:Broker skills

2008-02-03T02:17:40Z

Bhudson: Effect of skills

40d:Bookkeeper

2008-02-03T01:50:36Z

Bhudson: still true at 33g

{{Noble
| noble=Bookkeeper
| office=Meager Office
| function=
* Accurate stock counts
}}
The Bookkeeper is an appointed [[noble]] position. He/she keeps track of the numbers of items in your stockpiles.

The Bookkeeper uses the [[record keeper]] skill, which grants the profession Clerk.

To be effective, you must go into the "nobles" screen, highlight the Bookkeeper position, and enter the "settings" screen. You can set a desired precision for your Bookkeeper's counts. The higher this is set, the more work is required. Above the lowest precision, your bookkeeper will also require a meager [[office]].

Your Bookkeeper will perform the "Update Stockpile Records" task until the desired level of precision is reached.

The Bookkeeper when set on the highest precision level gains record keeper skill extremely quickly.{{version|0.27.169.33g}} Your Bookkeeper can reach legendary status within a season, achieving all attribute gains associated with the position. At the highest precision level, they will continue performing their task even when they have done all the work they need to do; this means that anyone can be made a Bookkeeper and quickly reap large amounts of experience.

== Upgraded titles ==

* '''Treasurer''' at 100,000 fortress wealth
* '''Grand Treasurer''' at 200,000 fortress wealth
* '''Hoardmaster''' at 300,000 fortress wealth

[[Category:Nobles]]

40d:Digging

2008-02-01T22:10:30Z

Bhudson: /* Dig Priority */ major update for 33g

'''Digging''' is a group of actions available from the [[:category:designations|{{K|d}}esignations menu]]. Digging is performed by dwarven [[miner]]s in order to create empty spaces, hollow out material or dig stairs and ramps. All dig actions require a dwarf with the miner skill and an available [[pick]].

=== Digging in 3D ===

The map is divided in ''layers''. Tiles on each layer are composed by whatever is on that tile, and the floor (or absence of floor) below it. A virgin rock tile is composed of a wall of rock and a floor of rock, for example. The ''ceiling'' of a tile is the same thing as the floor of the layer above that tile.

The most basic dig action is {{K|d}} '''mine'''. When this option is selected you can mark areas to be hollowed out from the current layer. Any useful material such as rock or ore is deposited on the ground excavated by the tile. Digging a tile preserves both the floor and the ceiling of that tile. 

[[Image:DF_Terraform.PNG|thumb|500px]]

A more advanced version of dig is {{K|h}} '''channel'''. When this option is selected, floor tiles can be marked for excavation. When dug out, the floor (as well as a wall if it exists) on your layer will be removed the tile on the layer below will be dug out. Creating a channel could be described as 'strip mining'.

Because it has the potential of removing two layers of wall and one of floor, channeling has the potential to be the fastest mining method. However, be careful that multiple miners working on the same channel don't undermine each other causing them to fall through to the tile below. If this happens you may need to build a stair or a ramp in order for the fallen miner to escape.

Indiscriminate mining may cause [[Cave-in]]s.

=== Stairs & Ramps ===

For dwarves to move upwards and downwards between levels the construction of [[stairway]]s and [[ramp]]s is required. The most reliable way to assist your constructions is to dig an [[upward stairway]] on the lower level and [[downward stairway]] above. '''[[Stairs]] down''' only remove the floor, and '''Upward stairways''' do not affect the floor or the ceiling. '''Up/Down stairways''' act as a combination of both.

You can also construct these out of rocks or wood, but well placed dig commands are quicker. Digging downwards from the surface, first dig a {{K|j}} '''downward stairway'''. If you wait for this to be dug you will then see a visible block on the layer below where the stairway connects. In this tile dig an {{K|u}}'''pward stairway'''. Your dwarves will now be able to access both levels using these stairs. It is advisable to build one of these before channeling in order for your dwarves to escape.

It may be convenient to build an {{K|i}} '''up/down stairway'''. This automatically creates a downward stairway on the floor above if you have not done so.{{Verify}} This style creates an X symbol in place of a < on the default tileset, but leaves a > symbol on the floor above. You can also make a long series of up/down stairways directly above/below each other to make a long staircase that encompasses many levels.

Upward [[Ramp]]s remove the ceiling above them and create a down-ramp automatically. They can't be used by dwarves unless built specifically. Up-ramps can be found in the same submenu of the {{K|d}}esignation menu as up- and down-staircases.

Ramps should be avoided until you need to provide access to caravans as dwarves on the upper level cannot perform actions such as dig, or build when standing on the ramp ''(imagine they are 'half way' up the ramp)''.

Stairs and Ramps can be removed using the {{K|z}} '''remove up stairs/ramps''' command, ''if those ramps were originally built by digging''. Select this and mark the stairs/ramps to be dug out.

==Dig Priority==

Dwarves mine in veins: after mining a tile, a miner will pick the "next" tile (a tile that is adjacent to the one just mined). If there are several possible "next" tiles, the miner seems to pick randomly{{verify}}; this can break a large area into a large number of veins, which is inefficient.

To pick a vein (which is to say, a tile designated for some kind of dig job), dwarves seem to use a strategy similar to the one used for chopping trees or selecting plants to gather. Generally, they seem to pick the deepest, northwestern-most vein{{verify}}. Notably, dwarves do not pick the closest vein.

Dwarves have a priority over which side they will mine out from. Unless there is something in the way, miners will try to walk around unmined areas to reach these preferred sides, even if that path is very long. In order from most preferred to least preferred, dwarves prefer to stand on the tile to the: <blockquote>West > East > North > South > NW > SW > NE > SE</blockquote> of the tile being dug. If there is no path to the preferred tile (but the tile is safe to be on), the dwarf will cancel the job instead of standing on a less-preferred tile. This means that if the miner becomes stranded (i.e. after a cave-in or after digging a channel), the miner must find a way to be on the most-preferred tile to dig a wall back into the main fortress.

Because dwarves all use the same method to choose veins, dwarves tend to dig tiles near other dwarves. This makes having multiple dwarves dig together a bit problematic, as they will often get in each others' way.

Z-axis preferences untested, though it appears to me that dwarves prefer to dig out lower areas from a diagonally located area (i.e. not standing on the down stairs while digging out the up stairs directly below the down) {{verify}}.

These details are accurate for version 33g; they are likely to change in later versions.

==Map Structure==
If you are still confused about tunnels, floors and ceilings created by the mine command then look at the following diagram:

TOP VIEWS: SIDE VIEW:
LAYER 3 FROM ->
██████..- 5 ██████
██████..- 4 ██████
->██████..- 3 ██████__
██████..- 2 ████
██████..- 1 █████████

LAYER 2
████████.
████████.
->████.....
████████.
████████.

Key:
█ Solid rock
. Floor, visible from this layer
- Empty space, with a floor below
_ Ceiling (undermined section)

The Top Views try to show how digging into the mountain (on Layer 2) leaves a ceiling (floor) on the layer above. This is represented on the Side View by a thin line. Try to think of the mountain as a series of boxes where with a thin lid ontop of each. At any place the box can be filled or empty, and the lid above be there or not there. For example, you can create a wall and build a floor ontop of it. (Building a wall creates a floor on the next level by default, but this doesn't stop you building another floor construction ontop of it!)

''Revised theory'': Imagine the 3D world as a grid of boxes. Each box can have one of three states; [[Wall]]ed, [[Open space]], [[Floor]].
*Each cube can only be in one of these states.
*If a tile is Walled it is inaccessible, but the box above can be walked on (if an Open space or a Floor).
*If it is [[Open space]], then it has no Floor and may be accessible.
*If a Floor is present, then the box is accessible.
*Additionally, floor constructions can be built in an Open space or a Floor box provided there is access from the side
--[[User:Markavian|Markavian]] (Please discuss)

== See also ==
* [[Map tile]]s - Different types of walled, floor and open spaces
* [[Mining]] - A description of the miner skill, used for digging

[[Category:Guides]]