Dwarf Fortress Wiki - User contributions [en]

Main Page/Quote

2008-08-31T01:12:12Z

StrawberryBunny:

{{Choose|c={{#if: {{{1|}}}|{{rand|45}}|{{#expr: ({{rand2|10}}+35)}} }}
|I think I'll stick to drowning dwarves and cooking puppies.
|Toady has created a masterpiece!
|I can't put my finger on it. Something about this [[Fire|‼]]Cat tallow roast[[Fire|‼]] tastes funny.
|Toady withdraws from society. Toady has begun a [[Strange_mood|mysterious]] construction!
|Let us never forget the last words of Inod the Stoker, [http://archive.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Fortress_Paintrag#1056 "Aaah! Gorillas!"]
|[[Children|Newborn]] Zuglar Baldnessgranite prefers to consume Gorilla. A sure sign of his unparalleled strength!
|[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/video-game-article/duke-nukem-image.php In an unrelated article] - I had no idea elephants could bounce that high!
|[[Toady]] looses a roaring laughter, [[Fey|fell]] and terrible! Toady has butchered a spammer!
|[[Elephant]]s are like huge, wrinkly [[ambusher|ninjas]].
|The critical question is this''':''' do elf bones yield more crossbow bolts than the average number of bolts necessary to kill an elf?
|“Dwarf Fortress" ... "Like chess, only with short people that can catch on [[fire]] like [[clothing|rags]] soaked in tar, and lots of [[booze]]." ... "Like chess.”
|Dwarf Fortress has taught me that all the world's problems would be substantially reduced had our parent civilizations never minted more than four stacks of [[coins]].
|"Tosid Idenarzes likes tentacle demons for their corrupt intentions." There! Now we've covered all of the seven deadly sins.
|Booze does all the work in forts. Dwarves are just booze exoskeletons.
|My unconscious and bleeding [[mayor]] just mandated the construction of some goods.
|I can just imagine a wagon throwing a tantrum and tossing all its contents at people.
|Döbesh Udosdeb has been ecstatic lately. He was forced to eat a friend to survive. He enjoyed a truly decadent meal.
|Iron [[screw pump]] exercise equipment. Pump iron and get superdwarvenly strong!
|Only you can prevent fortress fires.
|The violence, aggression, pain, madness, sadness of the ASCII characters never ceases to amaze me...
|Mill their bones to make some bread.
|Wait, you're MAKING animals? —''Torak'' At this moment, yes, I am smelting cows. —''Spiders Everywhere''
|"Didn't you read the manual? He he he he... the manual... ..." --[[Toady One]]
|(Compared to real-world years) Dwarven years are shorter. --Sowelu Very fitting to dwarves, I must add. --Sean Mirrsen
|[[Magma]] is not a [[water]] source. Dwarves can't drink it or supply it to their wounded. --[[User:AlienChickenPie|AlienChickenPie]]
|"<nowiki>[B]</nowiki>oats are the enemy of tiles. And tiles are the enemy of boats." --[[Toady One]]
|"I went through and fixed a few places where forbidden/on fire weren't being respected for next time. Burning milkable creatures were still a problem for example." --[[Toady One]]
|"You have been processed! Go forth, now, and edit!" --[[User:Savok|Savok]]
|"What happened in 1048?" "Jreengus occurred."
|Making rock instruments isn't nearly as awesome as it sounds --Shandrunn
|So this pit has had 5/7 water in it for over a month now. How freaking deep do I need to make it to drown that damn kitten?
|Maybe Babies are like Pokemon for [[goblin|Goblins]]... You gotta snatch em all --Neonivek
|The cyclops I was quested to kill had a thousand year history of badassery, and all of that without the leg it lost in the Year 3 (a dwarf bit it off... I should probably deal with that). --[[Toady One]]
|[FIREIMMUNE] makes them think that [[magma]] is safe but doesn't actually make them fireproof. This can lead to some rather interesting results.
|I can't say what happened at Site 76. Ask the government. --[[Toady One]]
|Endok Cerolneth has begun a mysterious construction!
Endok Cerolneth, Planter has given birth to a girl.
|"Incendia est vestri socius, vestri telum, vires Mons-montis Domus." "Magma is your ally, your weapon, the strength of the Mountain-Home." --Eita
|"stopped people from giving quests to kill themselves." --[[Toady One]]
|"After I finished the last quest he had for me, he told me 'When you wake up in the morning, go with Bengel Trustbite the Feral Armors.' So now I'm carrying around the body as a backup throwing weapon." - [[Demonic Gophers]]
|"...And I simply doubt we have a need for 7 fishery workers. On top of that, a second soap maker. The hell IS soap?!" --Zero
|"This is a terrible pun. All craftsdwarfship is of the poorest quality." - [http://tinyurl.com/6yruly Soup_alex]
|"The default mental state of a dwarf is madness. Sanity is a temporary condition - a PRIVILEGE you have to EARN!" --[[User:Fedor|Fedor]]
|"Why get normal cats? I buy lolcats in the embark screen. Much more fun to engrave about them." --Yanlin
|"DF taught me it was okay to make a suit out of my neighbour's skin, as long as I gave it a name." --[[User:Sketchy|Sketchy]]
|"Hey, what does that flashing red and orange text mean? What? Why is there smoke everywhere? Oh god, are those BABIES on fire?" --[[User:StrawberryBunny|StrawberryBunny]]
}}

Main Page/Quote

2008-08-31T01:11:51Z

StrawberryBunny:

40d:Spirit of fire

2008-08-16T15:39:51Z

StrawberryBunny:

{{spoiler}}
'''Spirits of Fire''' are one of the possible [[creatures]] that will attack your [[Dwarf|dwarves]] if you discover [[Glowing_pits|glowing pits]] in Fortress Mode.

These creatures are the greatest of the three lesser [[Demon|demons]]. They will burn or boil everything that they come in contact with, and throw giant fireballs at dwarves. Spirits of fire cannot feel pain or bleed to death, and like all demons they are immune to [[trap]]s. Their one weakness is that their limbs sever instead of breaking. Spirits of Fire are immune to fire, so [[magma]] [[moat]] won't save your Fortress. A moat filled with [[water]] is somewhat more useful for them as are drowning rooms. When they die, they leave a pile of [[ash]] behind, that can be used to make [[lye]].

{{CreatureInfo|name=Spirit of Fire|biome=* [[Glowing pits]]|symbol=&|color={{COLOR:6:0:1}}|bones=N/A|chunks=0|meat=0|fat=N/A|skulls=0|skin=N/A|butcher=no}}

{{Game_Data|[CREATURE:SPIRIT_OF_FIRE]
[NAME:spirit of fire:spirits of fire:spirit of fire]
[TILE:'&'][COLOR:6:0:1]
[FLIER]
[MODVALUE:20]
[FANCIFUL][DEFENDER]
[TRAPAVOID][CAN_LEARN][CAN_SPEAK]
[FIREBREATH][FIREIMMUNE][LIKES_FIGHTING][MAGMA_VISION]
[GENPOWER:5]
[BLOODTYPE:0]
[CANOPENDOORS]
[NOT_BUTCHERABLE][EVIL]
[NOPAIN][EXTRAVISION][NOBREATHE][NOBLEED][NOSTUN][NONAUSEA][NOEMOTION][RECKLESS]
[NOSTUCKINS][SEVERONBREAKS][NOSKULL][NOSKIN][NOBONES][NOMEAT][NOTHOUGHT][NOEXERT]
[BUILDINGDESTROYER:2]
[NOFEAR][NOEXERT]
[PREFSTRING:firey glow]
[ITEMCORPSE:BAR:NO_SUBTYPE:ASH:NO_MATGLOSS]
[NOSMELLYROT]
[BODY:HUMANOID_SIMPLE]
[SIZE:11]
[ATTACK:MAIN:BYTYPE:GRASP:punch:punches:1:6:BURN][ATTACKFLAG_WITH]
[NO_DRINK][NO_EAT][NO_SLEEP]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[NO_GENDER]
[FIXED_TEMP:25000]
[PERSONALITY:FRIENDLINESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:CHEERFULNESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:TRUST:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:STRAIGHTFORWARDNESS:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:ALTRUISM:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:COOPERATION:0:0:0]
[PERSONALITY:SYMPATHY:0:0:0]
[SPHERE:FIRE]
}}
{{Creatures}}
[[Category:Humanoids]]
[[Category:Creatures]]

40d:Drunk

2008-08-16T15:37:20Z

StrawberryBunny:

Drunks are [[human]]s who believe themselves to be [[dwarf|dwarves]], and spend much of their time consuming copious amounts of [[alcohol]] and going on great [[Adventure Mode|adventure]]s.

Drunks can be found in any [[human]] town's inn, and in older versions, would always join an [[Adventure Mode|adventurer]] if asked. As of 0.28.181.39e, however, a drunk is not guaranteed to join your party. They are prized for their ability to tie up large crowds of [[monster]]s (or lone dangerous ones) and take the brunt of their [[attack]]s while the adventurer and his more skilled cohorts move in for precision strikes.

According to [[Bloat373]], a specific entity member being a drunk or not is based on his [[personality|immoderation]]. This could mean one could increase or reduce the number of drunks in an entity with proper modding.

[[Category:Adventurer mode]]

40d:King of beasts

2008-08-13T18:42:26Z

StrawberryBunny:

There are three contenders for this award.

== Sea ==

[[Carp|Lord of the oceans]] and killer of dwarves. These horrid creatures of the deep will pull any Dwarf to their death in a short amount of time and could probably take on an Elephant if they were allowed to fight each other.

== Air ==

[[Giant eagle|Tyrants of the air]] and the size of an Elephant. These almighty beasts are ok if you don't provoke them, but if you insist on taking them on then death will soon be yours.

== Land ==

[[Elephant]]s where the former holder of the title. In more recent versions, their ferocity has been toned down, and slaughters on the scale of [[Boatmurdered]] are a thing of the past. That being said, elephants are still powerful juggernauts when provoked.

[[Unicorn]]s are ferocious monsters are the current contender on land for King of the Beasts.

40d:Unicorn

2008-08-13T18:07:55Z

StrawberryBunny:

{{D for Dwarf}}

{{CreatureInfo|name=Unicorn|symbol=U|color={{COLOR:7:0:1}}|butcher=yes|bones=9|fat=5|skin=yes|skulls=1|chunks=9|meat=9|biome= * Good [[taiga]]
* Good [[Temperate]]/[[Tropical]] [[forest]]
* Good [[Temperate]]/[[Tropical]] shrubland}}

A preliminary report suggests that, at least in Adventure Mode, these [[creatures]] may have taken the initiative to become the new [[King of beasts|King of the Beasts]] (at least as far as DF is concerned). While the mighty [[elephant]]s appear to have had their aggressive tendencies curbed somehow, the unicorn, once as equally peaceful when undisturbed, now appears to have become a predator, attacking peasants, [[Child|children]] and [[elf|elves]] without any warning and, apparently, without any provocation. Wildlife preservationist groups warn players to not be hasty and that not all elves are trustworthy sources of information, but this reporter isn't going to be visiting any more joyful forests anytime soon (at least, not without some good old fashioned [[metal]] around).

In Fortress mode, it appears that the unicorn does not actively seek to murder [[dwarves]] without provocation, but it is possible that something will cause them to go on a rampage.

Unicorns cannot be tamed unless you manually mod it's game data files to include: [PET] or [PET_EXOTIC].

{{Game_Data|[CREATURE:UNICORN]
[NAME:unicorn:unicorns:unicorn]
[TILE:'U'][COLOR:7:0:1]
[MODVALUE:10]
[PETVALUE:1000]
[PREFSTRING:horns]
[LARGE_ROAMING]
[GENPOWER:4]
[BUTCHERABLE_NONSTANDARD]
[BENIGN][MEANDERER]
[BODY:QUADRUPED:TAIL:2EYES:2EARS:NOSE:2LUNGS:HEART:GUTS:ORGANS:THROAT:NECK:SPINE:BRAIN:HEAD_HORN:MOUTH]
[BODYGLOSS:HOOF][MOUNT]
[POPULATION_NUMBER:15:30]
[CLUSTER_NUMBER:3:7]
[SIZE:9]
[ATTACK:MAIN:BYTOKEN:HEAD_HORN:stab:stabs:1:6:PIERCE][ATTACKFLAG_WITH]
[ATTACK:SECOND:BYTYPE:STANCE:kick:kicks:1:2:BLUDGEON][ATTACKFLAG_WITH]
[FAT:5]
[DIURNAL][GOOD]
[BIOME:FOREST_TAIGA]
[BIOME:ANY_TEMPERATE_FOREST]
[BIOME:ANY_TROPICAL_FOREST]
[BIOME:SHRUBLAND_TEMPERATE]
[BIOME:SHRUBLAND_TROPICAL]
[STANDARD_FLESH]
[HOMEOTHERM:10067]
[LAYERING:100]
[SWIMS_INNATE][SWIM_SPEED:2500]
}}{{Creatures}}
[[Category:Animals]]

40d:King of beasts

2008-08-13T02:56:38Z

StrawberryBunny:

There are three contenders for this award.

== [[Carp]] ==

Lord of the oceans and killer of dwarves. These horrid creatures of the deep will pull any Dwarf to their death in a short amount of time and could probably take on an Elephant if they were allowed to fight each other.

== [[Giant eagle]] ==

Tyrants of the air and the size of an Elephant. These almighty beasts are ok if you don't provoke them, but if you insist on taking them on then death will soon be yours.

== [[Elephant]]s ==

The former holder of the title. In more recent versions, their ferocity has been toned down, and slaughters on the scale of [[Boatmurdered]] are a thing of the past. That being said, elephants are still powerful juggernauts when provoked.

40d:King of beasts

2008-08-13T02:56:19Z

StrawberryBunny:

== The King of Beasts ==

There are three contenders for this award.

== [[Carp]] ==

Lord of the oceans and killer of dwarves. These horrid creatures of the deep will pull any Dwarf to their death in a short amount of time and could probably take on an Elephant if they were allowed to fight each other.

== [[Giant eagle]] ==

Tyrants of the air and the size of an Elephant. These almighty beasts are ok if you don't provoke them, but if you insist on taking them on then death will soon be yours.

== [[Elephant]]s ==

The former holder of the title. In more recent versions, their ferocity has been toned down, and slaughters on the scale of [[Boatmurdered]] are a thing of the past. That being said, elephants are still powerful juggernauts when provoked.

40d:Food guide

2008-08-13T02:35:18Z

StrawberryBunny: /* Tips */

As requested from http://www.bay12games.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=7&t=003406. Someone please edit?

These are all possible ways you can get food:

== Farming ==
In financial terms, farming will be your zero-coupon bonds, your fixed deposit account, your high yield, high duration account. This will normally be your main source of dwarven nourishment, and unless your map has a craptonne of animals or you have 200 or so fisherdwarves, this is how you will feed your dwarven economy.

It is important to remember that when you invest in farming, you are sacrificing a minor amount of resources (seeds, labour, and land) for large future gain. So if your fortress is in crisis where every single breadcrumb can save a life... you might not really want to go into farming at that moment.

But normally, you can afford to sacrifice a minor amount of seeds (15 should be enough to get started) and minor amount of labour (1 dedicated planter) to reap large benefits.

=== Farming Techniques ===
* If you are relatively in a crisis and need food urgently, plant low cost, high yield crops that don't need additional talent to bring to bear. So avoid those pig tails and quarry leaves and get that plump helmet farm operational.
* It doesn't take a large field to feed an army. In DF, a 6x6 field and two planters should be enough for... forever.
* It's not really necessary to use an aqueduct to water an underground field. A bucket brigade and a designated pond (which you convert to a field later) can create tillable land in no time.
* It's better to train one legendary planter than allow 5 unskilled ones to do the job. Higher planter skill means that plants will grow in bigger stacks (harvesting dwarf's skill doesn't count) which means that more booze will fit in barrel and stockpiles won't fill as quick

== Trading ==
This method will likely give you the largest yield with relatively high cost. It's really possible to actually have a fortress not produce any of its own food and import it all from outside. Basically, all you need is to bring enough food in the beginning, and then produce enough trade goods to buy all food from caravans. If you really need more... then just wait for the liaisons and get them to prioritize food and drink only.

=== Tips ===
- There's lots of stuff that can get sold well. I personally favour the "kill all merchants and take their stuff" approach, but people like trading prepared food (contradictory?), crafts, weapons, caged animals, and various other stuff that you really can't be bothered to use in your own fortress.
- Watch your food supplies carefully though, it's possible you don't have enough. Not likely, but possible with really, really large forts.

== Fishing ==
This is just a dedicated stream of low yield income. It's practically guaranteed, but the return to cost is quite low. It's nice to supplement the dwarven diet with it, and turtle and lobster shells are important for moods.

The thing about fishing though is that the catch is not immediately edible. You need to process it at the fishery first, which marginally increases the time taken to get from rod to plate.

=== Tips ===
* Actually, unless you love to roleplay, the only reason you ever want to fish is to get shells. But sometimes, you realise that you're not getting any shells, just lots of shads and trout and cave fish. Here's a tip: dig out a channel some distance away from a main water source and channel a water source into that. Then designate that for fishing. You should only get turtles from that.
* I find that a good combo is that for every three dedicated fisherdwarves, one dedicated fish cleaner is needed for the highest efficiency and every fish cleaner should get his/her own fishery.
* "there is no fish left in blablabla" can be safely ignored. Your dwarves will either use another fishing spot until the fish respawn or idle about until said fish respawn, which is when the season changes.
* If you don't have a river on your map but only murky pools, they may dry up in summer and never refill, leaving your map with no water at all. So there is a (low and avoidable) risk of fishing being a dead end.
* You still need a farm or trade for booze.

== Hunting ==
This is almost like fishing, except the returns are usually higher but the risk is higher as well. With hunting, you will also get bones, tallow, and leather. Fishing just gets you bones and shells.

Basically, it's like this; if you are on any map where you yourself are afraid of the animals roaming about, hunting is out of the question. If you're on any evil or savage map, hunting is a good way to get rid of dwarves.

So the only time you would use hunters is when the game are rabbits, bunnies, groundhogs, gnomes, or the like.

=== Tips ===
* Try to train your hunters with [[Marksdwarf|marksdwarvenship]] first. It helps A LOT. Wrestling is good too. But if you're going to do all that, ask yourself if it would be more viable to just make him a marksdwarf and station him outside?
* Hunters sleep outside. They can sometimes be slaughtered by wandering wolf packs while snoozing away.
* Hunters that have no bolts will chase their prey around with their bare hands and can be quite the funny sight.
* Make sure you have a leatherworker, tanner, and butcher before you get a hunting job. If not, it's a total waste and you're better off fishing.
* You can also make an axe-hunter by putting woodcutting and hunting on the same dwarf - won't be catching the fast creatures, but has a better chance against a predator, and doesn't need ammo. -Thanks Othob Rithol
* Hunting can make your unit list stretch very, very long.
* You still need a farm or trade for booze.
* Lastly, hunters are usually the first to die in a siege.

== Livestock ==
Using livestock as a sole food source may be an unviable and stupid way to survive. Animals don't reproduce fast enough to feed everyone and their only useful byproducts are [[bone]], [[fat]], [[leather]] and for intruder detection.

If you really want to try this, learn to micromanage caging so that baby animals are kept in cages. There exists no more than one male of each species, and female animals are slaughtered after they reproduce once or twice.

Alternatively: If you bring pairs of animals right from the start, happen to be on a map where you can catch (lots) more with cage traps and buy all animals traders bring, you will get a substantial return after, say, 3 years at the latest. But the cost in starting points, time, work and micromanagement make this ''really'' uneconomic. Try it as an experiment perhaps?.For the first years you will need a different food source anyway, so why not stick with that? You could however limit the number of dwarves until everything's set up. Advantages of animals is that they are a meat reserve that will not rot.

Tame female animals that are left to roam can apparently become impregnated by wild male animals of the same type. The new animals produced will be tame.

=== Details ===

* Some animals are reproducing faster and more consistently than others. You will have to try out. But really, you will take what you can get.
* Mules ''are'' sterile.
* You still need a farm or trade for booze.

== Cooking ==
An important way to hugely increase your food output without really doing anything. All you need is one dedicated cook and a kitchen as well as cookable food. Basically, it turns a few stacks of food into a lot bigger stacks of food that give a happiness bonus depending on cook skill. It also turns unedible food into edible food (tallow, flour, lots more) If you're in a crisis, you can cook seeds too (after some time you will be happy to get rid of some, especially ones that you gathered with herbalists and do not plan to plant. [[Hide root]]s are perfect example).

Remember that cooking, other than brewing or eating raw plants, destroys the seeds, so you might want to be careful about that.

=== Tips ===
* To train chefs, have them only make easy meals in the beginning because it's the fastest to prepare.
* Make sure there's enough storage space because if masterpiece meals rot... you're in trouble ([[Tantrum|tantrums]]).
* Prepared food sells for obscenely high prices.

== Gathering ==
This is the best you can do when you have a food shortage. It has the best returns to time value of all. Just, you won't get that much and you better invest in another method before you run out of harvestable bushes. Not much to say about it other than you can also farm most plants you gather. The higher your gatherer skill, the more and faster you get. Unskilled gatherers will find frustratingly little. Gathering also allows to start farming aboveground plants you can't buy on embark screen.

== Vermin trapping ==
Free food in dire circumstances. You get an unhappiness bonus, and it's usually a sign your fortress is doomed. You can also manually catch vermin which your dwarves can snack on by using animal traps with bait. I don't know why you would want to do that since the bait is usually worth more than the catch... but, it's up to you.

=== Tips ===
<blockquote>Heck, you don't even need bait as far as I can tell. Just make a bunch of animal traps, make sure someone has trapping enabled, then set up a Kennel with a repeating "Capture Live Land Animal" task. The trapper should pick up a trap and run around chasing vermin, sticking them in the trap. Just make sure there's an Animal stockpile to put them on.

Even if there's plenty of normal food available, dwarves will occasionally come by and eat the vermin raw, live, and wriggling!
</blockquote>-Thanks Nesoo

== Spawns ==
After you discover certain map features spawns, like [[tower cap]]s and [[bush]]es, will pop up in your fortress. These are an additional way of getting food (and seeds).

[[Category:Guides]]

40d:Legendary

2008-08-11T04:53:51Z

StrawberryBunny: Removed the {{verify}}. Dirt/sand/loam is most definitely faster to mine through.

{{old|0.23.130.23a|, the 2D version}}

[[Dwarves]] which repeatedly perform a specialized task will quickly gain [[skill]] levels, and within a year or two of constant labor, greatly depending on the skill, can attain '''Legendary''' ability. Tasks which do not involve time-consuming gathering of materials, especially [[mining]], [[engraving]] and [[Record keeper|record keeping]], are easy to develop quite rapidly. If you have Proficient miners dig constantly through [[stone]], they can reach Legendary skill before your first [[winter]]. Digging through dirt is far faster.

Dwarves which attain Legendary skill at any task will [[status icons|blink]] on the game screen and have a blinking name on the Unit screen.

Legendary is not the highest skill level a [[dwarf]] can attain. There are five invisible skill levels above it, all called "Legendary," but providing increasing skill. We've named them Legendary+1...Legendary+5. At Legendary+5, a dwarf will always produce at least [[quality|exceptional]] goods, whereas at Legendary through Legendary+4 superior quality is possible.

== Benefits of Legendary status ==

=== Attribute increases ===

With skill increases also come [[attributes|attribute]] increases. Legendary dwarves are typically Strong, Agile, and/or Tough – sometimes superdwarvenly so.

The specific benefits of each attribute are:

*'''Agility:''' Agile dwarves perform all tasks faster. Perfectly Agile dwarves work at nearly twice the rate as non-agile dwarves, not counting skill differences.
*'''Strength:''' High strength will increase damage done in battle{{verify}}. It will also reduce or eliminate the [[encumbrance]] penalty on a dwarf's [[speed]]. However, since it takes a lot of weight to encumber, high strength will rarely be useful for that purpose.
*'''Toughness:''' Tough dwarves are more durable in combat and heal much faster.

=== Increased productivity ===

Dwarves with Legendary skill work at a, well, legendary rate. A legendary [[miner]] will mine roughly 14-15 squares to a no-label miner's one, for instance, and a legendary engraver can smooth 25 squares in the time it takes a no-label engraver to do one. The real-time rate is dependent on CPU speed: a Perfectly Agile legendary miner can mine about FPS×2 squares per minute, or FPS×4 [[ore]] squares. This is through normal stone – dirt, and possibly other substances, are much easier to mine through.

=== Free rent ===

Like [[nobles]], Legendary dwarves are exempt from the [[dwarven economy]]: they can take any object as a personal possession without paying for it, and claim any bedroom as their own without paying rent. This helps to keep them [[thought|happy]], although some Legendary dwarves may acquire an annoying number of objects.

== Speeding skill attainment ==

If you provide item-producing dwarves ([[Mason]]s, [[Carpenter]]s, [[craftsdwarf|Craftsdwarves]], [[Brewer]]s, etc.) with a constant supply of nearby goods, they can quickly increase their skill levels as well. However, such dwarves can quickly produce mountains of goods, so you must allocate huge [[stockpiles]] and many dedicated haulers in order to keep their [[workshop]]s from becoming severely [[clutter]]ed. [[Farmer]]s with a nearby [[seed]] [[barrel]] and [[food]] stockpile can also gain skill quite rapidly.

== Strange moods ==

Dwarves which enter a [[strange mood]] and successfully construct an [[artifact]] object will usually gain one Legendary skill, with commensurate attribute increases. The single exception is a "possessed" mood, which will result in the creation of an artifact, but no skill increase. The skill a dwarf gains from a strange mood will be that dwarf's highest "trade" skill (generally, any skill which involves the production of finished goods, plus Mining, Engraving, and Furnace Operation). If you have your peasants train to "dabbling" in desired skills (such as Armorsmith), you will greatly increase your chance of gaining dwarves with those skills at Legendary level.

== Cross-training Legendary dwarves ==

Because their attributes are so high, Legendary dwarves can quickly develop other skills to high levels as well. This is most useful when you have many redundant Legendary dwarves in certain professions but lack them elsewhere.

It may also be useful to deliberately train dwarves in a quick skill to get them to Legendary status, then switch them to other jobs. [[Mining]] and [[Engraving]] both train quickly without requiring much supervision (just keep large areas [[designations|designated]] for mining or smoothing). Engravers tend to train faster than miners (and do not require [[pick]]s), although mining is generally more useful).

Training dwarves in this manner does have at least one drawback. Dwarves which successfully complete strange moods (except possessed dwarves) always gain Legendary skill in their highest "trade" skill. Engraving and Mining are both considered "trade" skills by the game, so if you train many dwarves as engravers or miners, you reduce your chance of gaining a more obscure skill at Legendary level.

The [[Siege_operator|Siege Operator]] skill is also of use for training dwarves. Siege operation does not train very quickly, since it takes a few years to gain Legendary skill. On the plus side, it requires little supervision: Build a [[catapult]] and set it to fire at will. Siege operation is not considered a "trade" skill, so it will not interfere with gaining useful skills through strange moods, and having a catapult operate continuously is a good way to clear an area of loose [[stone]]. Furthermore, siege engines are of little use in combat without skilled operators. Dabbling operators take minutes to load a single [[bolt]] or stone, whereas skilled operators can load and fire several times a minute.

[[Category:Dwarves]]

User:StrawberryBunny

2008-08-11T00:49:44Z

StrawberryBunny:

I've written a [[User:StrawberryBunny/Mineshaft.ahk|script]] to help automate [[Exploratory mining]].

No, I'm not a girl or a furry. But I am better than you.

40d:Indecisive's illustrated fortress mode tutorial

2008-08-10T22:50:54Z

StrawberryBunny:

''This tutorial was originally posted on the Something Awful Forums. It is no longer available there and has been heavily edited here. The original author is unknown.''

This post is not going to be an expansive walkthrough of everything the game has to offer, it is just intended to demonstrate how to get started and using the interface. I'll try to cover as much as I can but I've only played it myself for a day before I started writing this. My game crashed irreversibly at about the one year mark, and I didn't get to cover more advanced stuff like [[magma]] [[workshop]]s, [[machine]]s, or [[irrigation]] methods, but hopefully it is enough to get you started.

== Starting the game ==

=== Generating Your World ===

[[Image:dft000.png|thumb|left|The title screen]]

If this is your first time running the game, the only options will be Create New World and Quit. Let's go ahead and create a new world! The next screen is the option screen for [[World generation|creating the world]]. You can choose a name for the world and even choose a seed number if you like, that will be used to generate the world. Screw that though, I'm going to hit ENTER to create a random one!

 

[[Image:dft001.png|thumb|left|The world generation screen]]

The world generation can take a while, depending on your computer speed. I've got a pretty new machine and it took 5 minutes. During this time it randomly generates terrain, rivers, vegetation and wildlife for an entire miniature world, and over 1000 years of 'history' for the civilizations living in it. Once it's done it takes you back to the title screen, where you can choose to Start Playing. There will be several options there, Dwarf Fortress, Adventurer, or Legends. Dwarf Fortress is what we'll be playing, obviously.

=== Choosing a Location and Embarking ===

[[Image:dft002.png|thumb|left|Choosing a location]]

Now we get to choose our starting location. I've chosen a relatively 'safe' starting position for this demonstration to try and show off as many bases as possible. There's a brook for a permanent water supply, forests for wood and plant harvesting, and a magma source, because otherwise you need huge amounts of wood to burn to make charcoal or find [[bituminous coal]] to do any forging. There is a wide variety of spots to choose from, but if you are new to the game, at the very least you will want to make sure your location has water and trees. 'Heavily Forested' means you'll have a huge number of trees to work with.

Also, if the location has more than one Biome (basically, a biome consists of the information on the right-hand side of the screen; rock types, amount of vegetation, temperature, etc), you can push F1/F2/F3 etc.. to display each biome's area and information. For this area, basically the mountains are unforested with slightly different rocks, the Forest is the information already displayed. Each biome will usually have it's own wildlife also, but that isn't shown on these screens. The mountain area wound up having a bunch of mountain goats, I didn't really see much from the forest side other than a couple raccoons.

[[Image:dft003.png|thumb|left|Choosing a location: neighbors]]

[[Image:dft004.png|thumb|left|Choosing a location: relative elevation]]

[[Image:dft006.png|thumb|left|Choosing a location: cliff indication]]

If you press Tab from the area select screen it shows other information displays about the area, such as Elevation, Nearby Civilizations, and Cliffyness. You can also choose which particular dwarven civilization you want to come from.

The next choice you are given is to Play Now! or 'prepare for the journey carefully'. That allows you to customize your dwarves starting skills and choose what equipment you want to bring. That's beyond the scope of this tutorial though, let's just jump into the game. (More information on preparing carefully can be had [[Starting_builds#Starting_Builds|here]].) Thus begins the fortress Lanirmosus, "Slyrooms".

 

=== The Game Screen ===

[[Image:dft007.png|thumb|left|The game screen]]

Now, the introduction of the game screen! It starts out with all the options expanded. The actual game window is the very left, showing our dwarves and various tame animals surrounding the starting wagon. Generally you start off in the center of the area you selected to start in.

The middle window is a helpful display of hotkeys. As you select hotkeys it changes to display the options available by using it. This is a very important window to keep open at all times until you know your way around the menus.

The right pane displays the full map of the settled region. The cyan area is open space (because we are about halfway up the mountain), the green/blue area is the level we are currently on (with the X showing where the screen is centered), and the grey stuff is the mountain areas that are higher than us.

You can change which windows are displayed using the {{k|Tab}} key, which cycles through various combinations of game screen and the other two windows. If you disable the hotkey window, it will automatically open itself when you choose a menu item so you can see what you are doing, but the area map will stay closed unless you open it up yourself.

Another key to get familiar with is {{k|Space}}. This key cancels, backs up to a previous screen, and pauses the game. You'll know the game is paused by the presence of an indicator in the top left corner of the screen.

At the very right of the screen is one of the new interface features, the altitude bar. The number in the bottom right indicates the absolute elevation that you are located at, relative to the 'bottom' of the world. We are currently at 149, which isn't that high, all things considered; if I remember correctly, someone said sea level is at 100, and the scale goes up to 250 or so. Each section of the map goes to roughly plus or minus 17 z-levels, for a total of 35.

The number at the top is where the screen is relative to the 'surface' of where your cursor is. We are currently looking at the surface, so it shows zero. If we look higher it would change to a positive number in green, when we look lower it changes to a negative, red number. The bar itself is a more graphical display of this, where the bright cyan indicates our current location, the brown indicates underground levels, and the dark cyan shows the sky levels. Let's scroll up a z-level by pushing the {{k|<}} key. {{k|>}} will send your view down one level.

[[Image:dft008.png|thumb|left|The same location, one elevation up]]

Now, looking at the bar again, you will notice that rather than the bright cyan marker changing location, the sky/earth tiles scrolled downwards instead. This is because there are more z-axis levels than can be displayed on the bar. Also, the relative elevation number at the top changed to a +1, showing that we are one level above the ground. The left-most window has changed; this is what it looks like when you are one level above ground. Regular 'ground' tiles become dots, and trees become those green blocks you see there. The down-arrows on the right side indicate a down-ramp, corresponding to the up-ramp in the first screenshot.

Also worth noting is that the larger map on the right has changed, now much of what was previously 'mountain' is now shown as a flat plain with forest and some small lakes. This isn't a terribly steep mountain.

 

=== Looking Around ===

[[Image:dft126.png|thumb|left|Using the {{k|k}} key to determine the depth of water]]

Now, I'll introduce a very important key, {{k|k}}. This allows you to 'loo{{k|k}} around', which you will use to find out information about everything in the game. Here I've used it to display some [[water]]. Normally water will just look like waves. I've set an option that shows water depth instead of the waves, because it makes it easier to see at a glance whether you are dealing with drowning-type-water, or wet-ankles-type-water. To change that option you need to edit the init.ini file in the data\init\ folder. 7 is the maximum depth, so you can safely assume anything in this square would drown, unless it can swim upwards (or breathe water). You can move the cursor anywhere on the screen to find out information on what is in that particular tile. Those pretty blue stars just below the cursor for example represent 'Damp Rough-hewn Lace Agate Cluster', which you could mine in hopes of getting some valuable gems. Of course, mining it would release the water in that pond, so you'd have a heck of a time actually getting the gems without draining the water.

Also shown, below the list of items occupying the tile, are indicators for 'Outside', 'Light', and 'Above Ground'. These indicators give you the properties of the tile. There are various things that care about these properties, such as farming. Some plants can only be grown indoors, and some need to be outdoors in the sunlight. Usually all three will be similar, as they are somewhat related but you can have 'inside' areas that are light in certain conditions.

If there were a creature or item on this tile, we could highlight it and hit Enter to get more information on it. Sometimes there's useful information there, sometimes there's not; experiment with it a bit on different things.

 

=== Unit Viewing and Dwarf Skills ===

Next let's check out our dwarves. The {{k|v}}iew command allows you to view any unit, be it dwarf, elephant, or goblin. You can {{k|v}}iew pretty much any dwarf or non-dwarf creature worth caring about. Since I didn't choose what I'll be starting with, let's see what the random dwarf generator set me up with.

[[Image:dft009.png|thumb|left]]

Well, that's an 'interesting' array of skills. Note for the future: Never choose 'Play Now!', or you will get ridiculous skills like this. So this dwarf has way more skills than he'll be using, and I didn't get started with any basic farmers so I'm going to designate this fellow as a farmer. To do so I hit 'p' for {{k|p}}references.

 

[[Image:dft010.png|thumb|left|A dwarf's preference screen.]]

This screen is where you start telling this dwarf what his role is. {{k|l}}abor lets you set what jobs he will perform, {{k|e}} lets you assign trained dogs to follow him, and you can tell him what type of armor / weapon to wear through {{k|s}}oldiering. {{k|A}}ctivating him will draft him into the military or relieve him if he's already been recruited.

 

[[Image:dft011.png|thumb|left|The labor preferences screen.]]

Accessing {{k|l}}abor brings up a list of all the possible job functions are performed in the game. The dark-grey ones are disabled on this dwarf, the white ones are enabled, and the one highlighted green is the one currently selected by the cursor. In these types of menus, the {{k|+}} and {{k|-}} keys are used to scroll up and down, and {{k|/}} and {{k|*}} scroll by a full page. The interface has changed a bit since the last version, there used to be up/down arrows on the right-side of the window to indicate that you there were more choices that didn't fit on the screen. Maybe those will be added back later, but for now you'll have to trust me. There are a total of 60 job items. I won't cover them all now, so I'll just let you know I set him up with Farming (fields), Milling, Brewing, Cooking, Butchery, Plant Gathering, Plant Processing, and the hauling jobs. Many of those jobs aren't going to be used at this point, but better to set him up now and then later on when there are more dwarves I can start specializing them.

Also you may have noticed that when we went in the preferences menu a new option appeared, {{k|z}} for View Profile. This lets you get more specific information on the dwarf, as well as customize his job title and give him a nickname.

 

[[Image:dft012.png|thumb|left]]

Here we can see that he owns 14 items, which is probably all clothing items at this point. Hitting {{k|Enter}} takes us to the thoughts and preferences menu.

 

[[Image:dft013.png|thumb|left]]

The first line tells you about mood and recent events that have affected it. Since we have just started, there aren't any recent events, and he's happy to have arrived at his new home. The second section shows his likes, and the third section, which is new to this version, lists his personality. All of this information is unique to each dwarf, and you'll probably ignore most of it, but it is flavorful. The line across the top also shows their full name and the 'translated' version, as well as their job title. Now that we are done here, I'll hit the Space bar to exit. There are two other options each dwarf has; {{k|i}}nventory and {{k|w}}ounds. Those don't concern us at the moment really - each dwarf starts out fully clothed and unwounded.

 

With that finished, I'll go ahead and check out the other dwarves:

* A [[Miner]]. Well I didn't get screwed there, at least.
* A combination [[Jeweler]] / [[Craftsdwarf]]. Not something I would have chosen to start with, but I guess he can work on making some trade goods for the autumn caravan.
* A [[Carpenter]] / [[Bowyer]]. Carpenter is useful, as beds will need to be made, as well as buckets, bins, and other various wood products. I'll give him an axe so he can [[chop down trees]] also.
* A [[Mason]] / [[Mechanic]]. Also useful. I'd prefer to have Mason and Mechanic separate, but there's only 7 dwarves to start with so inevitably you have to either overlap some jobs, or not have them at all.
* A [[Fisherdwarf]]. Fishing wasn't incredibly useful in the previous version, and I don't think it's much improved here. This guy is going to become a Miner, since I have an extra pick.
* A [[Fish cleaner]] / [[Butcher]] / [[Tanner]] / [[Weaver]] / [[Clothier]] / [[Leatherworker]]. You couldn't put a pile of more useless starting jobs together if you tried. This guy is going to get stuck doing all the trivial jobs nobody else has time for.

We also started out with 1 musk ox, 1 donkey, 2 untrained dogs, 2 cats, 2 axes, 2 picks, an anvil, and several barrels of various food, booze, and seeds. Pretty much the same load you'd get if you don't change anything if you choose to manually set up your starting load.

Now, let's get to work! The first step will be tearing down the wagon we start with. Use {{k|q}}uery, which the menu shows as 'Set Building Tasks/Preferences'.

[[Image:dft016.png|thumb|left]]

With the {{k|q}}uery tool, highlight the wagon. Then we hit {{k|x}} to label the building for removal. Why remove it? For one, the wagon is completely useless - it doesn't even have wheels! You can't move it even if you want to. Don't ask how they got it here. But removing it gives us three extra [[tower-cap]] logs.

 

[[Image:dft017.png|thumb|left]]

Now that it's designated for removal, it will show what 'job' a dwarf needs to have to destroy it, in this case [[Carpentry]]. So when a Carpenter has time he'll wander over and remove the building. At this stage in the game it's pretty much instant, since nobody's doing anything, but later on you'll have to wait a bit for a dwarf to initiate the orders you give them.

 

=== Positioning Your Fortress ===

Now for the next important point for starting out - choosing a fort location. Previously this was relatively simple, as there was just a big mountain face and you just picked a spot and started digging, but now there is landscape to consider. You aren't guaranteed to be near everything you want. So, let's look around.

When choosing a site, I chose this location because it had two main [[region features|features]]: a [[river]], and [[magma]]. So let's find those, first.

[[Image:dft018.png|thumb|left|A river on our map.]]

Three levels below our starting point and far to the southwest, we find the river. This is constantly fed from the south, so it won't be running out of water, unlike the other lakes in the area which we can potentially drain to nothing. At some point we'll want to divert some of this sweet sweet liquid into our fort, so dwarves don't need to go wandering outside to get some, but it's not tremendously important to start right next to it. More importantly, I think it's likely that caravans will be arriving from the south, so I will be setting up an entrance down there.

 

[[Image:dft019.png|thumb|left|The volcano on our map.]]

The lava, conveniently, is on the same level as the river. Less conveniently, it is far to the northeast. However, we don't actually need to be located near the lava, we just need to be able to channel some to our forge location, so it's not a huge deal. An interesting thing to note, is there is actually a large stone overhang over the lava crater:

[[Image:dft020.png|thumb|left|The overhang above the lava...]]

This screenshot is one level above the lava crater. You can see the red dots slightly below the wall which shows where the northeast corner pokes out from under the overhang. Yes, you could build part of your fort partially over the lava. I do not advise this, although I suppose it could make an interesting jail area.

 

[[Image:dft021.png|thumb|left|...and the plateau above '''that'''.]]

One level above that is this wooded plateau. You could push someone over the edge there and they'd fall into the lava. Awesome.

 

[[Image:dft022.png|thumb|left|Fire imps kicking around in the lava.]]

Four levels below the surface of the lava we can see some [[fire imp|fire imps]] in their native habitat. There are also a few [[magma man|magma men]] even deeper, just imagine a bright red 'M' and that's all there is to see really. These creatures are the primary reasons to avoid lava, as magma men can destroy buildings and doors, and all fire creatures have the dangerous ability to start fires in your fortress, which can wreak havoc and plunge a fortress into chaos if it isn't contained. I don't think it's been tested but as far as I know dwarves still aren't programmed to recognize fire, so they will happily carry around burning items as if nothing is wrong and unknowingly spread it. Fortunately, there are options to dispose of or ignore individual items now, so it should be a more avoidable catastrophe.

After some debate, I've decided to make the main entrance to my fortress just northeast of the river, in an alcove. The path to the edge of the map is relatively short, and the entire area is surrounded by a sheer cliff two levels high, so it should be relatively safe from disruption from wildlife elsewhere on the map. Hopefully caravans will arrive from this direction; I have no way of really knowing at this point.

To get there however, I'm going to have to start digging from the top. I don't want to build a staircase up the mountain, as that would destroy the security of having the entrance surrounded by cliffs. So what I will do, is go a few levels up and dig straight down to the river level, then dig south to the entrance.

[[Image:dft023.png|thumb|left|Finding a good place for our stairs.]]

I'll start here, on the same level as my dwarves, and roughly halfway between the the wagon and the 'entrance'.

 

=== Digging time! ===

To start digging, hit {{k|d}} for Designations.

[[Image:dft024.png|thumb|left|Designating the location for our stairway. Before...]]

What we want to build here is a downward stairway. You can click it if you want, otherwise hit {{k|j}} to select the option. Then you can place it by clicking where you want the staircase to be. Alternatively you can position the cursor and push {{k|Enter}} twice to designate the location; this is actually easier sometimes, especially if you want to dig the same location on multiple floors, like we will be doing momentarily.

 

[[Image:dft025.png|thumb|left|...and after.]]

Here is the designated staircase location. It shows up as a black '>' symbol surrounded by brown, indicating that it still needs to be dug. Once I unpause, one of the miners will rush over and dig it out.

 

[[Image:dft026.png|thumb|left|Designated trees become highlighted, and blink when a dwarf is going to chop it down.]]

I've also designated some nearby trees for removal, to make a flat area to make some workshops on. Now that the stairway has been dug out, it shows up as a grey '>' symbol, which represents a down-stairway. Not coincidentally, it's the same symbol used to move the display one level down. So, let's check it out!

 

[[Image:dft027.png|thumb|left|The level below a freshly dug stairway.]]

And here we can see, right below the stair, is rock! To connect the two levels, we now have to dig out an upwards stairway on that spot, directly below the downward stairway. Use the {{k|d}}esignate hotkey, then dig an {{k|u}}pwards stairway. Don't worry, there will not be a quiz on the hotkeys, but getting acquainted will help you in future fortress building! You don't have to do this in two separate steps, I just did it this way to illustrate what happens if you dig a downward stairway without also digging an upward stairway below it.

 

[[Image:dft028.png|thumb|left|Designating an up stairway.]]

Again we wait for our trusty miner to arrive on the scene.

 

[[Image:dft029.png|thumb|left|The walls around the stairway are now available for digging.]]

And now we have an upper entrance to our fortress. Now I'll want a room dug out using {{k|d}}esignate and 'd' again to {{k|d}}ig/mine the rock on the same level. Everything under the designate menu can be done in two ways: Either select each square individually with the mouse (you can also click-drag to keep selecting tiles, to be precise), or you can hit Enter once to select a corner, then use the arrow keys to move to another location and hit Enter again. This will select a rectangle defined by the two corners you selected. I'm going to build a 5x5 room here.

 

[[Image:dft030.png|thumb|left|Our 5x5 entrance hall.]]

Rather than just dig straight down to the level I want to be at, I am going to set up this entrance room with an array of traps to kill any potential invaders. Also of note, the floor of this room is muddy, indicating that farming would be possible here without messing with an irrigation system. I'll dig out a separate room for farming, because you don't want to have a farm in a high-traffic room like this one. Also shown, the insides of the two small pools you can see from above-ground.

 

[[Image:dft031.png|thumb|left]]

Below that level I have built a combination up-and-down stairway, which is represented by the 'X' symbol, which is rather like a combination of '>' and '<'. Obvious perhaps, but little details like this can make it easier to remember what symbols mean.

 

[[Image:dft033.png|thumb|left]]

Now I've reached the 'ground floor', the same level as the river, so I'll start digging out a wide hallway. This will likely be an active floor so wide hallways are necessary to keep traffic moving at a good pace. When dwarves have to pass over each other in a single-tile wide hallway, one of them has to stop to let the other one pass, which slows down progress. Multiply that by 10 once you have a bustling fortress, and it becomes a significant problem.

 

=== Planting Your Farm ===

[[Image:dft034.png|thumb|left]]

Back on the top floor, my farm-room has been dug out. To start farming, we need to build a farm plot. 'b' is the key to create a building, and even though no materials are used, a farm plot counts as a building, since products are created from it.

 

[[Image:dft035.png|thumb|left]]

This is the build menu, which lists the various buildings and building-like objects. Furniture counts as buildings for some reason, and floodgates, coffins, roads, wells, and many other objects are built from here also. {{k|p}} lets us build a [[farm]] plot.

 

[[Image:dft036.png|thumb|left]]

Farms can be resized as you desire using the hotkeys shown. {{k|u}} {{k|m}} {{k|k}} {{k|h}} are the common 'resize' keys used whenever you have the option to resize something in the game. Here I have fitted the farm plot to the room.

 

[[Image:dft037.png|thumb|left]]

I've hit {{k|q}} to take a look at the building again. Now the farm is waiting for construction, the same as any other building, by someone with the appropriate job. It displays 'Construction inactive' because nobody has yet decided that they want to come do this. Note, you can also choose to suspend a building's construction if you don't want it to actually be built yet, or you can use 'x' to completely remove the building designation before it is even built.

 

[[Image:dft038.png|thumb|left]]

Now that the farm is built, we need to choose what to plant. Using the {{k|q}} menu again gives us new options now that it is ready for action. Currently the season is still Spring, so it automatically highlights that season for you. We only started with Plump Helmet and Pig Tail seeds, so I'll start off by planting the Plump Helmets. They are like big mushrooms basically, and are a commonly used food as they are easy to grow, and can be eaten immediately once ripe, which returns a new seed. They can also be cooked or brewed into wine, however cooking them destroys the seed so cooking them is not advised. I'll go ahead and set up plump helmet farming for the rest of the year also. One useful change is that you can now continue farming through winter, in the previous version you could not. Also, different crops can be planted in different seasons. Plump Helmet is the only one I've seen so far that can be planted year-round. Above-ground farms will have different planting options.

There are a few other options for farming also, such as fertilizing the soil. Fertilizing uses [[Potash]], which is made by burning wood into [[ash]] and then processing it at an [[Ashery]] workshop. It increases the output of the soil, but it also increases the time it takes to plant, so it's generally a wash. It could be useful if you absolutely need the most possible food out of a little amount of seeds / planting space, but otherwise ignorable. The {{k|z}} option, 'Fallow' means to leave the soil unused for the season. Typically not used, but if you are overflowing with food, that's how you stop production.

[[Image:dft100.png|thumb|left]]

You can also get seeds and food by harvesting wild plants. This uses the [[Herbalism]] job, and provides a chance to gather additional types of food that aren't available otherwise. One thing to be aware of is that you will not find cave-dwelling plants above-ground, so I won't be pulling any Plump Helmets above ground. There is a separate group of plants available for above-ground farming, such as [[Prickle berry]]. These plants need light to grow so you'll probably have to grow them above ground.

 

=== Workshops ===

[[Image:dft042.png|thumb|left]]

Outside the fortress I've set up a few temporary workshops so my other dwarves can quit slacking off. To get this menu, {{k|b}}uild a {{k|w}}orkshop. You can see the (1) next to Carpenter's Workshop, because I built one. This feature allows you to easily see how many workshops are built. It's less helpful for Craftsdwarf's Workshop, whose name is too long and pushes the number off the side.

 

[[Image:dft039.png|thumb|left]]

The Mechanics shop builds one thing and one thing only - [[mechanism|mechanisms]]. Lots and lots of mechanisms. You need a mechanism for every individual trap you make. You need multiple mechanisms to hook a lever up to a door, bridge, floodgate, or other lever-operated device. Mechanisms are also used to make gear and axle machines, which can be used to power millstones and other devices.

Here you can see I have a bunch of mechanisms queued up, waiting to be built. the green 'A' by the top one indicates that the task is Active and being worked on by the dwarf standing in the shop. If we {{k|s}}uspend a job, it will keep it in the queue but the job will not be worked on. The dwarf will then skip that job and move on to the next one in the queue. {{k|r}} will set the job on repeat, meaning once it is complete it will add that job back to the queue instead of deleting it. This is useful if you want a ton of something made. You can {{k|p}}romote a job which raises it in the queue, in case you want that item finished before others. Of course, {{k|x}} will still mark the building for destruction. Also of note is option {{k|P}}, which you can use to designate which dwarves will be allowed to use the shop. If you do not designate anyone specifically, all dwarves with the appropriate job enabled will be able to use it. Last but not least, {{k|a}} allows you to add a job to the queue.

 

[[Image:dft040.png|thumb|left]]

This is the add-job menu for the Craftsdwarves workshop. A wide variety of mostly-useless items are made here, mostly for trading purposes. Note that the 'rock' and 'wood' options are not to make rocks/wood, but to make crafts from rocks or wood. You can choose generic 'crafts', or you can choose to make mugs, instruments, or toys also. What craft/instrument/toy is created is random, it's all useless anyway. The only items from this shop that are useful are rock short swords, bolts, and a few bone/shell armor pieces that can be made.

 

[[Image:dft041.png|thumb|left]]

The carpenter shop makes most wooden items. The only item in this shop that is wood-only is the bed, and it's one of the more important items. Every dwarf needs a place to sleep eventually, so you'll wind up making quite a few. Other useful items include Animal Traps, which allow you to capture vermin, as well as bins, barrels, and buckets. Buckets are used to move water, barrels are used to store food and drink, and bins serve as storage for pretty much all other products other than furniture and raw stone/ore. Bins greatly reduce the amount of floor space needed for store-rooms. Barrels perform a similar function for food, and are required for making liquor. Barrels have the additional benefit of preserving food outside of storage. Any food not in a stockpile or in a barrel will decay rapidly. Also, any food that gets walked over, even if it is in a stockpile, will have it's quality lowered unless it is in a barrel.

There are a variety of other wood products that can be made, but the furniture is usually made out of stone instead (as you will generally have stone lying around all over your fortress making it look ugly otherwise), and shields and trap components are better made out of metal. Of course, now there is the possibility of rock-less maps apparently, so wood may be more widely used in that type of fort.

=== Building Traps ===

[[Image:dft043.png|thumb|left]]

As I said earlier, I'm going to fill this entry-way with traps to stop potential invaders. To do I choose Traps/Levers from the build menu ({{k|T}}).

 

[[Image:dft044.png|thumb|left]]

Here are the different types of traps we can make. Well, Levers and Pressure Plates aren't traps by themselves, but they can be key components of traps. I'll make stone-fall traps, as the ingredients are readily available, just mechanisms and rocks!

 

[[Image:dft045.png|thumb|left]]

Once you've chosen where to put the trap, it will let you choose which mechanism to use in making the trap. You can't choose which rock, because it makes absolutely no difference. It doesn't really matter which mechanism is used either, but if you really want to you can look at every individual mechanism available to be used by pushing {{k|x}}. As you can see in the 'Num' column though, I only have one mechanism available anyway, since the others are already marked for use in other traps. (If you are curious, the display says '0/1' because zero is the number of mechanisms I currently have allocated to this individual trap, and 1 is the total number of 'Shale mechanisms' available. Traps generally only need one mechanism, but weapon traps for example can be composed of multiple weapons.) Dist shows the distance in tiles to the closest available mechanism. It will automatically choose the closest available mechanism, which is a god-send. In the previous version of the game, there was no combined option, and there was no distance display. You were just given a list of all mechanisms in the fortress and picked one and hoped for the best.

=== Stockpiles ===

[[Image:dft047.png|thumb|left]]

Now, to keep items stored and organized, you often want to build a stockpile for them. Otherwise your dwarves will just leave junk lying around everywhere, cluttering up the fort. To designate a stockpile, use the {{k|p}} hotkey, and you get this window. I want to designate a wood stockpile near my carpenter's shop, so he doesn't have to walk as far to get materials. So I'll choose {{k|w}} for wood, then choose a spot and hit {{k|Enter}} to begin the designation.

 

[[Image:dft048.png|thumb|left]]

You can see the bright green '+' that indicates the first spot I marked just below the carpenter's shop. Then, moving the cursor to the other corner, hit 'Enter' again, and a rectangle corresponding to those two corners will be designated as a wood stockpile. Any free dwarf with the 'Wood Hauling' job enabled will go grab some wood and drag it to this stockpile. If you want to remove a stockpile, do the same process, but use {{k|x}} instead of the stockpile letter, and designate the area to be removed. You can remove more than one stockpile at once.

[[Image:dft051.png|thumb|left]]

Empty stockpiles are represented by dark grey '=' symbols.

[[Image:dft052.png|thumb|left]]

Next I want a more specific stockpile - a room for seeds for the farmers, so they don't have to walk as far when planting. To set the stockpile for only seeds, first hit {{k|q}} to highlight the stockpile, the same way as any other building.

[[Image:dft053.png|thumb|left]]

Then hit {{k|s}} to bring up the stockpile settings. Under the food category are a number of other categories, with specific food items under those. You can manually select or de-select each individual food item if you so desire by highlighting the item and hitting {{k|Enter}}, but I'll just block out the entire categories by hitting {{k|f}}, as shown, to 'forbid' the storage of that item in this stockpile. Also, notice the 'prepared item' option in the lower-right. Prepared food is any food that has been made by cooks in the Kitchen workshop.

Now the only item stored here is seeds. The 'Additional items' option listed at the bottom is highlighted also; from there you can choose to allow or forbid the general categories 'plant/animal' or 'non-plant/animal'. You can make stockpiles as general or as specific as you want; you can make a stockpile that only holds masterwork platinum coffins and well-crafted leather thongs if you want.

One final note to make about custom stockpiles, is that if you want something stored in a certain location, you should disable storage for that item in other stockpiles. In my seeds example, I already have a food stockpile setup elsewhere, so I will disable seeds in that stockpile so that they will get moved to the new, designated seed location.

 

=== Trade Depots and Wagon Accessibility ===

[[Image:dft054.png|thumb|left]]

Back on the bottom floor, the entrance has been dug out and a Trade Depot constructed. Trade Depots are usually the first buildings you'll make that require more than one material - it takes three to make one. Like most buildings they can be made from raw rock, cut stone blocks, logs, or metal bars. There's little reason to build one from anything but regular rock though, the main difference is the color. This one was made from dark stone.

Now, let's make sure our Depot is wagon-accessible by using the {{k|D}} hotkey.

 

[[Image:dft056.png|thumb|left]]

Elven caravans are carried by mule and don't need any special pathway. Dwarven caravans are carried by mule and horse drawn wagons. Human caravans come with wagons carrying many more goods than other caravans. The wagons need a smooth three-wide path to your Depot. A three-tile wide road connecting to the edge of the screen is not needed, and creating one will not cause the human caravan to arrive there. We'll work on building a road a bit later on, we don't need to worry about the human caravan arriving until next spring at the earliest, and it's still mid-spring only!

 

[[Image:dft055.png|thumb|left]]

Just north of the depot I have some bored dwarves smoothing the passageway. Designating an area to be smoothed is done the same way as mining, except you designate floor tiles and exposed walls instead of rock to be dug. Floors that are marked to be smoothed show as large flashing plus signs, while walls show as flashing double-plus signs. Smoothed floors display as '+', while smoothed walls display as double-bars traveling along the wall. The end of a smoothed wall usually shows up as an 'O'.

 

[[Image:dft062.png|thumb|left]]

I was digging out some rooms for food storage, a dining hall, and a barracks when I ran into some damp walls. This happens when your miners get close to an underground water source. It's a warning to stop digging in that direction unless you want to potentially release a flood into your fortress. You will get a similar notification when digging too close to lava, except that is much more fatal usually. In this case, I was able to dig out the final two squares of my food storage room without consequence. From looking at the map of the other floors, there is very little space that water could be hidden, so I judged the risk to be low enough to take.

 

=== Walls, Stairs and Roads ===

[[Image:dft066.png|thumb|left]]

While digging out this circular dining room, I accidentally dug out an extra square, ruining the pixelated circularity! This would have been a permanent mistake in the previous version, but now we can re-build walls!

 

[[Image:dft067.png|thumb|left]]

To do so, open the {{k|b}}uild menu and choose the 'Wall/Floor/Stairs' option, then choose Wall and hit {{k|Enter}}.

 

[[Image:dft068.png|thumb|left]]

Then choose where you want to build the wall. Note, there is a resize option for building walls, if you want to build more than one square at a time.

 

It's well worth noting that this isn't restricted to rebuilding walls underground, you can create a wall anywhere. This can be used to build above-ground fortifications and even entire buildings, towers, or castles if you have the patience. The wall building menu has options to create stairs and floors where none existed before, so the sky is the limit! Also of note is the fact that built walls come pre-smoothed, but cannot be engraved on. Engraving is basically making a mural on the wall that depicts either an event from your fortress, or some random image of the engraver's choosing.

One final note, built walls, stairs, etc. cannot be removed by mining, you have to deconstruct them. To do so, open the 'd'esignations menu and choose 'n' for remove construction.

[[Image:dft069.png|thumb|left]]

I've begun construction on a road connecting my depot to the edge of the map. Roads are made through the 'b'uild menu, and are placed similarly to farm plots.

 

[[Image:dft070.png|thumb|left]]

This is what happens if you try to build something in an invalid location. The red 'X's mark where the road is overlapping another section of road. It's currently not visible because roads that aren't yet constructed flash on and off, and I forgot to make sure it was visible before I took the screenshot.

 

[[Image:dft071.png|thumb|left]]

Roads take a lot of stone to build, this particular section will take 7 stones to build. Choosing stones to use is much simpler now, with the various types of stones condensed and the closest stones used first.

 

[[Image:dft072.png|thumb|left]]

When your miners run into precious minerals while digging, you will get a notification, the screen automatically moves to the location and the game pauses. This happens every time you find a different vein in this version, previously it only happened the first time you discovered a new mineral. It can be helpful perhaps, since minerals are not guaranteed to be present on a map and you have no idea how common it will be. It can be irritating seeing the same discovery notification repeatedly though. Magnetite gets smelted into iron though, so it's alright.

 

=== Zoning Bedrooms ===

[[Image:dft073.png|thumb|left]]

Here's the beginning of my mass sleeping room. I'm not going to build individual rooms for my dwarves yet, as that is far too much work. I've highlighted one of the beds using {{k|q}}, just like a building, now I'll press {{k|r}} to make the room into a bedroom.

 

[[Image:dft074.png|thumb|left]]

This grid of cyan X's shows the area currently selected as bedroom. I'll use {{k|+}} to increase the size to fill the entire room.

 

[[Image:dft075.png|thumb|left]]

Now the bedroom is fully designated. The dark cyan X's show where the walls are, and the bedroom will not expand past the walls/doors. If there weren't doors, it could continue expanding to fill the rest of the whole floor.

However, we don't want this to be one persons bedroom, we want this to be a shared bedroom, which is called a Barracks. Pressing {{k|b}} on the menu now will set that option. Barracks are usually only used for military, as eventually everyone should have their own rooms. Anyone without their own room will use the barracks. This will give the dwarves a place to sleep until they can get their own rooms. Now that the bedroom has been designated, you can assign that particular bed to a dwarf if you like, resize the bedroom designation, or press 'f' to free it. That removes the bedroom designation and unassigns any dwarf from the bed.

Note: The entire barracks is designated from a single bed, you don't have to recreate the room on each bed. All beds within the space of a barracks will be used.

 

=== Building a Well ===

[[Image:dft077.png|thumb|left]]

Near the bedroom I want to make a well, so the dwarves will have somewhere to get water from without having to run outside to the river.

 

[[Image:dft078.png|thumb|left]]

First I need some supplies to build the well. I'll need some blocks, which are crafted from stone at a Masonry, an empty bucket, which can be made of metal or wood, and a chain, which is made from metal. (I assume a cloth rope can be used also, but I have no cloth). I can make the block and bucket right now, but I'll need to set up a smithing operation to get the chain.

The first step of any smithing operation is to get fuel. Unless you have a magma source nearby, you'll be using coal. We do have a magma source, but it's rather far from our fortress, so that will have to wait. Coal can be aqcuired in two ways: dig coal ore out of the ground somewhere, or make it from wood at a wood furnace.

 

[[Image:dft079.png|thumb|left]]

I'm going to set up a temporary furnace near my carpenter's shop (obviously burning wood near a woodworking shop is an A+ idea). From the 'b'uild menu, select Furnaces ({{k|e}}).

 

[[Image:dft080.png|thumb|left]]

This gives us a variety of furnace options. The one we need first is a Wood Furnace, to make charcoal. Charcoal is functionally identical to coal, so I'll just be calling it coal from this point on.

 

[[Image:dft081.png|thumb|left]]

Furnaces are one type of building that need to be designed by an Architect before they can be built. Architecture isn't a vital skill really, you can enable it on everyone if you like, by default anything designed will be perfectly functional, but buildings designed by skilled architects are more aesthetically pleasing to dwarves and they can get happy thoughts from them.

I'm also going to build a Smelter right next to the Wood Furnace. Smelters are where metal ore gets melted and shaped into usable bars. Once the building has been designed, it will need a Mason to come finish it. This is because I chose to build it from stone. If I made it from metal, it would need Blacksmithing, and if I made it from wood, it would need Carpentry. I have a feeling a smelter made of wood would be a bad idea.

 

[[Image:dft082.png|thumb|left]]

The final step on the road to metalworking glory is the Metalsmith's Forge. I'm going to place it near the furnaces, so everything is close to each other and the smith doesn't have to go far to pick up coal and metal bars. This is the building placement screen. Most buildings are 3x3 tiles. Bright green X's show where walkable tiles for the workshop are, and the dark green X's indicate that the spot will be impassable once it is built. This isn't important above-ground, but if building underground it is possible to block off the exit to a room with a badly-placed building. Now that dwarves can move diagonally, the risk is lower, but each building has a unique layout and some block off an entire side. You cannot rotate buildings either.

A key ingredient of any Forge is the anvil. We started with an anvil, so it's covered. If we didn't bring an anvil when we started we'd be out of luck, because anvils can only be made at forges, and you can't build a forge without one. The only way to get an anvil at that point is to try and trade for one from a caravan, if they decide to bring one.

 

=== Zones ===

[[Image:dft083.png|thumb|left]]

All dwarves take breaks from time to time, and when they do so they usually have a spot that they will go to hang out, such as a meeting hall, statue garden, zoo, etc. Your stray animals will usually hang around those areas also. By default they will hang out near the starting wagon when you first arrive, even after the wagon is destroyed; to cancel that I have designated a meeting zone at the top of the fortress.

'Zones' are a new feature to this version. They are created from the main menu from hotkey {{k|i}}, then placed similarly to stockpiles. Once you have an area designated you can choose what type of zone it is.

Water Sources: placed on lakes and rivers, these indicate where dwarves should get water from. NOTE: For this to be used properly, you need to have the zone designation actually overlap the ground where you want the dwarves to stand when getting water. Otherwise they will only see the zone hanging over the water, realize they can't stand there without drowning, and ignore it (not exactly; it just won't show up as a valid Water Source).

Fishing: similar to water sources, tells dwarves 'hey come fish here instead of 4 miles upriver'.

Garbage Dump: place where they will toss any items you mark to 'dump', which is handy because now you can choose individual items to throw away, which was impossible previously. Any item thrown in the dump is marked 'forbidden' and will be completely ignored by dwarves. Dumps can be designated over open space, and dwarves will throw their garbage into the void. This is done by designating an area with tiles connecting to ground to show dwarves where to stand when throwing stuff over the edge.

 

[[Image:dft084.png|thumb|left]]

Here is an example of a dump zone. The top three tiles are on open space, while the bottom are on solid ground. The benefit of doing this is that the dump zone over the air will never 'fill up', they'll just keep tossing stuff over the edge and it will land somewhere at the bottom.

* Pit/Pond: a place to store animals, apparently. Ponds for aquatic animals obviously. Alternatively, used to begin a rousing game of toss-the-camel-into-the-volcano.
* Sand Collection: indicates where you want dwarves to get sand from. Sand is used to make glass. You'll have to find some sand tiles first though. So far I haven't seen any around this mountain, but digging near the river may reveal some.
* Meeting area: where dwarves and animals will chill go to hang out when on break.

You can also use {{k|a}} to activate/deactivate a zone, if you want them to stop using that area temporarily, instead of removing it.

 

[[Image:dft088.png|thumb|left]]

One of our cats has given birth to kittens! As long as you have both male and female of an animal, they will breed and eventually have babies. Young animals show up as red-colored versions of the adult animals. Animal breeding can be a decent source of food once you have a large population, although cats don't especially produce much food. Cows, horses, and now camels are probably much better for that purpose. Cats actually have a use aside from food - they will automatically hunt for vermin. Vermin are small animals/insects that can't harm your dwarves, but they will usually get unhappy thoughts from encountering vermin.

Other useful pets include dogs, which can be trained at a Kennel building as hunting dogs (improves their speed I think, and lets them 'ambush'), and war dogs (deal twice as much damage). Trained dogs can be assigned to follow a particular dwarf; otherwise they tend to follow the dwarf that trained them, or sometimes they will patrol the fortress.

There will be a bit more information on tame animals when I cover the stocks menu. 

[[Image:dft086.png|thumb|left]]

Progress is being made on my road, here you can see a dwarf putting the finishing touches on another section of road. 

[[Image:dft087.png|thumb|left]]

Now that the smithing buildings are all ready, let's start working on that chain. First I'll need several bars of coal from the Wood Furnace. This requires a dwarf with the Wood Burning job enabled. 

[[Image:dft089.png|thumb|left]]

Now that we have some coal ready, I'll start smelting some ore. In the new version, only ore which you have available will show up on the smelter list, which is handy because there are a lot more ores than there used to be, and you aren't guaranteed to find any particular one at any fortress site. You can also melt a metal object to return a portion of the metal that was used to make it. That partial ore will be stored at the Smelter it was melted at until you melt down enough objects at that particular Smelter to make a full bar.

Here I'm melting some Magnetite ore I found, which will return Iron bars. Smelting uses the Furnace Operator job.

 

[[Image:dft090.png|thumb|left]]

The caravan has arrived! Inconveniently, they have arrived from the north side of the map, so it'll take a while for them to arrive at the trade depot, but let's get ready for their arrival.

=== Trading and Thieves ===

 

[[Image:dft091.png|thumb|left]]

Now that the caravan has arrived, options appear at the Trade Depot. This shows who your broker is, and what he's doing. The broker can wait for now, he won't be necessary until we are ready to trade. First, we need to move some goods to the depot to be traded.

 

[[Image:dft092.png|thumb|left]]

This menu shows every individual item in your fort in a list format, including how far it is from the depot. From here you can go through and choose which items you wish to trade.

 

[[Image:dft093.png|thumb|left]]

Oh crap, now there's a kobold thief trying to steal some of my fabulous -slate mug-. Thieves have a habit of showing up with caravans, unfortunately, but kobolds are extremely weak. Thieves sneak, so you can't see them coming beforehand. They only appear and give that notification if a dwarf, tame animal, or someone from the caravan spots them. There's no skill check or anything (that I know of), they will automatically spot the thief if they are one tile away from it.

 

[[Image:dft094.png|thumb|left]]

Approximately two seconds after the previous screenshot, the dwarf who was being accosted has been drafted into the military and beat the thief into a bloody mess. (If you don't remember, activating someone for military duty is accessed by using 'v' to view the unit, then 'p' for preferences, then 'A' to activate. I won't be covering military any more than that, unfortunately). Now the corpse will be hauled to the nearby Refuse pile, where it will eventually rot into bones. Bones can be used to make trade goods, bone armor, or bone arrows.

Slain enemies drop all their stuff, which you can then use for whatever you like. Generally their armor won't be wearable, as it is either to large or too small, but the weapons can be put into weapon traps or wielded by your own military. These items also make nice trade goods, since it's all profit.

 

[[Image:dft095.png|thumb|left]]

Here's the main disadvantage of having these temporary outdoor workshops. This thief got away with the best sceptre I had made. It's not a big deal, even that sceptre isn't worth a great deal of money, but it's annoying. When you have everything indoors, it is much less likely that thieves will successfully steal anything. Over the winter I will work on moving all these workshops indoors.

 

[[Image:dft096.png|thumb|left]]

The first of the caravan has reached the depot and thrown their goods all over the place. We can't trade until they've all arrived though.

 

[[Image:dft097.png|thumb|left]]

Here we see the dwarven Outpost [[Liaison]] that came with the caravan. He's been chasing my Expedition Leader for 5 minutes now while my dwarf ignores him. I've stopped all his available tasks though and called him to the depot to conduct the trading. After that the meeting hopefully will begin.

 

[[Image:dft098.png|thumb|left]]

Now that the caravan is ready and the Expedition Leader/broker has arrived, let's trade. The first page of goods is mostly worthless to me, I hardly need more stone blocks, the Steel mini-forge is just a toy, and the large masterpiece gem I have highlighted here is probably worth more than everything in my fortress combined. It's a useless finished good, too. If this weren't a tutorial game, I'd be tempted to steal it *ahem* arrange for a tragic depot 'accident'.

Note on the right-hand side I have a bin on the list - when goods are stored in bins, you can't designate the items to be traded, you need to have the whole bin hauled over. Then you can trade everything inside the bin. This is very nice, as it means less trips you need to make to carry goods to the depot. All those individual items above the bin were carried here one at a time. Inefficient! Dwarves will automatically put stuff in bins when there are free bins available and a stockpile to put them in. The bin is then labeled as a 'Finished Goods' bin, to distinguish it from an unused bin or a bin filled with coal. Finished Goods basically covers all useless trade goods such as flutes and mugs, but also is used for clothing.

After looking over the goods available, I traded a big pile of stone junk for all the traders' food, and a couple pieces of leather and cloth. You can never have too much food, but you CAN have starving dwarves. I always trade for food until I have efficient farming, brewing, and cooking operations set up that can support all my dwarves. As it is, I didn't even have enough seeds to plant the entire field we created.

One important thing I almost forgot to mention: currently we cannot see the actual value of items, only weight. My broker isn't skilled enough, so I just had to guess at how much stuff I could trade. Caravans can only carry so much weight, so you need to make sure you are trading lighter items and taking heavier items from the caravan when possible. The amount of weight you can add to the caravan without going over is shown in the lower right. If you DO go over the limit, the number will display red and you won't be able to complete the trade.

Each item has a value and a weight; even if we can't see the value, the dwarves won't trade with us if they aren't making at least some profit. Since you probably won't have a lot to trade when first starting out, you'll want to focus on getting lower-cost items like food, or crafting materials. Metal weapons and armor tend to be rather expensive. Furniture, unfortunately, is both heavy and not very valuable, so don't go making a bunch of oak cabinets expecting to ditch them on the caravan. That's why crafts are good trade items: they are light, and relatively valuable for their low weight. Also, they are cheap to produce as long as you have extra stone lying around.

 

[[Image:dft099.png|thumb|left]]

Now that the trading is done, I let the Leader go on his way, and he finally stopped to meet with the Outpost Liaison. This menu comes up, where you can tell the Liaison what types of goods you want them to bring next year. This is the only way to get an anvil if you didn't start with one. You can request a wide variety of goods now, including important things like seeds, weapons, armor, and new picks, if you somehow managed to lose the ones you started with and can't forge new ones. You can also request wood, which is important on maps where there is no naturally occurring wood. Here I've chosen to request a variety of seeds, so I can diversify my planting operations next year.

 

[[Image:dft101.png|thumb|left]]

After you've requested goods from the Liaison, another meeting will be held once the Liaison has written up a trade agreement. The trade agreement lists the prices you'll be paying for the goods they bring next year. Anything you don't specifically list will stay at regular price (100%), and goods you requested will be given a price markup according to the priority you placed on it. Generally it's best to just place the lowest possible priority on all your requests, to minimize the markup. They'll usually bring anything you request, as long as you don't request too many different items. If you request too much they'll have to decide what to bring, that's when Priority comes in to play. Anyway, there's nothing to do here other than look at the prices, so let's move on to the next meeting.

 

[[Image:dft102.png|thumb|left]]

This screen shows what the Liaison is requesting for you to trade to them next year. They give their own priority and pricing for their requests. If you cater to their requests you can make a nice profit, especially on maces it looks like here. There's no penalty for not meeting any of the requests though, they'll still take any old junk you have lying around. Again, we can't make any changes here, so let's move on to farewell. That was the final meeting, so I'll let the broker dude get back to work.

 

=== Nobles ===

[[Image:dft103.png|thumb|left]]

While we're on the subject of the broker, let's look at the {{k|n}}obles menu. Nobles are like government jobs, mostly paperwork and bureaucracy. The Nobles menu shows which jobs need to be taken care of. When you first start out you start with 4 jobs, typically all of them will be assigned to one person, the Expedition Leader. This job is automatically assigned, and you cannot change the Expedition Leader. I'm not sure how it is chosen at this point, presumably if you set up one dwarf with a bunch of related noble skills he will start as the leader, but I haven't tested it.

To the right of each position it shows if that dwarf has any Requirements to preform his job, Demands to be happy with his job, and Mandates that he issues that need to be performed. Requirements typically include an Office, a Bedroom, and sometimes a private Dining room. Some also require furniture such as cabinets and chests. Demands are usually specific items that noble feels he deserves. You can usually ignore these, but he'll be happier if the demands are met. Mandates are like demands, but they generally are required to be met. That might be disabled currently, but I'm sure it will be re-enabled later on. Mandates are typically production orders, such as 'make 5 axes' or 'perform 20 mason jobs'. If the mandate isn't met, the dwarves who should be doing those jobs get punished.

The Outpost Manager job is what controls the manufacturing process in your fortress. There are various abilities of his you can use to make it easier to run a fortress. The Manager allows assigning workshops to particular dwarves, and you can also request batch jobs to be filled by the Manager. The manager then delegates those jobs to available workshops to be completed.

The Outpost Broker we've already seen, he's the one who will generally be doing the trading and negotiations with caravans.

The Bookkeeper keeps track of the items in your fort, and allows you to see how many items you have in each category. From this menu you can change the settings to show how diligent he will be in his duties.

 

[[Image:dft104.png|thumb|left]]

The bookkeeper is the only one of the first four nobles to have his own settings menu. He starts out using the lowest precision. This means he spends basically zero time working on counting the items, and any counts displayed will be rounded off horribly. This is acceptable early on, but eventually you'll probably want to raise his level of precision. Before you can do that though, you have to create an office for him. An office is basically just a room with a chair in it, and whatever other furniture he might request. You then designate the room as an office in the same way you designate a bedroom or dining room, except the office is centered around the chair, instead of a bed or table. Then when you raise the precision setting, he will spend time in the office or walking around or whatever the hell a bookkeeper does, and his skill will increase.

Eventually as the population of the fortress grows, more 'noble' jobs will be added to be worked on. The first that we know of is the Sheriff, who acts as the law-enforcement for dwarves. Any dwarf that commits a crime will wind up punished once dwarven law is enabled. Crimes include destruction of property, violation of production orders (mandates), violence against dwarves and tame animals, and murder. Dwarves are usually well behaved, but if they get too unhappy they will start to tantrum and perform various crimes in a fit of rage. If your fortress is going well this usually won't happen, but it never stays peaceful forever. Someday you WILL see a dwarf rip the head off a kitten.

 

[[Image:dft140.png|thumb|left]]

Let's get back to work! When we left off, we had finished smelting some iron, now we need to turn it into a chain for our well. The Forge creates all metal objects, so let's check it out. You might be wondering what 'Metal Clothing' is, well, it's made of Adamantine, the only metal light enough and flexible enough to be used as clothes. It's also exceedingly rare, and won't be covered in this tutorial.

 

[[Image:dft141.png|thumb|left]]

Chains are in the Furniture category, because they can be built anywhere in the fortress and used to tie up animals. This is usually used to station War Dogs in specific spots. They can also be used for prisons, to tie up dwarves who have violated the law. After choosing Furniture, it gives a list of metals to use. I don't actually have all of those metals, it just lists all possible metals. We've got iron, so I choose that.

 

[[Image:dft142.png|thumb|left]]

The next screen lists all the iron furniture I can create. The green arrow in the lower-right shows that there is more items than can fit on the screen. Most metal furniture can also be crafted from stone or wood, so you won't be making most of this stuff, but the option is there. Now, we wait for the chain to be made.

 

=== Finishing Up the Well ===

[[Image:dft105.png|thumb|left]]

At long last we can build our well... except now there's a new requirement. Well's have to be built in mid-air! Not quite actually, but you do need to dig a tunnel underneath them, so that the bucket can be lowered down into a water source. Consequently, there also has to be a water source below the well to draw from. I've been working on that, though!

 

[[Image:dft107.png|thumb|left]]

To dig out the area beneath the well, you need to dig a channel. Digging a channel destroys the floor, and digs out the tile underneath, which is the 'channel' that water can flow through. Channels are designated the same way mining and stairways are, and are dug by miners.

 

[[Image:dft108.png|thumb|left]]

Now that the channel has been dug, we have the 'open space' required by the well, so I'll go ahead and build it. Now we have to get some water beneath the well so it will be useful. Let's see what's down there.

 

[[Image:dft109.png|thumb|left]]

I've already dug out the area beneath the well, and made a path to the river so I can divert some water to the area beneath the well. Now I'll have to dig a channel from the well room to the river.

 

[[Image:dft113.png|thumb|left]]

This dwarf has decided to take a nap in the middle of the river. Somehow, he doesn't drown. Let's call this a bug.

Shortly after this the game crashed, so some details after this may not be exactly the same as they were previously. I've now changed autosave to SEASONAL instead of YEARLY.

 

[[Image:dft117.png|thumb|left]]

While digging out a channel, a cat apparently fell in. (It's the small grey 'c' in the middle). This is one of the new dangers of digging channels. I'm going to make a staircase to rescue the cat, as well as allow anyone else who falls in later to escape. Rather than digging a staircase out of the wall, I'm going to build one inside the channel, which I can later remove.

 

[[Image:dft118.png|thumb|left]]

While I was wondering who would build the stairs upward, a miner fell in the channel, so I gave him the masonry job and put him to work.

 

[[Image:dft119.png|thumb|left]]

Now I need to place the down-stair directly above the up-stair. If you try to build a down-stair over empty space, it will just be canceled.

 

[[Image:dft120.png|thumb|left]]

Victory!

[[Image:dft121.png|thumb|left]]

 

I'll build a bridge over the channel here so that we can cross over the channel if needed. I made it three tiles wide, because that is the most you can make from a single piece of stone. Note: Bridges can be attached to a lever to raise/lower or retract. By default they are set to retract, but you can use the 'wadx' keys to set it to be raised in a direction. If you do that, it has to be attached to the ground on the side you want it to raise towards, and needs to be at least 2 squares wide.

 

=== Fortress Inventory ===

[[Image:dft122.png|thumb|left]]

While waiting for our dwarves to re-do all their hard work, let's check out the Status screen accessed from the main menu by the 'z' key. Here you can see how many dwarves you have of each type, as well as a rough count of how much food you have. Right now I'm not doing so hot on food, but I'm still waiting for the caravan to arrive again. If we had a skilled broker we could see an estimate of the wealth of our fortress, as well as an estimate of how much trading we have done with other nations. There are four sub-menus available right now also.

 

[[Image:dft123.png|thumb|left]]

The Animals submenu shows all the tame animals you have. Right now none of the animals have owners, they are all strays. The dogs, the muskox, and the donkey are shown as 'unavailable', which means they cannot be claimed as pets. Hitting Enter will make them available to be pets. Once an animal is a pet, you can't do anything to it, so I usually don't make them available. Cats are uncontrollable, shown as 'Uninterested'. They may or may not at some point decide to become the pet of a dwarf. Usually you will wind up with all of them becoming attached to the same dwarf, who will be your fortress' crazy cat lady. You can also order any animal that doesn't have an owner to be slaughtered from here, which produces delicious food, bones and skulls.

 

[[Image:dft139.png|thumb|left]]

The Kitchen sub-menu shows what types of food you have lying around, an estimate of how many, and whether dwarves are allowed to cook it or brew it into beer. It's best to not allow seeds to be cooked, as they are much more valuable planted so they can grow into more food. Also of note is that cooked plants do not return a seed, so don't cook plants unless you don't need a seed from them. Brewing does return the seeds though.

 

[[Image:dft124.png|thumb|left]]

The new Stone sub-menu gives a list of all the different types of 'Economic' stone. Economic stone has some sort of use aside from building stone items. Here I have Limestone highlighted, and you can see on the right side of the screen that it is used in the process of making pig iron and steel bars. You probably won't run across all of the different types of stone listed here, but it's good to look over them so you know what everything does.

By default, all of these stones are marked as off-limits to your masons and other stone-using dwarves. However, each fortress will have a unique mineral composition, so if you wind up on a mountain with tons of limestone, you can enable it to be used for stone-building projects.

 

[[Image:dft125.png|thumb|left]]

Finally, the Stocks sub-menu. This gives you a list of every type of item you can have in your fort, and shows you how many of them you have. This is heavily dependant on your Bookkeeper noble, so eventually you will want to give one an office and have him get to work so you can have exact numbers. When you have an exact count, you can use Tab to display each individual item in a given category, then use use the hotkeys in the lower right to look at the item details, designate it to be melted or thrown away, or use 'z' to see where the item is located in your fort.

Because our bookkeeper sucks, we can only see estimates of how many stones, logs, etc. that we have. Also, the red number to the right of the estimate, is a count of how many of those items you have that are in use throughout the fortress. For example, we have no beds in the estimated count, but we can see that 10 beds are actually built and in-use. Similarly we have no doors in our stockpiles, but 4 doors built throughout the fortress. You will see similar numbers for every item you have that is in use, even seeds that are currently planted in the ground.

 

[[Image:dft127.png|thumb|left]]

Our channel to the river is just about ready, now I'll have a miner dig out the last few tiles and let the water flow through.

 

[[Image:dft129.png|thumb|left]]

With the path cleared, water rushes into the channel.

 

[[Image:dft137.png|thumb|left]]

And the finished well is now ready for use.

It's worth a mention that you don't actually need to use channels to move water anymore, I could just as easily have dug stairs downward and had the dwarves mine through the soil to move the water into position, then just used channels to open up the area under the well. Channels just make the process easier to observe.

 

[[Image:dft130.png|thumb|left]]

One of my dogs killed a mountain goat, so I've built a butcher's shop to let it be turned into edible meat. Butcher's shops turn dead animals into food, bones, and some will also return skulls and pelts. The pelts are then processed at a Tanner's workshop to become leather.

It's winter now and I still haven't gotten any immigrants :( They would be so useful to speed this up, but oh well.

 

[[Image:dft131.png|thumb|left]]

This is what happens if you don't make a stockpile for items, they build up in your workshop. The (CLT) next to the workshop title indicates that the workshop is 'cluttered', which slows down production.

To view buildings like this, use the {{k|t}} hotkey. This shows the contents of buildings. The Chestnut wood with the (B) next to it indicates that the workshop is built from that material. If we destroy the building, the material will be returned.

 

[[Image:dft132.png|thumb|left]]

Another new feature implemented in the most recent version is the Traffic Designation option. Accessed from the 'd'esignation menu, this allows you mark your hallways and make dwarves favor one path over another. In this example, dwarves will almost always follow the bright green 'H' path rather than stepping on the 'low' or 'restricted' tiles. They'll take a few shortcuts due to diagonal pathing, but that's besides the point. What's the point? Well, that's up to you. Maybe you want to make sure dwarves don't wander near a magma channel you've dug. Maybe you want them to avoid a certain hallway, and take a different path. Maybe you just like watching dwarves run around in circles. I'm sure there will be plenty of uses for this.

 

[[Image:dft133.png|thumb|left]]

This is a farmer's workshop. Some plants can be processed here, in fact some are required to be processed before they can be used. Examples are Sweet Pods, which are processed into a barrel to become syrup. Quarry Bushes are processed into a bag to become Quarry Bush leaves. These plants take a bit more work to get use out of, but they also make more food per seed, which increases farmer productivity. Note the 'milk creature' and 'make cheese' options. I'm not sure if you can actually milk cows at this point; previously you couldn't, but eventually that will be another renewable food source.

 

[[Image:dft135.png|thumb|left]]

This is the Still, a very important dwarven workshop which produces all the booze your dwarves will drink. Dwarves love their booze and will never drink anything else if you provide enough of it. When you first start a fortress though they'll usually have to go without it for a while, because farming actual food takes priority over booze.

 

=== Announcements ===

[[Image:dft134.png|thumb|left]]

Another thing you'll become familiar with is the {{k|a}}nnouncements page. This lets you view a list of the past 22 lines of announcements / events. You can also scroll upwards up to the very beginning of your fortress. As you can see in this one, a miner I had excavating towards the magma ran into a fire imp and got fireballed to death. I didn't get a screenshot of his wounds, but presumably he took a lot of damage to the neck or lungs. Also, raccoons stealing some trash dropped by a kobold thief.

 

[[Image:dft136.png|thumb|left]]

It's that time of the year! The climate in this zone isn't actually that cold, I haven't even got snow on the ground, but halfway through winter the river finally froze up. It actually thawed again about 10 seconds after I took that screenshot. The water in the channel froze also, but the section that was inside the mountain stayed wet. Another important reason to divert water indoors.

 

=== Epilogue ===

Well I was going to do more, but repeated crashes culminated near the end of winter when I got to a point I could no longer continue. The game now crashes about 2 minutes after I load the game consistently, so the tutorial ends here. I think I covered all of the important stuff, anyway. This should be enough to all the basic things you need to get a fortress running, and from there you can start messing with the more advanced stuff.

Feel free to make any corrections or suggestions for important things to add, I've read this so many times I'm starting to think that I might actually be one of the dwarves.

===Other Guides===
All these can help with different parts of your fortress:
*[[Important advice]]
*[[Stairs]]
*[[Cave-in]]
*[[Smelting]]
*[[Design strategies]]
*[[Digging]]
*[[Controls]]
[[Category:Guides]]

40d:Spiny dogfish

2008-08-10T14:10:21Z

StrawberryBunny: New page: {{CreatureInfo|name=Spiny Dogfish|symbol=s|color=rgb(128, 128, 0)| bones=3|chunks=3|meat=3|fat=1|skulls=1|skin=1| biome= * Temperate Ocean }} The spiny dogfish is a shark capable of doing...

{{CreatureInfo|name=Spiny Dogfish|symbol=s|color=rgb(128, 128, 0)|
bones=3|chunks=3|meat=3|fat=1|skulls=1|skin=1|
biome=
* Temperate Ocean
}}

The spiny dogfish is a shark capable of doing damage equal to that of a [[carp]]. Whether they are equally demonic is unknown. It's best to avoid them, or attack at range.

{{Game_Data|[CREATURE:SHARK_SPINY_DOGFISH]
[NAME:spiny dogfish:spiny dogfish:spiny dogfish]
[TILE:'s'][COLOR:6:0:0]
[LARGE_ROAMING]
[AQUATIC][UNDERSWIM][IMMOBILE_LAND]
[MODVALUE:3]
[GENPOWER:3]
[PREFSTRING:dorsal spines]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[POPULATION_NUMBER:15:30]
[BENIGN][MEANDERER][NATURAL]
[PETVALUE:200]
[BODY:BASIC_2PARTBODY:BASIC_HEAD:SIDE_FINS:DORSAL_FIN:TAIL:2EYES:HEART:GUTS:ORGANS:NECK:SPINE:BRAIN:MOUTH]
[ATTACK:MAIN:BYTYPE:MOUTH:bite:bites:1:6:GORE][ATTACKFLAG_CANLATCH]
[ATTACK:SECOND:BYTOKEN:TAIL:slap:slaps:1:2:BLUDGEON][ATTACKFLAG_WITH]
[SIZE:3]
[MAXAGE:20:30]
[NO_DRINK]
[CHILD:1][CHILDNAME:spiny dogfish pup:spiny dogfish pups]
[FAT:1]
[BIOME:OCEAN_TEMPERATE]
[STANDARD_FLESH]
[HOMEOTHERM:10067]
[SWIMS_INNATE][SWIM_SPEED:500]
[MUNDANE]
}}
{{Creatures}}
[[Category:Animals]]

40d Talk:Sphere

2008-08-10T02:56:04Z

StrawberryBunny:

What is a sphere? This doesn't offer a very good explanation. If I knew what it was, I'd add it myself.--[[User:RustyMcloon|Rusty Mcloon]] 01:19, 17 May 2008 (EDT)

: A sphere is a ball-shaped object foo :P

: Really, it's just a spiritual concept/idea/etc that the "religion" revolves around. revolving --> planets, which are (sorta) spherical. In other games spheres usually refer to your magic discipline, whether you had fire spells, zombie spells or the like. Least that's what my current definition is --[[User:Frostedfire|Frostedfire]] 03:19, 17 May 2008 (EDT)

:[http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=define%3A+sphere&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a Take your pick]

:: Has this a ''real'' effect on gameplay ? [[User:Timst|Timst]] 16:35, 17 July 2008 (EDT)

:::I imagine it would have an affect on who can be friendly with who. A worshiper of the god of death probably wouldn't be friendly with a worshiper of a god of fertility, or something like that. I don't know what the exactly friendships are, but I think that when religion plays a bigger role in the game, the spheres will dictate relationships between the religious factions. --[[User:StrawberryBunny|StrawberryBunny]] 22:56, 9 August 2008 (EDT)

40d:Art

2008-08-09T17:19:06Z

StrawberryBunny: New page: ==Fortress Mode== Art is a generic term for a way of recording history. You can order your dwarves to create art by ordering them to smooth and engrave stone walls, or to sew a [[c...

==Fortress Mode==
Art is a generic term for a way of recording history. You can order your dwarves to create art by ordering them to [[smooth]] and [[engrave]] stone walls, or to sew a [[cloth]] image. Art records your fortress's history, such as when your dwarves were [[siege|besieged]] by [[Boatmurdered|bloodthirtsy]] [[elephants]].

==Adventure Mode==
Art from previous fortresses or NPC races can be seen and appreciated. Use {{K|l}} to look around, then {{K|a}} over an engraving you want to look at. For [[cloth]] tapestries, you can see their description from your inventory.

Low boot

2008-08-09T04:27:13Z

StrawberryBunny: New page: A low boot is a piece of footwear. It can act as armor, but as opposed to high boots which protect the feet and lower legs, low boots only protect the feet.

A low boot is a piece of [[Clothing|footwear]]. It can act as [[armor]], but as opposed to [[high boot]]s which protect the feet and lower legs, low boots only protect the feet.

40d Talk:Announcement

2008-08-09T04:13:12Z

StrawberryBunny: New page: ==Announcement options.== Does anyone know specifics about how the different options for the options work? At what level do various jobs get filtered from the announcements?--~~~~

==Announcement options.==
Does anyone know specifics about how the different options for the options work? At what level do various jobs get filtered from the announcements?--[[User:StrawberryBunny|StrawberryBunny]] 00:13, 9 August 2008 (EDT)

40d:Announcement

2008-08-09T04:12:00Z

StrawberryBunny: New page: An announcement is a message displayed at the bottom of the game screen used to indicate something important. Some announcements will pause gameplay and center the camera on the event in q...

An announcement is a message displayed at the bottom of the game screen used to indicate something important. Some announcements will pause gameplay and center the camera on the event in question. Examples of this are births, [[strange mood]]s, and [[Immigration|migrant]]s arriving.

The Announcements page can be accessed with the {{key|a}} key. {{key|Page Up}} and {{key|Page Down}} scroll through the previous announcements.

The {{key|o}}rders menu allows you to control which announcements are shown. {{key|x}} cycles through the four options for announcements:
* No Announcements.
* Some Announcements.
* Most Announcements.
* All Announcements.

Dwarf cancels task: Could not find path

2008-08-09T03:56:09Z

StrawberryBunny: New page: This message obviously means that the dwarf in question could not find a path to the destination for the task canceled. This can be caused by closed and forbidden doors, floodgates...

This message obviously means that the dwarf in question could not find a path to the destination for the task canceled. This can be caused by closed and forbidden [[door]]s, [[floodgate]]s, raised or retracted [[drawbridge]]s, or any other physical obstruction, such as [[Cave-in|cave-in]]s or [[flood]]s.

40d Talk:Crossbow

2008-08-08T14:34:06Z

StrawberryBunny:

== Training with Crossbows, Wooden/Bone Bolts more than preferred ==

Dwarves will automatically use only wooden or bone bolts, you needn't worry about metal bolts being wasted on practice.

Based on classic DF, bone or wooden bolts will indeed be used to fight if the dwarf doesn't have anything else though, and they sometimes would just coincidentally have a handful of "practice" bolts when they went out to battle thus having a useful backup. Especially nice when they're very highly skilled and 35-45 bolts isn't enough to last the duration of a fight!

== Out of ammo ==

Is it worth noting (on this page) that dwarves will use the hammer skill to bludgeon with their crossbow if they run out of ammo? --[[User:Matryx|Matryx]] 09:22, 5 November 2007 (EST)

:I think it is, if only to warn that if they run out of bolts while they're fighting something, they won't immediately run back to the stockpile to get more. --[[User:Xazak|Xazak]] 09:26, 5 November 2007 (EST)

==Xbow material==
Do someone know if your crossbow hit harder, or do more damage, when it's made of metal rather than wood or bone in the same way a melee weapon would? --[[User:Eagle of Fire|Eagle of Fire]] 02:42, 28 November 2007 (EST)
:When it is used in melee - crossbow material is important as all other melee weapons. In ranged only material and quality of the bolt affect it's damage potential. Crossbow's quality level is directly added to the soldier's effective marksdwarf skill increasing his accuracy and rate of fire.--[[User:Another|Another]] 13:11, 9 December 2007 (EST)

== training ===

Does say, hunting with a crossbow increase marksdwarf skill?
—Preceding [[template:unsigned|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:Shadow archmagi|Shadow archmagi]] ([[User talk:Shadow archmagi|talk]]•[[Special:Contributions/Shadow archmagi|contribs]]) {{{2|}}}
: Yes it does. Unfortunately it will also increase hammerdwarf skill ;) --[[User:Koltom|Koltom]] 23:53, 27 February 2008 (EST)

== dual wielding ==

I set one of my marksdwarves to wield 2 crossbows, and he's currently holding them both in the same hand. Can he use them both like this or does it mean he'll just going to be using one of them? --[[User:Tachyon|Tachyon]] 18:18, 6 August 2008 (EDT)

==Two-handed?==
Are crossbows two-handed when used at range? You'd think they'd be two-handed for re-loading, and one-handed (at the very least, two hands are more accurate) for firing, but I don't know if DF supports this.[[User:StrawberryBunny|StrawberryBunny]] 10:34, 8 August 2008 (EDT)

Talk:Mineshaft.ahk

2008-08-08T13:51:30Z

StrawberryBunny:

I wrote this script in maybe 15 minutes around midnight. It's not perfect, but it works as advertised. I don't do AHK very well, so if anyone can suggest ways to clean it up, I'll gladly listen. The Sleep 200's are there to compensate for DF only accepting keypresses every 150ms. I'd rather not have to go through 15 z-levels to clean up a botched script's work. Feel free to edit that 200 to your heart's content, or eliminate it altogether. [[User:StrawberryBunny|StrawberryBunny]] 00:36, 6 August 2008 (EDT)

This page is now superfluous. There are no links to this page anymore, all links point to my user-subpage. Delete away.[[User:StrawberryBunny|StrawberryBunny]] 09:51, 8 August 2008 (EDT)

User talk:StrawberryBunny

2008-08-08T13:48:05Z

StrawberryBunny:

I wrote [[Mineshaft.ahk]]. Still haven't contributed anything useful.

:I wouldn't say that a script deserves a main space article.
:If you feel it deserves it's own page, then it should be a [[User:StrawberryBunny/Mineshaft.ahk|sub-article]] of either your user page, or perhaps the [[Macros_and_Keymaps]] page. --[[User:N9103|Edward]] 15:58, 6 August 2008 (EDT)

::Alright, that's fair. I'm new to wiki editing, so I'm still learning what I can and can't do.[[User:StrawberryBunny|StrawberryBunny]] 16:02, 6 August 2008 (EDT)

:::Okay. I've given the script a subpage under my name, and edited the link in [[Exploratory mining]] to point away from the old mineshaft.ahk page. I just don't know how to delete that page.[[User:StrawberryBunny|StrawberryBunny]] 16:11, 6 August 2008 (EDT)

::::Looks good. Clear the content and use the <nowiki>{{del}}</nowiki> tag to mark a page for deletion. --[[User:N9103|Edward]] 09:42, 8 August 2008 (EDT)

::::Oh, and users don't directly delete pages, they tag them as above and an admin (Senso) will come along and periodically clean up marked pages (he just got done with a batch, so could be awhile.) --[[User:N9103|Edward]] 09:45, 8 August 2008 (EDT)

:::::Ah, I see. Makes perfect sense. Thanks.[[User:StrawberryBunny|StrawberryBunny]] 09:48, 8 August 2008 (EDT)

40d Talk:Fire imp

2008-08-08T13:35:43Z

StrawberryBunny: /* Defensive Uses */

== Wrestling? ==

I just had a mechanic get attacked by one. He moved into its tile (I assume to wrestle) and instantly died of heat. Should this be noted?--[[User:Shadow archmagi|Shadow archmagi]] 19:59, 28 February 2008 (EST)

== Defensive Uses ==

I'm currently exploring the defensive uses of fire imps after bagging a few in cage traps. They don't seem too keen on fireballing goblin attackers, which was my original plan (had them confined behind some fortifications, but they wouldn't fire on the goblins). Further experiments required, or can someone confirm that they won't attack anyone but my dwarves? --[[User:TangoThree|TangoThree]] 16:35, 31 March 2008 (EDT)

::is it possible to tame fire imps with the dungeon master? [[User:Hoborobo|Hoborobo]] 14:12, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

:::There is no PET_EXOTIC tag, so no.[[User:StrawberryBunny|StrawberryBunny]] 09:35, 8 August 2008 (EDT)

40d Talk:Fire imp

2008-08-08T13:35:35Z

StrawberryBunny: /* Defensive Uses */

== Wrestling? ==

I just had a mechanic get attacked by one. He moved into its tile (I assume to wrestle) and instantly died of heat. Should this be noted?--[[User:Shadow archmagi|Shadow archmagi]] 19:59, 28 February 2008 (EST)

== Defensive Uses ==

I'm currently exploring the defensive uses of fire imps after bagging a few in cage traps. They don't seem too keen on fireballing goblin attackers, which was my original plan (had them confined behind some fortifications, but they wouldn't fire on the goblins). Further experiments required, or can someone confirm that they won't attack anyone but my dwarves? --[[User:TangoThree|TangoThree]] 16:35, 31 March 2008 (EDT)

::is it possible to tame fire imps with the dungeon master? [[User:Hoborobo|Hoborobo]] 14:12, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

:::There is not PET_EXOTIC tag, so no.[[User:StrawberryBunny|StrawberryBunny]] 09:35, 8 August 2008 (EDT)

40d Talk:Support

2008-08-08T02:15:05Z

StrawberryBunny: /* Supports on top of supports? */

I'm looking into the possibility of creating a truly massive Army Splatter, a whole rooftop built over a large area that can be dropped with the flip of a switch. Lot of work, but if I could flatten an entire army with one pull, it'd be worth it.
EDIT: It seems to work. Assuming that having a roof fall on your head is still considered an instakill for, say, a Troll or something, you could do some nice things with this. [[User:Kefkakrazy|Kefkakrazy]] 04:49, 11 November 2007 (EST)
::WAY too much work setting up to be effective, sadly. If Toady added the ability to designate floorbuilding as a batch command, like mining and smoothing are now, it'd be fine, but as it is, building a roof big enough to be effective would be too much setup for one shot.[[User:Kefkakrazy|Kefkakrazy]] 02:00, 1 May 2008 (EDT)

== density of supports ==

what grid interval do I need between supports to hold up the floor above?
I am trying to build a tower: 
<nowiki>#####</nowiki> 
<nowiki>#+++#</nowiki> 
<nowiki>#+++#</nowiki> 
<nowiki>#+++#</nowiki> 
<nowiki>###>#</nowiki> 
<nowiki>....###</nowiki>Do I need any supports to hold up a floor on the level above?
Will a support stop me from building a bedroom over the whole level?

TIA[[User:GarrieIrons|GarrieIrons]] 02:24, 5 January 2008 (EST)
::
This will work as much as anything else

#################################
#++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++X#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#################################

One support could hold up the entire map if you were to dig out all the edges and the bottom level. (Which would make an awesome army killer if you think about it.) --[[User:Ikkonoishi|Ikkonoishi]] 04:35, 5 January 2008 (EST)

:... meaning that you don't need supports unless there are no walls or other things to hold up the roof. --[[User:N9103|Edward]] 06:24, 5 January 2008 (EST)
::At least until Toady implements a more realistic cavein model. [[User:Kefkakrazy|Kefkakrazy]] 02:00, 1 May 2008 (EDT)

== Supports on top of supports? ==

Is it possible to build a support, then another support on top of that one (for a sort of multi-level-high approach), or do they need to be on floors? Inquiring minds must know! [[User:G-Flex|G-Flex]] 04:22, 16 June 2008 (EDT)

:This is not personal experience, only hearsay. I believe supports can be stacks on top of each other. Imagine the possibilities. A four z-level drop for a cavern ceiling onto goblin invaders?[[User:StrawberryBunny|StrawberryBunny]] 22:14, 7 August 2008 (EDT)

40d Talk:Support

2008-08-08T02:14:56Z

StrawberryBunny: /* Supports on top of supports? */

I'm looking into the possibility of creating a truly massive Army Splatter, a whole rooftop built over a large area that can be dropped with the flip of a switch. Lot of work, but if I could flatten an entire army with one pull, it'd be worth it.
EDIT: It seems to work. Assuming that having a roof fall on your head is still considered an instakill for, say, a Troll or something, you could do some nice things with this. [[User:Kefkakrazy|Kefkakrazy]] 04:49, 11 November 2007 (EST)
::WAY too much work setting up to be effective, sadly. If Toady added the ability to designate floorbuilding as a batch command, like mining and smoothing are now, it'd be fine, but as it is, building a roof big enough to be effective would be too much setup for one shot.[[User:Kefkakrazy|Kefkakrazy]] 02:00, 1 May 2008 (EDT)

== density of supports ==

what grid interval do I need between supports to hold up the floor above?
I am trying to build a tower: 
<nowiki>#####</nowiki> 
<nowiki>#+++#</nowiki> 
<nowiki>#+++#</nowiki> 
<nowiki>#+++#</nowiki> 
<nowiki>###>#</nowiki> 
<nowiki>....###</nowiki>Do I need any supports to hold up a floor on the level above?
Will a support stop me from building a bedroom over the whole level?

TIA[[User:GarrieIrons|GarrieIrons]] 02:24, 5 January 2008 (EST)
::
This will work as much as anything else

#################################
#++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++X#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++#
#################################

One support could hold up the entire map if you were to dig out all the edges and the bottom level. (Which would make an awesome army killer if you think about it.) --[[User:Ikkonoishi|Ikkonoishi]] 04:35, 5 January 2008 (EST)

:... meaning that you don't need supports unless there are no walls or other things to hold up the roof. --[[User:N9103|Edward]] 06:24, 5 January 2008 (EST)
::At least until Toady implements a more realistic cavein model. [[User:Kefkakrazy|Kefkakrazy]] 02:00, 1 May 2008 (EDT)

== Supports on top of supports? ==

Is it possible to build a support, then another support on top of that one (for a sort of multi-level-high approach), or do they need to be on floors? Inquiring minds must know! [[User:G-Flex|G-Flex]] 04:22, 16 June 2008 (EDT)

This is not personal experience, only hearsay. I believe supports can be stacks on top of each other. Imagine the possibilities. A four z-level drop for a cavern ceiling onto goblin invaders?[[User:StrawberryBunny|StrawberryBunny]] 22:14, 7 August 2008 (EDT)

User talk:StrawberryBunny

2008-08-06T20:11:37Z

StrawberryBunny:

User:StrawberryBunny

2008-08-06T20:10:03Z

StrawberryBunny: New page: I've written a script to help automate Exploratory mining. No, I'm not a girl or a furry.

I've written a [[User:StrawberryBunny/Mineshaft.ahk|script]] to help automate [[Exploratory mining]].

No, I'm not a girl or a furry.

40d:Exploratory mining

2008-08-06T20:05:26Z

StrawberryBunny: Edited to link to the script, which is now a sub-page of my user page, rather than giving the script a whole top-level page of its own.

Exploratory mining is the process of mining large areas in order to obtain resources such as [[gems]], [[metal]] [[ores]] and other types of [[stone|rock]]. It is also used, to a lesser extent, to find the locations of hidden underground features such as [[chasm]]s, [[underground river]]s, [[magma]] and [[adamantine]].
The most straightforward method is to mark a large rectangular area for digging. Unfortunately, this method is also the least efficient. More efficient digging patterns involve digging out a smaller percentage of the stone in a given area, but still revealing a large percentage of the stone. These patterns are compromises, which depend on factors that will be described in this article.
Note that exploratory mining is the process dedicated solely to discovery of resources and features. The digging process is usually separated, and not discussed here in great detail.
The [[cheating]] counterpart to exploratory mining is the infamous [[utilities#reveal.exe|reveal]] tool.

== Factors in exploratory mining ==

These are the factors we shall consider for each digging pattern. Knowing them and deciding on their priority will help you find the most suitable pattern.
Most of the factors are represented by numbers, obtained by dividing two quantities. Others are more subjective.

=== Labor ===

''Labor'' is the amount of work that goes into the digging process. Exploratory mining is a work intensive process, capable of straining even a large fortress, but the work that goes into different patterns varies greatly. A fortress with a large supply of skilled miners can afford to consider labor low priority. The labor factor is the fraction of stone dug out of an area, and as such, it's a percentage, between 0 and 100%.

=== Scarcity ===

''Scarcity'' is the amount of desired material present in the rock layer. It's theoretically represented by the fraction of desired material in the soil layer, but one can seldom state it accurately or even estimate it. Scarcity is determined by the types of materials you're after. Single tiles are the scarcest, followed by small clusters, veins and large clusters. For the classification of your desired material, see the [[gem]] and [[stone]] articles. Underground features are about as scarce as large clusters.

If you are after the precious gems: diamond, sapphire and ruby, you will see that these can be found only in [[kimberlite]] (diamonds) and [[bauxite]] (sapphires and rubies) respectively. So you only need to find the veins of kimberlite in a [[gabbro]] layer or the large clusters of bauxite in [[sedimentary layer]]s respectively, and dig those out using one of the patterns that reveals every tile.

=== Visibility ===

''Visibility'' is the amount of tiles that you reveal in the digging process. Excavated tiles are always visible, and so are the tiles immadiately adjacent to them, including diagonals. The purpose of exploratory mining is to make a single tile of the desired material visible, allowing you to switch to conventional digging and extract it. Visibility is represented by the fraction of visible tiles in the excavated area. Visibility is always a priority, but it tends to decrease in priority as scarcity decreases, because there are more tiles that need to be dug out, and not just seen.

=== Reusability ===

Exploratory mining leaves behind a monotonous, repeating landscape. The excavated level may be hard to reuse for habitation, storage or industry without additional digging and significant rebuilding efforts that leave behind inferior walls that cannot be engraved. Reusability is subjective, and it depends on the desired layout. Reusability is represented by the largest room size achievable by digging into the solid rock left behind without rebuilding any walls. Reusability is a priority for a small fortress.

== What you are looking for ==

[[Ore]] occurs in three forms, depending on the kind:

* Large cluster: An oval that occupies nearly half of a 48x48 block, area-wise. Only one appears per block.
* Vein: A sinuous line of the material crosses the block.
* Small cluster: A sprinkle of 5 to 10 adjacent tiles. Multiple small clusters of different materials may be in the same block.

== Patterns ==

Patterns are represented by a unit tile. This unit tile is repeated throughout the area intended for excavation to create the desired pattern. Each pattern is analyzed with the above factors in mind.

Key:
░ = Not mined, not visible
▒ = Not mined, visible (wall)
. = Mined (floor)

=== Hollow ===

All tiles are excavated.

* ''Labor'': 100% of the tiles are excavated.
* ''Scarcity'': Any scarcity. If it exists in the layer, it will be found.
* ''Visibility'': 100% of the tiles are visible, obviously.
* ''Reusability'': Approaches zero. Any design other than a large hall requires reconstruction.
* ''Bottom line'': Hollowing wastes labor like there's no tomorrow, but integrates extraction into the exploratory mining process. Use only if you have a lot of labor to spare, really need huge amounts of stone and don't mind the reconstruction required to make the hollow area habitable.

=== Rows ===
<div style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; line-height: 126.5%"><nowiki>
▒▒▒▒▒▒
......
▒▒▒▒▒▒
▒▒▒▒▒▒
......
▒▒▒▒▒▒
</nowiki></div>
* ''Labor'': 1/3 (~33%) of the tiles are excavated.
* ''Scarcity'': Any scarcity. Clusters as small as a single tile are revealed. 
* ''Visibility'': 100%.
* ''Reusability'': Very low. The long corridors aren't very useful, and can only be expanded to long, wide corridors.
* ''Bottom line'': This method achieves the same visibility as hollowing out, but using a mere third of the labor. Ideal for hunting single-tile gems. As an added bonus, this method achieves a visibility to labor ratio of 3:1, which, among those with 100% visibility, is second only to a diagonal design. In all ways, it it more efficient than a 3×3 design.

=== Diagonal ===
<div style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; line-height: 126.5%"><nowiki>
▒▒.▒▒▒▒.▒▒
▒.▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒
.▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒▒
▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒▒.
▒▒▒.▒▒▒▒.▒
</nowiki></div>
* ''Labor'': 20% of the tiles are excavated.
* ''Scarcity'': Any scarcity. Clusters as small as a single tile are revealed.
* ''Visibility'': 100%.
* ''Reusability'': With a bit of imagination you can build nice 3x3 rooms
* ''Bottom line'': This method is the most efficient for those with 100% visibility, which doesn't use other levels to move from one spot to another but is annoying to designate.

=== Mine shafts ===

<div style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; line-height: 126.5%"><nowiki>
▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
▒X▒▒X▒▒X▒
▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
▒X▒▒X▒▒X▒
▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
</nowiki></div>
* ''Labor'': 11.1% of the tiles are excavated (1/9).
* ''Scarcity'': Any scarcity. Clusters as small as a single tile are revealed.
* ''Visibility'': 100%.
* ''Reusability'': It's easy to make into square rooms of various sizes, the stairways can be removed and used as doorways, or just carved out as part of the rooms.
* ''Bottom line'': You'll need to clear part of one layer above it to get it started, but this method is the most efficient for those with 100% visibility, and has a great reuse value. Real dwarves' choice! It takes a lot of keypressing to designate, [[User:StrawberryBunny/Mineshaft.ahk|here]] is a ahk script to save your fingers

=== 7×7 blocks ===
<div style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; line-height: 126.5%"><nowiki>
░░░▒.▒░░░░░▒.▒░░
░░░▒.▒░░░░░▒.▒░░
░░░▒.▒░░░░░▒.▒░░
▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒
................
▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒
░░░▒.▒░░░░░▒.▒░░
░░░▒.▒░░░░░▒.▒░░
</nowiki></div>
* ''Labor'': 15/64 (~23%) of the tiles are excavated.
* ''Scarcity'': Veins and up, as the large 5X5 space left in each unit tile can easily conceal a small cluster.
* ''Visibility'': 39/64 (~61%) of the tiles are visible.
* ''Reusability'': Medium. The 7×7 blocks can easily be converted into 5×5 rooms, suitable for individual rooms, storage or workshops. Easily converted into a more thorough 3×3 block patten by digging through the large blocks.
* ''Bottom line'': This is a low-labor method great for vein-hunting. The low labor cost puts you in a position to invest more and get better coverage if desired.

=== 15×15 blocks ===
<div style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; line-height: 126.5%"><nowiki>
░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░
░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░
░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░
░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░
▒▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
................................
▒▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░
░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░
░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░
░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░
░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░
░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░
░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░
░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░
░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░░░░░▒.▒░░░░░░░░░
</nowiki></div>
* ''Labor'': 31/256 (~12%) of the tiles are excavated.
* ''Scarcity'': Large clusters and up, as the large 13×13 space left in each unit tile can easily conceal quite a lot. Unless you have particularly bad luck you should also find all veins, but there is no guarantee.
* ''Visibility'': 87/256 (34%) of the tiles are visible.
* ''Reusability'': High. A 15×15 block of solid rock is extremely versatile when it comes to interior design. It's easily converted into a 7×7 block design, which may be further converted into a 3×3 block design.
* ''Bottom line'': This method is preferable when you are low on labor or when you're after an underground feature. It can easily accommodate parts of your fort, or serve as the precursor for a more thorough search.

[[Category:Guides]]

{{Mining FAQ}}

User:StrawberryBunny/Mineshaft.ahk

2008-08-06T20:03:38Z

StrawberryBunny: New page: This is an AHK script to quickly designate exploratory mineshafts in an area, see Exploratory mining#Mine shafts <pre> ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; m...

This is an AHK script to quickly designate exploratory mineshafts in an area, see
[[Exploratory mining#Mine shafts]]
<pre>
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; mineshaft.ahk ;
; this is an ahk script to place exploratory mine shafts. ;
; press d and place the cursor ;
; in the top left corner of the area to be explored ;
; then use ctrl+shift+s to run ;
; ;
; NOTE: ;
; change variables x, y and depth to suit your conditions ;
; Author: StrawberryBunny
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

^+s::
x = 3
y = 3
depth = 15

Loop %x%
{
Loop %y%
{
Loop %depth%
{
Send i
Send {Enter}
Send {Enter}
Send +.
Sleep 200
}
Loop %depth%
{
Send +,
Sleep 200
}
Send {Down}
Sleep 200
Send {Down}
Sleep 200
Send {Down}
Sleep 200
}
Send {Right}
Sleep 200
Send {Right}
Sleep 200
Send {Right}
Sleep 200
Send {Up}
Sleep 200
Send {Up}
Sleep 200
Send {Up}
Sleep 200
Send {Up}
Sleep 200
Send {Up}
Sleep 200
Send {Up}
Sleep 200
Send {Up}
Sleep 200
Send {Up}
Sleep 200
Send {Up}
Sleep 200
}
return
</pre>
[[Category:ahk scripts]]

User talk:StrawberryBunny

2008-08-06T20:02:32Z

StrawberryBunny:

40d Talk:Exploratory mining

2008-08-06T04:41:41Z

StrawberryBunny: /* Proposal: Real mining shafts */

This is a guide on how to search for valuable materials by mining. 
...why is there any use for it? --[[User:Savok|Savok]] 18:52, 13 March 2008 (EDT)

:I think it's useful. The need for more resources, unless you're extremely lucky in the beginning, is not satisfied by the fort's initial digging efforts or its natural expansion. This usually leads to the need to dig in order to reveal large areas, and more often not, the most intuitive method the player thinks up is not the most efficient for their situation. Mining labor, being pretty scarce even for a medium sized fortress, shouldn't be squandered by using an inefficient method, especially if you want fast results.
:--[[User:AlienChickenPie|AlienChickenPie]] 04:13, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

::Mining labor? Scarce? O.o.
::Grab a few peasant immigrants (or miner immigrants if you get any - they come with picks), get picks for them, and start them mining. If you mine out a significant area (like, "enough that you want more than two miners") you'll have legendary miners within a year.
::But alright. I do agree that efficiency in exploratory mining is useful, since without it you ruin the area and get lots of useless stone. However, I argue that this article states things that should not be in a manual of any sort: We don't tell you how to make your fortress. We tell you what happens when X happens and we tell you what to do to get Y.
::But you still disagree, I assume? Alright. If it really is bad, the article will get deleted/shrunk/merged. If it isn't, we should do it right.
::<nowiki>*brings out the umkey*</nowiki>
::--[[User:Savok|Savok]] 10:18, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

:::I see what you're getting at, it would definitely be wrong to state design tips as facts or tell people how to build their fortress.
:::However, this article is intended to be a technical guide to mining methods, not a style guide. I'd like to make it as neutral and factual as possible.
:::Going over it again, I noticed that parts of it are written inappropriately for a technical article. For example, the usability part definitely steps quite a bit over the line, and I wouldn't mind seeing it removed or altered to contain only necessary facts.
:::--[[User:AlienChickenPie|AlienChickenPie]] 14:10, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

== Proposal: Diagonal pattern ==

Would it be useful to add this pattern?
<div style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; line-height: 126.5%"><nowiki>
▒▒.▒▒▒▒.▒▒
▒.▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒
.▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒▒
▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒▒.
▒▒▒.▒▒▒▒.▒
</nowiki></div>
* Labor: 20% of the tiles are excavated.
* Scarcity: Any scarcity. Clusters as small as a single tile are revealed.
* Visibility: 100%.
* Reusability: With a bit of imagination you can build nice 3x3 rooms

I usually dig a diagonal squares with the sides 25 tiles long. And use this pattern later. (See Minepoint at map archive). It shows (almost) every vein...[[User:Dorten|Dorten]] 09:16, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

:I fixed the formatting. Hope you don't mind. --[[User:Savok|Savok]] 10:18, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

::Not at all. I was hoping that someone would come over and give it a proper wiki makeover.
::As for the layout, It's incredibly good. It's superior to the rows layout in every way, and it's less work intensive than the 7X7 block layout while giving full visibility.
::Comparing all the layouts gave me an idea- We could group all the block layouts into a single block layout, seeing as they are all very similar and related. Different characters would denote different phases in the digging process. Then, we could introduce the block layout as modular, the diagonal layout as efficient and the hollow layout as thorough. I have half a mind to scrap the row layout altogether, seeing as it's pretty inferior.
::--[[User:AlienChickenPie|AlienChickenPie]] 14:33, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

:::Actually, I was talking to Dorten - I fixed his formatting.
:::Anyway, the row layout does have one advantage: It gets all tiles and can be designated relatively quickly. I would hate to designate the diagonal layout for a whole z-level.
:::Additionally, row layouts are actually more efficient than block layouts, per tiles dug, although they might not catch a vein running in parallel to them. --[[User:Savok|Savok]] 18:45, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

::::Macros help there a lot. Have you seen MinePoint? It was pretty quick.[[User:Dorten|Dorten]] 01:38, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

:::::No. What is it? --[[User:Savok|Savok]] 14:35, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

== Proposal: Real mining shafts ==

<div style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; line-height: 126.5%"><nowiki>
▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
▒X▒▒X▒▒X▒
▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
▒X▒▒X▒▒X▒
▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒
</nowiki></div>
* Labor: 11.1% of the tiles are excavated.
* Scarcity: Any scarcity. Clusters as small as a single tile are revealed.
* Visibility: 100%.

You'll have to have a floor above it with tunnels to the stairs to go down, but after that floor, this provides maximum possible efficiency. --[[User:Savok|Savok]] 23:53, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

:This actually has an 11.1% Labor Efficiency. An added bonus is that it's easy to make into square rooms of various sizes, the stairways can be removed and used as doorways, or just carved out as part of the rooms. It really is similar to the rows method, except turned on end each mined tile exposes 8 tiles, instead of 2. Instead of scattered tiles I'd call it mine shafts, though. [[User:Basilisk|Basilisk]] 16:38, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

::Erm. Oops. I'm usually better at math than that. *hurriedly fixes error* --[[User:Savok|Savok]] 14:54, 21 March 2008 (EDT)

: this pattern is a a lot of work to designate, so I created a ahk script to speed it up, hope no one minds the link.--[[User:Otherdwarf|Otherdwarf]] 17:04, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

I redid this script's functionality from scratch, and I decided that since the original did not function at all (under the current version of AHK), that replacing old one was justified.[[User:StrawberryBunny|StrawberryBunny]] 00:41, 6 August 2008 (EDT)

User talk:StrawberryBunny

2008-08-06T04:39:12Z

StrawberryBunny: New page: I wrote Mineshaft.ahk. Still haven't contributed anything useful.

I wrote [[Mineshaft.ahk]]. Still haven't contributed anything useful.

Talk:Mineshaft.ahk

2008-08-06T04:36:32Z

StrawberryBunny: New page: I wrote this script in maybe 15 minutes around midnight. It's not perfect, but it works as advertised. I don't do AHK very well, so if anyone can suggest ways to clean it up, I'll gladly l...

40d:Brook

2008-08-03T02:35:22Z

StrawberryBunny: Corrected "river" to say "brook" in the second sentence, for clarity. This IS an article about brooks, after all.

A '''brook''' is a small [[river]] that [[creatures]] and [[wagon]]s can travel across without [[swimming]]. The top of the brook shows running [[water]] as long as there is water in the tile below; if the brook is [[dam]]med or otherwise drained, a dry streambed character (similar in appearance to a [[boulder]], but not blocking wagons) will appear instead. The top of a brook acts like a floor grate most of the time: fluids, such as [[magma]] and water itself, will fall through it, and it can be fished through as well. However, releasing water over the surface of a brook will cause the brook to become [[mud]]dy, and capable of being [[farm]]ed on.

[[Water wheel]]s will not function if placed directly on a brook. In order to get water wheels to work, you must dig a [[channel]] through the [[floor|surface]] of the brook, which removes the floor tiles, making that part a normal river. After [[dam]]ming the brook you can mine out the brook tile to produce one [[stone]]. This can provide an important source of stone in maps which contain [[aquifers]] with the brook itself providing the [[water_wheel|motive force]] for [[Aquifer#The_Pump_Method|draining]] the aquifer, and the [[stone]] supplying the much needed [[mechanism]]s.

{{World}}

[[Category:Map tiles]]
[[Category:Water bodies]]
[[Category:World]]

40d:Adventurer mode

2008-07-31T13:10:16Z

StrawberryBunny: Minor typo fix: "alike" corrected to "alive".

In '''adventurer mode''', you pick a race ([[dwarf]], [[human]], or [[elf]]) 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, or examine the detailed [[controls]] page. [[Site map]] may also prove useful.

== 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 [[bow]]s and [[crossbow]]s) 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.

You may also pick up the item before buying it, but you should never walk out of a shop carrying an unbought item, as that is theft. It is punishable by death if you are caught, and excommunication if you are not.

=== 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]] or [[Armor#Shields and Bucklers|Shields]] you would need to {{k|p}}ut your equipped weapon into your [[backpack]] and then {{k|r}}emoving your new desired weapon. You do not need to drop weapons and equip new ones etc. Simply remember the {{k|r}}emove command and the {{k|p}}ut into container command.

It should be noted 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.

The compass on the left of the screen will also greatly help you in finding the entrance; the direction indicated should place you within one screen's distance of the entrance before it turns into "---".

=== 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 [[arrow]]s or [[bolt]]s 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. (Sand 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 tal{{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]], the Mayor, and [[Guard]]s don't want any part of this silly adventuring malarkey, but the occasional peasant will be bored enough to join you.

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 if 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.

One extremely useful survival tip is to immediately drop prone (with the s key) as soon as you notice you are being shot at. Prone targets move more slowly, but seem to be much harder to hit with ranged attacks than standing ones. This is also worth noting to avoid wasting ammunition on fallen targets.

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 {{k|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).

For best efficiency, drop all of your gear (including held but not worn items) and empty out your backpack near your throwing location. This is done in order to keep your inventory simple for the rock-throwing portion. Then pick up a ton of rocks by pressing {{k|g}}-{{k|a}} over and over- ideally one would pick up 600 rocks at a single time, but you will probably get bored before then. Then, mash {{k|t}}-{{k|a}}-{{k|enter}} over and over until all of your rocks are thrown back at the floor. If you are not a legendary Thrower after this, repeat. Afterwards, remember to pick up your gear and re-fill your backpack.

''Alternate way'' : It could be difficult to repeat the {{k|t}}-{{k|a}}-{{k|enter}} sequence without making mistake. So you can just alternate {{k|t}}-{{k|enter}} quickly : The first {{k|t}} will open the inventory, the second will chose the rock which is in "t" position, and {{k|enter}} will throw it. In the same fashion, when collecting rock, prefer a tile where the rock is on "b" position : If you quickly alternate {{k|g}} and {{k|a}}, sometime you will open the [a]nnouncement panel, wich will slow you down.

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 or [[sand]]. 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_man|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 because they deal the same damage as they would in melee, including piercing or slashing damage type, 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 [[spear]]s 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- at best, a lucky hit will break someone's spine or damage internal organs to a small degree. Shooting arrows at enemies is fun, because it is very efficient and will destroy enemies quite easily.

Sadly, this 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. This is somewhat avoidable- train in sneaking to avoid being seen by enemies that could otherwise perforate your skin, and get a good shield and armor to better keep arrows. (See below for both skills).

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 enemy, why not break some limbs before finishing it off? Monsters often 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.

A good way to train wrestling is to find an undead region on the map- preferrably Sinister if you remember the map layout from Fortress Mode. Obtain a pack of zombie herbivores therein, preferably of small size- do not attempt this with zombie [[elephants]]. Slaughter every zombie in the vicinity of this pack of herbivores but the one that you think is the most crippled, making sure to pick one with a throat to leave alive.

Press {{k|c}} and change your combat preferences from Strike to Close Combat. This means that your default attack when you press towards an enemy to making a random wrestling move, or the continuation (joint lock, break) or (strangle) if you have a break/strangle-able area held.

Then, walk over, and grab the zombie's neck (yes, with your weapon or shield- it is quite optional to drop what you're holding) and begin strangulation by holding the direction the zombie is strangling in. You will make several strangles per second and gain approximately 15 XP (tentative measure) per strangulation. Zombies cannot die from this, so you will earn enough XP to become legendary within a few minutes.

When your character becomes tired, break off from strangling and walk it off- you become less tired by ambling about aimlessly. If you become too hungry or thirsty to continue, just run away or destroy the zombie, {{k|T}}ravel, and then repeat after moving a square and back.

This can also be done at ruins, but you run the risk of weapon-carrying enemies and especially weaponmaster quest-zombies. In an undead ruin, there are also far, far more monsters in the area compared to hunting down a pack of undead animals.

Alternatively, wait until nightfall, and wrestle a sleeping enemy. Sleeping enemies are unconscious, and cannot detect you if you sneak. The autocombat will cause your adventurer to break limbs, grab and release bits of clothing, and other nonlethal attacks. Occasionally random chance will cause a chokehold; simply step back a tile and then resume. In this manner, you can train wrestling extremely quickly without the dangers of wandering in an undead zone.

==== 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.

You can crosstrain Ambushing while Swimming to save time- if you start with no Ambushing and Novice Swimming, you will be an Accomplished or Expert Ambusher, give or take, by the time you are a Legendary Swimmer. For more on Ambushing, see below.

==== 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.

Unfortunately, the best way to train Ambushing is to start sneaking and just hold a direction to run, until you've run 18,000 squares (assuming you started with no skill). This takes a long time, so you may wish to train sneaking just by sneaking whenever possible while playing the game normally in order to avoid boredom.

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. It is relatively easy at normal levels of skill to stand anywhere but right next to an enemy and not be spotted for a long time, if ever. However, 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.

If you are far faster than the enemy you can sometimes swoop in, attack, and back off to 1-square distance where you are less visible. Sometimes they will spot you, but other times you can literally slice off the opponent's leg and retreat to a safe distance. This may occur because enemies can only make checks to see if you are sneaking during their own turns, and a very fast (2000+ speed) player can run in, stab them, and retreat to a safe distance before their turn comes up.

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.

==== Armor and Shield Use ====

Armor User lets you wear heavy armor without slowing down, and might control the passive block rate of armor- a very useful skill, if true, because it controls how often your shiny full plate suit will actually work.

Shield User helps the block roll you make when you are attacked. A Legendary Shield User is far, far more capable of taking on enemies, especially projectile-based weaponmasters whose bolts and arrows are blockable with a shield to a far greater degree than with one's torso, so it is worthwhile to train these two skills.

Normally, you gain 10 Shield User XP per time you block an attack with a shield, and 2 Armor User XP per time you are attacked while wearing armor. This means that to gain the 18,000 XP necessary for legendary, you must block 1800 strikes, and be attacked at least 9000 times. Naturally, this could take some time- time in which a low-skill adventurer may die from attacks by worthy opponents.

However, a useful shortcut exists- if you find a small zombie herbavore to strangle in the above wrestling training method, you can also (if it is a small and non-dangerous animal such as a zombie [[groundhog]]) {{k|s}}it down next to it (to minimize your own speed and thus get attacked more often) and hold {{k|5}} to sit down next to the animal and block its attacks over and over. This is still slow, but leagues faster than waiting to train while fighting- it also means that you are probably not in any danger assuming you picked a sufficiently pathetic type of animal.

Warnings- Make sure that you have your {{k|c}}ombat preference set to Close Combat, otherwise you may counterstrike and kill the zombie. This way, you will wrestle it during a counterstrike instead of doing something that may actually hurt it such as counterstriking with your weapon.

It is probably also preferable to start with a modicum of skill in Armor and Shield using to make sure you don't accidentally get instakilled or crippled and are good at blocking with your shield to gain XP fast. You'll also want to have non-crappy armor and a good shield or two (dual wielding shields may increase your ability to block) to maximize your ability to block and to make sure you are taking as little as possible damage, if any at all, during training.

=== Summary ===
*Recruit some living spear-catchers
*Avoid flying arrows
*Throw rocks/statues/socks/bugs/sand at enemies that still haven't reached you
*Train your stats before taking on your first quest-monster
[[Category:Guides]]
[[Category:Adventurer mode]]

40d:Gather plants

2008-07-29T15:17:51Z

StrawberryBunny: Changed the second sentence to make it a tiny bit clearer about where to find the Gather Plants option. Not a big deal, I just saw it and thought it was awkward for someone who didn't know anything.

'''Gather plants''' is a [[designation]] that sets up jobs to harvest wild [[plants]], also known as [[shrub]]s. You assign dwarves to gather plants by the {{k|d}}esignate -> gather {{k|p}}lants menu, then selecting the opposites corners of a square within which all harvestable plants will be designated.

Gathering plants uses the [[herbalism]] skill.

This is a good way to get some seeds that you cannot select at the start screen. This is less efficent than [[Farming]].

==Plants that can be gathered==

*[[Blade weed]]
*[[Bloated tuber]]
*[[Hide root]]
*[[Longland grass]]
*[[Rope reed]]
*[[Valley herb]]
*[[Wild strawberry]]

[[category:Designations]]
[[category:Tasks]]