v0.31:Stonegears/Status screen

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The status screen (informally known as the "z-screen") can be access from the main menu via z.

Title bar

At the very top of the screen is the title bar.

Fortress name

The upper left-hand corner of the screen there will show

[Fortress-type] Lamolon, "Stonegears"

"Lamolon" is the dwarven name of the fortress, and "Stonegears" is the English translation. The fortress-type depends upon the fortress population, starting at "Outpost".

Date

The upper right-hand corner shows the current game date by the dwarven calendar, in the form of

[day number] [month name], [years since creation of world], [Early/Mid/Late]-[Season]

Each month has exactly 28 days, three months to the season, with the first month of the year being the equivalent of the real-world March and the last being the equivalent of the real-world February.

If you check the date often enough you'll find that game time passes rather oddly. On the one hand it takes an average dwarf 11.2 minutes to move a single tile, yet on the other hand a dwarf only eats a meal about once ever 42 days instead of two or three times per day.

Note that in fortress mode it's always daytime, so the status screen shows no indication of the time of day.

Wealth

If you have appointed a broker with who is at least a novice at the appraiser skill, then the the middle left-hand part of the screen will show statistics about the fortress wealth, measured in ☼, informally called dwarf bucks.

The first statistic is Created Wealth, which is the total value of all of the items created at your fortress which remain in in your fortress (items which were created in your fortress but are no longer present don't count), plus the value of all the architecture in your fortress (which includes smoothed and engraved walls and floors). Created wealth is the primary means of attracting more immigrants, a certain amount is required to gain a baron, and certain amounts can trigger ambushes if the INVADERS option‡ is set to YES. Note that your wagon, if it hasn't been deconstructed, counts as 9☼ of created wealth under the architecture sub-group, even though none of your dwarves created it.

If a number in the created wealth section is yellow then it is an exact amount. If it's olive and ends in a ? then it's an approximate number. Numbers are approximate if your bookkeeper hasn't achieved enough precision to completely count everything in your fortress.

Second is Imported Wealth, which includes the value of all the items currently in your fortress which:

• you started with (excluding the wagon).
• were brought by migrants.
• you bought from caravans.
• you looted from the corpses of ambushers and siegers.

If you transform an item (like from a log to a bed) or decorate it then it stops counting as imported wealth and starts counting as created wealth. Imported wealth might start out higher than would be expected because some of the clothes your dwarves start out with can be made from the silk of giant cave spiders, which has a high value.

The third statistic is Exported Wealth, which is the value of all the items you traded or offered to caravans.

Food stores

In the lower left-hand corner of the screen is information on your food stores. Like with fortress wealth, if a number is yellow then it is an exact amount. If it's olive and ends in a ? then it's an approximate number; numbers are approximate if your bookkeeper hasn't achieved enough precision to completely count everything in your fortress.

Some notes on the different categories:

• Plant lists only raw, unprocessed plants which are edible raw. Raw plants which require processing to eat and plants which have been processed aren't counted here.
• Seeds includes all seeds, both ones which can eaten raw and those which need to be cooked.
• Other includes cooked meals, processed plants, fat, honey, and everything which doesn't fit into the other categories. Aside from cooked meals, most things in this category must be cooked before they can be eaten.

Population

In the middle and the right of the screen is statistics on the population of your fortress. The breakdown by profession can be misleading since each dwarf is only counted once, and is counted by whichever skill they have which is highest, so a dwarf who is a high master miner and a master mason will be counted as a miner but not a as mason. Also note that military dwarves are only listed in the right-hand column if they're actively on duty.

Menu bar and sub-screens

Under the title bar is the menu bar, showing Animals Kitchen Stone Stocks, and possibly Health and Justice. You can use ← and → to highlight one and then press Enter to view the associated sub-screen. Note that in all the sub-screens that scrolling up and down through lists is done with ↑ and ↓.

Animals sub-screen

The animals sub-screen shows a list of the fortress' tame animals, with the animals listed in the left-hand column and the "owner" listed in the right-hand column. If the animal has an owner then the owner's name will be in blue in the right hand column, and the left-hand column will show [Animal name], [animal type] (Tame), [♂/♀] (though it will be light green if the animal is selected). If the animal has no owner it will (probably) have no name, the left-hand column will show Stray [animal type] (Tame), [♂/♀], and the right-hand side will show one of these:

• Unavailable: The animal is unavailable for adoption as a pet. Enter can be used to toggle the animals adoption status to Available, in which case a dwarf which has a preference for that type of animal might adopt it.
• Uninterested: This is for a cat with no "owner". Different than Unavailable, since cats adopt dwarves rather than the other way around. It's impossible to stop a cat from adopting a dwarf except by either stuffing the cat into a cage or by killing the cat. See the article on catsplosion for more details.
• Work Animal: This indicates that the animal is an un-owned war dog or hunting dog. You must explicitly assign a war or hunting dog to a dwarf by using, from the main menu, v-p-e.

Regardless of whether an animal has an owner or not, you can use b to mark an animal for butchery, in which case the right-hand column will show Ready for Slaughter (you can also use b a second time to change your mind about butchering it). If there's a butcher's shop available and a dwarf with the butchery labor on then the animal will be killed and turned into meat, skin, bones and so on. Note that if you slaughter an owned animal that the owner will get an unhappy thought.

Kitchen sub-screen

The first column of the kitchen sub-screen lists items available for cooking and/or brewing, the second lists the amounts of those items, and the third shows whether your dwarves are permitted to cook and/or brew those items. If the third column shows blue (Cook or Brew) then that item is permitted for cooking/brewing, while if it's red (Cook or Brew) the it's not permitted for cooking/brewing. Since the only commands for telling your dwarves to cook and brew are non-specific, the easiest way to control the results of the command is to permit everything you want to be cooked/brewed and un-permit everything you don't want cooked/brewed. You can use c to toggle a cooking item between permitted and non-permitted for cooking, and b to toggle a brewing item between permitted and non-permitted for brewing.

Like with fortress wealth, if a number is yellow then it is an exact amount. If it's olive and ends in a ? then it's an approximate number; numbers are approximate if your bookkeeper hasn't achieved enough precision to completely count everything in your fortress.

In addition to using this screen to control cooking and brewing, you can use it to get a more detailed breakdown on the amount of seeds and booze you have, since all seeds and booze are cookable.

Stone sub-screen

The stone sub-screen controls which types of raw stone can only be used for special "economic" purposes (mainly smelting an ore into metal bars), and which can also be used for generic purposes (being turned into constructions like walls, being turned into furniture by masons, being turned into crafts by stone crafters, etc). A stone type listed in red can only be used for special economic purposes, while one listed in green can be used for any purpose. Scrolling to a stone type will show in the right hand of the screen the special uses it can be put to (if any), and pressing Enter will toggle between it being available for all purposes or being reserved for special purposes. Even if a stone type has no special uses you can still toggle it to "reserved" to prevent it from being used for walls/furniture/etc.

Note that a bug causes some materials which aren't stone to appear at the start of the list:

• Types of metals that can be used to form alloys.
• Gypsum plaster, which is used by doctors to form plaster casts to set broken bones.
• The various types of ceramics.
• The various types of ceramic glazes.

Stocks sub-screen

The stocks screen lists all of the known items in your fortress, sorted by item category. If a number is in olive or yellow and ends in a ? then it's an approximate number; numbers are approximate if your bookkeeper hasn't achieved enough precision to completely count everything in your fortress. If the number is in white then the number is exact. If a number is in red then that's the count of items of that category which are present in your fortress but not available for use, either because they're already in use or because they're in the possession of someone besides your dwarves.

If an item count for a category is exact then scrolling down to it will give an exact listing of items in that category. The list starts out in collapsed mode where (for example) if you have two copper battle axes and two iron battle axes it will show copper battles axes[2] and iron battles axes [2]. You can use Tab to toggle to expanded listing mode, where each axe will be listed individually. In expanded mode items available for use are listed in white, those already in use are listed in cyan, and those in the possession of someone besides your dwarves are in red.

With exact item counts you can use ← or → to switch from the category list to the item list, and then scroll through the item list like through the category list. When the item list is in collapsed mode you can use f to mass forbid all items of that type, which can be useful if you want to forbid all types of raw material except for one to force a dwarf to use the only non-forbidden type (though note that this might accidentally forbid the raw items buildings are made from, which would prevent the buildings from being used; to avoid this, make your buildings out of blocks). When the list is in expanded mode you can forbid individual items, and also view (v) and zoom to (z) the individual items. Note that zooming to an individual item exists both the stock sub-screen and the status screen, forcing you to manually re-enter the stocks sub-screen if you want to use it some more.

Notes on some of the categories:

• Powder includes sand, flour, sugar, dye and gypsum plaster.
• Liquid includes water which is inside of buckets, and lye.
• Glob includes fat and the frozen contents of buckets.
• Thread includes webs which are found inside of caverns.
• Chains includes ropes as well as chains.

Bookkeeper

Without use of a bookkeeper item counts will only be precise if they're 10 or below. To increase the records accuracy you must enter the nobles screen with n, scroll to the bookkeeper line with ↑ or ↓, press Enter, select a dwarf then press Enter again. This will bring you back to the nobles screen, but now the bookkeeper line will show [REQUIRE], because the bookkeeper needs an office to work in. To get the bookkeeper an office, use q to interact with an installed chair, r and Enter to turn it into an office, and then a to assign it to a particular dwarf. In a pinch you can assign one of the chairs in the dining hall as an office, but this will reduce the value/quality of the room and also reduce by one the number of chairs available for other dwarves to eat with; if you go this route then when turning the chair into an office you should reduce its size with - so as to minimize the reduction of value of the dining room. If you want to give your bookkeeper his/her own private office just carve out a 1x2 tile nook somewhere underground and install a new chair, then put a table next to it. If the chair has no table next to it then your bookkeeper will eat in the chair but complain about the lack of a table to dine on.

Once the office has been assigned going back to the nobles screen (n) should show [REQUIRE] to indicate that the requirement has been met. Select the bookkeeper line again and use s to alter the precision the bookkeeper is striving towards (↑ or ↓ to scroll). If you have a dwarf to spare you should turn precision up to the highest level and turn off all of the bookkeeper's labors, then turn the labors back on once highest precision has been reached. If you bookkeeper must multi-task then set the precision to low, increasing it again later as the need arises.

Note that while the game claims that your bookkeeper is updating the stockpile records, what's really happening is that s/he's directly increasing the abstract quantity "precision level" without actually counting any existing items. If an item is created, altered or destroyed then the status screen and all sub-screens are instantly and automatically updated without the bookkeeper having to do anything.