40d Talk:Losing

" if you dig a hole in a wall diagonally to a water source, water can come spurting out even without you receiving a warning about damp stone." Is this true anymore? The dev notes for today's version (November 1st) mentioned making squares touching water diagonally get the damp marker as well. --BahamutZERO 15:51, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

26 directions

26 directions? Really? I've been digging out tiles UNDER bodies of water trapped in rock, much less diagonal to them along the z-axis, and I haven't run into any flooding problems yet.--Xazak 18:44, 3 November 2007 (EDT)

If you dig a tunnel underneath a body of water, you retain the ceiling overhead. If you were to remove this ceiling (e.g. by digging a ramp or stairway upwards) then the water would certainly flow.

It would, except digging a ramp doesn't remove the ceiling...in fact it's impossible to dig upwards into water. You can't designate anything on the water tile above, and nothing you do below removes the ceiling...I tried in vain, and was sorely dissapointed. 'Specially since Toady did it one of his movies. Let me know if you get it to work, though. --Turgid Bolk 14:10, 6 November 2007 (EST)

You can currently ramp up into a water source and have it release the water down in version v0.27.169.33g. --Stravitch 16:39, 23 January 2008 (EST)

Build an upward (or an up/down) staircase on a level below and designate a downward staircase on the level above. Downward staircase is essentially a modification of the floor (ceiling) into a hole with stairs. Water doesn't flow in 16 up/down+horizontal directions (doesn't flow up+horizontal under pressure). Be warned that digging directly below a lake or a river is safe despite "dump stone" warning but digging into stone directly below an aquafier is NOT safe.--Another 02:35, 4 December 2007 (EST)

Water flows in only 10 directions: the eight horizontal directions, straight up, and straight down. Someone should edit the article page.Rkyeun 12:08, 23 January 2008 (EST)

Done, but don't hesitate to edit pages if you see something wrong :) people can always reedit them if they disagree ;) --Shades 16:13, 23 January 2008 (EST)

Losing is fun

What would you say to moving the article to fun and making this one a redirect? VengefulDonut 18:29, 5 November 2007 (EST)

That would be so funny! Don't know if it would gel with the rules, though. --Tarsier 19:53, 5 November 2007 (EST)

Redirected fun to here. ;) --Turgid Bolk 14:12, 6 November 2007 (EST)

Starvation

According to the starvation section you can gather plants if you dont have soil to farm on, but as far as i know plants only grow above soil layers Thatguyyaknow 08:57, 19 January 2008 (EST)

If you make rock muddy, you can grow on top of it. Calculus 15:16, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

But if you don't have soil to farm on, you don't have plants to gather either. And getting the soil muddy can take far too long, especially early on. --Sharp 10:14, 26 January 2009 (EST)

On another note. When testing for the up/down stair of hell (and some way to fall), most of my dwarfs died from starvation! Then a dwarven caravan arrived, and my little skinny fella did run there to eat directly from the wagon. I had no trade depot so the caravan was at the border of the map. Don't know if it is documented somewhere ! I searched the wiki with no luck. --Karl 15:40, 28 January 2009 (EST)

Dehydration

What's that about "an indoor basin or water tower" ? How do you do that? --Keesto 15:17, 6 September 2008 (EDT)

Ditto. How do you "collect all the water before it evaporates"? --Juckto 06:49, 22 November 2008 (EST)

Dig out an area under a body of water, then poke a hole that lets the water flow into it.--Bilkinson 13:18, 22 November 2008 (EST)

Or designate an area as a pond, then tell dwarfies to fill it, make take a while tho and requires buckets.--cultiststeve 11:56, 13 February 2009 (EST)

Old Age

Does anybody know if dwarves can die of old age? or do they all just keep living forever?

According to the raws, dwarves have a lifespan of 160-200 years. So if you play for a really long time... --Bilkinson 12:19, 9 October 2008 (EDT)

How old are your starting dwarves? Do they start at a certain "matured" age, or are they for all intents and purposes abnormally large babies? --Stryc9fuego 10:00, 22 October 2008 (EDT)

I've had a few dogs die at around the five-year mark (these were ones I brought to the fortress when embarking). Not sure what that spells for dwarves, but it does show that the mechanics are in place for creatures dying of old age during play.--Maximus 19:51, 22 October 2008 (EDT)

I've had a dwarf die of old age; my first King. He showed up to my Fort, complained about his rooms, and promptly died. I didn't receive another for the rest of the game either.

Volcanic Death

Insofar as I can tell, the Volcanic Death section seems to be essentially fabrication as of v40d. I've never seen a volcano erupt, and doors are utterly invulnerable to being melted or set on fire when closed, if memory serves. Also for some reason I suspect that obsidian doesn't melt in lava, although I could be imagining that one. Comments?--Quil 18:02, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Closed doors don't melt, unless something changed in the last five or so seconds. I regularly use doors to hold back magma, and have a basalt door doing so in my current fort. Obsidian stones do melt in lava, however. It's possible that you've never seen a volcano erupt because you've only had a magma vent and not a volcano, because as far as I know they aren't the same thing.--Eurytus 20:38, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Oh, that's right. Forgot about that. Though I do expect it'll be changing eventually. --GreyMaria 22:37, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Okay, yes, apparently I was hallucinating that obsidian didn't melt in lava. Having specifically hunted down volcanoes to attempt to build fortresses in on several occasions, I'm reasonably sure that eruptions haven't been implemented yet unless I'm very lucky or eruptions are very uncommon. Unless the comments that Toady intends to increase the dangerousness of volcanoes are way out of date, it's not actually been implemented yet.--Quil 15:12, 3 January 2009 (EST)

Well, they do refill, maybe that's what he meant? I do still hope he'll make them erupt, though. But it's easy enough to simulate an eruption - just channel the rim. --GreyMaria 15:23, 4 January 2009 (EST)

I, too, relish the challenge of building magma forges in a region that occasionally fills with high-pressure magma. Either a lot of fun when you get it right, or a lot of fun when you get it wrong.--Quil 07:46, 5 January 2009 (EST)

There is still the bottomless pit bug where a large amount of magma spawns above a bottomless pit. I have experienced it my self. This will cause a large amount of that magma to flow over the edges of the pit and kill nearby creatures. It also will magma purge almost anything inside the pit, including lighting coal and lignite on fire.--i2amroy 13, January 2009

IIRC, the only case of volcanoes "erupting" was when magma refills were first implemented and DF was unable to judge the correct height to refill magma to in saves from older versions. VengefulDonut 16:08, 20 January 2009 (EST)

Has anyone ever seen an eruption that came normally from an existing magma pipe years after embarking and not because of a bug? If not, I don´t think there should be a section about it, but probably a section about having "fun" with bugs generally. --Kami 08:57, 9 February 2009 (EST)

I absolutely have seen a volcanic eruption. The site was stable for nearly the first year of development, then suddenly out of nowhere the volcano went insane and utterly demolished everything aboveground.

What you saw was some sort of bug. Toady has indicated in many posts that volcanic eruptions are planned but not in the game yet. --Aquillion 20:27, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

A joke, right

This is a joke, right? My Dwarf Fortress is entirely self contained, I have a secret back door (a drawbridge) that can be used for the brave lumberdwarves, and all of my farming is indoors on sand. I am almost done making my fort bolt-proof, from where my drawbridge is, and I have enough food without farming for at least 5 months. By that time I could have 20 trained fighters ready to repel the siege. I got really lucky with fort design, but even a normal straight down fortress should have little problem waiting for a bit while they train.--Destor 18:28, 27 January 2009 (EST)

I believe that while, yes, many experienced fortress builders have indeed made their fortresses utterly invulnerable, and the section does indeed contain some humour, sieges are still a fairly common way to lose have fun, so it's entirely valid to put it in the "how to lose" section. I assume that, since you have no problems with the other entries, that you regularly flood yourself or starve to death, rather than fall to goblins?--Quil 00:16, 28 January 2009 (EST)

Well, I have one fort, mentioned in this entry, that is my perma-fort which I savescum to keep alive. It's kinda my research fort, for the wiki and how to make other forts. But yes, I do make other forts to flood for the fun of it. I enjoy sieges immensely though, I am goading the elves into attack right now. I just think that the article makes to big a deal about it, and newbs are gonna be very scared of the first siege.--Destor 09:45, 28 January 2009 (EST)

When I made my first fort, I didn't know how door and bridge were useful. Then I make another fort, and so on, until I learned how to defend my fortress. Yet siege was a problem for me, even more with dwarf rushing outside to grab all the cool loot (from my own dead dwarf). So, no, it's not a joke, you can lose your fortress from a siege, then you learn.

Not everyone read all the wiki, there's a lot of articles, lot of discussions, and way more thing to do. --Karl 09:56, 28 January 2009 (EST)

On one of my forts, I was attacked by Elves out of nowhere. I name my Dwarfs after my friends and me. I am busy doing something on the other end of the map, the front door gaurds run away to one side of the map. Then a brave Diomand Dragon goes out to fight the Elves. He fails, he is knocked out on the floor. I come to the rescue, start fighting an Elf with a wooden sword. I fail. I cwral away and wait for help to come. Nexus runs into his room. I lock him in there :P Elves are killing puppies and cats. Somw guys are trapped in my panic room. Food and other stuff in there. Only one way in. Thats over a bridge over a chasm. That is pulled up. The dwarves in there get unhappy. So I draft them into the army. Static rushes onto the bridge, fighting the elves with swords. He is wreastling. He tosses lots of Elves down the Chasm. Soon hye falls himself. The other Dwarves fight back and kill the Elves. I got very luck as I had no real defence. So yes, you can easy lose your fort from a siege. Unless your as lucky as that. Oh by the way, he had no wreastling experience.

Nature of the learning curve

Recent edit changed 'steep' learning curve to 'slow' learning curve. Comment for the recent changes page seems to suggest editor has some strange ideas about steep learning curve. Its not that it implies easy, it implies difficult, but either you'll learn quickly or you'll fall off the curve. The opposite is gradual learning curve. As such, 'steep' describes nothing about the easiness of learning, but about the required speed of learning to perform. I'm reverting the change. --Squirrelloid 18:29, 30 October 2009 (UTC)