40d Talk:Construction

contrast with features carved from native stone?

How are constructions different from the walls and other features carved out from the designation menu? Are they more vulnerable to being knocked over by trolls or tantruming axedwarves? --Keturn 00:30, 8 November 2007 (EST)

They collapse into their base materials when they cave in. The method for removing them is disassembly (any dwarf can do this) instead of mining. I dont know about trolls and tantrums - instinct says no to that. VengefulDonut 00:40, 8 November 2007 (EST)

Dwarven Stupidity

How do i get my dwarfs to not stand ontop of the floor they are deconstructing? They always fall right after they remove a floor and I always have to build a floor directly below them so they dont injure themselfs. Diabl0658 23:15, 30 November 2007 (EST)

Build a bridge on the area to "catch" them, or build a statue or floodgate on the floor so that they can't stand on it. They can still remove the floor while standing to the side. The statue or whatever will still fall, though. --Turgid Bolk 02:29, 2 December 2007 (EST)

Building a tower

I want to build a tower with a 3x3 floor on the top level for a siege engine.

What I thought was:
###
#.#
###< where # is a wall . is a gap < is a stair of the right direction to get from the lower to the upper level.

What do I do about the . in the middle to be able to build there? I know that when I build a wall I automatically get a floor, but how do I build a floor in mid-air?

Thanks,GarrieIrons 00:16, 3 February 2008 (EST)

Wall-created floors are on the next level up. Just build a floor above the gap and it'll be fine... In my executions of the catapult tower idea, the stairs are placed so that access is still possible during a siege. (i.e. underground access and a platform at least 3x5 (typically expanded to 3x7 to get 2 for one) so that the stairs can come between the walls and there still being room for the catapult.) That should help ya, even if it's not exactly what you're looking for. --Edward 08:45, 3 February 2008 (EST)

Removal behaviour

The only part of the construction removal behaviour I haven't verified is how previously engraved floors are handled. -- Raumkraut 00:50, 12 April 2008 (EDT)

Contrasting Costs

Can someone include a blurb concerning the high contrast in costs between building floors and bridges?

It really seems to be a bug at this point.

--Stalinbulldog 12:35, 18 May 2008 (EDT)

Well, a bridge is only meant for dwarves and wagons to walk over, you can't build a wall or floor hanging on a bridge, you can't build rooms on your bridge. i've quite some experience in this because i like making above ground fortresses.

~Scruga~

Children Removing Constructions

My children keep trying to remove constructions, which is fine except for the fact that they take like eight times as long as a miner to do it. Is there any way to forbid them? Lymojo 18:29, 7 May 2009 (UTC)Lymojo

I think it's hardcoded. I use Dwarf Manager to make my nobles work liek real dwarves, but I found that children have no jobs assigned, even though they do work. Sensei: Last seen somewhere in the Basic Jungle of Terror 01:59, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Build Direction

Can we put in a section about the direction from which dwarves will build constructions?

The general rule seems as though they prefer working from the the square above or the square to the left when building walls, but I've seen them break this rule sometimes. There must be some logic to it, does anyone know?

Material construction cost

I'm trying to see if I can gold-plate my fortress (don't ask) and I've been turning my gold ore/nuggets/whatever it's called into bars. When I go into the build menu to make walls or floors and try and choose "gold bars" as the material used, it says I apparently have 8 when I've checked in my stocks menu and have a little over 100. I checked to make sure they hadn't been dumped or forbidden, so I assume it's not a bug or something, and that it just takes more bars to construct a wall than stone blocks, which makes sense. (10 bars for 1 wall or floor section?) Can anyone else confirm this? And if so, I'd imagine for cost-effectiveness I'll have to start making Native Gold Blocks and doing it that way. It's something to consider, too, if anyone wants to start making iron or bronze or whatever walls out of a metal that doesn't come in a block form.Gnavin 09:55, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

• Are you sure you're reading the item count and not the distance? The item count displayed in the Build menu maxes out at 99. Exactly one "bars" is required in order to build a wall or floor. --Quietust 16:30, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
  • I believe that materials already used in a construction appear in the Stocks menu. I built a room above-ground out of iron once, and my Stocks menu showed about 100 iron bars but I got a "Needs iron bars" cancellation message when I tried to make some plate mail. --LaVacaMorada 09:17, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
    • This is actually why I build my metal megaconstructions out of blocks rather than bars - makes it easier to see how much I've actually got left. --Quietust 12:52, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Construction and Deconstruction Speed

I've done a few tests with constructing walls using 3 variables - the building material (rough stone versus stone blocks), skill level (Masonry at no-skill versus Legendary+5), and Agility (non-agile versus Perfectly Agile) - and the results appear to be as follows: construction speed depends only on Agility, completing in 110-111 ticks for zero agility and in 60-64 ticks for Perfectly Agile. Deconstruction speed, however, seems to vary based on both agility and skill level based on the material used - the same Perfectly Agile Legendary Mason deconstructed a wall in 6 seconds, the Perfectly Agile Proficient Miner (no masonry skill) managed it in 9, the non-agile Legendary Mason took about 13 seconds, and the non-agile Miner took about 16 seconds. Overall, it seems that agility has a greater impact on deconstruction speed than skill, but skill does still appear to have an effect, at least in my sample population (a better test would be to do all of the tests with the exact same dwarf, using Companion to alter stats in between each test). Strangely, a nearby non-agile Peasant managed 13 seconds, so it's possible that personality traits may also be coming into play (though I don't see any that ought to be having an effect). --Quietust 18:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

About that, there are different levels of perfectly agile IIRC, perfectly agile is just how 5+ agility level is simply represented. Perhaps it is really just agility only and your miner had less? Or perhaps it is almost entirely skill but your miner had much more agiity? Greep 23:03, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

All of my "perfectly agile" dwarves had agility set to exactly 5 using Dwarf Companion, so that's not an issue. Also, agility beyond "perfectly agile" doesn't actually make a dwarf any faster - movement speed is capped at agility 5. --Quietust 23:45, 25 May 2010 (UTC)