v0.31 Talk:Quickstart guide

Major Updates

This article seemed to be stagnating so I made some major improvements to the guide. It still doesn't tell you exactly how to do everything step-by-step, but there's a better reference guide for looking things up now. I did improve the level of detail somewhat, and linked to Bentgirder for people looking for something more specific. Also linked to Dwarf Therapist in about 3 places. --Ral 08:46, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

The tutorial is helpful, to an extent. However, I can't follow the reasoning why it tells the player to dig nine levels down before excavating a living area, largely because no actual reason is given. This takes a ton and a half of extra time, all while my dwarves starve and go cold turkey and my storage areas fill up with lizard corpses that mysteriously fail to be carted off to the refuse pile.

I'm still hanging in there, but the lack of oversight is a serious flaw. As a tutorial it starts out well enough, but aside from the section on dumping, it gives the player little ability to understand or control what's happening. --Eleas (unregistered) 00:19, 12 May 2011 (GMT +1:00)

First, keep in mind that this particular thread predates major changes to the guide so any more threads with feedback should probably be started somewhere below to avoid confusion. Anyway, the original reasoning behind the "build living quarters on level -7" is that dwarves can be awakened by noise from activities on upper levels, but I'm not sure if this is any longer the case in the current version. It shouldn't actually take any longer to build a single stairwell 7 levels down than it does to dig a tunnel 7 tiles long. How long is it taking and how are you going about it? Also, aside from dumping there isn't much of any way to directly control dwarves. You pretty much just specify things for them to do, build, put things, etc, and they take on jobs and perform them as hardcoded priorities allow.... Perhaps I should add something about that.... --Ral 00:08, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, with the caveat that I'm a rank newbie, the problem is not merely that we dig down eight levels. The problem is that we excavate an entire extra level before doing that, and that we have to divide our attention between the surface layers and the sleeping quarters. We're not told why it has to be this way. We do not know whether there might be caves full of fire and brimstone and burrowing Balrogs in the layers between. We're not given any sort of timeframe to work with either, so we have no way of knowing if we're making good time. While we're trying to figure out this, our limited control over labors is tested by the distance to the planting fields, and we don't realize why the plump helmets rot unattended. The tutorial tries to be helpful, but (particularly after a while) falls into the trap of assuming that the reader will understand by inferring the relationships.

So as constructive criticism, I would say the tutorial was informative and useful until Strike the Earth. At that point, we're told stuff without the requisite context. Why is a long, narrow corridor easy to defend? How does one defend at all? What does a jeweler have to do with getting basic amenities into position (food, drink, rest)? What's the real purpose of the administrator? Et cetera. The fact that the tutorial is billed as the most up to date on the wiki (the DF build icon) meant I trusted it to be so, and that could have been one reason for the disconnect. --Eleas (unregistered) 00:22, 13 May 2011 (GMT +1:00).

Currently it is the most up-to-date. It's true that at some point I kind of start glossing over things a bit, but I was trying to keep it from getting too long and it's about 10 times longer than it was before I started working on it. (You would have found the original one totally worthless, most likely.) Part of the reason that it's not more detailed is that it's supposed to be "quick" and cover more material in less detail than a normal tutorial. You might want to check out Template:L which covers less material but covers it in more detail I think. I did actually update some stuff in the quickstart quite to address the fortress design stuff, but the game is so complex that there's no way to explain everything that might happen as you might be able to in SimCity. --Ral 22:41, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Kitchen / Still Stockpiles

I think the area dealing with the stockpiles in the kitchen and still could use some work. There is no entry for "Large Pots" under the furniture section for instance. Also, what is considered prepared food versus non-prepared? I started going through all the meats excluding everything starting with "Prepared..." and almost lost my mind. Overall I've found the guide useful and feel like I'm getting a practical grasp of the game now that I'm on my third time going through it. Vitriolum 01:48, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The stockpiles screen is confusing. "Prepared food" are not actually the things that start with "Prepared" like "Prepared whatever meat". It took me forever to notice the u: Prepared Food thing in the lower right corner. (Keep on the lookout for other toggles that appear in this part of the screen when you select other things like Animals, for instance.) "Prepared Food" should probably be called "Cooked Meals" or something since that's what it actually is. This configuration is complex enough that it's worth elaborating on so I updated that section and the first section on stockpiles. Let me know what you think. --Ral 03:36, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Excellent. Yes that clears it up for me! I suppose it does make sense to keep that stuff in a separate article. Maybe we should spell out the benefits of the advanced stockpiling, though, with the link. I'll add that later tonight. Also, I'm now set to be emailed when watched pages update so it won't take me 3 days to learn that something's been added here! Vitriolum 20:32, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to add whatever you want especially since it's in its own page now and doesn't contribute to the complexity of the main guide. I do seem to remember in my first fort that I really didn't want to mess with custom stockpiles too much and would rather just focus on other things. (Like I knew I could create a seeds-only stockpile but I just didn't want to bother with it yet). So I tried to remove everything about custom stockpiles, but the general-purpose custom stockpile seemed pretty important so I left that one in. I at least simplified the general purpose one so that people only have to mess with enabling/disabling top level categories of things and not worry about digging around finding rock pots and such. I should probably read back over and see if there is anything else I can simplify. Like perfectly optimal stockpiles there are probably some other things that a fort could operate without that might be removed or simplified.... --Ral 21:43, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Military and stockpiles

I moved the military stuff to DF2010:Military quickstart to try to shorten the article a bit, and I simplified the stockpile stuff and moved the more advanced stockpile tweaking to its own subpage. I wish I could shorten the guide more but it seems very hard to do so because there's just a lot of stuff that you have to do to get a minimal fortress working. Though the guide isn't short it is relatively quick compared to trying to learn by trial and error using the rest of the docs on the wiki..... --Ral 19:37, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Rest of fortress?

Y'know how in this guide it tells you levels (level 0, level -1, level -7, &c.)? Why doesn't it give you recommendations/suggestions for the other levels like level -3, -4, and -5? --69.248.54.74 03:42, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, it does sort of. It tells you to just mine around in those levels looking for minerals. Originally the reason for putting the bedrooms 7 levels under was to avoid noise from the surface, but that doesn't really seem to be an issue in the latest versions (if it ever was) so I could probably just change the numbering. --Ral 05:35, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Maybe instead of changing the number we could add a little side note or something stating why the bedroom used to be 7 levels below the surface? --69.248.54.74 18:53, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

edited stockpile section for the sole purpose of it being equivalent to the order in the game (makes disabling easier) gonna update that incase of future changes;

greetings qusteka; Thursday 23 of June 2011