40d Talk:Health care

Odd Dwarf Behaviour

I just noticed in my fortress that one of my injured dwarves hadn't received food in a while and had gotten down to starving. However even when I changed every single dwarf to only perform health care they all just sit about idling and the poor guy starved to death. How can you force dwarves to perform health care jobs? Yvain 21:00, 16 March 2008 (EDT)

I had a similar issue. Guy was starving and nobody was bringing him food. On a hunch, I checked my food stocks, and they were all prepared meals and plants. So I butchered a cat, and immediately someone brought a bit him a bit of cat meat. I'm not sure if it was the fact that there was no meat that was causing the problem, or simply if the creation of new food somehow triggered the job, similar to the bucket discussion below.--Morlark 19:19, 22 June 2008 (EDT)

- Did some further reading and I made a new bucket and that prompted dwarves to check health care jobs and he then got feed/watered. However each time after that he needed food/water I had to make a new bucket. So guess what I'm exporting this year? :) Yvain 21:51, 16 March 2008 (EDT)

I had the exact same issue-- several buckets were lying around (some in a furniture stockpile, some lying around near a pond, no other bucket jobs active) and no one would give my thirsty wounded dwarf water until I made a new bucket (dismantling my dyer's shop did not appear to help). The dwarf that finally brought water didn't use the newly-created bucket, though. --Xax 16:16, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

I'm in the same boat, I've got a dwarf that's in a bed literally six steps away from a well and with empty buckets lying on all sides around him and yet all my health-care-enabled dwarves stand around with "no job" and watch him die of thirst. Such cruelty, the horror... I'll try building a new bucket and see if that helps, but I'm not sure if I'll have time - my well was inaccessible for a while until I could equip my marksdwarves to clear it of monsters. Bryan Derksen 18:13, 19 May 2008 (EDT)

Building a new bucket didn't work, a dwarf got the "give water" job and then immediately canceled it with "water source not available". The well was active and I'd killed all the monsters in it, so that was a puzzler. But then when I canceled the construction of another well that I had going elsewhere in my compound, that had sat at "construction inactive" for a long time for no apparent reason (I hadn't been paying attention to it because the area it was in was still being dug out), suddenly another dwarf got the "give water" task again and actually got some from the functioning well. My injured dwarf died before he got there, so I killed process and started again, this time cancelling the construction of the other well immediately. This time, finally, they saved the injured dwarf. I think the game may have got some crossed wires about which wells were active and which it was supposed to be trying to use to supply my injured guy, maybe it was trying to send dwarves to fetch water from the one still under construction? Weird. Ah well, at least my dwarf's life is finally saved. Bryan Derksen 18:49, 19 May 2008 (EDT)

As an amusing side note, one of the things I tried was to dismantle the injured dwarf's bed to force him to move to another and maybe remind the program he needed care. It just so happened that to get to another bed he had to slog his way through a cavern a full screen-width long that was waist-deep in water at the time (my engines of agriculture wait for no dwarf). If I'd timed it right I bet I could get him to die of thirst right in the middle of that. Bryan Derksen 20:12, 19 May 2008 (EDT)

Instead of building new buckets, try designating more furniture stockpile space. I've noticed on a number of occasions that sometimes things don't "count" as their category of object while they're lying around, but only when they've been moved to an appropriate stockpile. —Chaos 19:09, 19 May 2008 (EDT)

Fact: I typically designate a 1-tile furniture stockpile next to my well that allows only buckets. --Edward 21:56, 19 May 2008 (EDT)

Hi Edward, can you enlighten us: do your dwarves die ravaged of thirst or not? I have to admit that I have started putting one dwarf on only health care / cleaning duties / refuse hauling as soon as I get my first wounded dwarf, and putting a stockpile of several buckets both near my water sources (I'm yet to actually build a well :( ) and in the foyer of my appartment complex. GarrieIrons 00:48, 23 June 2008 (EDT)

I just had a situation where an unfortunate accident caused three dwarves to fall into a shaft, one of them busted his arm up pretty good. Now since they were miners I could easily dig my way out but the one with the arm (or rather, without the arm) had passed out and couldn't move. I had worked on the shaft for a while so there were Gabbro rocks lying all over. Immediately as they got out dwarves poured in and began hauling rocks, ROCKS and not the wounded. I have enough material so I (f)orbid every rock from being hauled. Here's the problem. The dwarves continued to ignore the poor soul and left him there bleeding. I have a few custom dwarves that ONLY do health care and they didn't lift a finger. As it turns out, they wouldn't move the dwarf because the Gabbro rock he was laying on is forbidden. That's what I think anyway because when I told them they could move the Gabbro they did and then immediately moved the wounded dwarf. As a side note one of the miners hanged around in the bottom of the shaft with "no job" through it all. Could it be that he -wanted- to move his friend but -could- not because of the forbidden Gabbro? Aspgren 07:43, 1 September 2008 (EDT)

Why were they hauling stone? Did you have a stone stockpile? Random832 16:46, 30 October 2008 (EDT)

Yes, I have always built very much above ground, walls and towers and traps so I used up alot of rock. Aspgren 22:43, 4 December 2008

Another odd situation: I had a dwarf get impaled by an arrow, while standing on a door. He sat there dying of thirst, and not moving. Nobody would recover him, until I tried deconstructing the door - shortly after that, his friend carted him off to a bed... --118.208.165.174 13:00, 8 November 2009 (UTC)