40d Talk:Engraving

I started a general page on engraving, mostly to point out that it appears possible to smooth tiles containing ore, since they have been placed in the category of stone now. Haven't tried it on gems, but I'm quite giddy about being able to make an aesthetically pleasing fortress in the middle of an ore vein finally.

Yes, ore is now exactly the same as regular stone, so it can be smoothed just fine. Make for MUCH nicer fort designs then before. I am not 100% sure but I think gems work the same way too. --BurnedToast 03:49, 30 October 2007 (EDT)

Note also that rewalling allows for even more aesthetic possibility. And you can extract the ore or gem from a wall and then rebuild it with less useful material.

Except you can't engrave rewalls. --Squirrelloid 17:10, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

Actually, you can - I did it accidentally when I was smoothing out a plateau for one of my round towers (the fort was called that, might as well put some round towers in :P). Also added in a channel and they did their job before the lazy engraver could haul his arse to do his. In time, I put up a rewall and came back later to find the top of my rewall engraved with blazing suns, dwarves etc. Kinda confused me when I first saw it tho --Frostedfire 09:57, 25 April 2008 (EDT)

Did you construct these rewalls on top of an engraved floor? That gives the walls the appearance of engraving, but I don't know if it counts as an engraved wall for room value purposes. --zombiejustice 00:41 2 June 2008 (CDT)

I hit k and everything, looked at my wall, and all it said was "Detailed Obsidian Wall." It doesn't work when I make the walls look like regular walls with lines on them or when I make them have the funky little symbols. My fortress is quite young, but I heard that the engraver can just use his imagination and stuff. What's wrong? --Penguinofhonor 19:55, 14 November 2007 (EST)

Hit k and then hit Enter.

Does the type of stone affect Dwarf happiness? Are they happier if their room contains a golden engraved wall? Or even a granite one? And what about the floor? I've just cleaned out a gold vein and I'm thinking about rewalling it into a dinning hall to take advantage of the gold floor. --Malenfant 11:34, 26 November 2007 (EST)

Draxxalon's study suggests that the stone does have an effect. --Kingzilla 22:24, 12 December 2007 (EST)

I'm doing a little studying on the architecture value of smoothing/engraving for the current tournament. As far as I can tell, a smoothed wall is worth 8 monies, a smoothed floor is worth 6 monies, and the base value of an engraving is 10 (so an *engraving* is worth 40). The value *DOES NOT* depend on the type of stone, you get the same bonuses even if you smooth/engrave ore. And of course while engravings do have quality, smoothing does not. --Sowelu 17:20, 12 April 2008 (EDT)

At one point I noticed a tiny room had an astronomical rent value - turns out the walls were native aluminum (that the game never announced for some reason, and i'd smoothed them without noticing). I mined out the ore and rewalled and the rent dropped substantially. So I'd say ore value matters quite a bit, at least for walls --Squirrelloid 17:10, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

Had same thing but with gem floor. About 5 tiles of some x10 value gem floor increased rent from ~2300 (minor noble room) to ~8000. --Someone-else 15:10, 25 April 2008 (EDT)

Quality engravings tell more history

When I had my dwarves engrave the history in my story I wrote earlier, they weren't very skilled at engraving. Though my entire fortress had been burnt up by spirits of fire and attacked by goblins a couple years back, only two of thirty engravings depicted a demon and had a story along with it. There were about thirty engravings done, and only three were well-crafted. The three well-crafted included the two about demons, and one that had a fact about my mayor being elected in 1051. The rest, which were normal quality were of pointless designs and creatures never encountered. Quality plays a major role in what is shown in the engraving. I'll add a section about this, does someone know if higher qualities like masterful depict even more?--Richards 16:51, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

I have no desire to savescum and abandon, but I do find that generic dwarf enrgavings tend to be less quality. --GreyMario 17:10, 24 April 2008 (EDT)

I checked it out a few times, there's no difference in the history of masterful engravings then there were in well-crafted ones. The only exception is unskillful engravings, they don't tell anything. So it's confirmed then. --Richards 08:42, 25 April 2008 (EDT)

Types of stone

I'm pressing d then e and selecting an area, then pressing Enter. But it's not seeming to do anything in most bits of my fortress. (I find this with smoothing as well.) Could this be because they're mudstone? Does engraving only work in certain types of rock? It'd be good to clarify this somewhere. --AlexChurchill 08:28, 29 May 2008 (EDT)

alex: you need to smooth the surface first. currently any stone surface can be engraved. first you smooth it from a rough stone surface with d then s first, then designate it for engraving after it is nice and flat. confused me on my very first fort also. --FruityBix 05:45, 20 September 2008 (EDT)

Engraving Constructed Walls

Why can't constructed walls/floors be designated for engraving? Has Toady said anything specific about this, or is it just something we have to deal with? --Rakankou 00:15, 25 July 2008 (EDT)

Have you tried smoothing them first? I think they have to be smoothed first, they also must be made out of stone. Magikarcher 02:13, 25 July 2008 (EDT)

Constructed walls also can't be designated for smoothing. --Rakankou 03:39, 25 July 2008 (EDT)

Toggled engravings differentiation

I noticed in a previous fort (in a previous version) that engraved walls, once I'd toggled off their display, were a different shade to the ones that had only been smoothed. I believe it was smoothed basalt (dark grey), and the engravings were lighter - either mid-grey or white. Can anyone confirm? --Raumkraut 09:15, 16 August 2008 (EDT)

Yes, I've seen the same thing. Smoothed and Engraved got the same tile, some foreground, different background. Smoothed siltstone was dark brown on black, and hidden-engravings on siltstone was dark brown on grey -- the same grey background as the non-hidden engravings got. --Sev 03:21, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

About Defacement

Will defacing an *engraved wall* or an =engraved wall= annoy the engraver? I have an enormous legendary dining room that I want to make even more legendary by adding a pair of waterfalls, but I don't want to piss off any of my engravers.--Gandalf the Dwarf (No, really! Look it up!) 17:10, 13 November 2008 (EST)

Only defacing masterpieces (☼) will cause negative thoughts.--Maximus 17:38, 13 November 2008 (EST)

Somehow I think the values for negative thoughts for defacing engravings is wrong, actually. I defaced, in the course of a season, roughly 30 masterpieces (legendary +5 engravers can get DAMN annoying when it comes to where you can build) and he never dipped below ecstatic. He hadn't created an artifact (or been freed) recently, and I don 't think much else should be able to reconcile a supposed 1500 negative thoughts. Milskidasith 22:12, 13 November 2008 (EST)

From what I've read elsewhere, the defacement penalty is 1000 divided by the total number of masterpieces created by that dwarf. So if your legendary dwarf has engraved a thousand or more tiles, he'll have made hundreds of masterpieces and the "travesty" over each will only be a few points.--Maximus 21:58, 13 November 2008 (EST)

I coulda sworn it was 50 per masterpiece... Ah well. Thanks for the tip. Milskidasith 22:12, 13 November 2008 (EST)

Maximus is right, for what it's worth. Just a few days ago I inadvertantly told my miners to deface 5 masterpieces of one of my legendary engravers. He'd been with my fortress for many years (i think 5) and had hit legendary about 3 years prior. He's definitely engraved over 100 masterpieces; it may be 250 or more, really. The engraver barely noticed the 5 defacements. He was still ecstatic when I checked him, just chilling out in the statue garden and chatting with a friend. --ThunderClaw 00:45, 14 November 2008 (EST)

Goblins can destroy engravings?

A masterful engraving that is destroyed or defaced (mining, magma, tower caps and goblins do the job nicely...

News to me.--Maximus 13:44, 14 November 2008 (EST)