v0.31:Exploit

xTATTEREDx  · +FINE+  · *SUPERIOR*  · ≡EXCEPTIONAL≡  · ☼MASTERWORK☼

v50.13 · v0.47 · v0.34 · v0.31.25 · v0.28 · v0.23 This article is about an older version of DF. More Info · V

An exploit is a quirk of a game that allows players to gain what other players may consider an unfair advantage, usually by making use of a feature that is not working properly or which defies logic. 'Exploiting the game' is distinct from 'cheating' because exploits occur within the game as written and do not need any external utilities or modding. Whether a player chooses to make use of an exploit or not depends on their personal taste; given that Dwarf Fortress is a single-player game, the user alone can decide what liberties to take and what options to shun. Among DF players there is much discussion what actually should be considered an exploit, going from making sweetpod syrup instead of sugar, growing crops in winter, or even underground, as the one extreme, to justifying 'water wheel batteries' as the other. This page takes a rather relaxed approach in that you considering it an exploit is basically enough to add it, if you don't get too much opposition.

Atom Smasher

A drawbridge, when rapidly triggered on and off, can be used to obliterate some creatures or items beneath it. The drawbridge will be destroyed if it is used to crush a creature of too large a size.

Bookkeeper Exercise Program

Changing your bookkeeper's settings to maximum accuracy causes him to work furiously in his office, training quickly up to legendary. Even if this is a bug it is not really an exploit, since a) you actually want highest precision anyway b) he attains highest precision rather fast (depending, for example, on how many stones you have mined) and thus one can not train an unlimited number of, if even several, dwarves that way.

Some would argue this is not as much of an exploit as it was in 40d, since the legendary bookkeeping skill does not lead to new attributes, and therefore really gets you very little.

Manager Exercise Program

As a Template:L, skill is gained as tasks are approved, not completed. Simply by queuing lots of jobs (j m q) (and providing a meager office), the manager will quickly level to Template:L as an Template:L. The tasks can then be removed once approved.

Merchant Swindles

There are a variety of ways to steal cargo from merchants without seizing it; all amount to naked theft. Tearing down the trade depot while the merchants are there is the easiest way.

Also, marking items for dumping, using view creature mode (v), the stocks menu (z), items in room mode (t), or mass dump mode (d)-(b)-(d) then marking the entire depot, lets you relieve merchants of their goods. Just reclaim the items from your garbage dump zone later. You can even take clothing and equipment off merchant and guards this way.

You can make a wall around the merchants (and even the poor animals) and let them starve to death, letting you take what ever you want. Wait quite a while for them to starve. They will become very angry if you do, so never open the door once they are on the brink of death.

However, the merchants will consider any lost goods to be stolen goods regardless of the method used to take possession of them, or used to destroy them.^[Verify] See the 40d page and This forum post. So unless you specifically want to take the clothing off the backs of the merchants or steal from your own civ, you might as well just seize the goods anyway.

Quantum stockpiles

By designating a garbage pit zone instead of a stockpile, you may store an infinite number of objects in a single tile by dumping them, then reclaiming them when you want to use them.

A similar effect may be achieved by building a wall two tiles in front of a catapult and digging a channel between the wall and catapult. By firing the catapult at the wall, the stone falls into the trench. The stone will pile up in the channel, putting it out of sight and out of mind. Not only does this train siege operators, but it clears the stone that your legendary miners leave.

Another way to quantum stockpile is to not have appropriate stockpiles to move items back you moved to the trading depot. The depot can hold an infinite number of items, and those items will not be removed if there is nowhere else to place them. This is also useful for anything you want to trade anyway.

Trap fields

Laying a field of traps with a sufficient depth can protect your fortress from all invaders (except the ones that are trap immune) with no need to maintain a military. Traps are somehow intelligent enough to distinguish between pets and allies while being dangerous to enemies and wild animals.

Building destroyer door

Forbid something a dwarf is carrying as he goes through a door, and he'll drop it. The door won't close and won't stop any normal creature from going through, but building destroyers seem to stop in their tracks, waiting for it to close before moving on. Note: your civilians can pass the creature safely, but attacking it cancels your protection. ^[Verify]

Hell's back door

There's a convoluted way to dig down through semi-molten rock and evade the head-on encounter with hidden fun stuff. ^[Verify]

Forgotten beast zoo

Wall off all the passageways into your lowest level at the outermost square of the map - except one, which leads to a little vestibule surrounded by fortifications. Wave hello to the various ungainly "forgotten beasts" which accumulate inside.

Perpetual motion water-wheel

Due to the relatively low power draw of a Template:L, a self-powering assembly can be made with a Template:L that still leaves plenty of excess power for other uses. This is an Template:L (violating basics principles of physics), and possibly a bug, but this is also Dwarf Fortress, so...

To get it working, you must start the pump manually.*

(* Exceptions are Template:Ls, which can sometimes have naturally occurring Template:L. This is sometimes a good thing, because then a wheel simply works by itself - or a bad thing, if, for example, you want the wheel to not provide any power while you build a pump adjacent to it. It's not clear what causes an aquifer to have flow and then keep it - it's difficult to replicate reliably, and can be lost with additional Template:Ling, so designs will have to be adapted if such are found.)

It is good to have a ready source of water to refill the machine, as water tends to escape and evaporate, and once the water falls below a certain level, the machine stops. Below an earlier level, the power supply becomes intermittent.

Key:
  
  ║ ═ ╝ ╚ ╔ ╗ ╣ ╠ ╩ ╦ = Wall
  +    = Floor
  W    = Water Wheel
  *    = Gear Assembly  
  ═    = Axle E/W
  ║    = Axle N/S
  XX   = Pump from west

*REMEMBER TO BUILD AN ORTHOGONAL PUMP, HORIZONTAL AXLE OR GEAR ASSEMBLY BEFORE THE WATER WHEEL*

Dwarven Water Reactor

This compact design, once started, produces 170 surplus power (less additional power train).

Lower Level		Upper Level
╔ ═ ╦ ═ ╗ ║ ≈ ║ ≈ ║ ║ ≈ ║ ≈ ║ ║ ≈ O ≈ ║ ╚ ╗ ≈ ╔ ╝ █ ╚ ═ ╝ █		╔ ═ ═ ═ ╗ ║ W + W ║ ╝ W X W ╚ + W X W + + + ≈ + + + + + + +

Dig the V-shaped channel and fill it with water (either from an outside source or by designating it as a Template:L). Meanwhile, construct the pump, pumping from the South. Construct the two water wheels. Start the pump manually ( q, Enter ) - if there is enough water*, the "reactor" will start immediately and the pump operator will leave. The water from the north end of the pump will spill over the top-most floor tile, filling that to 7/7 and the two tiles east and west of it to ~5/7, but will not overflow back past the water wheel to the walkway area. Note that for the upper level, no southern walls are shown as none are needed.

• (* Estimated minimum depth to prime the reactor is 3/7 to 4/7, though this is not guaranteed.)
• The ideal amount of water in this design is apparently 63 units of water. In other words six tiles below in the V are full up to 7/7 and three more above are also full up to 7/7 which will generate reliable flow permanently without ever losing any of that water to evaporation. An easy way to do this is to simply leave your pond fill command on after the reactor activates. They will eventually fill it up to the optimal level and stop.

The reactor can be safely halted either by blocking the tile the pump draws water from or "overloading" the reactor (since drawing more power than the reactor supplies will stop the pump that keeps the cycle going until the load is reduced and the pump is manually restarted by dorf-power), More drastically, the reactor will obviously be halted by deconstructing the pump. Deconstructing one wheel will cause a flood (and almost immediately cancel any job order to deconstruct the other components), and deconstructing the pump will cause both wheels to collapse (unless they are attached to Template:L outside them, not shown).

Template:L can routed up from the pump or off to the side from a wheel; the bottom of the pump is difficult to access without danger of water escaping. Routing power from a wheel is typically safe in practice, but it's not impossible for a small amount of water to escape the reactor if it is temporarily overfilled. Power can also be routed out of the reactor via a gear or horizontal axle over the tile the pump draws water from with neither interference in the pump's operation, danger of flooding, nor increased difficulty in designating and using pond zones to initialize the reactor. In either case, it's typically wise to place a Template:L linked to a Template:L early in the power train in order to allow disconnecting the power at that point, as opposed to needing to halt the entire reactor to stop the power supply.

Expanded versions can produce more power, and can be added later with minimal advance planning; such extensibility is easily attainable by placing disengageable gears on either side of the two water wheels, then attaching minireactors at your leisure, or halting the original reactor by other means. Alternatively, it may be easier to simply produce a second reactor, then connect to the power train at another location.

Note: If created in an aquifer, there is a chance that the channeled tiles will have a natural Template:L - this will cause the pump to start the moment the first wheel is finished, flooding the work area for the second.

Mini Water Reactor

This even more compact design is quite similar to the original Dwarven Water Reactor, but can be used in tight spots that do not need more than 80 surplus power. This plan can also be considered an extension unit to the DWR, in that it can be added to one or the other side to provide an additional 80 power to the resulting power train. Safely constructing a mini reactor to add to a previously built reactor without potential flooding and/or loss of power is possible only if you first turn off the original reactor with floor hatches. Planning ahead is a much better option, so if you're going to need more than 170 power, build a larger reactor to start with.

As stated previously, the design below produces 80 surplus power (less additional power train).

Lower Level	Upper Level
╔ ═ ╗ █ ║ ≈ ║ █ ║ ≈ ║ █ ║ ≈ ╚ ╗ ╚ ╗ ≈ ║ █ ╚ ═ ╝	╔ ═ ═ ╗ ║ W + ║ ╝ W X ╚ + W X + + + ≈ + + + + +

X
X = Pumps from south

Construction of the mini reactor follows the same order as for the DWR, though the channel is slightly different and only one water wheel is needed. If this is an addition to a full size reactor or set of reactors, all channels will need to be fairly full with water to start the reactor.

Tower Reactor

╔	═	╦	═	*	═	*	═	═	═	═	╗
║	≈	║	W	W	W	X	X	≈	≈	≈	║
╚	═	╩	═	═	═	═	═	═	═	═	╝

╔	═	╦	═	═	═	═	═	═	═	═	╗
║	█	║	≈	≈	≈	X	X	W	W	W	║
╚	═	╩	═	═	═	═	*	═	*	═	╝

╔	═	╦	═	*	═	*	═	═	═	═	╗
║	█	║	W	W	W	X	X	≈	≈	≈	║
╚	═	╩	═	═	═	═	═	═	═	═	╝

╔	═	╦	═	═	═	═	═	═	═	═	╗
║	█	X	≈	≈	≈	X	X	W	W	W	║
╚	═	╩	═	═	═	═	*	═	*	═	╝

A complex but extremely modular version of the reactor, capable of easily adding more wheels by expanding the design slightly. It is also capable of moving across any number of Z-levels, and can act as a Template:L if needed. With a single wheel, it is slightly less efficient than a traditional two-Z-level water reactor; with two (add a duplicate of the middle row to the design, and an extra wall on one side due to even-wheelitude), it becomes far more effective in only slightly more space. With three or more z-levels committed to the reactor, it easily surpasses its flatter counterpart.

The floodgate on the top floor is connected to an external lever, and remains open until new floors are added. When such floors are constructed, it is closed to extend the shaft.

The power put out, where L is the number of levels and W is the number of wheels, is (80*W-11)*L