v0.31:Stonegears/Examining items

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Listing items

There are multiple ways of listing items:

1. If the item is simply laying on the ground, use k to enter "look" mode, the user arrow keys to move the cursor over the item you wish to examine.
2. If the item is held/worn by a dwarf or other creature, use v-i to look at the creature's inventory.
3. If the item is inside of a Template:L, Template:L, Template:L or other Template:L you can look inside the building with t. The first few lines, which contain a [B] on the right hand side, are the items the building is made from.
4. If the item you wish to examine is an installed piece of Template:L like a Template:L, then use t to examine it, since an installed piece of furniture is considered to be a building made from the furniture item.
5. To list and examine items by item category, use the stocks screen.

For everything but the stocks screen, if there's multiple items you can change which one is selected via - and +. When you have an item selected, you can press Enter to examine it in more detail.

Item modifier symbols

There are certain symbols that will bracket an item to indicate that it's different than normal.

• Bracketing with -, +, *, ≡ or ☼ indicates that the item is of higher than normal Template:L.
  • For many items quality merely increases the item's value.
  • For Template:L food it increases the amount of Template:L a dwarf gains from eating it if one of the ingredients is among the dwarf's list of Template:L foods.
  • For Template:Ls used in Template:L it controls the how well the weapons strike.
  • For weapons and armor their effectiveness is increased, but only if the weapon/armor is of masterful (☼) quality.
  • If a masterwork (☼) item is destroyed or stolen the creator of the item will get an unhappy Template:L.
• Bracketing with « » indicates that the item is Template:L. A decoration and the item it decorates can have separate quality levels, like a *«+steel battle axe+»*.
• Bracketing with ( ) indicates that the item was not produced by your dwarves. This includes all items you start the game with, all items Template:L bring with them, and all items belonging to Template:L and Template:L. You can make an item count as being produced by your dwarves either by transforming it into something else (like turning a Template:L into a Template:L) or by Template:L it.
• Bracketing with { } indicates that the item is forbidden.
• Bracketing with x, X, or XX indicates that the item is partially Template:L. This applies mainly to Template:L that's wearing out, Template:L that's going rotten, and Template:Ls that are being attacked by Template:Ls.
• Bracketing with ‼ indicates that the item is on Template:L.

Item stacks

Often identical items will be grouped together in a pile called a Template:L, where the number of items in the stack is indicated by a number inside of square brackets. For example, plump helmets [5] it a stack of five plump helmet. Item stacks like this have several advantages:

• An item stack acts as a single item for the purposes of a dwarf Template:L it from one place to another, which saves time since the dwarf won't have to make a round trip of each individual item.
• An item stack acts as a single item for the purposes of storing it directly on the ground in a stockpile, saving space. It doesn't make any difference if the items are consolidated in Template:L, though.
• Many jobs which process items act on a whole stack at once, and process the whole stack in the same amount of time it takes to process a single item, no matter how large the stack, thus saving time.

Note that individual items which seem identical can't be merged into stacks, nor can two stacks of seemingly identical items be merged into a a single stack. Also, there's no way to manually split an item stack into smaller stacks or into individual items.

Container names

The names of Template:Ls can change based on what they do (or don't) contain and where they are. An empty Template:L made from cedar will be called cedar barrel. If it is filled with Template:L then it will be called dwarven rum Barrel (cedar). If a container is placed in a stockpile then its stockpile number will be appended inside of < >, like dwarven rum Barrel (cedar) <#1>.

Forbidding items

When examining an item in detail, or having it selected in a list, you can use f to Template:L it. You can also d-b-f to designate an area in which all items are forbidden, and d-b-c to unforbid (reclaim) all items in an area.

• If an item lying on the ground (or in a container on the ground) is forbidden then dwarves. This can be used to reserve certain raw materials for future use, or to prevent your dwarves from gathering raw materials in a section of the fortress which you're about to wall off. You can mass-forbid all but one type of raw material from the stocks screen in order to force a craftsdwarf to use the unforbidden raw material.
• If the material a Template:L is made from is forbidden, then your dwarves won't use it (this includes Template:Ls and installed pieces of Template:L). If you mass forbid raw material from the stocks screen then you might accidentally forbid the raw material some of your buildings are made from, unintentionally keeping your dwarves from using them.
• If an item your dwarf is wearing or wielding is forbidden then the dwarf will ignore it and continue to use the item. Dwarves will still ignore the item if the dwarf holding it later drops it for some other reason.