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promising carl posted:What's a good population cap? 20-30ish? Thirty is a good number. I like to have about 10 dwarves to specialize into each major category of skilled / quality-intensive labor, 10 to haul stuff and do labor that doesn't have a quality rating or only improves in speed, and 10 for a military. You'll also probably want to turn down siege pop counts proportionately (in older versions 10 highly trained and armored dwarves could fight off the entire world without taking a scratch but this isn't really true to the same extent any more), and make sure that game features that activate based on population have lower thresholds. I wrote a mini-guide to it somewhere in this thread, ages ago. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Jan 16, 2021 |
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Jan 16, 2021 20:24
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If I write up a Dwarf Fortress Steam Guide, along the lines of my Rimworld Guide ( https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=813720217) what should I include? What's the short list of important tips new players in the current version should know starting out? (e.g., "If you clearcut all the trees, you'll have too much wood at the start and not enough wood later.")
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Jan 17, 2021 20:07
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:If I write up a Dwarf Fortress Steam Guide, along the lines of my Rimworld Guide ( https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=813720217) what should I include? For super new players it should be known that you can basically wall off the entrance to your mountain home with basically no consequences (besides not being able to trade and get outside resources) which can give them time to figure out all the other systems. Other than that I don't really know, I have been playing DF for so long and started when I was pretty young so it's like 90% muscle memory at this point. Maybe that one or two maxed size farm plots with plump helmets are basically going to sort your food needs forever, so don't really stress about food. Edit: Maybe that you really really do not need to know anything about the military UI beyond how to make squads, assign equipment, make barracks/training rooms, and set the squad to active status and to give kill or station orders. Patrolling and shifts and anything involving timeing is finicky and a waste of time and unnecessary. If you want to catch ambushers or whatever just pasture animals or chain a dog. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Jan 17, 2021 |
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Jan 17, 2021 20:20
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Important stuff would be things like not starting in an undead biome, starting in an area with a good spread of easy metals and access to magma, and staying far away from aquifers until you're more advanced. Regularly exposing your dwarfs to sunlight early so that they don't develop issues with sunlight later would maybe also not be a bad idea. Not to build anything out of wood that doesn't have to be because of how essential it is for bed construction, maybe. These are all things that trip people up.
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Jan 18, 2021 02:07
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Here's what else I have so far just from going over my old notes Be afraid of settling near necromancers Make sure you’re settling on a landmass connected to everywhere else calm/wilderness/serene/mirthful Split biomes river Fairly thick trees -- better than scarce Sand, flux stone, clay. Volcanooo? Avoid purple stuff, avoid aquifers Your fortress will fall apart, so don’t worry too much Starting dwarves: look for a tactician / leader -- analytic, kinesethetic, memory A trader with appraisal and good memory and likes commerce A doctor who enjoys helping others and memory - adequate in the five docs, memory Carpenter, smith, engineer A miner and a woodcutter. Start with: An anvil, and maybe variety of beer (80 barrels) (free barrel) (no wine) Lots of plump helmet and pigtail; 15 of seeds but not the plants that need processing; 3 thread; 3 cloth; 3 leather; metal bars (tin); glass (different types, for strange moods) A rope for a traction bench in hospital; lots of gypsum plaster for casts peacocks or turkeys are good starting birds The more you plan out your whole fort at the start, the fewer problems you'll have down the road trees directly above dug out areas can cause problems It helps to make high-traffic corridors a few tiles wide to ease pathing Get underground and get beds and crops planted first, but you don't need huge crops; small plots can feed your whole fort
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Jan 18, 2021 03:38
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That seems to me like it covers pretty much everything important. Anything in addition to that would mostly be advanced topics that don't particularly belong in an intro-level walkthrough for Fortress Mode anyway.
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Jan 18, 2021 03:51
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promising carl posted:What's a good population cap? 20-30ish?
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Jan 18, 2021 04:38
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I would limit children to no more than 10% of the overall population. None of them will ever actually grow up, so that's a bunch of dwarves just taking up space and CPU but never doing anything.
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Jan 18, 2021 04:43
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Be careful about embarking with 2 cats
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Jan 18, 2021 04:46
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Cardiovorax posted:I would limit children to no more than 10% of the overall population. None of them will ever actually grow up, so that's a bunch of dwarves just taking up space and CPU but never doing anything. Did children maturing into functional adults break at some point?
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Jan 18, 2021 06:23
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Neurion posted:Did children maturing into functional adults break at some point? i think most people just don't run fortresses for 12+ years
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Jan 18, 2021 06:24
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:i think most people just don't run fortresses for 12+ years
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Jan 18, 2021 06:43
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i mean to be clear i do, and have in fact run fortresses long enough that deaths by old age have happened, nevermind kids reaching adulthood  (generally because the dwarf was old already, they've got like a 150-year lifespan or something, but still)
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Jan 18, 2021 06:47
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 There's always someone. But yeah, I've just personally never run a fortress for even an entire ten years, so I think it's a valid caveat. Fortresses slow down like crazy after a few years even without tons of toddlers taking up space and not doing much, so they're a good thing to get rid of first if you want to optimize. And boy, does that sound horrible out of context.
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Jan 18, 2021 06:53
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A modest dwarfosal
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Jan 18, 2021 07:06
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Last I played children would harvest crops. Maybe that has changed in the last few years, but I doubt it. Given how much stuff I would grow for my many and varied processes (Food, booze, clothes, dyes), the children were actually useful and good. Also, while you may not play long term forts, mine typically go 30-60 years until I get bored, destroyed, or a bug breaks everything.
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Jan 18, 2021 14:50
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They didn't do that yet last I checked, so I guess that would make keeping them around somewhat more viable. I wonder if it would be possible to mod child-caste dwarves to do hauling jobs in general.
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Jan 18, 2021 14:57
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I could see running forts for 10+ years if it were easier to automate tasks and there weren't so many things that need you to do them. Guys if you run out of barrels just make more barrels. That's something I'd like to see in the steam version, too - more automation, or at least a more user-friendly blueprint design.
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Jan 18, 2021 15:27
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Appoda posted:I could see running forts for 10+ years if it were easier to automate tasks and there weren't so many things that need you to do them. Guys if you run out of barrels just make more barrels. That's something I'd like to see in the steam version, too - more automation, or at least a more user-friendly blueprint design. Automating stuff is generally pretty easy, but the UI could stand a lot of improvement. Barrels are a good automation example - just queue up a job of 10 barrels, select that job on the job manager, press "c" to edit conditions, then "p" and "r" to create conditions around products and reagents. That will tell it to only execute the job if there are 10 logs available and there are no more than 10 barrels. If you select the product condition, you can set the trait to "empty" so it checks for empty barrels. From now on, your carpenter will make 10 barrels whenever your fort has 10 empty barrels or less. This system doesn't count built furniture as part of your furniture inventory, so it's really easy to make sure you always have enough beds, cabinets, doors, etc.
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Jan 18, 2021 16:18
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There is an annoying amount of things that the game lets you do, but that basically nobody knows about because it's hidden behind so many arcane key combinations and menus.
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Jan 18, 2021 16:19
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kids (and nobles I believe) will harvest if you tick everyone can harvest, but that includes unskilled folks like kids and nobles doing it so
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Jan 18, 2021 19:24
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Appoda posted:I could see running forts for 10+ years if it were easier to automate tasks and there weren't so many things that need you to do them. Guys if you run out of barrels just make more barrels. That's something I'd like to see in the steam version, too - more automation, or at least a more user-friendly blueprint design. dfhack can do this right now efb
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Jan 18, 2021 21:33
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all hands, brace for devlog
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Jan 18, 2021 22:21
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posted:
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:dfhack can do this right now Is the stuff I described specific to dfhack? I thought it was built in.
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Jan 18, 2021 22:50
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Conditonal orders lets you set up workflow stuff like that and is built in
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Jan 18, 2021 23:02
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Reminder of that guy who's fortress has ran for 300+ in game years
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Jan 19, 2021 00:54
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:i think most people just don't run fortresses for 12+ years My current fortress is 14 and a half years old. It's run into some sort of problem where it crashes a few minutes after I load though so I guess that's it for this one. Here are some screenshots for posterity I guess:  I get my wife to pick a random location to make things interesting and she chose this spot at the northernmost point of the mountain range. This fortress is called Lanterncrescent. The hillocks to the east all spawned as economically beholden to my fortress, whatever that means. The three fortresses to the southwest all belong to the same civilisation and the monasteries are empty. The southernmost one, Cavetwinkled, seems to be the oldest one but had been conquered by the local goblin civilisation so I reconquered it after a few years of getting my military to a reasonable level of competence. I am (or was) in the middle of systematically destroying all their smaller settlements and occupying their larger ones. The goblin fortress to the southwest is all mine now.  The fortress's main screen as it stands now. Lanterncrescent was founded in 350.  The gatehouse is entirely made of wood which grows abundantly here. The mudstone road and its pillared border force wagons to only be able to enter from two points. Here we can see the trade depot and goods stockpiles, masonry, and barracks. One of the rooms attached to the barracks is specifically for housing artefacts. I've never lost anything stored in there even though the door's not locked. The others are for storing armour, weapons, etc. There are some shooting galleries on the level above.  Guard towers stand at the top of the gatehouse for shooting enemies. I was in the middle of making a clear glass ceiling here which was taking a very long time as I have to use imported sand.  To the left, an enclosed pasture for animals. To the right are some rooms for the inn that I carved into an outcrop of rock.  A little further down the road, some more repurposed outcrops. From left to right: the library, a temple for no specific deity, and the tavern proper (The Gilded Apples). The ground around here is mostly ashes after a dragon attack. The dragon got captured after it fell unconscious in a cage trap. Had it for a while until I got bored of trying to tame it and the dwarves ate it.  The bustling centre of the fortress is just below the gatehouse. Mostly made up of the dining hall and food industries. The enormous stockpile is just for barrels. The dormitory to the left is for dwarves to sleep when I tell them to flee back into the fortress if something's attacking like goblins or forgotten beasts.  Moving downwards, this level is mostly stockpiles but also contains the pit for throwing rubbish into. This pit goes all the way down to a magma pool I found in the third cavern layer and is useful for ridding myself of unwanted nonsense like captured goblins and leftovers from the butcher workshops. The minecarts are for sending fine delicacies and drinks to the tavern.  Further down we have two floors of bedrooms. Some fancier ones for the minor nobles (bookkeeper, broker, etc.).  Next are the temples and guildhalls and wooden caskets for burying pets. The room on the left is for doing engravings of things that catch my interest like some random dwarf my queen killed eighty years ago to see if I'll learn anything interesting. The small room houses a slab that contains the secrets of life and death on it apparently. Got it off a giant or ettin that bumbled into my military, I forget which. The stockpile is for charcoal sitting just above the smithy:  A lot of my minecart tracks converge here for moving wood, meltables, and metal bars around to where they're needed. The jail cells and quarters for the captain of the guard are up near the top. This and the level below are where all the major noble quarters are (you can see an unused one to the top left for the mayor which was made redundant as the dwarves have been electing the queen as mayor ever since she arrived).  The royal quarters. I named the queen after my wife and the king consort after me. Unfortunately my dwarf died of what I presume was old age about five years after he arrived. The other two chambers belong to the hammerer and the outpost liaison.  Deeper still, the catacombs and the hospital. The hospital well goes down to the mostly flooded first cavern layer. This is also where all the cloth gets made and where I keep the less useful furnaces. Was planning to sell the vast quantities of soap I had accrued.  Getting closer to the rather unremarkable caverns. The only ores are tetrahedrite, galena, and native platinum (which did get me a rather nice artefact platinum mace it must be said). This statuary has a statue for every one of the first 119 dwarves which I named after the chemical elements. All doors and statues are masterworks and, where possible, constructed of the same material that gives its depiction's namesake (Bismuth's statue is made of bismuth bronze, Silver's statue is made of silver, etc.). Each statue is surrounded by some engravings depicting the dwarf in question. Only exceptions are Cobalt and Sulphur as unfortunately I could not get my hands on any cobaltite or brimstone. Most of these dwarves are now dead. Notable survivors include Manganese who is the commander of the military and has killed quite a few beasts plus a roc, Actinium the dungeon master, Cobalt the outpost liaison, Nitrogen the chief medical dwarf. Beryllium was chosen to be the fortress's count until he got killed by a goblin. Only Lithium, Boron, and Nitrogen survive of the original seven dwarves. After I ran out of elements the dwarves got named after days of the week, months of the year, astrological signs, and finally popes. I believe I was up to Benedict XII.  Here's the bottom cavern layer, there is little to be said about any of the layers really. The adamantine in this area is particularly deep and none of it protrudes into this layer. I wasn't able to mine much of it safely. These smelters are specifically for melting objects like statues that weren't masterwork, goblin armour, etc.
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Jan 19, 2021 01:21
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I do the whole "Girlfriend picks starting location" for Rimworld and this usually leads to her cackling maniacally once the cannibalism sets in on a mechanoid hive map or whatever. Nice looking fortress! Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Jan 19, 2021 |
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Jan 19, 2021 01:31
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promising carl posted:Automating stuff is generally pretty easy, but the UI could stand a lot of improvement. Barrels are a good automation example - just queue up a job of 10 barrels, select that job on the job manager, press "c" to edit conditions, then "p" and "r" to create conditions around products and reagents. That will tell it to only execute the job if there are 10 logs available and there are no more than 10 barrels. If you select the product condition, you can set the trait to "empty" so it checks for empty barrels. From now on, your carpenter will make 10 barrels whenever your fort has 10 empty barrels or less. Holy poo poo, the game really needs an UI overhaul, cause I had no idea this was buried somewhere ten layers deep and probably off-handedly mentioned by Toady once in patch notes five years ago.
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Jan 19, 2021 08:00
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I have great news for you.
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Jan 19, 2021 08:41
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steinrokkan posted:Holy poo poo, the game really needs an UI overhaul, cause I had no idea this was buried somewhere ten layers deep and probably off-handedly mentioned by Toady once in patch notes five years ago.
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Jan 19, 2021 08:52
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darthbob88 posted:It's pretty easy, actually. You can hit <j/u>-m to bring up the work order manager screen, then q to add a new job. You can also add work orders from workshops, with q-P. Yeah, I've already added a bunch of conditional orders, it's solved pretty much all of my gripes with the game instantly.
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Jan 19, 2021 09:48
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Don’t sleep on adding conditional orders from specific workshops like darthbob said, it’s much more elegant in terms of workflow. With it you can have a lot of workshops in a lot of different places and not have to worry about dwarven ping-pong - for example, you could build a Craftsdwarf’s Workshop near your refuse stockpile, limit it to only bonecrafting tasks, and set up conditionals to automatically make horn crafts/skull totems when you have more than X raw materials and automatically make bone bolts when you fall below Y bolts total. Now that workshop has a unique purpose instead of being one of dozens of basically interchangeable workshops strewn at random throughout your fort. And workshops are essentially free to build so now you can put them wherever you need them! You can also use conditionals if you’re sick of having unreasonably high prepared meal and drink counts - just set your dwarves to conditionally brew/cook when stocks fall below whatever you’re comfy with. The only trouble is that it’s a bit difficult to throttle crop planting, gathering and processing to match (or at least I find it difficult to do).
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Jan 20, 2021 04:18
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Hey, does anyone use the Masterwork launcher? I made a new world and tried a few different new starts and I couldn't see a drat thing in any of them. There's some sort of lighting thing. I don't know if it's a mod or a new feature from the main game or what, but I hate it and I can't find a way to turn it off. Anyone know what I'm talking about?
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Jan 20, 2021 06:17
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whatever it is, it's most likely a DFHack plugin getting started up on autopilot. I think rendermax did that, but it's languished a bit since TWBT came in and was absolutely incompatible with it there should be a file named dfhack.init in the folder with the game executable proper, give it a look-see and see what it autoexecs on startup
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Jan 20, 2021 11:55
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Prop Wash posted:Don’t sleep on adding conditional orders from specific workshops like darthbob said, it’s much more elegant in terms of workflow. With it you can have a lot of workshops in a lot of different places and not have to worry about dwarven ping-pong - for example, you could build a Craftsdwarf’s Workshop near your refuse stockpile, limit it to only bonecrafting tasks, and set up conditionals to automatically make horn crafts/skull totems when you have more than X raw materials and automatically make bone bolts when you fall below Y bolts total. Now that workshop has a unique purpose instead of being one of dozens of basically interchangeable workshops strewn at random throughout your fort. And workshops are essentially free to build so now you can put them wherever you need them! I also have a couple magma forges with workshop profiles set to take only dwarves with Great and below skill, and work orders to continuously make leggings and trap components, so they can spend time training smiths and my other forges can do actually important work. Likewise a couple glass furnaces near the surface set to collect sand whenever it drops below 20 units, so my magma glass furnaces can keep working without having to stop for sand.
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Jan 21, 2021 09:03
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scamtank posted:whatever it is, it's most likely a DFHack plugin getting started up on autopilot. I think rendermax did that, but it's languished a bit since TWBT came in and was absolutely incompatible with it That was it! I just deleted that line and it everything's back to normal.
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Jan 22, 2021 02:36
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lowercase16 posted:That was it! I just deleted that line and it everything's back to normal. great! 
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Jan 23, 2021 01:53
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[tap tap tap on the microphone] releas
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Jan 29, 2021 01:12
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scamtank posted:Made people get used to seeing dead bodies 2021
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Jan 29, 2021 01:47
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