Dwarf Fortress III: Instant Fun : Just Add Magma

[factotum]

The secret is that when you're moving up and down ramps, instead of spending 1 move to go up 1 Z level, you spend 1 move to go up 1 Z level and move 1 square horizontally as well to reach the top of the ramp. What this means is that if you have a line of 20 ramps over a 40 square long hallway, instead of spending 60 movement you only spend 40, exactly as if you'd walked down just a normal 40-square long hallway!

Seems a bit exploit-y to me. However, the idea of making your fortress as compact as possible works even if you have to do it using lots of stairways--for instance, in your 20x20x20 example, a dwarf should be able to go from one corner of the fortress to the extreme opposite corner in 60 moves, which is still better than the equivalent on a flat 2D fort.

Of course, you might not be able to fit a fortress that big without hitting the caverns...

[AgentPaper]

Seems a bit exploit-y to me. However, the idea of making your fortress as compact as possible works even if you have to do it using lots of stairways--for instance, in your 20x20x20 example, a dwarf should be able to go from one corner of the fortress to the extreme opposite corner in 60 moves, which is still better than the equivalent on a flat 2D fort.

Of course, you might not be able to fit a fortress that big without hitting the caverns...

If you build just straight down, yeah you'll probably hit the caverns. You can go at least that far down though. And sure, maybe it's a little bit exploit-y, but it's a good practice even without the exploit, even if not quite as much. And even if diagonals get a more realistic move cost, it'd still be a pretty big difference to use ramps even over stairs in a similar fortress.

Edit: And if nothing else, it saves you a TON on space for hallways. My current setup is just to have a + shaped set of hallways, each 100 squares long and 4 wide, with the up/down ramps like I showed. I can just keep repeating the pattern every 2 levels (I got a macro program for it just since it's so tedious to set up) and I've got all the hallway I could ever want to attach stuff too.

Oh, another bonus I forgot to mention, is that it essentially makes all of your hallways 12+ wide. The further your dwarf has to go, the more opportunity he has to go up or down a level to avoid traffic.

[TheSummoner]

In the world of Dwarf Fortress there are two distinct but equally valid schools of thought... Those who subscribe to a perfect model of efficiency and those who prefer to spend their effort building an enormous monument to pointless grandeur for the sake of pointless grandeur.

Yeah... you can keep your clean and efficient model of peak performance, I'm gonna stick to my pointlessly long winding halls. Make those traders march through my fortress and see my grand works on display!

[AgentPaper]

In the world of Dwarf Fortress there are two distinct but equally valid schools of thought... Those who subscribe to a perfect model of efficiency and those who prefer to spend their effort building an enormous monument to pointless grandeur for the sake of pointless grandeur.

Yeah... you can keep your clean and efficient model of peak performance, I'm gonna stick to my pointlessly long winding halls. Make those traders march through my fortress and see my grand works on display!

I've tried building huge fortresses with lots of pointless big stuff, but I always just end up making it as small and compact and with as little wasted space as possible. It's a curse, I tells ya!

Seriously though, I've always followed the principle of Form follows Function. It's why I use PCs instead of Macs.

[TheSummoner]

Really? I use PCs instead of Macs because I'm a heterosexual. (Nothing against anyone whose gay... unless you use a Mac that is.)

But enough Mac bashing... Essentially what I'm doing for my monument to good old fashoned Dwarven inefficiency is winding corridors and spiral-staircase-like ramp structures where a single staircase would've been a much better use of space... as well as making rooms significantly larger than they need to be. Most work rooms are 20x20. While this may be reasonable for stockpile rooms, its severe overkill for workshops, wouldn't ya say? And I haven't even started on the grand dining hall or any of those fun rooms like the throne room and prisons... gladitorial arena for prisoner executions...

Though one thing I'm working on is the Grand Entrance Hall. Essentially when you enter the fortress, you enter aboveground... then you go down one of those spiral things that takes you down two levels and turns you around. You'll pass through a chamber with waterfalls and a large pool on either side of the walkway (probably some statues and pillars and other fun bits). At the end of that, you'll go down another spiral ramp, down a level, turn around and pass UNDER the water (sealed off with crystal glass windows). before entering the fortress proper.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Have fun with your windows while you can. BUILDINGDESTROYER tagged critters will show you why you should have just made a wall out of crystal glass blocks.

[TheSummoner]

Thats a good point... Its not going to stop me from using the windows, but it is a good point.

I'm doubting the water in the entrance hall will be enough to drown the fortress should the windows be smashed... Definatly enough to muddy things up and generally be an inconvenience, but not enough to drown anything. And if I'm wrong and it DOES drown the world... well wouldn't that be fun?

Oh, if only I had enough to do my entrance hall with magma instead of water ^_^.

[Ilena]

Thesummoner you have given me an idea to create said fortress, though it is going to be a series of tunnels and even rooms inside a lake. Perhaps it will even be in a cold enviroment so the surface freezes over :D Yay for diverting rivers :D

[TheSummoner]

Heh, I'm going with a full water and ice theme for mine... I don't have a lake to work with, but I'm covering most of the fortress with constructed ice.

I may have to wait for a freeze and turn off temperature at some points to prevent it from melting as they carry it to lower levels though...

[Ilena]

Hehe, nope im litterally starting on a map with a river or stream or something, and then going to take a massive channelling project, remove about 10-15 z layers of rock (smoothing the walls of each layer :D) then I will create a channel probably 4 wide, connected to the continious water source, put floodgates to stop the water, maybe build pumps incase i ever want to remove the water to add on (i cant think of any other way i could build an addition while its under water)

From there, I may make a waterfall or something if i have a bottomless pit, i can shuttle off water elsewhere.

[AgentPaper]

Hehe, nope im litterally starting on a map with a river or stream or something, and then going to take a massive channelling project, remove about 10-15 z layers of rock (smoothing the walls of each layer :D) then I will create a channel probably 4 wide, connected to the continious water source, put floodgates to stop the water, maybe build pumps incase i ever want to remove the water to add on (i cant think of any other way i could build an addition while its under water)

From there, I may make a waterfall or something if i have a bottomless pit, i can shuttle off water elsewhere.

Sounds like a fun plan, but you'll probably need to go into the raws and turn off evaporation for that to really work. And find a major river to fuel it, most likely.

[Tankadin]

10 second block-wide power outage sent me back to my last save, which was before I installed a 20-pump tall magma pump stack and the 2 water reactors powering it. On the plus side, now I think I'll make it a bit taller, pump out some 2 z-level high obsidian walls with archery towers that also spit magma into a lava moat.

[Rollory]

I have one fort on the back burner where the plan is to build a dome of glass and steel under the ocean.

All construction materials will be glass and steel. No obsidian.

This requires essentially a full size fort on the shore to provide the industry to build it. Also, since I'm ruling out obsidian, what I will need to do is construct the world's largest pump system, draining the ocean and shoving all the water off the map edge. I'm pretty much convinced at this point that the pumps (if fed with sufficient power, and wind power seems to be enough) can in fact pump water out of the ocean faster than it flows back in from the map edge, so that I can drain one level of ocean, build another pump system on that level, drain the one below, and so on downwards, but it's going to take a whole lot of pumps in constant operation until the seabed is exposed. After that, construction of the dome, and of some means of access.

I haven't quite decided on how to remove the whole pump extravaganza once the dome is complete. Right now my thinking is that the simplest will be to build a set of floors overtop of all the pumps, and trigger a collapse.

[TheSummoner]

Theres a goblin corpse in one of my cages... How do I remove said corpse?

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Mass unforbid [d] -> [b]-> [c] it and then mass dump [d] -> [b]-> [d] it. Be sure you have a dump zone. You'll also want to unforbid it again after it is dumped so it can go in your refuse stockpile.

[TheSummoner]

Thanks, got it. Not sure if its a bug or no, but nothing seems to be decaying (I've still got skeletons of the first enemies I killed in this fortress sitting in the sun), so I'm not really bothering with refuse stockpiles.

Few things are Dwarfier than a sea of enemy bones outside your fortress.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Skeletons dont' seem to degrade. It's annoying. No more +Goblin Bone Bolts+ to train with. I used to love sieges because it gave me so many practice bolts to make.

[Jokasti]

I just got this, and it looks cool, but are there any really good beginner's guides out there?

[factotum]

There's a tutorial for the older version here:

http://afteractionreporter.com/2009/...ss-part-1-wtf/

It's still mostly accurate for the current version, although it misses that you now have to irrigate underground farms before they're usable--took me ages to figure out why I couldn't just randomly place a farm like the tutorial suggests!

[AgentPaper]

You can still do above-ground unirrigated farms, though. You just have to use seeds that you gather from plants post-embark, instead of ones you bring along beforehand.

[TheSummoner]

Alternatively, aboveground farming does not require irrigation, just an area of ground free from rocks, trees, saplings, and I believe shrubs. You probably won't get a perfect 10x10 square anywhere natural, but you don't really need one and you could always channel away the land to get one in fresh soil.

[factotum]

It doesn't even have to be free of obstructions--the farmer will just work round them and plant crops in those squares from the area you specify that are available, at least in my experience. (Which is different to below-ground farms, I believe, where an obstruction prevents the entire farm working).

[Maxymiuk]

Looks like I ran into one of those hunting bugs. My hunter insists on attempting to bludgeon prey with her crossbow instead of using the perfectly fine bone bolts she has. And yes:

- I unassigned/assigned the hunting labor
- I made sure to assign bolts as hunter ammo through the military screen
- I checked that she's actually carrying the ammo (she is)

Any other workarounds I could try?

[Rockphed]

I have one fort on the back burner where the plan is to build a dome of glass and steel under the ocean.

All construction materials will be glass and steel. No obsidian.

This requires essentially a full size fort on the shore to provide the industry to build it. Also, since I'm ruling out obsidian, what I will need to do is construct the world's largest pump system, draining the ocean and shoving all the water off the map edge. I'm pretty much convinced at this point that the pumps (if fed with sufficient power, and wind power seems to be enough) can in fact pump water out of the ocean faster than it flows back in from the map edge, so that I can drain one level of ocean, build another pump system on that level, drain the one below, and so on downwards, but it's going to take a whole lot of pumps in constant operation until the seabed is exposed. After that, construction of the dome, and of some means of access.

You could even power the pumps with the water they were pumping out. In fact, this whole thing gets significantly easier with the new ability to build stairs downward into open space.

I haven't quite decided on how to remove the whole pump extravaganza once the dome is complete. Right now my thinking is that the simplest will be to build a set of floors overtop of all the pumps, and trigger a collapse.

Deconstructing the pumps one at a time should work. You just need to work from the bottom up.

Also, which glass will you use?

[TheSummoner]

I reccomend clear... Crystal would take too long to get enough of, and whose ever heard of a dome made of green glass?

[factotum]

I don't suppose it's possible to build walls in water in Dwarf Fortress? It's just the "real world" approach to doing something like that would be to build a coffer dam around the area you want clearing, then drain the inside of that while you work.

[AgentPaper]

I don't suppose it's possible to build walls in water in Dwarf Fortress? It's just the "real world" approach to doing something like that would be to build a coffer dam around the area you want clearing, then drain the inside of that while you work.

You can. You just either need a lot of pumps and/or lava.

[Bouregard]

I have one fort on the back burner where the plan is to build a dome of glass and steel under the ocean.

All construction materials will be glass and steel. No obsidian.

This requires essentially a full size fort on the shore to provide the industry to build it. Also, since I'm ruling out obsidian, what I will need to do is construct the world's largest pump system, draining the ocean and shoving all the water off the map edge. I'm pretty much convinced at this point that the pumps (if fed with sufficient power, and wind power seems to be enough) can in fact pump water out of the ocean faster than it flows back in from the map edge, so that I can drain one level of ocean, build another pump system on that level, drain the one below, and so on downwards, but it's going to take a whole lot of pumps in constant operation until the seabed is exposed. After that, construction of the dome, and of some means of access.

I haven't quite decided on how to remove the whole pump extravaganza once the dome is complete. Right now my thinking is that the simplest will be to build a set of floors overtop of all the pumps, and trigger a collapse.

Not exactly an expert of Dwarf Fortress here... but wouldn't it be much easier to hollow out a cavern under the sea, build the dome and then collapse the roof?

[Maxymiuk]

You can. You just either need a lot of pumps and/or lava.

Or wait until it all freezes in the winter.

[Suzuro]

All right, so, I just started playing. Quite intimidating, I might add, but there is one thing that I just cannot get over: Whenever I dig out a room for a bedroom/workshop/whathaveyou, it's full of rocks. My question is: Is there anyway to designate a room to move all of that stuff out? I mean, I'm getting a rock on at least seven out of every eight tiles I dig up, and that's just annoying.


-Suzuro