Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Lordfiscus]

I have three questions.
1, are aboveground crops as viable as subterranean crops? Will building grates prevent snow damage to crops in Winter like glass or am I better off finding another method? Does "Roof off the "aboveground land" still work or is sunlight a thing now?
2, my farmers are working the fields instead of building them, and I don't know how to set farm plot building as a higher priority.
3, how do I set specific recipes for a Still, to use a specific plant to brew with?

[PatrikLundell]

1. Above ground crops are easier than subsurface ones because they're not tied to seasons, but grow all year round. I don't do freezing because of the freeze/melt deaths that can't be avoided with a reasonable effort. However, I channel out ground and build my surface plots there, after roofing the area over and I've dug tunnels to them (to reach them safely).
2. Harvesting will interrupt almost everything, and I suspect planting may have a higher priority than building new plots. However, if your farmers can't keep up you either need more farmers or fewer/smaller plots.
3. You can't. The kitchen menu allows you to set which plants to brew and cook, allowing for some control there. Otherwise you'll have to use stockpile linking hell to control it. Someone also mentioned what I think was a minecart track with pressure plates toggling the path to split produce between two stockpiles, but that requires you to produce enough to actually get a split of a reasonable kind.

[Lordfiscus]

Damn. A potato vodka fortress is going to be a lot more difficult if I can't just tell them to only use one plant. I could transition from subterranean to aboveground crops and do it that way, they'll eventually run out of plump helmets for dwarven wine and make potato wine instead.

For labor, I might single out dwarves with useless jobs/skills to work the fields instead.
Thanks for telling me you can roof off surface farm plots.

[NTJedi]

I have three questions.
1, are aboveground crops as viable as subterranean crops? Will building grates prevent snow damage to crops in Winter like glass or am I better off finding another method? Does "Roof off the "aboveground land" still work or is sunlight a thing now?
2, my farmers are working the fields instead of building them, and I don't know how to set farm plot building as a higher priority.
3, how do I set specific recipes for a Still, to use a specific plant to brew with?

1.  Aboveground crops work as good as subterranean crops. Building a roof over the aboveground crops still works for them.  Typically I dig as fast as possible into the mountain or ground and setup a gate... then build one 3 x 5 plot for underground.  When other important matters are handled then I build a second 3 x 5 plot for aboveground, channel the ground above and build a ceiling with something preferably fire safe.  These two locations provide for enough food and drink as your grower advances with skill.

2.  Turn off your seed planting in the fields they're working... let them build the new farm plot then turn the seed planting back on.

3.  Ideally you want a wide variety of brew mixtures to keep all the different dwarves happy since so many have different brew favorites.  If you're doing the brews for money, you will find more money in making prepared meals or if you have sand and wood the glass spiked balls /serrated disks.

[Saiko Kila]

Damn. A potato vodka fortress is going to be a lot more difficult if I can't just tell them to only use one plant. I could transition from subterranean to aboveground crops and do it that way, they'll eventually run out of plump helmets for dwarven wine and make potato wine instead.

Why you can't? Just disable "brew" for every other plant than potato, and they will be doing only potato vodka. The change is instantaneous, if they are currently brewing from plump helmet, and you disable "brew" for plump helmet, they immediately cancel the job. Also, setting a stockpile with only potato, and linking this stockpile (as well as another with empty pots) to a particular still, works well. But I personally prefer to disable the plants I don't want brewed, because it works faster and on all stills at the same time.

[Fleeting Frames]

1. There's no snow damage, but cold damage (in ultra-cold areas, not your average Tundra) does come through with light. On the off chance this happens, you could counteract it with magma floor heating perhaps.

2. I have dfhack script for stuff like that, but what others said.

3. Without stockpiles or editing other plant permissions, can still do it with dfhack. (Though it doesn't seem like you'll need it here, either.)

Alt-A for gui/job-material. Then Alt-W for workflow, and check production of potato wine.

[Loci]

Damn. A potato vodka fortress is going to be a lot more difficult if I can't just tell them to only use one plant.

For a themed fortress, you could mod in a new reaction at the still which uses a specific plant (potato) and produces a specific alcohol (vodka).

[Saiko Kila]

Damn. A potato vodka fortress is going to be a lot more difficult if I can't just tell them to only use one plant.

For a themed fortress, you could mod in a new reaction at the still which uses a specific plant (potato) and produces a specific alcohol (vodka).

I wouldn't call it modding much. I always change "potato wine" (which nobody makes in real life because it tastes like kobold's dung) to "vodka" (which is what much of potatoes are made to... Or used to, before their price rose).

[mikekchar]

Linking stockpiles for the still is not *that* hellish.    I do it all the time.  You need a barrel stockpile, at least one still specific stockpile (I actually make one for each type of alcohol that I want to brew, but I'm funny that way) and you need a general plant stockpile.  Give from the general plant stockpile to the still specific stockpile.  Give from the still specific stockpile to the still.  And *very important*: give from the barrel stockpile to the still (because once you give from a stockpile to a workshop, *everything* must come from a "give stockpile").  That's it.

I use 1 manager order each to brew from plant and brew from fruit daily if there is at least 1 brewable fruit/plant and I have less than some threshold of booze (which I usually set at a 1 month supply, so twice the number of dwarfs in the fortress).  This also helps to randomise what's brewed.

To even out production, I assign seasons to different above ground crops  (even though you don't have to).  I tend to use the same seasons that things grow in where I live in real life.  That way I only have a few things at the still at any given time.  This ensures some randomisation.  Also, remember that you need *very little food* in your fortress.  A single tile will be producing something like 25-30 booze a month once you have a decently skilled grower.  In my current fortress I have 11 brewable crops to satisfy the cravings of my dwarfs.  If I had them all going at the same time I would be producing enough booze for 120 dwarfs even if there was only 1 tile for each crop.   Since I cook with brew, I plant slightly more than I would need (but you only need about 20% more to compensate for that).  If you have a lot of freeloaders/visitors and you serve them drinks, then you need to brew a bit more.

TL;DR: Yes it's viable.  A 4x5 farm is as much as you will ever need to keep even a big fortress in drink.  I usually start with 3 tiles. Link stockpiles, and use the manager -- it's easy and fun.