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[MuonDecay]

I had a pleasant little fort carved out for myself adjacent to a magma pipe that reached the surface. This was a populous fortress, and it soon became my custom to dump any unwanted immigrants into the exposed lava to dispose of them with minimal fuss.

However, it was also my custom to have a large store-room (well, catacombs) full of coffins to be used for burials when appropriate. Now, every time I would dump dwarves into the magma, a coffin would be assigned, if available, for all of them. Despite the fact that falling into the magma burned away their clothes, corpse, bones, and so on. Their body was fully destroyed by the magma, yet they still got a coffin.

This was bad enough, as it ate through the coffins I had reserved to minimize unhappiness in the event of accidents or siege casualties.

However, I soon realized that if I didn't have any free coffins, these dead dwarves would form up a sort of queue. Whenever I build more coffins and allowed them to be used for burial, no matter how much time had elapsed, the nonexistant bodies would immediately take priority and "fill" the coffins up until all of said dead dwarves had been "buried" in the coffins. Thus, I could have a single recently dead dwarf waiting for a burial, and a full catacomb. I would build 10 coffins and designate them for burial, and the dwarf would not be buried because the coffins were instantly filled, upon becoming available, by the immigrants I killed a season or more prior who were in this ghastly nominal queue to be "buried" in them.

This problem could easily compound itself such that if a player did that for a while before starting to give dwarves proper available coffins that they would either have to build a coffin for every destroyed dwarf that had ever been to the fortress, or avoid coffins entirely and be forced to let resident dwarves rot in the graveyard.

Suggestions might obviously be that "filling" a coffin requires that a job is completed by a dwarf wherein they haul reachable body parts to the coffin, and foregoing the burial if there are no parts to be entombed. Maybe this would require friends/family to have unhappy thoughts about the dwarf dying a terrible death that prevented a burial.

[Kagus]

If you're keeping a relatively small number of dwarves, you can also try assigning them tombs when they're alive.  They'll be happy about having postmortem accommodations, and it will never be filled by anyone but them.

[Torak]

They assign it in their memory, such as people who claim graves in a sailor's memory.

[martinuzz]

Churning out coffins will help your masons become legendary before they die.
Anyway, this is not a bug.

[ May 27, 2008: Message edited by: martinuzz ]

[Derakon]

quote:Originally posted by Torak:
<STRONG>They assign it in their memory, such as people who claim graves in a sailor's memory.</STRONG>

Yep. S'called a cenotaph.

You could always just set up a special catacombs for your junk dwarves - a 10x10 room filled entirely with coffins, which are only made available for burial when immigrants have arrived. If an important dwarf dies, you can enable a single coffin for him/her in the nicer catacombs.

[Draco18s]

Try deconstructing these immigrant-claimed coffins and re-building them.  I don't remember if they get added back to the queue or not.

[Kagus]

They do.  I was attempting to bury a hunting dog in a little pine shack on a hill when some cheese maker's long-dead pet donkey complicated matters.

[Surma]

I hate the idea of putting a -pet- in a coffin. Burying them, meh. But a coffin? Really?

Maybe if there were a distinction between pets and war animals (hunting and war dogs) from regular pet coffins, say.. a "Allow military animals to be buried here?" switch..

[Aquillion]

I have a suggestion:  STOP KILLING YOUR DWARVES.

...heh.  Seriously, though, while this is a feature and not a bug, it would probably make sense for dwarves whose bodies are there and currently rotting to get priority over memorials, just for logistical reasons.

[Keizo]

Even though most of us have found out about the MAX POPULATION init option, I think some players just enjoy killing off peasants. It's also a time honored tradition from the 2D era. In fact, I sometimes miss being able to wantonly kill nobles; the new appointment system has made that practice kind of pointless (Although I suppose I could just appoint every new peasant sheriff and subsequently kill them, but then I'd just be one step closer to the loony bin..).

[MuonDecay]

quote:Originally posted by Aquillion:
<STRONG>
...heh.  Seriously, though, while this is a feature and not a bug, it would probably make sense for dwarves whose bodies are there and currently rotting to get priority over memorials, just for logistical reasons.</STRONG>

I'd be satisfied with that.

I wouldn't mind having to clear the queue of honorary burials quite as much if doing so didn't force me to churn out coffins at a hectic pace trying to get them all laid to figurative rest before the pile of recently dead guardsmen rots away without a proper burial.

Look at it this way, the missing corpses went this long without a grave marker, can't they wait a smidge longer for us to honor those whose remains actually have a chance at getting a respectable interment?

Also: population cap is useful yes, but I tended to keep the rare immigrant who had a skill I wanted and dispose of all the rest. It saves the effort of training brainless peons into useful contributors if you take a selective approach to immigration so that incoming dwarves already bring something to the table. Also: it's fun to kill immigrants.

[G-Flex]

What's worse is when dwarven *caravan* traders/guards end up getting assigned to my fortress' burial plots after getting obliterated by Completely Unavoidable Goblin Ambush #517. I understand migrants a bit more since they do ostensibly live in your fortress, but why caravan members? Ones whose bodies are long rotted, even.