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[falconne]

I've recently started playing and have a few questions that I didn't find a clear resolution in the forums or wiki:

• Does the material of a shield matter now? I've read some older posts saying there is a bug that means the shield material makes no difference, so having all wooden shields are fine. Is that fixed now or is there still no point in metal shields?
  
  
• How much % profit should I give trading caravans in my first few years, to make them happy and come back with better goods? My broker is early in his career and doesn't have high enough skill to tell me how the merchants feel. Also, I'm finding in the first couple of years the merchants haven't brought anything I really wanted (I didn't use the "set your demands" functionality so I'll start using that now). I still buy some random (but still useful) things like clothes for the sake of it and give them a high marginal profit for the trade... and that just seems to make them bring more of that stuff the next time. Is it a bad idea to trade for things I don't really need to avoid giving them a false impression of demand?
  
  
• Is there an easy way to tell how much clothes, armour and weapons I have that is un-equipped? The Stocks screen shows me details of all the equipment, both sitting in stockpiles and equipped by dwarves. What I want to be able to do is easily make sure I have enough spare sets of armour and weapons, maintain a decent stockpile of available clothes and have items like spare picks available for when migrants arrive and I want some of them to become miners. Right now I've created several small stockpiles restricted to items like clothes and armour, with bins disabled, so I can get a visual cue if something is depleting. It's a very space inefficient, micromanagement heavy technique and I feel here must be a more elegant solution?

[thiosk]

1.  Heavy shields hurt more when you get bashed in the face with them.  Crap soldiers have a harder time lugging them though.

2. I give as much as I can in the hope they'll bring fancier stuff.  Especially the damnable elves.  I want exotic animals.  They seem to bring more every year.  I buy all the cloth, because it takes me forever to get my own industry going...the clothes always rot off long before.

3.  I look forward to reading others answers.

[knutor]

1. Metal won't decay, as fast.  Or burn.  Wood is light.  Quality and Wt. determines damage just like in weapons.  Wt. and Agility determines blip speed.  Bucklers take less bars to build, and do less, overall.  Good to build these when first making metal gear, until the armorsmith is skilled up.  I monitor my anvil with t, and mark low quality gear for melting, before its moved to a stockpile, if time permits.

2. 500 profit.  Sometimes less with Mountainhome, until I can justify intent. Offering goods to my knowledge doesn't improve trader intent, just the Civilization racial standing in order to meet baron requirements(paved roads and offerings).

3. Press Tab, when your in stockpile view.  It'll show ya piecemeal, item by item, what is in the region.  Red items are the stuff on enemies or traders.

edit: color

[falconne]

Thanks for the answers regarding shields. I guess it's worth it to make at least copper shields to start with then, since they'd still be light and upgrade to iron shields when the squad's strength and endurance has increased.

3. Press Tab, when your in stockpile view.  It'll show ya piecemeal, item by item, what is in the region.  Red items are the stuff on enemies or traders.

Yes I know about the Tab expanding individual items, what I meant was is there an easy way to tell which items are already equipped by dwarves and which are still available in a stockpile, without going through every individual piece (for being able to tell how much surplus I have for quick expansion in the future). From the looks of it individual stockpiles as I'm already doing seem to be the only way to go.

[AndreaReina]

Use bins, that will consolidate the space. Use "k" to view the tile contents, then "return" to see what's in the bin. Set the stockpile to accept only the types of armor you want to use (ie. under Armor -> Body I only have breastplates, mail shirts, and armor enabled, no shirts, cloaks, robes, tunics, etc). Since the bin contents are unordered (leggings, left boot, helm, armor, leggings, right boot, armor, helm, helm), it'll be easier to figure out if you split the stockpile into several, each only accepting one body part so you have a stockpile for each of helms, leggings/greaves, upper body, gauntlets, boots, shields. Do the same for weapons and bolts if you like.

[knutor]

I do the opposite of Andrea.  I don't use bins.  At about the time I start making metal gear, I start keeping track, like falconne wants to do.  I am interested in knowing the quality metal gear supply at a glance, so I can make or remake anything not ☼masterful☼, and keep it seperated. 

Sometimes I keep the low quality metal gear(usable weapons/armor) near the forges, other times I keep them up near the Depot junk stockpile.  Depends how robust the military is and the ores present at that embark.  I try to conserve all the silver, to upgrade to sterling silver.  And keep exceptional gear around, to fill in holes, til I can replace it with mastercrafts.

The tabbed stocklist will seperate items weapons-ammo being used in traps.  But, I forgot the color it uses to depict this.  Its not white. *blush*

[Dwarfler]

Use the quality settings on your stockpiles to manage weapons and armor.  Have a stockpile in your barracks that only accepts masterwork quality (you may need to set a lower quality threshold depending on your smith's skill level), and a stockpile near your smelter that only accepts lower-quality items.  Periodically designate the low-quality stockpile for melting (if you use only wooden bins you can mass-designate with d-b-m).  Or if your smelter and forge are right next to each other (I know mine usually are) just leave the low-quality stuff at the forge and d-b-m it when it starts to get cluttered.

As for managing clothes, now that they are a necessity it really would be nice if there was a spot for them on the z screen like with food and drink, but there isn't.  And there isn't really an shortcut to see how many unused shoes your dwarfs have available either.  What I typically do is have a supply room with separate stockpiles for shirts, trousers and shoes.  For small forts, disallow bins and you'll be able to see at a glance how many you have available.  Larger forts will require bins and the occasional manual inventory, but even that is a lot easier if you keep the clothing types in separate stockpiles.

[Cozmopolit]

I use dfhack's workflow command to just set how many unused clothes I want on stock. Really, I have no clue how I was able to play without workflow.

edit: one stockpile for clothes that takes from links only, the clothiers shop and the leatherworks. All new clothes go there to be picked up by dwarves. Another stockpile for clothes that takes from anywhere and is a refuse pile aswell. Gets rid of most xclothesx fully automated.

[falconne]

Use bins, that will consolidate the space. Use "k" to view the tile contents, then "return" to see what's in the bin. Set the stockpile to accept only the types of armor you want to use (ie. under Armor -> Body I only have breastplates, mail shirts, and armor enabled, no shirts, cloaks, robes, tunics, etc). Since the bin contents are unordered (leggings, left boot, helm, armor, leggings, right boot, armor, helm, helm), it'll be easier to figure out if you split the stockpile into several, each only accepting one body part so you have a stockpile for each of helms, leggings/greaves, upper body, gauntlets, boots, shields. Do the same for weapons and bolts if you like.

Well as I mentioned I actually avoid bins for these stockpiles because what I'm trying to achieve is a quick visual cue on how much spare sets of everything I have without having to periodically check bins manually. This means very granular stockpiles for narrow ranges of items which is very micromanagement heavy, but seems to be the only option.

Use the quality settings on your stockpiles to manage weapons and armor.  Have a stockpile in your barracks that only accepts masterwork quality (you may need to set a lower quality threshold depending on your smith's skill level), and a stockpile near your smelter that only accepts lower-quality items.  Periodically designate the low-quality stockpile for melting (if you use only wooden bins you can mass-designate with d-b-m).  Or if your smelter and forge are right next to each other (I know mine usually are) just leave the low-quality stuff at the forge and d-b-m it when it starts to get cluttered.

Ah good point, I didn't think about quality, I should do that. Although at this stage my metal workers are just starting out so they aren't really producing much fancy stuff... I'll keep that in mind for the future.

I use dfhack's workflow command to just set how many unused clothes I want on stock. Really, I have no clue how I was able to play without workflow.

edit: one stockpile for clothes that takes from links only, the clothiers shop and the leatherworks. All new clothes go there to be picked up by dwarves. Another stockpile for clothes that takes from anywhere and is a refuse pile aswell. Gets rid of most xclothesx fully automated.

Yeah I've been reading the dfhack readme recently... most of it looks like cheating but workflows look like something I really need. I thought though that it would count clothes and armour currently equipped by dwarves as part of the total stock... can you actually tell it to use the unused clothes count? Definitely need to use it then.

Thanks for the tip about the refuse stockpile for old clothes. That's a clever trick... how long do they take to decompose? Until then I guess they affect the workflow routine's available stock count.


Tagging on a somewhat related question on attire: I was thinking of getting my woodcutters and hunters to put on armour by assigning them to a "do nothing" military squad. Is that the best way to get them to wear armour or is there a cleaner method? Is there any disadvantage to leaving them in an inactive squad just for this? (The only thing I could think of was that they wouldn't be connected to the civilian alert system, so I'd need to remember to assign them the safety alert manually if there was danger)

[Cozmopolit]

I use dfhack's workflow command to just set how many unused clothes I want on stock. Really, I have no clue how I was able to play without workflow.

edit: one stockpile for clothes that takes from links only, the clothiers shop and the leatherworks. All new clothes go there to be picked up by dwarves. Another stockpile for clothes that takes from anywhere and is a refuse pile aswell. Gets rid of most xclothesx fully automated.

Yeah I've been reading the dfhack readme recently... most of it looks like cheating but workflows look like something I really need. I thought though that it would count clothes and armour currently equipped by dwarves as part of the total stock... can you actually tell it to use the unused clothes count? Definitely need to use it then.

Thanks for the tip about the refuse stockpile for old clothes. That's a clever trick... how long do they take to decompose? Until then I guess they affect the workflow routine's available stock count.

To be honest, I don't have a clue about what gets counted. But I currently have my clothes workflow set to 30 units on stock each, with 41 dwarves in the fortress - and there are 21 bins of new clothing on stock. So my guess is that equipped clothes are not counted by workflow.

Old clothes rot pretty fast (a few months) - my decompose stockpile currently has a single XXsockXX in it.

Tagging on a somewhat related question on attire: I was thinking of getting my woodcutters and hunters to put on armour by assigning them to a "do nothing" military squad. Is that the best way to get them to wear armour or is there a cleaner method? Is there any disadvantage to leaving them in an inactive squad just for this? (The only thing I could think of was that they wouldn't be connected to the civilian alert system, so I'd need to remember to assign them the safety alert manually if there was danger)

Even a "do nothing" squad needs barracks assigned for dwarves to actually behave like being in a squad -> equip assigned armor/clothing (AFAIK, not 100% sure). They will idle=train there instead of idling in a meeting zone.

I just wrote on that in another thread:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=114662.msg3626919#msg3626919

[falconne]

Tagging on a somewhat related question on attire: I was thinking of getting my woodcutters and hunters to put on armour by assigning them to a "do nothing" military squad. Is that the best way to get them to wear armour or is there a cleaner method? Is there any disadvantage to leaving them in an inactive squad just for this? (The only thing I could think of was that they wouldn't be connected to the civilian alert system, so I'd need to remember to assign them the safety alert manually if there was danger)

Even a "do nothing" squad needs barracks assigned for dwarves to actually behave like being in a squad -> equip assigned armor/clothing (AFAIK, not 100% sure). They will idle=train there instead of idling in a meeting zone.

I just wrote on that in another thread:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=114662.msg3626919#msg3626919

Oh right... might not be a good idea then as I want them to mingle. I was thinking about "Civilian Uniforms" and did a search and I see lots of people have discussed it and it looks like putting woodcutters (and possibly hunters) in a squad is a bad idea as they will get confused during their weapon equip routine. That's a shame since those guys are the most at risk.