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[Maul_Junior]

So I started a new fort to try a few new things (wait, you mean there are more traps than just CAGES? You're a damn liar! .....seriously? There's more than just cages? I suppose I should try them out.......), and one of the new things I'm trying this time around, aside from a glass industry (on an embark with no sand >.< I guess the 30 bags of sand I brought with me will be enough for now) and I guess a pottery industry because I have clay, I want to try bringing the sun to the subsurface, and create underground surface farms.

Also new for me--a completely flat embark. It makes me nervous. I like a mountainside--or at least a hillside to dig into and provide natural fortifications.

My question is, are these underground surface plots (channeling the earth above a muddy/clay/etc surface, and letting grass grow down below) only capable of supporting only above ground crops, or will they be able to use both surface and underground crops? My assumption is that it will only be able to support surface plants.

If it's the former, I already have plans to build a floodgate (another first \o/) to divert part of the river to irrigate some underwater areas.



.....I'm also embarrassed by the time it took me to realize that vanilla large, serrated discs are Masterwork Sawblades >.<

[stormyseasons]

They'll only support aboveground plants. And irrigation won't be strictly necessary if you're going to open up the cavern layers, as those come with mud already. Exposed rock will need water for mud, though.

[Maul_Junior]

That's what I thought, thanks.

Yes, I realize it's not *strictly* necessary, but I'm a turtle when it comes to gameplay. I prefer to have a steady fort before I delve into the caverns.

Also, just realized I can make clear glass without sand.

/headdesk

Oh, and the link in your sig says gold but the thread itself is on diamond.

[FrankMcFuzz]

If you're lazy like I am and couldn't be bothered irrigating, channeling dirt will remove all the dumb 'pebbled' spots and growing trees on the ground for entire-square above-ground farming. If you're not lazy, you don't need to eat your map away to do this lol

I prefer flat embarks, actually, because goblins will rarely find a sneaky dick spot to snipe your dwarves in the courtyard from.

[Maul_Junior]

Yeah, it's going to be nice to not have to keep my ironbark/steelbark/tree farms outside where they are vulnerable. Also because I'm using the harder farming aspect of Masterwork, where aboveground takes 2 months, underground takes a year.



.....Also I notice that I built a farm that is part on the grass and part on the clay yet to be converted--it actually lets me plant ANYTHING on there. it's kind of nice.

Though I think I'll deconstruct it and let the grass spread.




....the grass DOES spread, right? Atm I only have a 3x3 channel down to the clay level. about half the tiles have changed in the last season or so. Do I need to channel out above ALL the tiles I want to be grass, or will it spread out even where there hasn't been sunlight directly touching the clay on that level?

[Larix]

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Tile_attributes

In short, tiles check vertically up to see which attribute to have - if there's natural unbroken floor between it and the sky, the tile's "subterranean dark"; in any other case (open sky, built ceiling, cast obsidian wall), it's "aboveground light".

"Outside" vegetation will only grow in "aboveground light" tiles, not under unchannelled natural floor. Grass spreads only to other aboveground tiles. Only cavern flora can grow on subterranean tiles.

Check your fields and make sure each plot is entirely above or below ground. Mixed-identity plots work poorly, if at all.

Spoiler: long explanation (click to show/hide)

If a field shows both above- and below-ground plants as options, it's misaligned. In the aboveground tiles, subterranean plants will not be planted, and in the subterranean tiles, aboveground plants won't be placed. Even more problematically, dwarfs plant in columns from left to right, starting in the northwestern corner, and stop planting the moment they reach an invalid tile. If the northwest corner is "aboveground" and you specify "subterranean" plants for a season, nothing will get planted, because the northwest tile is already illegal.

[Maul_Junior]

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Tile_attributes

In short, tiles check vertically up to see which attribute to have - if there's natural unbroken floor between it and the sky, the tile's "subterranean dark"; in any other case (open sky, built ceiling, cast obsidian wall), it's "aboveground light".

"Outside" vegetation will only grow in "aboveground light" tiles, not under unchannelled natural floor. Grass spreads only to other aboveground tiles. Only cavern flora can grow on subterranean tiles.

Check your fields and make sure each plot is entirely above or below ground. Mixed-identity plots work poorly, if at all.

Spoiler: long explanation (click to show/hide)

If a field shows both above- and below-ground plants as options, it's misaligned. In the aboveground tiles, subterranean plants will not be planted, and in the subterranean tiles, aboveground plants won't be placed. Even more problematically, dwarfs plant in columns from left to right, starting in the northwestern corner, and stop planting the moment they reach an invalid tile. If the northwest corner is "aboveground" and you specify "subterranean" plants for a season, nothing will get planted, because the northwest tile is already illegal.

.....my wiki search was for farming, not tile attributes. thanks so much.

I had been under the impression that a single grass block, when underground, would spread to other dirt blocks (i.e. dirt/grass in minecraft). Time to rip open the ceiling and then find enough mats to build it back up.

[Sadrice]

At least you found this out before setting up a charcoal based glass industry to make green glass block roofing for your greenhouse, like I did way back in the day.  Halfway through I screwed up and built part of it out of stone without noticing, and didn't catch the mistake until I already had crops happily growing underneath the stone roof.

[wierd]

Huh... Maybe I am more attentive?  I noticed that the "light, above ground" attributes are conserved even when walled/floored over. All that changes is the "inside/outside" flag. --- Way back in .40d.

Routinely channeled out rooms from the outside, then floored them over to create safe growing rooms. Back then, this was just about the only reliable way to get safe, reusable forestry going. (Water would leave mud, but the mud didnt grow anything unless there was an underground river feature, then it would only grow tower caps, and not all that regularly. Very hit and miss that your embark would have such a feature. By contrast, a floored over growing chamber in a soil layer would grow trees reliably.)

I use magma green glass blocks simply because it is an inexhaustible 'McMaterial', easy to produce in large quantities.

I should mod in some different reactions for glass to give more colors.

[Sadrice]

This was way back in 40d that I was havering my misadventures with green glass floors.  I do love the glassmaking industry once you get magma, though.  It tends to be my material of choice for large decorative constructions.  A glass coloring mod would definitely be interesting, I know I've seen suggestion threads on the topic before.  Red glass would be very nice, and I always have more gold than I know what to do with anyways.  It would also finally give a use for cobaltite other than color coding my levers and doors.


By the way, Wierd, I've been wondering for ages.  What are the small white things around the snake in your avatar?

[wierd]

White shelf fungus

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

unidentified species.  It is however very common in my area. Mr unidentified green snake is crawling over a log, infested with said mushrooms, which is itself nestled in amongst oak leaves. (more or less.) It's clearer if you zoom in on the image. (right click, show image)

Some of the oak leaves are also grey, because that happens in nature too.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Ganthan]

Also, just realized I can make clear glass without sand.

/headdesk

Wait, what?  Clear glass without sand?  How?

I've never actually tried making clear glass before but I was under the impression that sand is a requirement for green and clear glass.

[wierd]

It is, but not for crystal. Crystal replaces the sand reagent for rock crystals. (which are painfully rare, despite being super common IRL. You know, it's JUST quartz crystals.)

[FrankMcFuzz]

It is, but not for crystal. Crystal replaces the sand reagent for rock crystals. (which are painfully rare, despite being super common IRL. You know, it's JUST quartz crystals.)

Cavern layers usually have a few in my experience.

[wierd]

Yeah, but the inclusion size is almost never realistic.

Given that these are dwarves we are talking about, we should be digging up inclusions ranging from a single nugget (say a geode), to massive inclusions, like these.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)