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[Tacomagic]

I've never played around much with above-ground construction in freezing biomes and the wiki is non-specific about how temperature all works with respect to the inside/outside flag.

If I create an enclosed, above-ground structure will that keep animals/dwarves inside the structure from freezing to death?  How about water?  My preliminary experiments with creating a building around a murky pool suggests that the temperature inside surface buildings is still sufficient enough to cause freezing, but I don't know if water acts differently (or if the cold is spreading in from the surrounding ground tiles).

If I have to, I can always use magma as a warming source, but if I don't need it I can save a lot of time.

[Button]

In the most recent release notes, Toady indicated that indoor+aboveground water should no longer evaporate according to outdoor weather. This may have had the side effect of making it no longer freeze with the weather as well, but I haven't tested it.

[Tacomagic]

Hmm, I guess I'm not the only one who doesn't know the actual lo-down on this.

I think I'll station a naked wrestling unit in an inside / aboveground structure on a glacier and see if anyone dies.  I'll also see about trying to flood a fully constructed indoor / aboveground chamber and see if it freezes.

Onwards, TO SCIENCE!

[Tacomagic]

Sure, build a quick test world, embark with a setup designed to specifically test the temperature stuff... and I embark in probably the richest place I've seen in over a year.

TETRAHEDRITE
MALACHITE
NATIVE_COPPER
GALENA
NATIVE_GOLD
HEMATITE
SPHALERITE
RAW_ADAMANTINE
GARNIERITE
CASSITERITE
LIMONITE
BISMUTHINITE
NATIVE_ALUMINUM

For crap's sake, everything but platinum.  And this was just a generic default settings medium world with shortest history.

Damn place even has gypsum for plaster, both kinds of coal, rock crystal for clear glass, and nether cap.  Plus, there's a little bit of oceanic beach for sand collecting.

It kinda feels like the RNG just gave me the finger.

[khearn]

Sometimes it sure seems that way. I spent a few hours creating worlds with high volcanism levels, trying to make a good volcano embark, but couldn't find anything I liked. So I gave up on a volcano embark and did a regular worldgen, planning on something completely different, and naturally found a decent volcano site.

   Keith

[Urist McVoyager]

You know how it is, you usually find what you're looking for after you've stopped looking for it. 

[Tacomagic]

Sweet Urist!  The site also has access to humans and elves.  Got both caravans.

The site has EVERYTHING!

Well, everything but platinum and clay.

In other news:
I finally built an enclosed, free-standing tower.  Created a barracks on the top of the tower, populated it with tables, chairs, beds, and food and drink stockpiles.  Next to pretty it up with some statues and slabs.  Already have the squad stationed there to train full-time.  Currently have them clothed because I don't have the room pretty enough for them to not go crazy due to nudity.

Also in the process of adding a hanging basin under the top floor to test for water freezing.

[Tacomagic]

It must be near impossible to get a dwarf to freeze to death in 40.xx, because I've had 2 injured dwarves sitting out on the glacier now for over a year, having spent 2 full winters out on the glacier.  Neither has succumbed to the elements despite weather numerous snowstorms.  In fact, one of them went crazy from unhappiness and died from starvation long before any apparent damage was done from the cold.

My squad was also stationed in the tower room for 6 months completely naked (at which point bad thoughts started to make them go crazy).

On the other hand, water still freezes up almost instantly when pumped into an outside structure, so magma heating would be required to keep a water reservoir.

I'm thinking that maybe the temperature at which frost death happens was increased to prevent surface races from dying out in the winter, which probably had the side effect of making it significantly harder to freeze to death.  If nothing else, the urgency of getting underground as fast as possible during a glacier embark appears to no longer be necessary.

As a last hurrah, I stationed my naked squad out on the glacier.  They stood there for three months enduring 4 snow storms without any apparent damage (aside from mental damage, of course).