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Author Topic: A few problems  (Read 1422 times)

Youbo

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A few problems
« on: April 18, 2015, 02:35:46 pm »

Hello everyone, I have a few problems in my fort and despite looking everywhere, I could not find any solutions so I just ignored them for a while but some of them are getting critical so I finally created a account here to seek help.

Very urgent:
1. One of my starting dwarf(a legendary carpenter) became possessed. He took 2 feather wood log and started working. Since I remember reading somewhere that artifacts default to iron if the base material is lost and iron is much more valuable than 2 wooden logs, I forbidden his logs after he started working. However, he has been working for a very long time(much,much more than the usual mood) and still nothing.
 I am pretty sure something went wrong. How can I fix him?I really don't want him to go mad or kill him. I am fine with using DFhack to fix it.

2. I noticed 3 of my dwarves getting 100k+ stress a bit ago. Looking at their thoughts, it is apparently because of them feeling vengeful joining an conflict. I figured it will go down by itself.(My defenses where nearly complete at this point so no chance of civilians seeing conflict again).
Later,their stress where at over 130k when I checked on them. No new bad thought beside the vengeful one still white instead of gray despite it happening long ago and plenty of grayed good thought of sublime tables and such with 0-2 white ones. Confused, I made them high quality private rooms(There was only 1 private room before that, for Urist McMayor-Manager-Bookkeeper)
But now,one of them is at 200k+(partly before I melted 2 of his masterwork but he made a shitload of them so he only felt ''empty'') while the others are at 150k+ and a new dwarf reaching 100k+.
They have no bad thought beside the vengeful conflict that happened a VERY long time ago and is STILL white for some  reasons and a load of good thought about their own sublime stuff(most of them already grey).
I am 100% sure no conflict has happened inside my fortress since long ago(It is walled off except for drawbridge entrances with traps and a wagon-only entrance,roofed off,and the caverns blocked by a locked hatch cover). The affected dwarves don't even go outside. What the hell is stressing them? It is as if the good thoughts stress them instead of the contrary.

Minor problems:
3. I have plenty of murky pools, a river and a ridiculous amount of trees(see below) in my embark. Feather wood,the most in demand for their amazing weight,is not THAT common,sadly and I ran out of them. I noticed a fair amount of feather log that fell in the pools and river. Is there a way to recover them beside draining the water?(And I am NOT gonna risk messing with the so-useful river).

4. I always had a roof above my dwarves to stop flyers and always had the main floor of my fortress above ground to stop cave adaptation. However, I learned recently that Inside,Light,Above Ground does not affect cave adaptation. I developed a plan to make the roof a retracting bridge to close only when flyers come but it turns out bridges block the Outside ray(This affect not only cave adaptation but also mean they STOP RAIN) even when they are NOT EVEN FREAKING THERE(retracted). WTF? I am out of ideas,does anyone have any?

Not really problems but still mess with me:
5. I have too much (Featherless)wood. Seriously. My map is covered in wood. I made my walls and floors in wood. My Huge wood stockpile is filled to the brim. I have a charcoal making job on repeat. I made a legendary bowyer and woodcrafter from scratch and several carpenters(with my main one stuck in a strange mood  :'( ,see above ).
And guess what? I only clear-cutted(non-Feathery trees) my map once. And I still don't see much difference on the logs outside, they are still everywhere. And the forest is already coming back.
I am drowning in wood. What else can I do with all that wood? Set up more wood burners? These logs everywhere are messing with me and I can't bring myself to waste it. Do anyone have ideas of useful way to get rid of it? I am not used to v40.24's gigantic trees...

6. There is this strange thing where my map tiles randomly show the tile underneath instead of itself. I don't remember that in v34.11. While it is sometime handy, having it on all the time is annoying when I want to actually look at the z-level I am on. What cause it? How can I disable it? I am using PyLNP with obsidian graphics, if that can help answering.


« Last Edit: April 18, 2015, 02:41:21 pm by Youbo »
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Dozebôm Lolumzalìs

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Re: A few problems
« Reply #1 on: April 18, 2015, 04:11:25 pm »

1. That's changed since 34.11, then, because I remember forbidding the base makes the dwarf go insane.

2. Ditto.  What's stress?

3. Feather wood isn't that important.  Besides, it should regrow.  If it doesn't, I have no idea.

4. Yep, that's the way things are.  I recommend building walls to the "ceiling" of the world, above which nothing can go.  At least, I think so.

5. Quantum stockpile it and never cut a log again?  Because you don't need it?  I meant that as like "never work another day in your life" instead of "Stop cutting logs, NOW!" (w/ imperial voice).

6. Ahh, this is something I know.  Unfortunately, that is part of Text Will Be Text, and if you disable that (through Lazy Newb Pack, which you must have if you have graphics while being a newb) then all the text will look weird, unless you switch to ASCII.

Explanation of 6: That is so that you can see what's beneath your z-level.  It should look faded.  If you don't like that, I don't know what to do.  I think it's incredibly useful to be able to see dwarves walking down hills and such.
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TheFlame52

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Re: A few problems
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2015, 04:15:50 pm »

Forbidding the base before he starts working turns it to iron.
Forbidding the base after he starts working, like you did, makes him go insane.

AceSV

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Re: A few problems
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2015, 05:31:12 pm »

1: Well I don't think possession like any other artifact creation method is guaranteed to succeed.  Failure to produce an artifact results in death. 

2: I'm pretty sure a dwarven stress naturally spirals out of control.  There is a stress propensity personality that may force some to spiral out of control more than others.  You need to repeatedly give them things like legendary dining rooms, high quality food, fresh clothes, etc. to keep them happy.  I think dwarves are also happy when they work at a job they're good at.  "I finished up some work.  I feel satisfied."  Seeing death is also usually not good for dwarves.  Or if corpses are rotting away. 

3:  Other than using pumps, no.  As for the river, the pump will not permanently empty it, but it can create an area shallow enough to walk through, to get at the logs. 

4:  ??? News to me.

5:  Wood Crafts/Decorate with Wood.  Menacing Wooden Spikes for weapon traps.  Wood Ammo (for training).  More beds than you think you need.  Wood doesn't rot as far as I know, so you can't really waste it.  Just leave it alone until you need it. 

6:  In the LNP, there's a button on the graphics screen that says Print Mode:TWBT.  Change it to something else.  It bothered me at first too, but now I find it useful. 
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Youbo

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Re: A few problems
« Reply #4 on: April 18, 2015, 06:27:06 pm »

Thanks for the answer everyone!
1.Is there a dfhack command to reset or cancel the mood? Or is there a way to revert to an earlier save?
@THeFlame52 I Thought forbidding materials before he start working would just make him go take another one?

2.@AceSV so you are saying that with no emotions/thoughts, dwarves naturally get more stressed? That don't sound right,can anyone confirm?

3. Oh well... I guess I am just gonna bring some patience and wait for feather trees to grow back. Should I cut them as soon as I find one or will it grow bigger if I let it grow for a while?

4.@jwwodward48df That's a great idea! But building a 15 block high wall sound like a pain in the ass...I think I am just gonna let my dwarves adapt to the caves since the only one that really matter are military and those only train aboveground and kill stuff outside from time to time with only limited visits to the caverns.

5. I sell steel spiked balls and mastercraft meals for trade so wooden crafts would be useless. I guess I should just add another wood burner.

6. Thanks! I tried both standard and and 2D and the text look really ugly and that bother me more than being unable to look a the whole z-level at once. Is there a way to have the pretty text without the randomly disappearing tiles? If not, I should just get used to it and try to look at the upside.
@jwoodward48df How does it help with hills? I am talking about solid ground randomly showing underneath as if it was not there,not being able to see lower Z-levels when there is nothing.
Anyway,my map is flat.


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Niddhoger

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Re: A few problems
« Reply #5 on: April 18, 2015, 07:51:38 pm »

I don't mess with DF Hack, so I can't tell you there.  However... you basically just killed your dorf.  As mentioned, NEVER interrupt a strange mood crafter after s/he has started a job- you can only forbid items before they begin working during their "gather materials" phase.  Also, a CARPENTER won't ever choose iron -or any metal- as his base item.  He might grab iron to decorate with, but hte base will always be some form of wood.  That was an old and very stupid exploit to get weapon/armorsmiths to put down the zing and grab something useful.  I say its stupid because there were far better ways to control strange moods.  Just forbid the item hes carrying and then go into the stocks menu.  Forbid all the useless items except steel.  Steel will be the only valid item, so he should go pick that up instead.  HOWEVER if the dorf had an item preference for zinc... then he'll go insane waiting for you to unforbid the zinc to use. 

For the immediate problem... I hope there is a lockable door.  Your carpenter will go insane sooner or later.  When he does, you want him firmly locked in that room until he dehydrates.  Otherwise... you'll have a tantrum spiral on your hands.  He'll beat up half your fort before being struct down by another, who will be insanely guilty about it and go on his own tantrum... In the meantime, starts training another carpenter.

Stress is supposed to go up.  Think of positive numbers as "good" stress and negative numbers as "bad" stress.  Just make sure hes swimming in blissful/pleasant thoughts and it won't be a problem.

Only one charcoal maker? Draft 3-4-7 more.  You can never have enough charcoal.  Generally you'll need one charcoal maker for every charcoal-using job (the three smiths, metal crafter, glass maker, potter, etc).  Really- go nuts.  There is so much you can be doing with charcoal.  You could also fire up an ashery and make potash/pearlash to fertilize, make soap, or make clear glass.  In the case of clear glass, you can have 2 woodburners going to fuel your clear glass industry to make statues.  Then decorate them with some metal (that you are using charcoal to smelt) and just bomb your fortress in statues.  Dorfs will be swimming in "plesant thought from admiring a statue, x50" and not even think about those vengeful conflicts. 

Not sure about the bridge issue.  I just make my dining room my civilian alert zone and an outside statue garden my meeting zone.  In the case of sieges/flyers I'll recall the civilians inside (to the dining room). 
« Last Edit: April 18, 2015, 07:53:23 pm by Niddhoger »
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Youbo

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Re: A few problems
« Reply #6 on: April 19, 2015, 09:23:11 am »

@Niddhoger I am perfectly aware of the basics of strange moods and how to control them. You misunderstood me. I was not trying to forbid the wood so get go grab a bar of iron, I was trying to use a trick where the artifact's base material default to iron if there is none.
And no, positive stress is bad and negative number are good. Just look at any dwarf with 100k+ positive stress and it will say he was stressed in the long term.
But yeah, I am gonna go nuts with charcoal if I have that much wood on the next fort


Anyway,this current fort was mostly to get a feel with the new version. Gonna start a new one once I learned how to avoid all those mistakes.
1.How do I use the trick correctly? Won't forbidding the base before he start working make him bring an new base?
2.There is still some things I need to figure out about stress.My dwarves are already full of good thoughts, why is stress still going up? Why is the vengeful conflict still white/not going away?
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Detharon

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Re: A few problems
« Reply #7 on: April 19, 2015, 12:26:24 pm »

2.There is still some things I need to figure out about stress.My dwarves are already full of good thoughts, why is stress still going up? Why is the vengeful conflict still white/not going away?

I was wondering the same thing here. Personal traits are one of the major factors, and some buggy "felt vengeful..." thoughts. Why buggy?

It doesn't only apply to dwarves that take part in combat, but also those that are nearby, for example when someone gets interrupted by a bird, the bad thought somehow spreads to nearby dwarves, causing half of the fortress being stressed, with the exception of training military. It's a serious problem when it happens often, my mistake to neglect it.

Also, most kind of work (not hauling) seem to lower the stress considerably, so I had to make sure that my most stressed dwarves are constantly busy doing something.
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AceSV

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Re: A few problems
« Reply #8 on: April 20, 2015, 10:43:18 am »

Oh, you know what, wooden cages are a great way to use up wood.  If you have a lot of cage traps, you need a lot of cages to fill them and you need to replace them often. 
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Saiko Kila

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Re: A few problems
« Reply #9 on: April 20, 2015, 01:03:21 pm »

I had "defaults to iron" only once, and I've been forbidding base materials many times. Usually the dwarf just takes something different as a base material.
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