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[Asmodeous]

You mean once you have your metal industry going you still make barrels/bins out of wood? Waste. :|

Only under the very specific conditions that you have access to magma AND a shortage of wood. Even then I prefer wood simply because, as above, THREE metal bars for one bin/barrel is pretty inexcusable.

I have generally got a dwarf cap of 150 dwarves. On a 6x6, what usually ends up is I have my entire group outfitted (mostly from melted down goblinite), and then after using 1 or 2 z-levels simply as mines, realize that I have tens of thousands of ore to smelt.

So it takes 3 bars for one bin/barrel. So what? With the amount of ore I usually have that means that I can usually make about three thousand of them of various types and still have some left over.

If I don't have magma, the wood has one purpose: Charcoal to run the forges (since by that point I have 150 beds so no worries), so I generally keep chopping down all the trees and auto-repeating the wood stoves.

Who cares if Ore isn't renewable? One z-level on a 6x6 contains enough to make a downright silly amount of crap, especially since you can use Goblinite for all of your armor/weapon needs (until you find Adamantine).

Edit: Oh, and saying it's non-renewable doesn't take goblinite into account, nor the ability to trade for it (it's not like you don't get a bunch of crap to sell just as biproducts of your fort existing) in stone, bar, and meltable product forms. Non-renewable my butt.

[darkrider2]

Every time I play a fort the number of magma forges I run gets highers... up to six now...

And it does take alot of resources to train metalworkers... unless your on a magma map... where you can build it all... melt it all... build it all again... melt it all again... repeat rinse repeat... PROFIT!

I usually create the rarer kinds of metals... (billon, electrum, gold, platinum) and build a ton of statues which are displayed at the gate and around the fort.

[smokingwreckage]

Full Masterwork steel armour, with (preferably) Masterwork metal decorations. It floats my boat, for no real reason.


Oh, high value gem-studded EVERYTHING including metal statues and furniture.

[jryan]

Yeah, who needs to make anything out of the most valuable materials in the game?

[Loyal]

If I don't have magma, the wood has one purpose: Charcoal to run the forges (since by that point I have 150 beds so no worries), so I generally keep chopping down all the trees and auto-repeating the wood stoves.

If I make a bin out of wood, it costs one unit of wood. Nothing more.

If I make one out of metal, assuming no magma and assuming coal/lignite isn't readily available (it certainly isn't reliably available), it takes one unit of wood-fuel, plus three bars of metal, PLUS an additional 1-3 units of wood-fuel if your metal bars needed to be smelted (and god help you if the metal in question is an alloy that can only be smelted from bars)

In the event that you do have magma, it still requires three identical bars of metal, which need to be smelted from ores, which exist in finite quantities (while large, a limit does exist and besides, why waste something just because you have a lot of it?) and must be found, dug out of the earth, and then smelted.

A Goblin siege can yield, as a ballpark figure, between 6-18 bars of metal, depending on the size and composition of the armies (which requires yet more wood-fuel to be usable in the event that you don't have magma). Human and Dwarven caravans typically bring about ten bars each, mostly of different types.

Wood, on the other hand, exists in predictable locations, grows back over predictable intervals, and requires no set-up outside of actually cutting down the tree.

I dunno about you, but my choice is clear. In labor costs, supply availability, and just overall convenience, wood is entirely superior to metals for bins and barrels, unless you're seriously concerned about lizards messing with your food for some reason.

[Asmodeous]

If I make a bin out of wood, it costs one unit of wood. Nothing more.

If I make one out of metal, assuming no magma and assuming coal/lignite isn't readily available (it certainly isn't reliably available), it takes one unit of wood-fuel, plus three bars of metal, PLUS an additional 1-3 units of wood-fuel if your metal bars needed to be smelted (and god help you if the metal in question is an alloy that can only be smelted from bars)

In the event that you do have magma, it still requires three identical bars of metal, which need to be smelted from ores, which exist in finite quantities (while large, a limit does exist and besides, why waste something just because you have a lot of it?) and must be found, dug out of the earth, and then smelted.

A Goblin siege can yield, as a ballpark figure, between 6-18 bars of metal, depending on the size and composition of the armies (which requires yet more wood-fuel to be usable in the event that you don't have magma). Human and Dwarven caravans typically bring about ten bars each, mostly of different types.

Wood, on the other hand, exists in predictable locations, grows back over predictable intervals, and requires no set-up outside of actually cutting down the tree.

I dunno about you, but my choice is clear. In labor costs, supply availability, and just overall convenience, wood is entirely superior to metals for bins and barrels, unless you're seriously concerned about lizards messing with your food for some reason.

Which is all well and good, but you have a fairly two-dimensional path of thinking to that conclusion. First of all, they don't just bring bars. The humans and the dwarves bring a veritable slew of iron/copper/bronze/steel/whatever instruments/toys/armor/weapons/shields/anvils/etc. Furthermore if you place an order from them for wood (even just 1 notch on every type, especially from the humans) within a couple years of trading with them they are bringing you upwards of 50 wood each, not taking into account them bringing you all the metal bars and objects, plus the dwarves bringing you metal in stone form.

Secondly... we're dwarves. We're not elves. Dwarves are smiths! Stoneworkers! Miners! Carpentry is for beds! Trees are for burning!

Thirdly, and this is key here, everything except for sand and adamantium has effectively infinite supply, so the whole argument of "it's inefficient and wasteful" is really null and void.

I was saying "what a waste" being snarky about using wood for things other than firing the furnaces and forges. . .

Personally, if I could make beds out of metal (why can't you, anyway? That's silly. My bed's frame is metal. . .) I wouldn't make anything out of wood coming out of the gate, unless I didn't have an anvil, at which case nothing would be made out of wood from the second year on out.

Why?

Because that's what dwarves do!

[Sysice]

In fact, it's even makes sense to waste it, because what would you rather have, tens of thousands of rocks, or five thousand barrels and ten thousand rocks? Both FPS and economy speaking, it usually makes sense to use up all that junk.

And I do think that metal-working is awesome and I bring a smith along with me on embark, but I used to agree with the OP. Traps work pretty good if you don't care about getting blood for the blood god, skulls for the skull throne!

[Loyal]

Which is all well and good, but you have a fairly two-dimensional path of thinking to that conclusion. First of all, they don't just bring bars. The humans and the dwarves bring a veritable slew of iron/copper/bronze/steel/whatever instruments/toys/armor/weapons/shields/anvils/etc. Furthermore if you place an order from them for wood (even just 1 notch on every type, especially from the humans) within a couple years of trading with them they are bringing you upwards of 50 wood each, not taking into account them bringing you all the metal bars and objects, plus the dwarves bringing you metal in stone form.

I deliberately ignored the crafts and so forth that are meltable because it gets really fucking expensive to get metal that way. Plus, again. Without magma you burn a lot of wood doing this. And for what? Vainly holding on to your precious "dwarven way"?

I for one would like to believe that "the dwarven way" does not include "pants-on-head retarded inefficiency," especially when it comes to day-to-day activities. Megaconstructions are another matter entirely; go big or go home.

When I think "dwarf", I think "stout, stubborn, and above all, practical and brilliant." While the dwarves in DF have a long way to go to on that last bit it's nothing that can't be helped along by a little overseer intervention.

Secondly... we're dwarves. We're not elves. Dwarves are smiths! Stoneworkers! Miners! Carpentry is for beds! Trees are for burning!

"It's not the dwarven way so it sucks" is not an argument. Going off on the above paragraph, I imagine the dwarves could just suck it up. Especially in this game, where everything is trying to kill them, including the guiding hand of their overseer from time to time.

Thirdly, and this is key here, everything except for sand and adamantium has effectively infinite supply, so the whole argument of "it's inefficient and wasteful" is really null and void.

Again: "we have a lot of it" is not a qualifier for being so inefficient. Also, "waste" and "inefficiency" are not necessarily the same things. If you'll notice, my entire argument has been about inefficiency and I used the word "waste" precisely once.

Because that's what dwarves do!

Says who! I have never read a single literary work that involves Dwarves using nothing but metal and rock to the exclusion of all other materials (except in settings where there is little else available, i.e. cyberpunk). They've used wood for just about everything that other races have used it for, except the home itself (usually). Where has everyone on the forum gotten this notion from anyway?

I think I'm done arguing.

In fact, it's even makes sense to waste it, because what would you rather have, tens of thousands of rocks, or five thousand barrels and ten thousand rocks? Both FPS and economy speaking, it usually makes sense to use up all that junk.

Funny thing is, this entire debacle could've been avoided if we could just have made our barrels and bins out of rock instead.

[Asmodeous]

I deliberately ignored the crafts and so forth that are meltable because it gets really fucking expensive to get metal that way. Plus, again. Without magma you burn a lot of wood doing this. And for what? Vainly holding on to your precious "dwarven way"?

You're getting really edgy, did I strike a nerve? (Edit: This wasn't intended to be snarky. I was asking 'cause if I had I intended to apologize for it. /edit)

Anyway, you say it gets really expensive, but... what the hell else are you doing with your dwarfbucks? It takes less than two years (if you know what you're doing) to have a net worth of millions of dwarfbucks. And if instead of atom smashing your rocks or dumping them you set 4 masons repeat-building crafts to clean up the stone that you have stupid amounts of for exactly 1 entire year, you will have enough goods to buy up everything the dwarves and humans bring for a span of ~2-3 years, because they'll hit legendary fast. Alternatively, you could sell them a single dwarven syrup roast stack, or you could make some gold or platinum goblets. "Expense" is meaningless in a world with infinite resources.

I for one would like to believe that "the dwarven way" does not include "pants-on-head retarded inefficiency," especially when it comes to day-to-day activities. Megaconstructions are another matter entirely; go big or go home.

...are we playing the same game? Because I could've sworn the common consensus of most everyone is that these dwarves are in fact pants-on-head retarded most of the time. Drunken manic-depressive morons, I think is a common descriptive term.

When I think "dwarf", I think "stout, stubborn, and above all, practical and brilliant." While the dwarves in DF have a long way to go to on that last bit it's nothing that can't be helped along by a little overseer intervention.

I don't think I've ever read much of anywhere that dwarves were practical, since you want to bring literature into it (I sure didn't). In most fantasy realms I've read, Dwarves are stout, stubborn, traditionist, engineers, and strongly religious. I don't recall them being exactly practical anywhere.

"It's not the dwarven way so it sucks" is not an argument. Going off on the above paragraph, I imagine the dwarves could just suck it up. Especially in this game, where everything is trying to kill them, including the guiding hand of their overseer from time to time.

Uh... huh.

Again: "we have a lot of it" is not a qualifier for being so inefficient. Also, "waste" and "inefficiency" are not necessarily the same things. If you'll notice, my entire argument has been about inefficiency and I used the word "waste" precisely once.

I'm sorry, but your entire argument is based on waste as well as inefficiency. You aren't saying it directly, however you imply it at every statement. "I use 1, you use 4, it's inefficient" why is it inefficient? The implication is that it is inefficient because it is wasting 3 units, whatever those units may be. "It's expensive" i.e. it's a waste of money. Don't nitpick. Inefficiency is about wastefulness. Wasting time, wasting energy, wasting resources, etc. That's what inefficiency is.

Says who! I have never read a single literary work that involves Dwarves using nothing but metal and rock to the exclusion of all other materials (except in settings where there is little else available, i.e. cyberpunk). They've used wood for just about everything that other races have used it for, except the home itself (usually). Where has everyone on the forum gotten this notion from anyway?

...well, let's see... there's... Forgotten Realms (and D&D in general), Lord of the Rings, The Elder Scrolls, there's the fact that Dwarves in damn near every bit of literature aren't exactly praised for being carpenters. . . This is a game, a game about pants-on-head retarded dwarves doing really silly things for the entertainment of their Blood God. It should not in any way be a shock that people have then taken the basic dwarf archetype to it's inevitable charicature.

[rufio]

The main reason I've never made barrels and bins out of metal is simply because based on the amount of time it takes to make anything else out of metal, I'd never get them made fast enough for my impatience.  By the time my metal industry is really getting into stride, the most valuable resource in the fort is time.  That's also why I don't spend a whole lot of time melting down goblin armor.

Another reason for having a metalworking industry (IMO) is so that the at least one noble (Dungeon Master) can spend his time doing something other than "Noble".  In fact, the DM actually does most of the metal working in my fort now, since my other principal metalworker now has permanent spine and lung injuries from getting beaten up for not making fine pewter shit for the Count Consort.

Really, though, I just do metal working because it's fun.  Also, a surplus of bars of precious metals can come in handy when some noble doesn't like their bedroom enough.

[Asmodeous]

For me I tend to be pretty hands off of everyone but the miners and a few other construction buildings where I set repeat constructions. (Like the furnaces and so on). I usually do all my build commands through the j->m->q menu and then forget about it, and eventually get surprised when I see that a lot of 30 barrels or whatever was completed.

Also I've started bringing an anvil with me from the start and immediately beginning metalworking, so I don't have the way slow construction of metal goods at the point most people would be starting their metal industry. My wood industry would run at the speed of their metal industry to make barrels/bins instead of my metal industry because that's where all the initial XP went.

[UristMcGunsmith]

The way I see it, my dorfs arent dying nor succeeding greatly due to the material of their bins. Now how about we discuss other uses for metal. Like, I enjoy making bolts because you can never have enough, and I like the thought my metalsmiths must get from seeing their work in action. Typing on the PS3 is hard.

[Asmodeous]

My point wasn't really about the bins, Urist, it was that if you start your metal industry from the beginning instead of waiting to implement it until you get the magma levelled or your fort grounded, and actually make it a part of your fort being grounded, you will have a reason to make stuff out of metal.

If you don't then you'll be hard-pressed to find a good reason to do it, since you'll be able to make everything else faster, because you've already got a foundation of trained dwarves in other skills and your smiths will take too long and make crappy products that won't look as valuable because you've got a bunch of legendary everything elses.

[Skorpion]

I've taken to making bins and barrels out of metal. Why?

Well, one fort had a load of metal but no trees.

The next was dwarf heaven. The goblins attacked WITH BOWS, dangerous animals wandered in and killed woodcutters, and what wood I did have was used to scrape together some steel from goblinite.
However, I had a metric fucking shitton of native copper, malachite, tetrahedrite, and native gold, and even more crap laying around unbinned. So, I made bins and barrels out of electrum, since it was useless otherwise.
Then I used all the copper I had to make crappy weapons and armour to train legendary smiths the hard way, because I struck clownite and wanted to make it useful.

So, why metal?
Wood is valuable to me; beds, fuel, clear glass, fertiliser. The umpteen bars of metal? Less so. So, they get rendered down into a usable form; furniture.
I even make the majority of fort furniture out of it, because with my habit of making huge masonry constructions outside, you get tons of dabbling masons.
A fine example of this is that I floored over the bottomless pit in order to have somewhere to store all the metal bars I was smelting in order to make them useful.

[Raging Mouse]

The kings I have received frequently get thoughts like "has admired own completely sublime table recently". This might be because they are generally masterwork steel tables set with five different kinds of gems (masterfully set of course). Even the base table beats the carp out of the low-end artifacts I could install or stockpile in the same room, and when combined with the gems even my useful randomly generated artifacts get a run for their money. I endeavour to make every single article of furniture the king/queen is assigned in this manner. The beds I simply decorate. I imagine they are so menacingly spiky that a midnight snack is a deadly prospect for the uncautious. For me, metalsmithing is a duty.