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[BrisoS]

Not sure how I can work this into my fort. The only place for my hospital is the level right on top of the cavern. My map is mostly flat and I only have a few z-levels to work with before hitting the first cavern. I guess that means I will need to get my dwarves into the cavern and build walls to make that U-bend? With no military. And no hospital! Jesus.

Couple more questions:
1)Does the water have to be higher than the grate for the well to work?
2)How deep will a well reach? The wiki does not give a precise number of z-levels, it just says "many".
3)I don't understand the comment about the w-bend. how would that be difference from the u-bend?

[Sutremaine]

Wait, never mind, misread the diagram. No, you don't need any extra bends so long as there's some water above the grate.

The rope is as long as it needs to be, but the well has to take a little time to travel through each tile. It's better to keep the rope as short as possible.

[Urist McDonough]

So, I was messing around with the OTA and set one of the dwarves to be a necromancer so I could mess around with it.

I took control of him, but then I had no idea how to raise corpses. What key are you supposed to use?

[Trif]

Press (x) for the reactions menu, then (p) for aquired powers.

[BrisoS]

So how the hell do you dig ubends? I understand the principle and how they work but can't get my dwarves to channel out the shafts properly. In the diagram posted above, how do I dig the water source from under the lake? How do I keep my dwarves to dig the shafts and not wall themselves in?

I need to channel at least one floor to put a grate.

[greycat]

A U-bend, eh?  Any special restrictions?

I'd say: dig a series of staircases downward to give access to what will become one arm of the U (the one that's not under the lake).  Then channel an empty shaft right next to it, one layer at a time, with the dwarves standing on the staircases as they work their way down.  (As an alternative, you could just designate the shaft without an access stairwell; a single dwarf can continue digging and dropping downward all the way to the bottom, where she'll be trapped until she digs her way back up.)  Then dig the tunnel which forms the bottom of the U.  Then dig another stairwell upward toward the lake, stopping one tile short.

Then the tricky part will be breaching that last tile.  If you have a down staircase (dug) right below the lake, then in theory you could drop a cave-in through the lake's floor right at that spot, but I don't know how the water will interact with the cave-in.  If you can't move the water out of the way, then the only other way I can see to do it is to have a miner pierce that lake floor from underneath.  That will probably be Fun for the victim volunteer.

[i2amroy]

Dig a two-wide shaft down where your well is going to be.

Looks like this (top view)

Code: [Select]

████
█ X█
████
Then dig over when you are on a z-level below that of the lake. Install a grate over the empty floor below the level of the lake and a hatch over the staircase.
Grate level looks like this (hatch on top of the stairs)

Code: [Select]

████
█#¢█
████
Then just dig an up/down staircase up until you hit the bottom of the lake, then dig a down staircase in the bottom of the lake.
Important: have another dig task available when the dwarf finishes the down staircase. This ensures that they will immediately start to run back off into the fortress and not attempt to drown.
Once the dwarf has made it through the hatch, just lock it behind them so nothing swims up it.

Note: It is a good idea to have another method of access into the caverns at the time, as there is a chance (so rather small) that the dwarf will swim upwards and end up stranded on the beach next to the underground lake. If they do just dig a way back into your fortress from the cavern and then wall it up behind you if you don't want cavern access.

[BrisoS]

Well, holy Mol..rist..

Nothing's working. Quick question in case someone's around right now - if a water flow/pressure is negated by a diagonal path, does removing the diagonal later on restore the pressure?

What about flood-gates? Does turning them on and off mess with water pressure?

Something is going on. It should work, I am almost sure. But my water's not going up the way it should right now. It's stopping a couple levels short and i don't like it!

[i2amroy]

Diagonals can only remove pressure, they can not put it back.

Turning on/off flood gates will have no effect on the pressure of a liquid.

Keep in mind that u-bends from natural sources will only rise to z-level -1 (assuming the source is on 0). As such you should plan for this in the building of your u-bend (which is why the side view of my u-bend diagram goes down one extra z-level for the grate and water).

[BrisoS]

Diagonals can only remove pressure, they can not put it back.

Turning on/off flood gates will have no effect on the pressure of a liquid.

Keep in mind that u-bends from natural sources will only rise to z-level -1 (assuming the source is on 0). As such you should plan for this in the building of your u-bend (which is why the side view of my u-bend diagram goes down one extra z-level for the grate and water).

Ah that's it. It's at -1 from the cavern's level so I guess that's normal. The water stops 4 levels under the well - is that a lot? The only way to reduce that would be to relocate the hospital or use screw pumps.

I ended up digging the entire u-bend 1 level at a time from a stairway on the side that I then walled off. I put a flood gate in the bottom tunnel, sent a dwarf to dig the upward ramp under the cavern lake and threw the switch for the floodgate when I saw the miner get near. Water spilled only 4 tiles past the floodgate before it closed and the dwarf got out. Still not clear on how to do it properly, but it worked and the floor grate is just 2 levels under the well. The grate is not under water though - I hope it does not matter?

And on to other projects/questions now that I have a somewhat functional hospital:

1)How can I train my doctors (I have two, neither of which has any skill though). Is it possible at all?
2)My military is training year round now but all they do are individual combat drills. I have one squad of 6 dwarves. The leader has a decent "teacher" skill according to dwarf therapist (somewhere in 1600-1800s I think) and is level 4 in Axe, shield, dodge and armor. The other 5 dwarves are a mix of 1 Axedwarf, 1 sword 2 macedwarves and 1 hammerdwarf (I picked the dwarves that had military skills when they immigrated and made weapons accordingly).

I don't think any of them have gained much skill points at all in the 3 seasons they have been training. Is there anything I can do to help it along? Or is individual combat drills the best I can hope for?

3)Also the barracks right now consists of just 1 armor stand. Does more furniture help?

[i2amroy]

4 tiles isn't that big of a deal. Really the only times a good fort should be using your well is for doctors and injured anyways, so you should be fine.

1)Controlled injury of dwarves works the best for training doctors in my opinion. Make a bridge with a 2-3 level drop beneath it. Then station some useless peasants on top and retract the bridge. The doctors will treat their injury and get more skilled.

2)Make all of the dwarves in a squad use the same weapon. If dwarves have skills in different weapons, they will spend time demonstrating useless weapon skills to other dwarves that don't need them (such as speardwarf to an axedwarf). Also did you make sure to both assign the squad to the barracks and then set the squad alert to active/training?

3)Furniture is irrelevant in barracks unless you have dwarves set to store their civilian clothing in the barracks while they wear their military uniform.

[Sutremaine]

The grate is not under water though - I hope it does not matter?

Buckets don't pass through grates. If there's no water on the level of the grate or any of the levels above it, the bucket won't get filled.

[drivec]

whats the best metal for and edge weapon from moods not counting admantine or obsidan

[i2amroy]

whats the best metal for and edge weapon from moods not counting admantine or obsidan

First of all obsidian is horrible for weapons if the enemy is wearing any type of armor at all. The stone just isn't as good as metal is, even if it has a sharper edge.

Also there is a nifty chart located on the wiki at the bottom of this page, that sets out the basic value of the various materials for edged weapons, blunt weapons, and armor for future reference. The exact answer answer to your question in vanilla DF is steel.

[BrisoS]

bolts:

The wiki says that density is important for bolts. I assume that's why wood bolts don't do squat to a guy in full iron armor. Does it mean that copper and silver make good bolts against steel/iron armor? I have boatloads of silver and copper I don't know what to do with and am lacking in iron as well as bolts. If the wiki is right and copper/silver make the best bolts, it would solve all my problems.