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[Chagen46]

I've been playing DF for about 2 years, but I never touched Fortress Mode out of how complicated it was.

Well, I decided today to take the plunge into it....and it isn't exactly going well. I'm following the wiki's quickstart guide on this, and for some reason my miner won't dig. I've designated a 3x3 area for him to dig out, but he's not doing anything. Hell, none of my Dwarfs are doing anything.

I think this may have to do with how I designated the area to be dug out. It's 1 z-level lower than the actual ground itself. Perhaps my miner isn't doing anything because he can't reach it, but why can't I designate above-ground areas to dig out as well? I tried like 5 times in a row but the game refuses to let me designate an area of the surface for mining.

In addition, why did the embark screen list my site as Temperate Marsh with heavy foresting and warm temperature when the game dumped me in the middle of a snowy, frozen hellhole with barely any trees?

I suddenly understand what people mean when they say this game is fucking confusing.

[MenacesWithSpikes]

The user interface is extremely confusing.

First:  Does your miner have a pick equipped?  (V), get your cursor over your miner, (I) to see your dwarf's inventory.  Got a mining pick in one hand?  Good.

Second:  Do you have a downward stairway and an upward stairway?  (d) --> (j) to build a downward stairway.  Do this at the ground level.  Once it has been dug, go to Z-level -1 and build an upward stairway, at the same location, but from level -1 to level 0.

Once that's done, start digging your fortress at Z-level -1.

[Chagen46]

Okay, the wiki never said to build a downward staircase first...I'll try that.

[Jilladilla]

i assume most people dig into the sides of hills, but that may not be the case (i do that btw)

[Chagen46]

Yeah, I just abondoned and re-embarked on a mountain. I'm digging into the wall right now.

Time to have some Fun.

[Chagen46]

OH shit.

I basically have no room to designate outside stockpiles.

I'm just going to keep them inside (except my refuse)

[Echo51]

OH shit.

I basically have no room to designate outside stockpiles.

I'm just going to keep them inside (except my refuse)

Always keep stockpiles inside, i doubt waiting out a goblin siege would go well with all your food among the gobbies

[Garath]

with the wagons added again, you'll want a wagon accessible depot, which means it can't be behind stairs, only ramps.

for the biome, in the embark screen, you'll often land on seperate biomes. The screen lets you cycle through them with F1, F2, F3 etc. So you might have a mostly warm swamp embark, but the wagon lands in a temperate shrubland where in early spring there is still snow.

pure mountains is a pretty hard embark btw, since it's harder to set up farming

another thing at embark, with TAB you can look through verious viewings of the landscape, among things. It lets you see how high in altitude you are and also how steep clif/hills/mountains are.


edit:
and if you can get the hang of aventure mode, you can do this too.

[Tharwen]

OH shit.

I basically have no room to designate outside stockpiles.

I'm just going to keep them inside (except my refuse)

Always keep stockpiles inside, i doubt waiting out a goblin siege would go well with all your food among the gobbies

Except refuse stockpiles, which generate miasma when placed inside.

[Nameless Archon]

OH shit.

I basically have no room to designate outside stockpiles.

I'm just going to keep them inside (except my refuse)

Always keep stockpiles inside, i doubt waiting out a goblin siege would go well with all your food among the gobbies

Except refuse stockpiles, which generate miasma when placed inside.

...unless you've exposed their tiles to the sky, in which case they will never again produce miasma. Yay!

[Chagen46]

Another question: thanks to my (bad) luck, my Miner had the character trait of being "pathetically weak".

Does this actually affect his mining speed at all?

[Garath]

A little, just check back some time later and he'll be immensely strong though.

Another note on biomes, it actually matters how high above sea level you are, after all, several mountains in tropical climates are still topped by everlasting snow if they are high enough in reality too.

[Chagen46]

Yeah, about the biome thing...I derped and didn't know that you could move your embark site around and resize it.

And, I thought that hitting, say F1 to get a description of a biome meant that you would settle in that biome, when it just points out where it is. I somehow completely missed how the flashing green squares meant "EMBARK OVER HERE".

[i2amroy]

Another question: thanks to my (bad) luck, my Miner had the character trait of being "pathetically weak".

Does this actually affect his mining speed at all?

While attributes do have an effect on the speed of various tasks, the amount that they can be increased through labor tends to outweigh all other variables. So while a pathetically weak miner will never be able to be as strong as one that started as incredibly strong and has gone through the same training, they still will be able to become several times stronger then the average dwarf.