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[oven_baked]

The items sub-menu of designates. (d-b)
After so much time spend dumping and forbidding things manually...

[zahmir]

I love this thread. It took me awhile to realize what the farmer's workshop was for. I was always wondering who ate all my rock nuts. (Apparently the quarry bush leaves.)

[Dwarfotaur]

I love this thread. It took me awhile to realize what the farmer's workshop was for. I was always wondering who ate all my rock nuts. (Apparently the quarry bush leaves.)

Yeah, it's almost impossible to tell what happens without checking the wiki. I thought it just processed plants to various containers, I had no idea the different containers meant different things... Ever since I found out you can process Quarry Bush into leaves, I've never had a problem with food (ah, I remember my first days of DF, dying after a few months from hunger/thirst )

[Kon]

...
And advice on hospital managing.
...

Hospital management: After adding a container to the hospital, wait until it is completely filled before adding another container. This seems to reduce the amount of overstocking of items. Also, after a dwarf has been in traction for a short while, deconstruct the traction bench. He will then get up and walk away. Otherwise, he may stay in traction indefinitely. Also, for each doctor skill, assign at least three dwarves that skill. This includes diagnostician. Finally, as soon as you see a message about a dwarf resting, unassign all skills except doctor skills for all your doctors. Be sure to unassign all hauling skills.

[Kon]

When you are first starting to train your marksdwarves, just assign them wood bolts. They won't have much success killing siegers and ambushers, but they will gain skill much faster since they will fire many more bolts before the enemy flees.

[HiEv]

When you are first starting to train your marksdwarves, just assign them wood bolts. They won't have much success killing siegers and ambushers, but they will gain skill much faster since they will fire many more bolts before the enemy flees.

As far as I'm aware, bolt material type has no effect on firing speed.  I believe that only the Bowman and Crossbowman skills affect the firing speed of their respective weapons (though I'm not 100% certain that weapon quality doesn't affect firing speed).

[Talanic]

As far as I'm aware, bolt material type has no effect on firing speed.  I believe that only the Bowman and Crossbowman skills affect the firing speed of their respective weapons (though I'm not 100% certain that weapon quality doesn't affect firing speed).

Unless I'm mistaken, he means that you'll kill things faster with steel bolts than with wood.  When the target is dead, they stop firing, so the use of wood bolts mean they will fire more bolts overall.

[Zaroua]

"Changed my life" is a little extreme for a game... Anyway,
For sparring in the military, you can, for example, have a squad of 5 dwarves and give two "train 2" orders to increase sparring.
Rather than "train 4" or dividing into smaller squads.

How?

Oh I found out myself. Open schedule menu, "o" to give order, then push "o" again until you get to the train section and then assign another 2 dwarves. I'll have to test this with patrols and other things. This changes everything!

[HiEv]

Unless I'm mistaken, he means that you'll kill things faster with steel bolts than with wood.  When the target is dead, they stop firing, so the use of wood bolts mean they will fire more bolts overall.

Ah, you're right.  It trains them faster because they have to shoot more bolts, even though the bolts are shot at the same rate, because the wood bolts are less effective.

Sometimes I overlook how doing something that is less efficient for one thing can also be better in some other way.  Like making a fortress so efficient that the dwarves end up with plenty of idling time, which means more relationships, which makes tantrum spirals more likely if/when dwarves start dying.  Less efficient forts can actually partially avoid that problem, because the dwarves are too busy running around to socialize much.

[RanDomino]

4. You can grow on sandy cavern floor. Before I found that one, I used to always irigate my farms with a complex floodgates/aqueducts system.

To be fair, underground farming was broken for most of 31., needing to be flooded before farming. I don't know when that changed.

I preferred it the old way.  It gave an immediate intermediate goal to provide some direction when starting.  I'd have to look around for a murky pool in a good spot (or the stream/river) to put the fort next to; now you have to choose from ANY spot to start digging.  Large number of options with infinitesimal variation = frustration.

[AutomataKittay]

On-topic, learning that bone bolts will kill almost anything if you have enough of them, given enough time

For the record, while that's true, they rapidly become less effective against full suits of metal armor.  Using pretty much any metal (except candy) makes more effective bolts than bone bolts for both damage and penetration. (source)

I'd hope that people would take the 'enough of them' to mean that it's not the most efficient way to go. It's very very cheap, though, and literally free with spare dwarven time and nothing to buy from caravan ( I've had a few fortresses where just the totems and leftover clothings COULD buy out caravans... ). And I do tend to milita marksmen ( having anyone that's not boxed off carry a crossbow and shield ), which really demands cheap and mountains of bolts.

Folks, if y'all are trying to kill something FAST, stick to good weighty metals

[Mimodo]

"Changed my life" is a little extreme for a game... Anyway,
For sparring in the military, you can, for example, have a squad of 5 dwarves and give two "train 2" orders to increase sparring.
Rather than "train 4" or dividing into smaller squads.

I had nothing to add to this thread until your comment

[Findulidas]

I cant really pick a single one hmmm... Autodump feature on dfhack, bridges removing everything under a.s.o. Although I dont very often use these features, they can help a lot in some cases. Ex: when you dont really want to care about those 300x goblin clothes or refuse which reduce your fps.

Discovering the masterwork mod perhaps, havent really started playing it properly yet though.

[zubb2]

Sombody gave me the idea to just make my "crafter" dorfs (a.k.a. guys who do everything) do all the doctoring as well.

Was a great idea.

UristMc injured:Wait aren't you the woodcutter?

Urist McDoc: And the woodworker, stoneworker, furnace operator, coffin maker, and mason.

But yeah quality, or we could go with the other "q" word.

[Itnetlolor]

More like figured this one out while I was tweaking my Master-IN pile. Here's the most recent upload: http://mkv25.net/dfma/poi-29863-1--somanywheelbarrows

In case you don't want to load up the map, here's my explanation as posted in the map.

I did a little tweaking with my mass-QS in order to better suit speedy mass-collection via wheelbarrow.

Needless to say, it was a roaring success. Mining and clearing out the debris, along with any other random scraps here and there, is now that much quicker, and I am no longer burdened with just 3 WB-collectors for 1 pile (A single 15x15 - 5x5 (Trade Depot) Everything stockpile), now I have 8 squads of 3 WBs (total: 24 WBs) to keep my fort clean, raw material-wise. Stones have especially been easy to clear out, and so shall wood from long distances. Block/bar transporting should be that much quicker as well. Clusters of small and relatively light objects should also be cleaned out insanely quick as well. Not to mention, there will always be an excess of WBs to augment any hauling task as necessary where IN and sometimes OUT are concerned. Whatever's leftover will go to other sites that either serve as staging areas (building sites), and others will be dedicated to keeping other workshops stocked.

Brilliant huh? This thing works like a dream now. - Itnetlolor

Having trouble clearing out a mine full of stones, or want a nice clean fort in that manner? Multiple stockpiles, and link them up to a minecart stockpiler. Why multiple stockpiles? Because for each stockpile,you can only assign a maximum of 3 wheelbarrows. In the case of my most recent fort, I have 8 5x5 everything stockpiles (Master-IN), 3 WBs each, totaling 24 wheelbarrows active at all times.

I've never seen so much stone moved out so quickly. As I mine, it is clean, I establish it (all WBs pre-made) without cleaning out the stone beforehand, your fort will be clean of stone in less than a season. I tried it out myself, and it works like a charm. If you have a MC-QS system established linked to all n stockpiles, then you should have no problem storing it all while cleaning up, and there's no need to reclaim it since we're using the minecart method of quantum stockpiling.

Here's a video of it before I tweaked it all. You'll see it with 1 15x15 - 5x5 (trade depot) Master-IN stockpile with 3 wheelbarrows assigned. Now imagine that except divided into 8 5x5s (same configuration as before, just divided evenly) with 24 wheelbarrows working around the clock. I might consider making another video (this time with TrueType Fonts turned off to fix the video bug) of my modified system activated. I'll even forbid all the stone first just to show the entire swarm clear-cut the entire floor.

Yeah... That's a crap-ton of cleaning out, and minecarts are only needed for quantum storage, not shipping. Feel free to use this at your own discretion.

Simply put, the more stockpiles assigned to the same task, the more wheelbarrows you can assign to the job. Not really all that much, but if you have alot to get done at once (or intend to have a master-IN like I did), or need a ton of stone moved, then this should be of colossal help for those of you that have yet to commit to a minecart track design. I have yet to commit to a minecart track system I feel comfortable with, besides a repeater system for a spike strip.
Here's another one: It also involves MC-QS methods, but for a different reason: Selective material production. It's more of a way to keep it compact while also doing all the tasks at once. Combine it with the above (divide the main stockpile into several with 3 WBs each for maximum input rates), and you should have everything working swimmingly once setup. I don't think the image really needs any other indicators present. The context is clearly visible, but I'll elaborate anyway.

This is the most optimal setup to keep it compact, as well as keeping each workshop exclusive to their material component (see the color-coding), since they grab the closest material for production. The MC-QS should keep them constantly stocked at a fixed distance.

EDIT:
Considering the above, the initial compressor is rendered optional, unless there are materials that have yet to be assigned to a QS-Workshop.
Reminder: Be specific on a per-stockpile basis. It shouldn't be too hard though. More valuable materials, assign to a higher-standard workshop (master-crafter or better).

EDIT EDIT:
Added 2 new movies related to the split stockpile wheelbarrow armada service in action:
Part 1
Part 2

It's just like back then, before weight became a more serious issue, to the point minecarts and wheelbarrows are required to haul heavier things.