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[Hetairos]

I have an extremely important announcement to make.

IMMIGRATION AND CARAVANS HAVE BEEN RESTORED!



You can thank PatrikLundell's dismissmerchants script for this. I feel I should build something nice to commemorate this, but what?

The last caravan showed up in 160, so it's been 75 years. The first new migrant wave consisted of 6 dwarves, among them one married couple and nobody with any particularly useful skills. What am I to do with a novice trapper? She's very strong, so I had her pick up an axe and go train. Encouraging marriages will continue. Migrants will actually help with that as long as they aren't too old. No families = more leeway in choosing a partner = lesser likelihood of everyone eventually ending up too related for marriage.

The caravan was more disappointing. Two wagons, mostly laden with food. I have over 50k prepared meals, for crying out loud! Bring me some leather or gemstones. At least I have someone I can sell all the wooden trash to instead of chucking it down into the glowing pits.

Also it looks like I have to link the watercannons all over again, so don't expect a full update in a while.

EDIT: Tinypic is working again so I can add a picture.

[TheFlame52]

Any new blood is good.

[Glass]

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
(our smilies will blot out the sun)

EDIT: I have no regrets.

[Hetairos]

I didn't really have an immediate goal to work towards for a while, and just maintaining the fortress without doing anything else seemed like a waste of both in-game and RL time. Between that, writing a thesis and a brief stay abroad I didn't really play DF all that much. Year is 247, still 2 years short of where I was time-wise before my save got corrupted. I've been playing a bit more recently and wanted to drop a brief update to show where we are now. Hopefully things can get a bit livelier soon.

One thing I got stuck on was the magma minecart cannon design. I wanted something that could operate indefinitely, but that required the speed of the cart to not change significantly cycle to cycle. I couldn't see a way to do it besides meticulous fiddling with the minecart calculator. It took me a while to remember I wanted the desing to rely on rollers. Rollers don't simpy boost the cart speed - they have a certain speed value they impart on slower moving carts. This means if I start the firing cycle with a roller and ensure the cart returns there at a sufficiently low speed, it will be reset every time, allowing it to work indefinitely as long as there is power. Once I have the power supply and control system planned out, the construction can start.

In the meantime, I've been working on some minor projects just to give the dwarves something to do. A shrine to Thusest Pridemobs, a deity of war and fortresses, is nearing completion. It's built in the shape of a small fort with a statue of the god in the middle. By the way, it turns out Hell doesn't have a whole lot of vertical space - just 5 levels counting from the very bottom, so I'll have to keep the shrines kind of squat. I also dammed the local river by dumping magma into it to fish out a bunch of items stuck at the bottom. Statues, blocks, bolts, corpses...



There is yet another project for the future. I asked PatrikLundell, who found the solution for the caravan/migrant bug, for an idea he'd like me to realise in the fort. This was the reply. I was thinking of combining points 2 and 4 into an Uristface-shaped shaft leading through the magma sea. For now, I don't really have an idea what would be the best way to create vertical walls in there.

At the moment, Wirejade is at 256 citizens. The immigrants require housing, and housing in turn requires furnishings. Metal industry needs to supply the raw materials for furniture, and I want it all to be gem-encrusted. The dwarven caravan brings me gems now, but my jewelers are poorly skilled, so they train by putting green glass on worn out clothes. The demand for clothing is increased too. All in all, quite a few industry branches are seeing a minor renaissance. I have been able to expand the military as well, to the point I'm running out of adamantine armour. The stockpiles are full of wafers, but my best armoursmith is merely competent and I don't want to waste them on low quality craft. I need to crank out some iron leggings.

It appears that the lack of strange moods was indeed tied to the amount of mined out tiles. After a fair bit of mining for ore and stone one dwarf got possessed and made an orthoclase sceptre. Honestly, the lack of new artifacts is not that much of a problem. Unless I micromanage my dwarves to get everyone a bit of metallurgical or other experience, most are pretty useless and I have plenty of wealth. What I could use are dwarves with high-level skills without the need for prolonged training.

I lost a few legendaries over the years. One of my best weavers got ripped apart by a passing demon when looking for webs in Hell, and several military dwarves died of old age - either in their sleep or in the middle of a sparring session.

[Taupe]

The idea of a Wirejade solier dying of old age is almost absurd to hear.

[Hetairos]

The most threatening foes most of them face are kobold thieves and the occasional minotaur. Everything else is contained for the most part, except for emergencies I try my best to avoid.

[Loud Whispers]

It is a blessed thing to see this Fortress still alive. Hope your thesis goes well, that tends to kill DF time

[Hetairos]

Oh, that thing is long done. Say, what would be the best way to create vertical walls through the magma sea?

[Loud Whispers]

Oh, that thing is long done. Say, what would be the best way to create vertical walls through the magma sea?

I presume either dropping loads of water on it, or pumping out the magma long enough to have Dorfs construct the walls themselves

[TheFlame52]

Obsidianize large areas of the magma sea from the edges. If you start from the center, the unsupported obsidian will fall into the SMR and vanish.

[Hetairos]

Obsidianize large areas of the magma sea from the edges. If you start from the center, the unsupported obsidian will fall into the SMR and vanish.

I'm not sure I understand.

[TheFlame52]

Clear out a large open space/floorless room above the magma sea. Let water into the space from one side, so that the obsidian is supported by the wall of the room as it forms. When all the of the magma has been obsidianized, drain the water or wait for it to evaporate. Then channel out the center and repeat.

[Hetairos]

That just makes the usual inverted pyramid. But I guess there is no real way to avoid that, is there? I could probably cast walls inside of it and collapse it afterwards somehow.