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[Girlinhat]

No promises, but I've been looking over some recent science, and some people asking for help.  I've got the idea now, to make a fortress dedicated to covering the basics all the way to the obscure water shotguns and magma pistons.  This is intended to be a detailed, in-depth cover of even the most basic farming methods and other simplicities, explaining how to do things, as well as WHY and different options.

With that in mind, is there any particular request for things to handle?  I'm thinking of a flat embark in a regular woodlands, with a river and aquifer (I usually don't deal with aquifers, mind), and cramming as much content into one fortress as I can, marking down every relevant expansion I make and how it's orchestrated.  Likely going with the standard Embark Now as well, using DFHack for mundane worries, like using Workflow to automate drink production, and Therapist for obvious reasons.  My rule here is "If I had more time, I could manually handle drink stocks, but this is something boring I could do by hand or put to automation."  Other things are impossible with time, for instance "If I had all the time in the world I could never make water appear in mid-air without hacks, so I will not summon water but instead I will build pumps."  Also, no mods, but a tileset might make things more visible (I've been in ASCII native for a while now).

Discuss.

[Oaktree]

(1) Mine carts for storage.  Using them for quantum stockpiling is easy - and a massive space saver in a fortress.  Which tied into some of the stockpile settings allows for some very complicated storage schemes in additon for making many-type central stockpiles.

(2) A solid example of using take and give settings with stockpiles and workshops to allow specialized construction.  Perhaps something like setting up a jewelry workshop to decorate specific types of furniture of a selected material *and* quality with a specified type of gemstone.  This covers some of the more esoteric stockpile settings as well.

(3) Mine cart shuttling.  Upward ramp loops, drop shafts, and possibly the more complicated work with loading them with water or magma.  And maybe some discussion on how this can be done in both powered and "unpowered" mode.

(4) Marksdwarf placement and use of bunkers/fortifications.  There are some design tricks to incorporate with them, and also knowing about issues low-skill crossbow dwarves can have, placement issues if you position squads with (m)ove, using the defend burrow command, getting them to reload quivers rather than rushing into melee, and even the trick of placing statues to limit where dwarves can stand but can still dodge.   Plus maybe some information on how to get them to train armor user, shield use, etc.

[Toxicshadow]

First what the dump feature actually is (I've played DF for over a year, and I just now realized its potential in space saving (I never used the dump feature)); and also mass dump.  May want to skim some pages of the facepalm moments thread too.  Oh, and military. Might want to try to teach that too .-.;
/Mayormaynothavehad!!FUN!!timeswithHFSinattemptstogetcandy.

[Button]

Water pressure, and particularly the fact that going through a diagonal gap will neutralize it.

Refuse stockpiles don't need to be above-ground; just make sure they can't be accessed except by diagonal.

The fact that floodgates are useless and you should be using doors instead, for pretty much any purpose.

Moving fluids up z levels using minecarts.

[Poldon]

PTW and hopefully someday for the map.

[Tacomagic]

Safely handling magma.  Inclusive of the primary ways to move magma (minecarts, pump stack, piston, and maybe the new minecart launcher).

Took me forever to get to a point where I could move magma without losing dwarves.

[evictedSaint]

I wish I knew about the difference between brooks and rivers.

Also collecting refuse outside and forbidding and dumping.

[VerdantSF]

I wish I knew about the built-in macro system.  It's great to be able to trade away pages upon pages of items with just three commands.  I just started using it yesterday and now trading after Goblin Christmas is a breeze!

[vanatteveldt]

From my own semi-noob experience and the boards, it seems a lot of people have difficulty with the military. In particular:

- Equiping them properly (making sure they actually wear that helm, over/replace uniform, etc).
- Getting them to spar.
- Getting archers to train.
- Getting archers to use the right bolts and have enough bolts on them.

[kuniqs]

Moving fluids up z levels using minecarts.

..no pump stacks anymore? Yay.

Through all the years I've played the game I through it was bugged, since no dwarf dumped refuse from outside. That was especially funny when I got a very late zombie siege, with half of the map tiles peppered with goblin parts. Good times. Figured what to do after got desperate enough to skim through every menu avaliable, looking for salvation.

Wish I knew to protect my graveyard with cage traps when invisible necromancers are doing anything they want. That prompted me to draft every civilian so they'll be able to contain the situation as soon as possible without giving enemy much time.

Wish I knew dorfs have weird equipment shedules, sometimes dropping everything wasting time storing their socks, sometimes going to battle half naked. It's shields and weapons alone for my military now.

[fricy]

A common newbie question seems to be "How NOT to starve your miners with the help of proper stairs/ramps."

[Larix]

The things that could have saved me quite a bit of confusion and frustration had i known them earlier:
Basic farming - laying out fields, seed management, use of the various crops - it took me quite a number of forts before i finally worked out what 'process plant (x)' actually did. Maybe include basic animal husbandry (i went through a bunch of 'starved to death' grazers before grasping the basics of pastures).

Basic mechanics - pumps, pumped liquids, setting up basic minecart routes (i had massive trouble getting dwarfs to actually move a minecart - apart from carrying it around).

Stockpiles - give and take, material control for specific purposes (magmasafe furniture and mechanisms); demonstrate common pitfalls - why won't the mechanics workshop make a traction bench when all the parts are there? (Recipient of a give order from a magmasafe stone stockpile, won't find tables and ropes there; key is that the 'give' order makes the workshop accept materials _exclusively_ from the 'give' source and from itself.)

Standing orders, what they do and what that's good for.

Using the d_init settings to adjust important game parameters (notably to limit immigration and childbirth).

[Lizzy]

This sounds wonderful! As I am still very much a beginner (after ~10 forts? Maybe I am a slow learner), I can answer this in two ways.

Things I wish I'd known:
- advanced stockpiling (choosing not to allow barrels, etc)
- keeping animals alive
- keeping invaders out
- and a lot of menu stuff (I can set people to squads from the view menu??!!) that wouldn't make sense to implement in a demo fort.

Things I want to know:
- how to manage a military without the dwarves on duty getting sad
- water/magma construction demos. I've yet to do anything beyond channels that tap into a water source and some basic reservoirs. Getting water through several z-levels without killing miners would be nice.
- how to get my hospital to stock supplies. I put the piles in, but all I get is soap.
- mine carts? tracks? I have not explored these at all
- how to effectively connect a magma forge/smelter to the rest of the (near surface) fort. Alternatively, how to connect the outdoor agriculture to the rest of the (near magma) fort.

[Gargomaxthalus]

This sounds wonderful! As I am still very much a beginner (after ~10 forts? Maybe I am a slow learner), I can answer this in two ways.

Things I wish I'd known:
- advanced stockpiling (choosing not to allow barrels, etc)
- keeping animals alive
- keeping invaders out
- and a lot of menu stuff (I can set people to squads from the view menu??!!) that wouldn't make sense to implement in a demo fort.

Things I want to know:
- how to manage a military without the dwarves on duty getting sad
- water/magma construction demos. I've yet to do anything beyond channels that tap into a water source and some basic reservoirs. Getting water through several z-levels without killing miners would be nice.
- how to get my hospital to stock supplies. I put the piles in, but all I get is soap.
- mine carts? tracks? I have not explored these at all
- how to effectively connect a magma forge/smelter to the rest of the (near surface) fort. Alternatively, how to connect the outdoor agriculture to the rest of the (near magma) fort.

Your hospital issue is simple. You don't use stockpiles, you have bags and chests placed through the build menu.

To OP: This certainly seems like an interesting project. It's similar to how the makers of RPG Maker handle their tutorials. Given that you'll need to deal with sieges, vampires etc. during development, it is certainly going to be an unenviable pain in the ass to pull off. That being said if you actually can pull it off within DF's rules, you'll become a superhero around here. Personally I've done well for myself by reading the wiki(although it could use some touching up, some sections are a bit sketchy) but I can see how such a detailed method could really help lots of people trying to learn the game.

Looking forward to the Savage/Evil edition. 

[slothen]

The awesomeness of cheese and potash.