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[Sutremaine]

If the seeds don't get hauled from the dining room, that just means you have no functional stockpile that accepts seeds, no?

I'll have to double-check -- off the top of my head I don't think it's as simple as that, as dwarves have this fixation on putting things in containers. It might be that it's not the seeds themselves getting stacked up in the dining room, but bags of seeds.

[Girlinhat]

So back to tutorial needs?

Is there anything you don't know NOW that you wish was explained?

[wierd]

I admit to having never worked with minecarts, feeling that they aren't, strictly speaking, a true necessity.

I still think that you should build a dependency web of all the features of the game, then incrementally and systematically introduce functionality and processes, starting from a blank slate.

Ideally, you won't introduce any advanced concepts ahead of the underlying necessary knowledge. (No water cannons without first covering water, pressure, screwpumps, mechanisms and the mechanics workshop, channeling and mining, etc.)

Just build a web of inter-related workshops and requirements, then start at square 1.

Eg, a screwpump requires a block, an enormous corkscrew, a pipe section, and a mechanism. That means it needs either a glass works or a blacksmith, and a mechanic's workshop. The glass works needs bags, sand, and either magma or fuel. The blacksmith requires a foundry or metal bars, and either fuel or magma.  Pick a tree, and start at the beginning: stone, sand/metal ore, fuel/magma. Build required workshops, (mechanic, woodfurnace/dig magma cistern, wood & charcoal stocks, etc....) and do so in logical order, so you have foundations on which to present the next production system.

Building the dependency web, and choosing a path (or set of paths) for your tutorial(s) will help you build a non-confusing demonstration.

You may need to start several fortresses with different resource availabilities to deal with the multipath dynamics of workshop dependencies, (one metal poor, one metal rich, one glass rich, etc.) So that a fully comprehensive tutorial is possible.

If you want your tutorial to include worldgen, and site selection, you will need to sequence break a little, and demo generation on a specific target site type, but give some pre-emptive advice on choosing other kinds of sites, and the kinds of gameplay alterations that site selection offers. I feel it is important that players understand that there isn't an "ideal" embark, only embarks that favor different play styles, and play experiences.  (Glass VS ceramics VS stonecraft VS metalcraft, etc-- availability of water and magma, dealing with saltwater, aquifers, lack of stone, etc.) You can't take for granted anything about the player's knowledge. So, if you want to include site selection in the tutorial, you will need to at least briefly go over rock layer types, biomes, surroundings, temperature, etc.  It would probably be prudent to make an entire tutorial JUST on site selection.

I think asking "what you wish you knew better", or "what you don't know now" are the wrong approaches. "The player knows exactly zero" is the most robust strategem.

[Girlinhat]

The majority of the easy stuff is obvious though.  Starting at square one is relatively easy.  The idea here, is that I'm going to start a fort with the intent of covering mid/late game questions.  Working towards those problems will involve many, if not every, early game question.

For instance, if the goal is to show how to make a working mist generator, then I have to go over water physics, pumps, power, mechanisms, construction, and then the more basic things like workshops, stockpiles, harvesting resources, and farms to keep it all upright.

So maybe a better question is "What's decent (mega) projects that you wanted to see?"  I'll get a collection of lofty goals, and then explain every little step from embark to finish.

Essentially what you said is totally true.  I just already know that.

[wierd]

My bad, I was confused as to the intent. (You earlier mentioned that a friend was put off by miles of interface interactions, which led me to believe you were building a comprehensive "all skill levels" walkthrough on how DF works.)

Ok, so if this is "advanced funstuff 101", then we need a list of advanced funstuff to demo.

I would suggest:
temperate embark with saltwater aquifer, access to magma, and a winter that causes freezing.

With the following funstuff activities:

Purpetual motion machine
Saltwater desalination plant
Obsidian factory
Freezing water cannon
Magma cannon
Magma eruption device
Minecart shotgun
Minecart water gun
Minecart magma gun
Coinstar armor and dodge training system
Mist generator (bonus with winter that freezes as a potential pitfall)
Danger room training booth
Automated swimming training pool
Impulse ramp exploitation (can be part of the cannons above)
Self destruct lever
Weaponization of forgotten beasts of various types (include collection of extract contaminants on crosbow bolts, and web collection, as well as directly weaponized door greeters)
HFS checkers for "winning the game" (Aussie guy's method)
Creative uses of necromancy
Kitten/puppy fountain for desensitivity training
"Dwarven childcare"
Advanced stockpile and workshop interactions
Using obsidian casting techniques instead of demolishing your FPS with hundreds of thousands of stone blocks when building above ground structures
Abusing "edge of map" + "7/7 water teleportation" to rapidly drain a cistern, or power a cannon
Methods of auto-identifying vampires (such as exploiting the need to sleep or eat as a means of segregation, using airlocks and pressure plates.)

For the last one, I came up with a (what I think is) clever method for weeding out the undead from migrant waves.

It exploits the fact that migrants will immediately path to the nearest meeting area, stand around if they can't find work, and eventually either eat, drink, or sleep.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The basic setup is an airlocked entry atrium, with a meeting area, a food stockpile supplied by a dropchute, and a series of very special bedrooms that are marked as dormatories.

A sleepy UristMcMigrant will be unable to get to a vacant bedroom past the airlocks, and so will path to a dorm bed.  Each dorm is a 1xN tube, with bridges that raise and lower to block or allow entrance/exit.  It basically looks like this:

Fortress side.                   Migrant side
+++O=============O+++++
+++PB+++P+b+P+P+B+++++
+++O=============O+++++

The default, is for the migrant side bridge to be down, and the fortress side bridge to be up.
Sleepy migrant enters, and steps on plate #1. This raises the bridge behind him, and keeps UristMcVampire out.  He continues blissfully toward the bed (b), and steps on plate #2. This opens the bridge on the fortress side. He then takes his nap in the bed, wakes up, and paths to the nearest meeting hall. The way behind him is now blocked, and since he took a nap, he is clear for entry. As he moves forward, he steps on plate #3, which opens the bridge behind him, and later steps on plate #4, which closes the bridge behind him. Note how the walls extend past the bridge, and straddle plate #4, which not only forces uristMcMigrant to step on it, but also greatly reduces the risk that an errant dwarf on the inside will pess it, toggling the bridge, and breaking the automation.

The result of letting this automated system run, is that UristMcVampire gets segregated out of the normal fortress population, and stays in the atrium. This makes drafting him into a vampire military unit, and stationing him in an isolated guardhouse much easier, without ever actually blowing his cover. Ideally, these dorms will be many tiles distant from the meeting hall, so that by the time uristMcMigrant gets into the bed, and before the bridges toggle, uristMcVampire can't possibly path in time to get to him.  If UristMcMigrant is dumb enough to sleep on the atrium floor, he deserves what he gets.

Lockdown mode for the migrant processing atrium, and opening the merchant access should allow for cleared dwarves to interact with merchants, and keep uncleared dwarves from running in with them.

[Tacomagic]

Inverted pyramid is always a classic and gives lots of building info.  Especially if you build it out of cast obsidian.

[Aquathug]

ptw
Totally wanna see the finished product.

[Puddingbane]

You mention megaprojects, but I would really like to know how to build a robust military.  I have the basics of the military down: I can handle upper-cave fauna and small ambushes.  But I am eventually overwhelmed by the non-stop invasions I seem to get after year 5.  Of course I can last longer by sealing the fort or using a ton of traps, but that seems unsporting...

[malimbar04]

how to read the ASCII world. now it's transparent to me, but when I first started I didn't realize we were even looking at slices of the world. I thought the world just jumped around like crazy. Also, I started in adventure mode, and that was even weirder. "WTF happened!" - later i found out "oh, I took one step up a hill back then".

[Marble_Nuts]

You mention megaprojects, but I would really like to know how to build a robust military.  I have the basics of the military down: I can handle upper-cave fauna and small ambushes.  But I am eventually overwhelmed by the non-stop invasions I seem to get after year 5.  Of course I can last longer by sealing the fort or using a ton of traps, but that seems unsporting...

This +1

I don't like to abuse of game mechanics and will try to fight with a mix of everything. In that case steady military is required and I have trouble setting it up to.

[Girlinhat]

You mention megaprojects, but I would really like to know how to build a robust military.  I have the basics of the military down: I can handle upper-cave fauna and small ambushes.  But I am eventually overwhelmed by the non-stop invasions I seem to get after year 5.  Of course I can last longer by sealing the fort or using a ton of traps, but that seems unsporting...

You're trying to imply that a working military isn't a megaproject?

[slothen]

I wish I'd known earlier that linking seed-producing workshops to a links-only stockpile that doesn't take seeds will stop dwarves from trying to haul the seeds at all. The individual seeds will remain in the workshop, individually available to each farmer. They will also remain stacked on the dining room tables, which is moderately annoying but far less so than seed spam.

wait so 'take from workshop' actually does something?

The awesomeness of cheese and potash.

Not sure if sarcasm...

Not sarcastic, note I said 'cheese and potash,' not 'cheesemakers and potash makers.'  I never tried embarking with milk before, but I like cheese as a foodstuff for my dwarves, and potash is well worth the log cost when you're getting stacks of 6, 7, 8, even 9.

[Larix]

I wish I'd known earlier that linking seed-producing workshops to a links-only stockpile that doesn't take seeds will stop dwarves from trying to haul the seeds at all. The individual seeds will remain in the workshop, individually available to each farmer. They will also remain stacked on the dining room tables, which is moderately annoying but far less so than seed spam.

wait so 'take from workshop' actually does something?

Just like 'give' restricts the workshop only to accept items from those stockpiles, 'take' restricts the workshop to send its output exclusively to the linked stockpiles.

I set up an animal stockpile to 'take' from a still, put a seeds-only stockpile with no links right next to it, and the seeds produced when brewing remained in the still. The animal stockpile received a cage from the carpenter's shop and the seed stockpile accumulated the seeds generated in the dining hall, i.e. their functionality was otherwise unaffected. The only effect was that the still couldn't send the seeds to a stockpile. Removing the 'take' link from the animal stockpile led to a rush of haulers bringing the still's seeds to the seed stockpile.

[Puddingbane]

You're trying to imply that a working military isn't a megaproject?

Either way, it could use a guide.  All the military guides I've seen stick to the basics (or go into minutiae about things like patrol routes without bothering to explain why you'd want to use one).

[Sutremaine]

Project: Above-ground meeting area in the magma sea.

Covers obsidian casting with buckets, safe multi-level digging, and the art of doing things in the right order. If you want to make it an outdoor meeting area that's impervious to flying creatures or evil fog, it covers scaffolding and things you can and can't build on the top level of the sky.

I never tried embarking with milk before

It's pretty neat. The milk just sits around until you want to make it available to the dwarves, and you don't need a container for the processing.