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[Faces of Mu]

Do masterpiece ballista arrows cause tantrums when shot?

If so, I'd like it changed so that rather than causing tantrumming when destroyed, they cause tantrumming when they MISS. Therefore, you need to make sure you've got a very good siege operator to use that awesome ballista shot or yr arrow-maker is gonna lose their nut!

Mightn't be so bad for the same sort rules to apply to other military products. Like, the armoursmith gets peeved if a rookie is wearing his masterpiece armour, unless of course masterpiece armour is the standard (which the armourcrafter would still get a -little- peeved about unskilled dwarves likely damaging the good stuff!)

[ October 25, 2007: Message edited by: Faces of Mu ]

[Fedor]

quote:Originally posted by BurnedToast:
<STRONG>as for the metalsmithing skills (the only one where materials really matter, to be honest) starting at max (proficient) saves you only 117 metal out of the needed 600, or about 20% (actually, you can melt the finished products which changes this but i'm too lazy to figure out how). nice? yeah, I guess. worth a huge chunk of starting points? not really IMO, I never run out of metal anyway. </STRONG>
Strange moods.  Getting more dwarves whose highest trade skill is some sort of metalworking is never a mistake.

<STRONG>bronze is not good for much else besides burning on training.</STRONG>
Bronze isn't very sexy, true, but it does have its uses.  With a base value of 5, it boosts room value much better than stone (especially for dwarves who like bronze); bronze decoration is just as handy.  It works just fine for standard-issue bolts and ballista warheads.  Same with crossbows - I just read her that the material a crossbow is made of only matters when you're using it in melee.  Bronze makes dandy tradeware, middle-class goods, extra picks/axes, and weapons to lure in immigrant soldiers.

<STRONG> other then that, meh, quality does not matter for any of the typical starts skills anyway. Max mason is nice for getting blocks out (and thus a road up) quicker, but that's not really super important.</STRONG>
Dwarves like looking at and using quality things.  Most of what can make them happy this way early on will be made by the mason.  This is especially true for your dining hall.

<STRONG>Edit: ok I forgot siege engineering, I thought you meant mechanics. The materials matter ALOT for siege engineering. IMO  it's really not worth it to build siege engines anyway considering the huge mass of wood you need to train the engineer. if you are dead set on using them though, starting with a max skill engineer can be very helpful.</STRONG>
Find a dwarf who likes either catapult or ballista parts, either in the starting gang or amongst the immigrants.  Even if he starts out with no skill at all, you'll get several superior-quality siege engines within the first 100-150 logs.  Preferences are always important, but here's where they *really* make a difference.

[BurnedToast]

quote:Originally posted by Fedor:
<STRONG>

Strange moods. Getting more dwarves whose highest trade skill is some sort of metalworking is never a mistake.

</STRONG>

It's not hard to simply have your non-tradeskill dwarves pound out a few shields or weapons to get dabbling. saves you some annoyance to just pick the skill I guess.

quote:Originally posted by Fedor:
<STRONG>

Bronze isn't very sexy, true, but it does have its uses. With a base value of 5, it boosts room value much better than stone (especially for dwarves who like bronze); bronze decoration is just as handy. It works just fine for standard-issue bolts and ballista warheads. Same with crossbows - I just read her that the material a crossbow is made of only matters when you're using it in melee. Bronze makes dandy tradeware, middle-class goods, extra picks/axes, and weapons to lure in immigrant soldiers.

</STRONG>

Brass is value 7 and is just as available as bronze, it's also a better choice because you can't use sphalerite for anything else. Silver is value 10 and is just as abundant as either of those. xbows can be made out of bone as well as bronze (even metal ones at the forge use crossbow-making not weaponsmithing). Making goods for certain classes is only applicable if you plan on starting the economy which I never do because, honestly, it's broken right now.

I've never seen anything survive a wooden ballista hit, I don't see why you need to coat it with bronze. I guess you could churn out bronze weapons to lure immigrants, but that's not really much different from burning it for training imo.

quote:Originally posted by Fedor:
<STRONG>
Dwarves like looking at and using quality things. Most of what can make them happy this way early on will be made by the mason. This is especially true for your dining hall.
</STRONG>

The happyness boost is not very large, and not really critical. A legendary dining hall can have junk tables/chairs as long as it's smoothed and big enough and still be legendary.

quote:Originally posted by Fedor:
<STRONG>
Find a dwarf who likes either catapult or ballista parts, either in the starting gang or amongst the immigrants. Even if he starts out with no skill at all, you'll get several superior-quality siege engines within the first 100-150 logs. Preferences are always important, but here's where they *really* make a difference.
</STRONG>

I've never seen material preference make a difference. AFAIK the only evidence is adamantine is liked by all dwarves, and adamantine stuff comes out higher quality - I tend to think that is a feature of adamantine though and not preference.

I admit I have not thoroughly tested it, but I've never noticed dabblers churning out -quality- items or anything else unusual ever.

[Lightning4]

quote:Originally posted by BurnedToast:
<STRONG>

I've never seen material preference make a difference. AFAIK the only evidence is adamantine is liked by all dwarves, and adamantine stuff comes out higher quality - I tend to think that is a feature of adamantine though and not preference.

I admit I have not thoroughly tested it, but I've never noticed dabblers churning out -quality- items or anything else unusual ever.</STRONG>

Actually, I think the preference thing is true, albeit difficult to get a good bead on it. I was training up a selected armorsmith, and noticed he was making peculiarly good quality iron armor for his skill level. I looked and sure enough, he likes iron. It's probably not a very big bonus.
Dabblers might have some sort of prevention since they cannot make anything above no-adjective quality normally. It might only kick in when they become a novice.

[Grek]

I take a lot of skills, no gear but an axe, a pick, 2 barrels and 50 plump helmets.

[Thallone]

1 Pick, 1 Axe, 30 plump Helmets, some booze to get started (2 of each), lots of Proficient skills, and sometimes 2 dogs. Though looking at the prior post, more helmets and less booze is not a bad idea. At elast if you get 2 or more of each booze you can tell yourself that 'My dwarves have different tastes in drink' as an excuse to mumnchkin some barrels.

[Rad]

*** Deleted - posted twice. Sorry. ***

[ October 28, 2007: Message edited by: Rad ]

[Rad]

Dwarves can fish & gather plants with their hands alone, so even if you don't get any of either skills OR equipment, you can still survive. The start will be much slower though, since you'll have pretty much some depressed, slacking dwarves that struggle to live...  

Well, it may be a bit late to place my take on this, but I figure a beginner should create a group like:
A perfect miner, a perfect carpenter, a perfect mason, a decent mechanic, 1 perfect farmer (doubles as herbalist until you get a farm started) and 1 very good cook/brewer, an axe and a pick, dogs, and more than a dozen plump helmets for food (do NOT allow dwarves to cook them!).

With this, it should be fairly easy to keep your dwarves happy, well fed, and safe. I won't spoil the fun by giving any more detailed strategies, this setup has a lot of tolerance for mistakes and dwarf deaths, anyways.

[ October 28, 2007: Message edited by: Rad ]

[Felix the Cat]

I wonder how the new version will change all of this? You won't be able to specifically tailor your starting package around the "dig straight to cave river ASAP and make farms" strategy...

[Grek]

Next version you will want to dig for the water table and make wells instead of dig to the river and make floodgates. Should make them alot easier sense all you need is a rope, a bucket and a block.

[ October 28, 2007: Message edited by: Grek ]

[0x517A5D]

My build emphasizes skills above all else.

In my current fort, I started with:
1 pick
no axe
14 plump helmet spawn
5 of each type of purchasable seed
4 units of assorted alcohol
6 units of assorted 2p meat
4 turtles
and 4 dogs.

The remainder of the points were devoted to skills.  Very successful.

If I was starting with an axe, I wouldn't even buy the alcohol and meat.  I only buy them for the free barrels.

0x517A5D

[Koja]

Ditto to the last post.

Weapon/Armor smithing are a pain later, digging needs to be fast, and a prof mechanic is nice.

2 wagons= 6 wood. 5 wood goes towards an immediate magma smelter/forge, and 1 goes towards an axe. Dwarves dont need beds, that's what stone is for.

I DO normally like a couple barrels, out of laziness. The extra commands it takes to make them are annoying, considering my lack of respect for carpentry.

[Jreengus]

I personally emphasise early production skills so i get nice high quality furniture to make my dwarves happy although i will not pretend to be an expert

[Sowelu]

I have a lot of fun starting with two maxed weaponsmiths and two maxed armorsmiths.

I should try starting with a maxed miner...  It would probably be worth a lot more than a second pick.  I believe it's the same with woodcutters.  And of course farmers are nice.

Yeah, skills over gear, here.

[Jaqie Fox]

quote:Originally posted by 0x517A5D:
4 turtles
and 4 dogs.

Wait... you can get live turtles?