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[sirdave79]

I wanted to post my artifact list here. Im curious if anyone will have any comments.

I confess to being a perfectionist, I cant help it, I have to save scum sometimes and the idea of accidentally breaching a cavern whilst digging down to the lava upsets me a great deal (so I use reveal). Underground trees and plants have an annoying affect on placement of certain buildings, but obviously underground trees are very useful. I cant decide if red/blue logs are annoying or not.

Anyway, the list.

http://imgur.com/tqP0WZ5

Now to acheive such a high % of weapons and armour, I go down to lava ASAP and get a magma forge going. I then train each dwarf in either wepon/armour/black smithing so that these skills are a dwarves highest, and then arrange work so that what needs to be done (mining masonry carpentry stone crafting etc) can be done without going over these "highest metal skills". Obviously once a dwarf has "Mooded" they can do anything, so I append their profession as "Mooded" and then its obvious to me who can do what. This does take quite a bit of baby sitting, but the longer it goes on the freer you become in terms of having dwarves who can do whatever you want rather than what your framework dictates.

Now, I go through each dwarf looking at his preferences to determine what skills I train them in. Any dwarf who has a preference for a weapon I want to use gets weapon smithing (hopefully without a metal preference for a metal i have to smelt but dont want a weapon from - ie pig iron). Any dwarf with a preference for shields and armour i want to use gets armoursmithing. shields apparently can be made of any material without any difference in terms of preotective performance (ive not tested this but im accepting this as fact and I beleive this, though steel shields will always be my preference if i can assert one). Again as above, you dont want a pig iron or silver breastplate, so if a dwarf has a preference for a BP and silver, and you smelt silver in your fort, a silver BP is what he will make (other preferences aside) if he moods for armoursmithing, so consider making this dwarf a BS or WS. I train the largest number of dwarves as armoursmiths, a lower number as weapon smiths and the least number as blacksmiths.

When a dwarf enters a mood I forbid all my forges and bars. I claim a forge that was not working before the mood strikes (ideally, so any bars in the workshop are not sitting there waiting for the incoming dwarf (though I think these are forbidden with a designation, i prefer to minimise the chances i have to take so....). Then once the workshop is claimed i claim a metal bar, based on the dwarves preferences. Usually steel, for weapons and armour, sometimes silver gold or platinum depending in the specific item desired/skill used/preference.

when all this works you get a desired item much more often. This makes me happy.

I acheived auch a useful list by pulling together various bits of information. The 2 early iron warhammers were "mistakes" whilst I was learning to ensure all my weapons and armour made by dwarves who did not have metal preferences were steel. The platinum warhammer was made by a dwarf who did not have a preference for platinum (ie it was controlled by me).

Salient points/facts/statements

Apparently no artifacts are made before the forts population is 20. (seemed to be true, initially ~ 5 years or so, I had my pop cap about 15, which by luck or otherwise seemed to be what I had).

A dwarf with a preference for a metal bar will only insist on this bar if you have smelted a bar. This seemed to be true, I have had more than one dwarf make a steel artifact who had a preference for bronze. I have had bronze items and bars in the fortress but never smelted a single bar. The pig iron splint (I nearly reloaded this but to be fair it was always going to be a pig iron BlackSmith item) was created because, as you can imagine ive smelted pig iron, and he sat in the workshop till i let him have a pig iron bar.

Early on, I was making iron items to skill up my dwarves. This led to two iron warhammers being made despite my attempts to ban all bars and claim steel bars. They may have used bars in the workshop already. I consider these, mistakes. The later platinum hammer was by my design. After this I started working in steel instead of iron hoping that less iron bars would be floating around and bars in workshops, or literally just deposited getting used. Making leggings and axes and then smelting the surplus goes a long way towards keeping things sustainable and not reuiring too much in terms of mining materials.

Hope this is interesting/useful.

Anyone know what I should do with the pig iron splint ? it seems that hospitals "lose" their inventory when you move/destroy them. Does this mean my pig iron splint is highly unlikely to be used by anyone ? Any suggestions on if this splint will be the first roled out by my hospital and if it will be reused ?

thanks for reading

[Matoro]

Impressive.

Truly impressive.

Pig iron splint will be used if somebody needs splints and it is in the hospital. It seems that tthe doctors use first the high-quality items and after that lower ones. At least it explains why they nearly always use adamantine thread instead of normal, if you have both. I don't know if it will be destoyred after it's used. Artifacts are nearly indecructible, after all.

The percantange of moods is directly tie into the number of tiles you have dug. If you didn't dug much during those 5 years, the percantange for moods might have been so low that none happened.

[enolate]

I wanted to post my artifact list here. Im curious if anyone will have any comments.

I confess to being a perfectionist, I cant help it, I have to save scum sometimes and the idea of accidentally breaching a cavern whilst digging down to the lava upsets me a great deal (so I use reveal). Underground trees and plants have an annoying affect on placement of certain buildings, but obviously underground trees are very useful. I cant decide if red/blue logs are annoying or not.

Anyway, the list.

http://imgur.com/tqP0WZ5

I imagine you have to brutally murder the children, as well as all great craftdwarves that migrate in.

Now to acheive such a high % of weapons and armour, I go down to lava ASAP and get a magma forge going. I then train each dwarf in either wepon/armour/black smithing so that these skills are a dwarves highest, and then arrange work so that what needs to be done (mining masonry carpentry stone crafting etc) can be done without going over these "highest metal skills". Obviously once a dwarf has "Mooded" they can do anything, so I append their profession as "Mooded" and then its obvious to me who can do what. This does take quite a bit of baby sitting, but the longer it goes on the freer you become in terms of having dwarves who can do whatever you want rather than what your framework dictates.

Now, I go through each dwarf looking at his preferences to determine what skills I train them in. Any dwarf who has a preference for a weapon I want to use gets weapon smithing (hopefully without a metal preference for a metal i have to smelt but dont want a weapon from - ie pig iron). Any dwarf with a preference for shields and armour i want to use gets armoursmithing. shields apparently can be made of any material without any difference in terms of preotective performance (ive not tested this but im accepting this as fact and I beleive this, though steel shields will always be my preference if i can assert one). Again as above, you dont want a pig iron or silver breastplate, so if a dwarf has a preference for a BP and silver, and you smelt silver in your fort, a silver BP is what he will make (other preferences aside) if he moods for armoursmithing, so consider making this dwarf a BS or WS. I train the largest number of dwarves as armoursmiths, a lower number as weapon smiths and the least number as blacksmiths.

When a dwarf enters a mood I forbid all my forges and bars. I claim a forge that was not working before the mood strikes (ideally, so any bars in the workshop are not sitting there waiting for the incoming dwarf (though I think these are forbidden with a designation, i prefer to minimise the chances i have to take so....). Then once the workshop is claimed i claim a metal bar, based on the dwarves preferences. Usually steel, for weapons and armour, sometimes silver gold or platinum depending in the specific item desired/skill used/preference.

when all this works you get a desired item much more often. This makes me happy.

I acheived auch a useful list by pulling together various bits of information. The 2 early iron warhammers were "mistakes" whilst I was learning to ensure all my weapons and armour made by dwarves who did not have metal preferences were steel. The platinum warhammer was made by a dwarf who did not have a preference for platinum (ie it was controlled by me).

Salient points/facts/statements

Apparently no artifacts are made before the forts population is 20. (seemed to be true, initially ~ 5 years or so, I had my pop cap about 15, which by luck or otherwise seemed to be what I had).

A dwarf with a preference for a metal bar will only insist on this bar if you have smelted a bar. This seemed to be true, I have had more than one dwarf make a steel artifact who had a preference for bronze. I have had bronze items and bars in the fortress but never smelted a single bar. The pig iron splint (I nearly reloaded this but to be fair it was always going to be a pig iron BlackSmith item) was created because, as you can imagine ive smelted pig iron, and he sat in the workshop till i let him have a pig iron bar.

Early on, I was making iron items to skill up my dwarves. This led to two iron warhammers being made despite my attempts to ban all bars and claim steel bars. They may have used bars in the workshop already. I consider these, mistakes. The later platinum hammer was by my design. After this I started working in steel instead of iron hoping that less iron bars would be floating around and bars in workshops, or literally just deposited getting used. Making leggings and axes and then smelting the surplus goes a long way towards keeping things sustainable and not reuiring too much in terms of mining materials.

Hope this is interesting/useful.

Anyone know what I should do with the pig iron splint ? it seems that hospitals "lose" their inventory when you move/destroy them. Does this mean my pig iron splint is highly unlikely to be used by anyone ? Any suggestions on if this splint will be the first roled out by my hospital and if it will be reused ?

thanks for reading

[sirdave79]

enolate, I thought youd quoted my whole post with no comments but I noticed the children and cratdwarves snippet.

No I do not kill the children or craft dwarves. Ive "skilled up" some dwarves smithing skills to overtake several lvl 8-10 unwanted mood skills and even 1 lvl 14 mechanic that arrived. Obviously that takes time.

With regards to children, Ive been ucky. I did save scum 1 mooded child.

Weightings for professions entering mood From the wiki

21    Armorer, Blacksmith, Bone Carver, Clothier, Craftsdwarf, Jeweler, Gem Cutter, Gem Setter, Glassmaker, Leatherworker, Metalcrafter, Metalsmith, Stonecrafter, Weaponsmith, Weaver, Woodcrafter
11    Bowyer, Carpenter, Stoneworker, Mason, Woodworker
6    Engraver, Mechanic, Miner, Tanner, & all other professions (including Peasant).


So not only is it more than 3x more likely that a metalworker will enter a mood than a child or whatever, but every single dwarf who has no skills and only requires "training" to lvl 1 lessens the chance of a child mooding.

So maybe not that lucky.

[enolate]

enolate, I thought youd quoted my whole post with no comments but I noticed the children and cratdwarves snippet.

No I do not kill the children or craft dwarves. Ive "skilled up" some dwarves smithing skills to overtake several lvl 8-10 unwanted mood skills and even 1 lvl 14 mechanic that arrived. Obviously that takes time.

So not only is it more than 3x more likely that a metalworker will enter a mood than a child or whatever, but every single dwarf who has no skills and only requires "training" to lvl 1 lessens the chance of a child mooding.

So maybe not that lucky.

I may just be unlucky. Every time I thought to do this, I've had a dude mood the season he came, way before he could smith a damn compared to his woodcrafting or tanning. Same with children. I've given up. Cool to know it's actually possible.

[Mohreb el Yasim]

i think you can get around pig iron if your supposition is correct by never ever smelting it (take one in embark so you can smelt a steel bar then never smelt anything else, duplicate them by forging / melting items (there is at least one wich is making bars in each category so you can fast train up skills  and have bars)

[sirdave79]

enolate, thats why I wanted to share. I feel like ive learned a  thing or two about moods. This is not the first time ive done this kind of thing, just my most recent and most successful. At times it feels like hardwork and of dubious value/point, but when a dwarf that youve previously trained moods, and you check his preferences and go "oh sweet I want one of those" and it comes out reliably in the metal you want its quite satisfying.

Mohreb el Yasim, thats a good idea, I never even thought of that. Maybe next time i start a fort ill have a go at that.

[Hommit]

(there is at least one wich is making bars in each category so you can fast train up skills  and have bars)

which ones? is there a list somewhere?

[Drazinononda]

It's not a list of those items exactly, but if you scan through the table on the wiki's Melt Item page you'll notice a column called "Efficiency," which is the rate of return on melting various items as a percentage, using the formula (bars returned from melting)/(bars needed to create). You'll notice several items have an efficiency of at least 100% -- these efficiencies are marked in bold type -- which means you receive at least as many bars back as are used to make them.

[Nyxalinth]

Nice!  I always get tons of crapsdwarf stuff, so this is good to know.  As for Footheals, the platinum warhammer, I'd say that's a fitting name, considering how one might drop it on their foot...