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[arigoldx]

I should mention at the outset that I've only been playing a short while..

All of my original dwarves died (of thirst) but 5 migrants showed up.  At first they were mostly hanging out in the corners of the map but I made a meeting zone near the entrance to the fort - I'm going through the quickstart guide.

Here's the trick.  Noone's mining.  There are two picks down a level but noone's getting them.  And I haven't the foggiest how to tell the migrants how to go fetch a pick and start mining.  For what it's worth, most of the dead dwarves are down there and yes piles of miasma spewed out from there, tho it's now stopped.  It seems like all of the corpses and all of the equipment are on the same tile.

I've tried saying that the corpses should be dumped but noone's getting them and noone's picking up the free pick there to start digging.  Which they kinda need to do so that we can set up the stockpile of barrels to make drink (ala the quickstart guide) so that dwarves stop dying.

Any ideas?  And thanks!

[Dantez]

Since I use autolabor I sometimes have trouble with making my dorfs pick-up their picks so they can continue their glorious labor. What usually works for me though is having a weapons stockpile, when it is built one of the haulers usually picks up the dropped picks, puts them in the stockpile and my dwarves go and merrily continue with their newly acquired tools. Therefore, try this little trick out, preferably without marking the tools as Dump or Forbid.

[Garath]

it sounds like you broke the path into your fortress. The dorfs from inside couldn't get out to drink water from somewhere for example and the new arrivals can't get inside. alternatively, check if the items are either marked for dump or forbidden. Items from dead dwarfs are often forbidden (to prevent haulers collecting the stuff and rushing into a lethal situation) and need to be claimed. Mass claiming can be done with (d) (b) (c)

[Sutremaine]

You might have mined out the ramp or up stairs between the surface and the original dwarves. Are there any building materials on the surface, or workshops that you can dismantle for building supplies?

[arigoldx]

Right you were, saying that the path was blocked!

Turns out I got confused by the "up stairs" "downstairs" difference.. Didn't seem logical that you could have one without the other.

And now I faintly remember going through the quickstart guide, having trouble making an "Up/Down staircase" so I just chose down.. Silly me.

In any event, the story ends thusly: I managed to build an up staircase but they wouldn't go get the pick and the migrants were too weak it seems for they all died shortly after.

Lesson learned!

[Garath]

And that is how we all progress in DF, through a lot of dead dwarfs

[xcorps]

Right you were, saying that the path was blocked!

Turns out I got confused by the "up stairs" "downstairs" difference.. Didn't seem logical that you could have one without the other.

And now I faintly remember going through the quickstart guide, having trouble making an "Up/Down staircase" so I just chose down.. Silly me.

In any event, the story ends thusly: I managed to build an up staircase but they wouldn't go get the pick and the migrants were too weak it seems for they all died shortly after.

Lesson learned!

For two way travel across z levels using 1 tile:
An upstairs only works if it leads to a downstairs. A downstairs only works if it leads to an upstairs.
If you only have one and not the other, you have a broken staircase.

If you have dug out a downstairs and there is empty space below it, build an upstair. If you dig out an upstair and it leads to air, build a downstair.

You can dig out a very long downstair (say from the ground to the bottom of the world) and your dwarves will be stuck forever...until they build an upstair leading back to the surface.

UP and Down aren't really the construction. There aren't any stairs that only go up. It's a sign on the wall that tells the dorfs which direction they can travel.  Say you build a room that's 5x5. On the North end in the middle you have dug out downstairs from the surface. On the South side you have upstairs leading to the surface. Your dwarfs come down on the north end and leave on the south end. Only.

Say you build an up/down stair on the East. The dwarfs can come into the room from the East and leave through the East.

I've never really seen a purpose for doing it this way. Why not just have a single staircase command in the designate menu that defaults to up/down and then allow the option to {q} over it and redesignate the traffic? Same thing for doors, hatches, grates, etc.

[xcorps]

Also, if you aren't sure if your pathing is broken but you have idle dwarves, use the meeting zone (under the {i} designator). Delete any you have and assign a new one where you want them to go. You can use this on tame animals like war dogs to get them to roam around the map. (but only if there aren't dwarves to haul them. Set up a couple of dogs outside your drawbridge, make sure you bridge is close and no dwarves are outside, then move the meeting area around. Don't try this during a siege, or you will get your dogs and dwarves killed. It works very well for exploring caverns as long as you wall up the entrance behind the war dogs.)

Or, add a dwarf to a squad in the military menu. Then at the main screen hit squad, [a] to select that squad, then [m] to move that squad to the cursor. It will take a bit, but eventually your dwarf will try to go there.

[Garath]

there is a modify button on the top right of your posts. It's considered better than double-posting

quick broken pathing check: try to build a wall (or something simple) and compare building materials. One thing that happened to me was breaking the pathing at my entrance while the woodcutter was out cutting, so above ground had a lot of wood as building material but no stone, while underground had only stone and no wood. Similar differences (or no building materials at all) are a good sign for a blocked path.