Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[lcy03406]

I conducted research in the four labs and built them. I can make metal bars from ironbark and steeloak logs. I can transmute copper to nickel so that I can make spring steel. I read about how to make bloodsteel but didn't actually practice that. I know the chemist's is useful for modern infantry.

I'd like to learn other usage of the labs, as well as the stockpile managing tips about them.

[MerkerBenson]

Well, I'm also new to MW but have managed to get a hold of most of the buildings in my experimental fort now(except the freaking chemist and magic school since my researcher keeps failing that for some reason and the really advanced stuff that requires magma as I've yet to reach the magma sea, so much stuff to do) but IMO the most useful are:
1. Alchemist, which can make you that bloodsteel quite cheaply, you only need bones, ash and blood, which after a siege or necromorph apocalypse are in abundance. Bloodsteel armor and weapons are awesome to have early on and later if you, like me, don't bother with mining as much as experimenting with different workshops . Just make sure to make a loot of blood barrels from any meat you have and you'll have great fun

2. I'd advise against making metal bars from ironbark and steeloak logs. Just use the logs themselves to make weapons and armor, they work just as well as the real metals, I found that out when using a danger room with 1 steeloak training spear and 1 ironbark spear. That mithrill-clad recruit stood no chance.... The best use for the herbalist I've found is making glue from spore trees, an item you'll need a lot of to do research and make the libraries, as well as copy your completed research. I don't really know if those youth potions and what else is there work.

3. The alchemist is also great to get the materials for welded materials that you make in the metalsmith. I'd advise you to make a LOT of welded armors and weapons they're awesome if you happen to have a lot of a certain ore, like I do cobaltite.

4. If you get a hold of some glumprong trees, process them at the sawmill to get their acorns and make a huge farm with them. Then you can farm blood like mad . Same applies for feathers which you'll need for quills, again for research.

5. Stockpiles..hmm, well just make dedicated spaces for each lab and link the raw materials stockpiles(ie blood stockpile, bone stockpile, bar stockpile, cobaltite stockpile) to the lab, and a huge main finished goods/bars stockpile that only takes from the labs.

6. The toxicologist should be a great weapon enhancer method. Unfortunately I have not seen the results as I got the lab after the latest huge massacres. Just unequip your soldiers of their weapons, place the weapons stockpile near the toxicologist, make the lab take weapons only from THAT stockpile and coat them in shadowleaf or bitterroot since those are cheap and easy to get in massive quantities(hey I even have shadowleaf pies if you can believe that , oops settings )

Cheers

[lcy03406]

Thank you Merker.

I think I found some bugs in bloodsteel making.

The reaction "Make ash(1) from plank" takes a wood log instead of a plank.

"Extract blood" takes a full stack of meat but return only a barrel of 5 blood.

"Extract blood" takes meat roast for meat.

"Transmute ironbone and blood to bloodsteel" can't use blood in bucket, which was milked from bloodling.

Dwarfs don't move blood in buckets to barrels.

So how to obtain the blood?

[Mawootad]

The manual is fairly out of date but pretty much everything is described there.  Also, you get blood in barrels by extracting blood from meat.  Might be other ways, I'm not sure.  It's probably easier to just turn steeloaks into steel bars anyway, materials are easier to come by if you farm them and there's little oversight required.  Bloodsteel does sound cool, but regular steel is easier to make, cheaper, and has exactly the same properties (via steeloaks in the herbalist).  Also, chemist's laboratory supposedly has dangerous reactions, so you may want to consider buying those materials from the shops and only then using the chemist's to produce the end results (from what I've heard the burning/explosive ammo also tends to set the countryside on fire, so be careful).

Also, herbalist is amazing for producing infinite amounts of steel (plus a bunch of utility with other trees too).  They other labs are just okay, debilitating poisons require enemies that might actually survive for any amount of time and chemistry is dangerous (or so the raws say, I feel like I'd rather just buy blackpowder than risk burning down my fort).  Alchemy sounds interesting but I've never gotten around to actually building it since it's fairly specialized and I've just never been in a position where it was really needed (the one time I needed nickel it turned out I had a huge unmined vein, and the one time I needed zinc I just bought every bar from the elf and drow caravans).

[palu]

The reaction "Make ash(1) from plank" takes a wood log instead of a plank.

I actually fixed that in my version of Studded With Paches, but it got reverted in the update to v4i

[MerkerBenson]

Thank you Merker.

I think I found some bugs in bloodsteel making.

The reaction "Make ash(1) from plank" takes a wood log instead of a plank.

"Extract blood" takes a full stack of meat but return only a barrel of 5 blood.

"Extract blood" takes meat roast for meat.

"Transmute ironbone and blood to bloodsteel" can't use blood in bucket, which was milked from bloodling.

Dwarfs don't move blood in buckets to barrels.

So how to obtain the blood?

Hmm, well I usually buy all the blood barrels the merchants bring and also all the fresh hearts, since one heart=1 barrel of blood in the kitchen. I only ever butcher Plump Helmet Men and so I don't get any meet, but sometimes I seem to get the ability to extract blood in the kitchen. Also helps if you have creatures that breed faster than you can butcher them, like lots of jackrats or cragtooth boars and such

As for emptying buckets of blood, isn't there a reaction in a workshop for that, empty the bucket?

As for ash, after your first siege if you use crematoriums you will never ever ever need to make ash from wood. You can just burn body parts to ash and you're set (a year after the necromorph event and I'm still cleaning my traps of necro parts ). Also helps if you have a peat layer around for unlimited coal, of course or a magma version of the crematorium

Cheers

[lcy03406]

Hmm, well I usually buy all the blood barrels the merchants bring and also all the fresh hearts, since one heart=1 barrel of blood in the kitchen.

I'm doing this.

As for emptying buckets of blood, isn't there a reaction in a workshop for that, empty the bucket?

In what workshop? Or is there any way of forbid milking bloodlings? Or should I butcher them all?

As for ash, after your first siege if you use crematoriums you will never ever ever need to make ash from wood.

That is what I'm afraid of! I'm in an area of no iron and plenty of copper. A javelin squad of 4 dwarfs with lamellar leather armors, that's all my defensive force. I need ironbone, and steelblood if possible, to equip my first army. And I'm thinking about building a level 2 floor for steeloak farming.

[MerkerBenson]

You have an alchemist, transmute all that copper into iron.
Or better yet, make traps with glass barbed wire. At the ambushes of 40 goblins+mounts I get a few traps and a bridge to control the flow gave my squads a vacation . OR build a magma trap, with a platform raised over the entrance to your fort, place a magmaling there and when the siege comes order the alchemist to command the magmaling to spawn magma!! Instant dwarfy fun! (PS: make sure the platform and your walls are magma proof or else

Oh, right, the "empty bucket" reaction is for the dwarven loo You don't get the stuff, just the bucket. At least you'll get the buckets back

[kamikazi1231]

I believe the empty bucket reaction is in the dwarven loo, in order to give that decorative structure a use.  Dump all those blood buckets down the toilet.

[lcy03406]

(PS: make sure the platform and your walls are magma proof or else

I remember walls and floors don't melt. Has it changed?

PS: I love loo.

[lcy03406]

Oh I find a way to extract blood without too much waste. I set up a food stockpile accepts all sorts of meat and fish except the "meat", and a barrel stockpile, built a new kitchen, and link the kitchen to the two stockpiles, and exact blood. Fish and heart/stomach usually stack in 5. So the cost of 1 blood is only 1 food.

[kamikazi1231]

That's a smart way to do that. I've always had trouble with blood as well. I may try it now. You could also set that meat stockpile to take from your main food stockpile so you'd refill it for the next batch of blood extracting quickly.