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[Skullsploder]

This is just an idea, but I've been hearing a lot about dwarven eugenics. Maybe it would be beneficial to have cells contain two children, a male and a female, rather than just the one. You just match up male and female children with the desired stats, and the permanent socialising will ensure they become lovers and then marry practically as soon as they mature.

In addition, seeing a fellow dwarf/future spouse constantly dodging rabid animals (I'm not a big fan of the spikes) is bound to up discipline faster, and having the companionship should help the subjects' mental stability.

This way, the spartan supersoldiers of doom can continue theirs and the forts lineage, since these attachments will be formed prior to whatever permanent mental scarring the Daycare System causes, and losing a single family member should never be an issue with a decently run fort, and especially not when the one left behind doesn't care about anything anymore (as these kiddies should by the age of 12).

[greycat]

Can I somehow make the child wear both? Several hoods are lying by it.

not with vanilla DF

I have tried, on a number of occasions, to read the wiki's page to figure out how this stuff works, but it still eludes me.  I can't figure out the answer to a simple question like "Can a dwarf wear a cap and a hood at the same time".

I am absolutely positive they can wear a helm and a hood, because that's my standard military uniform and I do that all the time.

I reckoned they ought to be able to wear a cap and a hood together, because a cap is smaller than a helm, right?  It certainly covers less, and has smaller "Size" and "Material Size".  After that, it's just confusing as hell.

Are you absolutely sure that a cap and a hood can't be worn together?

[Symmetry]

Are you absolutely sure that a cap and a hood can't be worn together?

I think the problem is getting a child to do it, they can't have uniforms.

[Reelya]

When I said "not with Vanilla DF" i meant you can't make them to wear a specific thing, not about layering. You can't get them to wear 1 cap, 1 hood, a cap+ hood, or any combo at all. You don't have any control over that for civilians at all.

There's no "you - wear this!" command, unless they're in the military, which could be hacked with dfhack probably. You can also delete all clothing choices from the dwarven entity you don't like and regen the world, that's about it. Then, they'd start with hoods. But it feels like a cop-out / cheat.

Forbidding the clothes they're wearing won't work either, they won't pick up forbidden stuff, but they won't drop it if it's equipped either, until it's worn out. For new kids in the fortress you could avoid letting them into the danger room until they pickup some clothes, and only make appropriate clothes / forbid or dump everything else. A cloak + hood should cover a fair bit if you can get them wearing it. Theoretically you could phase out all non-hood caps, and for testing purposes ban caps at all from the starting migrants. If they can survive with all hoods then that's a plus for fortress-born children.

[Staalo]

In my fort there probably weren't any caps left after the last migrant-worn clothes had rotted away, so everyone wore hoods which I had in abundance.

Maybe you could try to DFHack autodump all troublesome worn items and make available them only what you want them to wear.

[Urist McVoyager]

If you can work fluid logic well enough to figure out timers, we might be able to use a living enemy to scare the kids. Just gotta time it so the enemy's only exposed in short, regulated bursts that don't keep the kids from taking care of themselves.

I'm not into dwarven mechanics, but we could just put the enemy behind a window and drawbridge, link the bridge to a lever and expose the child until it's hungry or thirsty and order a dwarf to close the bridge. Needs a lot of micromanagement, though.

See, the game already has a lot of micromanagement without adding childcare to the mix. The construction of a fluid logic timer would add micromanagement while it was underway, but afterwards it would minimize the remaining management to occasionally replacing the monster being used if they escape, and to replacing the subjects when they die or age out. I have no problem with people bulling through it with added micromanagement, I just think if we had a standardized clock to run things for us, it would be even more viable as a regular feature of fortresses.

[greycat]

You can make a clock with a werebeast.  Obviously it only ticks once per month.

[TheOnlySolitaire]

You can make a clock with a werebeast.  Obviously it only ticks once per month.

That were beast clock is brilliant, but circumstantial - ie you have to 1) have a werebeast, and 2) you have to capture it.
But you can bet if I get one in this fort, I will try to capture it to set this up, as it is, again, brilliant.


I've found that reclaiming a fortress is far quicker than trying to set one up.
I took reelya's suggestion and made a pet dwarven caste.
So on this embark I have 75 test subjects to begin when I come to science.
Brought some adults along too for extra help hauling, and menial jobs.
I have reservations however, as I'm not sure if they will react the same way as a standard child would, as the tame child's personality seems to be hidden, and possibly disabled due to the [PET] status.
We'll see once I'm properly set up I guess.

What I would give for DFhack to make things easier and more convenient right now though...

[McDonald]

One thing, make your dwarves wear hoods, cloaks, mittens, gloves, socks and shoes. That gives them full coverage. Somebody had a problem with broken wrists when kids were poked with spears. Gloves would protect them.

[Reelya]

@TheOnlySolitaire

You can mod the raws on the save file, and take the PET etc tags back off the castes once they're on the fort. They should still say "tame" after their name, but they'll be back to normal in other ways.

[Urist McWhatTheHellGuys?]

I remember the first day care thread being far less... nice. Where's the use of magma to remove fat from dwarves?

[Reelya]

I'm wondering, can you assign pets to children? If, so then you could give them a pet, then drop the pet into a goblin holding cell next to the childcare where they can watch it being slaughtered.

Does that help the niceness problem a bit?

[TheOnlySolitaire]

I remember the first day care thread being far less... nice. Where's the use of magma to remove fat from dwarves?

haha me too - I contributed on that thread too, and most my theories with childcare are on par with, or worse than the stuff this thread has seen so far, so fear not.
And don't forget this is Bay12; There is no way I am the only one who will play like that.

That said, the guys and girls in this thread have made some interesting progress toward the overall goal, I'm going to use this threads method to warm up the children, then up the difficulty curve.

I'm not sure magma still works like it did on the body in the last version though, but rest assured, I will test it.

I'm wondering, can you assign pets to children? If, so then you could give them a pet, then drop the pet into a goblin holding cell next to the childcare where they can watch it being slaughtered.

Does that help the niceness problem a bit?

I'm pretty sure they can't be assigned, as the option to used to be in the labors screen if I remember rightly, and the labor screen isn't available for children.
I'm going to test a 'buddy' system though - 2 subjects per cell, so that the likelihood of seeing their best friend die is increased, but would in the meantime negate the mental attribute loss from not socialising in 12 years...
And IF the two children are opposite gender, and not family, they should marry and that would tie in the eugenics program nicely.

But my progress on the fort is slow - reclaims save time, but I'm getting ambushed well before the first winter now, not to mention there is a FB somewhere lurking in the depths of the fort, which I have explored but not yet found. That worries me a lot.
I only have 5 of the 7 starting dwarves, and so far the only migrants managed to spawn right into a goblin ambush.
I havent even got one of the test chambers set up yet, as i lost my carpenter and the metalsmith, meaning the furniture making speed is ridiculously slow at the moment...

[Urist McVoyager]

If the Beast shows up on the Units screen, you should be able to use c on it to locate it automatically.

[HmH]

I remember the first day care thread being far less... nice. Where's the use of magma to remove fat from dwarves?

All right, let's cut off their legs to force crutch-walking. They'll get maxed-out Agility and Endurance that way, even without weapon training, and crutches can be used in combat to train Misc. Object User. You'll probably have a few captured werebeasts by the time they grow up, so they could even get their legs back.