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[faceshed]

Hey guys. Sorry if what I'm about to say is stupid. I have been reading about this game like mad. Probably two or tree times as much as I've played it. So I might have some silly misunderstandings based on the wiki.

So I'm planing a fort in my head that I want to make and I'm not sure it's possible so I'd like some advice. The core idea is a fort that can survive and produce as many different things as possible over an infinite amount of time inside a box. The size of the box can be as big as it needs to be without being infinite but nothing can go in or come out of it. That means no trades, no killing attackers and no mining. My question; Can you make something that can be sealed for an infinite amount of time and still be working?

As I understand you can keep things out with just a glass roof. Not sure that's right, but I also found that it's possible to use an exploit to make a floor over an area without making it subterranean or dark so we can seal the outside in with the dwarves. This allows easy garbage dump, outdoor trees and foods.

Vampires would need to run it. I don't think werebeasts are reliable enough and with limited space for graves it seams infinite ghosts are the only other option. I've herd that vampires will feed on sleeping livestock so we just need a giant farm. I was worried about strange moods, but I guess they stop when you hit the artifact cap.

As some point stone would run out, but if we had an aquifer and a magma pool inside we could make an obsidian mine.

An exploit allows you to melt some metal items for as much as 250% the metals you used on them so we can make all the metal we need.

Sand and clay can be gathered infinitely so no problems there. I herd that glass counts as a low grade gem for most things. Any other ways we could generate better gems?

I've herd that fish will generate in a pool of water, but I'm not sure about that. Anyone know for sure? Can we get shells from generated fish or would we have to domesticate some sort of shelled thing?

Quantum stockpiling solves any space issue with storing the mess of wealth generated. I'm sure the items would hit some kind of cap or crash the computer or lag or something after some time, but I'm going to ignore all those problems.

So that's all I have. Would it work? Thanks!

[neblime]

yes you can definitely make a self contained cube of a fotress that can make at least most things forever.   why do vampires have to run it? if you're sealed in completely you shouldn't need to be slabbing large numbers of dwarves, it takes a long time to die of old age! if its food you're worried about you needn't be, its surprisingly easy to feed 200 dwarves with just a few farm plots.

as for strange moods, you just have to stockpile all sorts of things and hope they dont ask for too many shells or what have you. what do you mean by the artifact cap? I wasn't aware there was a point where artifacts stop

i BELIEVE when a dwarf has a strange mood they ask for glass gems or just gems (i.e. any non glass, correct me if i'm wrong) which as far as I know there is no way to replace

ah yes, regenerating turtles, perhaps they will solve the shell problem, an aquifer can serve that purpose(at least some of the time)

keep in mind you cant duplicate adamantine that way except via a rather convoluted method of splitting bolt stacks

yes you will lag as you get more items but that happens with any fortress

[Paaaad]

as for strange moods, you just have to stockpile all sorts of things and hope they dont ask for too many shells or what have you. what do you mean by the artifact cap? I wasn't aware there was a point where artifacts stop

From the Wiki:

Conditions
In order for a dwarf to be struck with a strange mood, three conditions must be met:
There is no currently active strange mood,
The maximum number of artifacts is not met,
There are at least 20 eligible dwarves (see below), including dwarves who have already created artifacts.
If all three of these conditions are true, the game may trigger a strange mood according to the frequency.

Maximum number of artifacts
The maximum number of artifacts in any one fortress is limited by the lower of:
The number of items created divided by 100.1 Mined-out rock does count as an "item created", though it is not clear whether bolts or units of drink are counted individually.
The number of revealed subterranean tiles divided by 2304 (this is an area equivalent to a 48x48 square). Once you discover and explore the caverns and magma sea, this limit becomes largely irrelevant, and using a "reveal" utility will eliminate it altogether, though strip-mining an area entirely and exposing it to the surface will count against this.
1 - actually the sum of all items by type and by type+subtype+material, divided by 200. Furthermore, destroying items does not decrement these counters, so casting and mining obsidian will count toward this.

[Tacomagic]

If you want the creature that gives it all, the (preferably giant) armadillo is the perfect animal for the capsule fort.

It gives all the basic materials: bone, tannable hide, shell, and a skull.  You know, and all the meat as well.  They only thing they don't do is lay eggs.

Any of the breeds of tortoise or snapping turtle make good alternatives to the armadillo.  They don't give any leather, but they do lay eggs, which might be better if you're bringing more than one species of creature for breeding.

Another great one is the Giant Snail.  Huge returns, lots of shell, and they're full size at birth.  Unfortunately, it's really difficult to get a mated pair and you can't fully domesticate them.  They also don't give any bone, so you'd need to bring something else for that (Like cats or dogs).

[faceshed]

Thanks for the replies and yeah that was the wiki thing I read.

yes you can definitely make a self contained cube of a fotress that can make at least most things forever.   why do vampires have to run it? if you're sealed in completely you shouldn't need to be slabbing large numbers of dwarves, it takes a long time to die of old age! if its food you're worried about you needn't be, its surprisingly easy to feed 200 dwarves with just a few farm plots.

I know it takes a long time for them to die and I bet I would die of old age before I could fill a small map with coffins, but just for the fun of it. If I could somehow play the game forever then it would be full after a few thousand years I would have no more places to bury dwarves and they would start turning into ghosts unless I could somehow stop that. Then if they bothered enough people that died unhappy it could give a tantrum spiral.

Anyway vampires offer nice advantages like no sleeping or eating and you could be sure to get your team in a nice rhythm to avoid surprises from random personalities.

[MDFification]

Someone once claimed to have a fort that lasted 300 years. I'm skeptical, b/c no evidence was ever posted and I imagine the game would collapse into FPS death after that long no matter what you did.

Still, creating a somewhat automated fort is possible in vanilla - but with the right dfhack plugins you can automate work orders. I suppose theoretically you could use this to keep the fort permanently supplied with food, clothing and crafting supplies, so you could theoretically have an infinite fort. Also recommended; a very, very well stocked hospital and justice system.

[Tacomagic]

Thanks for the replies and yeah that was the wiki thing I read.

yes you can definitely make a self contained cube of a fotress that can make at least most things forever.   why do vampires have to run it? if you're sealed in completely you shouldn't need to be slabbing large numbers of dwarves, it takes a long time to die of old age! if its food you're worried about you needn't be, its surprisingly easy to feed 200 dwarves with just a few farm plots.

I know it takes a long time for them to die and I bet I would die of old age before I could fill a small map with coffins, but just for the fun of it. If I could somehow play the game forever then it would be full after a few thousand years I would have no more places to bury dwarves and they would start turning into ghosts unless I could somehow stop that. Then if they bothered enough people that died unhappy it could give a tantrum spiral.

Anyway vampires offer nice advantages like no sleeping or eating and you could be sure to get your team in a nice rhythm to avoid surprises from random personalities.

Using vampires would make the capsule pretty easy to pull-off actually.  Once everyone in the population has mooded, there's no issue there.  Dump all the vamps into a squad, give them leather armor, make a legendary room with masterwork tables, chairs, a well, statues, and engravings, and assign it as a meeting area.  Pretty much no risk of mental issues from there on out.  Granted, everyone will be moving at quarter impulse after the alcohol deprivation sets in, but they won't be in a hurry anyway.

[faceshed]

Thanks for the replies and yeah that was the wiki thing I read.

yes you can definitely make a self contained cube of a fotress that can make at least most things forever.   why do vampires have to run it? if you're sealed in completely you shouldn't need to be slabbing large numbers of dwarves, it takes a long time to die of old age! if its food you're worried about you needn't be, its surprisingly easy to feed 200 dwarves with just a few farm plots.

I know it takes a long time for them to die and I bet I would die of old age before I could fill a small map with coffins, but just for the fun of it. If I could somehow play the game forever then it would be full after a few thousand years I would have no more places to bury dwarves and they would start turning into ghosts unless I could somehow stop that. Then if they bothered enough people that died unhappy it could give a tantrum spiral.

Anyway vampires offer nice advantages like no sleeping or eating and you could be sure to get your team in a nice rhythm to avoid surprises from random personalities.

Using vampires would make the capsule pretty easy to pull-off actually.  Once everyone in the population has mooded, there's no issue there.  Dump all the vamps into a squad, give them leather armor, make a legendary room with masterwork tables, chairs, a well, statues, and engravings, and assign it as a meeting area.  Pretty much no risk of mental issues from there on out.  Granted, everyone will be moving at quarter impulse after the alcohol deprivation sets in, but they won't be in a hurry anyway.

I thought deprivation would only happen if they didn't have animals to feed on.

[faceshed]

Someone once claimed to have a fort that lasted 300 years. I'm skeptical, b/c no evidence was ever posted and I imagine the game would collapse into FPS death after that long no matter what you did.

Still, creating a somewhat automated fort is possible in vanilla - but with the right dfhack plugins you can automate work orders. I suppose theoretically you could use this to keep the fort permanently supplied with food, clothing and crafting supplies, so you could theoretically have an infinite fort. Also recommended; a very, very well stocked hospital and justice system.

So you could make the fort run without human intervention? There's some bonus points.

[Tacomagic]

Thanks for the replies and yeah that was the wiki thing I read.

yes you can definitely make a self contained cube of a fotress that can make at least most things forever.   why do vampires have to run it? if you're sealed in completely you shouldn't need to be slabbing large numbers of dwarves, it takes a long time to die of old age! if its food you're worried about you needn't be, its surprisingly easy to feed 200 dwarves with just a few farm plots.

I know it takes a long time for them to die and I bet I would die of old age before I could fill a small map with coffins, but just for the fun of it. If I could somehow play the game forever then it would be full after a few thousand years I would have no more places to bury dwarves and they would start turning into ghosts unless I could somehow stop that. Then if they bothered enough people that died unhappy it could give a tantrum spiral.

Anyway vampires offer nice advantages like no sleeping or eating and you could be sure to get your team in a nice rhythm to avoid surprises from random personalities.

Using vampires would make the capsule pretty easy to pull-off actually.  Once everyone in the population has mooded, there's no issue there.  Dump all the vamps into a squad, give them leather armor, make a legendary room with masterwork tables, chairs, a well, statues, and engravings, and assign it as a meeting area.  Pretty much no risk of mental issues from there on out.  Granted, everyone will be moving at quarter impulse after the alcohol deprivation sets in, but they won't be in a hurry anyway.

I thought deprivation would only happen if they didn't have animals to feed on.

Deprivation is linked to alcohol, not blood.  No matter how much blood they drink, they still end up with alcohol deprivation.  It's a bug that, so far as I know, still exists.

[Col_Jessep]

I had a similar idea but didn't want to seal off the entire fort. It should be possible to create a two in one fort: Have a completely sealed off part of your fort that can sustain itself and is only connected by airlock to the other half. (Airlock means 2 drawbridges with a corridor and stockpiles between them.)

You can still trade items and resources between both half-forts that way, even trade and mine. Mining isn't an issue anyway if you avoid breaching the caverns. If When the FUN starts you seal off fort #2 until all tantrum spirals are over or all dwarfs are dead. Use the waiting time to create slabs to avoid ghosts. After a while migrants will arrive and settle in fort #1 again and you can continue.

The important part is to avoid socializing between occupants of the forts! That way you shouldn't get any tantrum spirals in your "panic room" fort. Item transfer could be handled by dumping items into the airlock. The sealed fort needs enough population for marriages and kids if you don't have a vampire. (I limit population to 40-50 dwarfs and never had a vampire so far... )

The main problem will be FPS though. The longest fort I had lasted 10 years at which point I was below 30 FPS and it was not longer fun to carry on. Maybe it works better in 34.11?

[hiroshi42]

This is something that I tried to do several times in .34 but I never got as far as I wanted -had a terrible computer so had godawful FPS to start with.  It is possible to make almost any required resource infinite given the right start conditions.  Silk can be made infinite via a forgotten beast/clown silk farm but that requires webbing clowns/FBs.  Shells, leather, horns etc can be obtained via several tameable animals and dfhack can automate them.  Food and drink are also very easy, bonus points for building the capsule deep underground and still able to plant above ground plants.  Obsidian can make stone infinite and glass can make infinite gems.  As for dealing with the dead, don't dwarves who die from old age not produce ghosts?  Or at least produce ghosts who will soon die of old age?

and a vampire fort is kinda workable, but the slow down kinda ruins it for me at least.  If I remember right the total slowdown makes vampires slower than a legless crawling dwarf and their crafting speed and quality takes a massive hit.  Besides all a vampire fort needs is clothing once everyone has mooded so most of the perpetual resource generation is kinda for naught.

[faceshed]

As for dealing with the dead, don't dwarves who die from old age not produce ghosts?  Or at least produce ghosts who will soon die of old age?

I think this was fixed in 0.34

[MDFification]

Someone once claimed to have a fort that lasted 300 years. I'm skeptical, b/c no evidence was ever posted and I imagine the game would collapse into FPS death after that long no matter what you did.

Still, creating a somewhat automated fort is possible in vanilla - but with the right dfhack plugins you can automate work orders. I suppose theoretically you could use this to keep the fort permanently supplied with food, clothing and crafting supplies, so you could theoretically have an infinite fort. Also recommended; a very, very well stocked hospital and justice system.

So you could make the fort run without human intervention? There's some bonus points.

It'd also make it a lot easier to play. It'd get really boring, really quickly to play a fort that's sealed off and only requires renewed work orders to survive. Besides, if you can leave it idling while you go do other things with your life you can test how far into the future your fort can get with much less expenditure of your time.

[Parsely]

If I could somehow play the game forever then it would be full after a few thousand years I would have no more places to bury dwarves and they would start turning into ghosts unless I could somehow stop that. Then if they bothered enough people that died unhappy it could give a tantrum spiral.

Faceshed confirmed for immortal.