Print

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

[ptb_ptb]

***I honestly have no idea how fractions of a bar of metal work when melting items down, so I am wary of recommending that activity.

I can answer that one. 

If you use a single smelter to melt down everything then fractional bars, of each metal, build up separately and you get an extra real bar produced when enough partial bars have been saved up.

e.g. If you get 1.5 bars per object melted then the first object returns 1 bar. The second returns 2 bars.
If you get 1/3 of a bar per object then you get nothing for the first two objects melted, then 1 bar for the third.

An easy, an profitable, way of training up weaponsmithing is to continually forge then melt down enormous steel corkscrews. Melt down everything that is less than masterwork, and keep the masterwork items to sell. Of course that is really an exploit on two levels. Trading, and melting, are both rather unbalanced.

[wobbly]

To me the only skill that is necessary is the combat skills if for some reason you'll need to fight immediately or almost immediately. An unskilled farmer produces much more food then you need if you build a farm big enough to plant all the seeds from "play now" (5 of each). You could get away with much less less & an unskilled farmer. An unskilled herbalist is more then enough to survive in most biomes. Any livestock+booze is easily enough. The wagon animals+booze is probably enough to survive to the 1st caravan. As others have said you can grab appraisal skill the 1st time you open the broker menu.

So either just hit play now or take what you want, it doesn't matter unless your doing a challenge start or have a necromancer for a neighbour. I just take what matches the story in my head or hit play now.

[Chaosegg]

***I honestly have no idea how fractions of a bar of metal work when melting items down, so I am wary of recommending that activity.

I can answer that one. 

If you use a single smelter to melt down everything then fractional bars, of each metal, build up separately and you get an extra real bar produced when enough partial bars have been saved up.
e.g.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 If you get 1.5 bars per object melted then the first object returns 1 bar. The second returns 2 bars.
If you get 1/3 of a bar per object then you get nothing for the first two objects melted, then 1 bar for the third.

An easy, an profitable, way of training up weaponsmithing is to

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

continually forge then melt down enormous steel corkscrews. Melt down everything that is less than masterwork, and keep the masterwork items to sell.

Of course that is really an exploit on two levels. Trading, and melting, are both rather unbalanced.

Thank you. That question had confounded me for a while now, though I'm not sure why I didn't really look for an answer.
I now see here on the wiki is the relevant text:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Recovered metal is measured in 1/10th's, and 1/10ths of bars of each metal are saved at the smelter where the item was melted. Fractional bars are not "shared" between smelters, nor do they exist as usable objects as is. When 10/10ths of a type of metal are accumulated at the same smelter, 1 bar of that metal is produced. If the smelter is torn down or destroyed, all fractions are lost.

I was turning out tons of metal (whatever I ore I have most of; usually iron or copper) crossbow bolts
to train weaponsmiths before setting them to make steel weapons.
Which, while somewhat useful, is still pretty time/resource intensive even if you have tons of fuel stones (bit. coal / lignite).
Time is one of the most deadly enemies of a well equipped/trained military in my experience,
since often that annoying wild animal, undead thing, were-creature or raid arrives before expected.

Additionally, like wobbly said in the post above,
I too have found that to minimize death/injury, having just one dwarf with SOME military skills
is far better than sending 30 dabbling or untrained dwarfs out

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

to fight that single non-undead creature which threatens,
since all it takes is one good swipe to lop a head off, and a dwarf with a shield plus some armor is relatively protected,
even with novice military skills, against say, a were-monitor/panther.
While your untrained/ill-equipped dwarfs will just get butchered.

For example:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I have, in response to an unexpected hostile entity, on occasion torn my tediously sorted 30-dwarf-early-game-militia apart,
and compressed it into a single squad of dwarfs who have some military skills
(weapon skill of novice or above generally at a minimum), and who have then a better chance at being properly equipped...
just to deal with the present menace with a vastly smaller chance at casualties.

[PatrikLundell]

Haven't actually tried DF pre embark with 0.40.19. It working now is good to know.

Metalworking as a starting skill: Given that the very earliest I get past the basics and get to metalworking is in the winter (and probably not until the next summer), it's quite likely I'll get a usable immigrant in the mean time, and that the prospective metalworker has become reasonably good at the job(s) performed in the mean time, I'd hesitate to focus on it.

[Badger Storm]

I always embark with a ranger, but then again animals are a huge part of my playstyle.  Mechanics is nice too, if you have any need for traps.

[Headless]

Two dedicated miners
One carpenter wood cutter
Mason artitect
Brewer grower
Leader
( jewelry, mechanics, stone and bone crafter devided among the leader and the other two)

I had a great embark with flux iron and fuel (I almost never get all three) that I had to abandon because of disorganization.   I went with the play now start and never got my beards properly organized.  I find if I get the first 7 set then I can draft the immigrants from each wave into what ever industry or militia I need them in as they show up.