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[Splint]

The problem is she's too useful to just lock up and pump out armor. I'm in range of hostiles and she's quite literally the best qualified fighter I have, doubly so because she'll never not be available so long as the squad is active. Additionally, because of the new-ish needs system, she'll go insane eventually without people to talk to - hence the conundrum. Locking her up kills her slow, assigning a sheriff only gets her beaten with fists when she kills someone, and even if he managed to kill her, I then have to either remove him, make janky accommodations, or be saddled with the dumbest "Historical Event" ever to show up constantly in inscriptions if I boot them out right after.

That last one might be a dumb quibble but damn it I don't want 900 figurines of Urist McVampKiller being confused about being removed from office.

[Rafatio]

Makes sense now, sorry about the silly newbie advice. Not much useful to add, except the tavern vamp booth in case you haven't seen it, I think this could nudge the needs into neutral, leaving the logistics of fighting without drinks afterwards.

Looking this up now inspired me to do something about the werepanther in my caverns, anything will be a step up from naked, lonely and bored. Luckily I don't need her for anything, just didn't want to expel the whole family. Window visitations with the kiddo?

[Demonic Gophers]

I started a new fort to test how well my flame imps and ash vines are working.  Did a little juggling with retire and unretire to get the adventurer I used for scouting to find an area with ash vines as a resident.  It's an ironically good site.  Part of it is jungle, with highwood trees and lots of fruit that would be very nice if I wasn't going to rely mostly on ash vines and flame imp meat for food.  Part of it is evil woodland with 'blighting mist' clouds, so taming that area would be a nice long term project if this wasn't intended to be a short term testing fort.  Part of it is mountain, giving an easy route past the aquifer to reach resources that aren't needed for the testing.  The first two layers of the mountain are limestone and marble, with rich hematite veins, so fuel and labor are the only limitations on churning out all the steel I could ever want if the testing lasted long enough to need a real military.

Also, my civilization's outpost liaison is a human, and the diplomat, warmaster, and ruler are assorted types of elf.  Clearly some political upheaval is needed.  I may need to keep this fort around for a while after the testing is complete.

[TheFlame52]

Three dwarves were caught up in a miniature loyalty cascade in the dining hall. It would have been much worse if one of my off-duty militia dwarves wasn't there - he simply broke all three of their legs, causing them to be separated and hauled to the hospital.

EDIT: Goblins attacked. Two weapon traps and a hammerlord were able to hold the entire siege at the side gate until more help could arrive. Chokepoints are a hell of a drug.

[Demonic Gophers]

Got to love a good chokepoint.  But how's you get him to stay there, instead of dodging and charging his way into the middle of the invading army?

I got sieged by cave elves, with qarryn soldiers as an unexpected bonus.  I also found out that this 'blighted mist' turns things into virtually invincible blighted mist zombies, fortunately not at the same time.  The problem with the mist zombies isn't so much their capacity to withstand damage as their greatly expanded dodging capabilities, which give a lot of trouble to the members of my military that refuse to do any real training.

I also got some holdings without having to conquer anything.  Alango Stolenring is now the Dark Hand of Horrorwane, which means my fortress controls the largest district in its civilization; the only other site nobles are mere overseers.  Had a group of merchants that arrived, unloaded their goods, and left without ever having a single unit visible on the map or enabling trading.  Hopefully this isn't the start of a permanent bug.

[Rafatio]

Project cheer up the cavern werepanther got cut short by said werepanthers stupidity. Got her needs to neutral easily by having her make some necessities like a mug, drink, food. There were plenty of clothes from the original cavern dwellers around and with a delivered pick she dug her way towards the tavern. Just when that was done someone started reciting poetry on the fortress side of the window and then socializing happened too, all benefitting the weredwarf as well (the tavern zone covered both sides of the window, they were not standing close). I had made another window to her family's bedroom, but nothing happened there that month. Then she transformed again - like several times while doing all that - and ran straight to the cavern lake, sitting in 7/7 water until the transformation ran out. And promptly drowned.

And after lots of performers finally a visiting scholar... Rimtar "Founder" is visiting.... NOOOOO that guy is only alive because he was the last of Gearpresent's starting seven, who I couldn't bring myself to kill despite his constant violent tantrums. He has at least 5 dwarf kills to his name. Hey new overseer, that chain was forbidden for a reason! So he shows up, ragey as ever, goes straight to the mayor and beats him up. Not for a rejected petition or anything, just because. While the medidwarves patch up the mayor he goes to the library and writes two books. Grrr, books are my weakness, now I don't want to kill him again, or still.

Mountain goat vs giant chameleon. I did not expect the goat to win so easily. This random fact came from reusing the tavern window with some animals to get fight needs satisfied by means of interruption cancellation. Note to self: one piece of wildlife at a time.

[Demonic Gophers]

I've been updating my main mod, and started a new ylth fort to test the progress.  Seems to be a busy world.  I had two economically linked settlements before the first caravan arrived, and got an invasion at the beginning of the second autumn.

Ghoulashes, 5 Limestone 351
Barely a season since I arrived, and already we're facing trouble.  The scouts just reported a band of human soldiers approaching, armed with the glaives and war picks of the Confederation of Tummies.  Ithro take these troublemakers!  Why must they pester us?!  Last I heard, we had no enemies in this area, but all things are subject to change.  They will regret starting this fight!  But a few more months to prepare would have been useful.  Our first shipment of ore arrived this summer, and Langul the forgemaster has barely begun processing it.  Only Commander Smoxut's squad has proper chain cloaks, and bolts are in short supply.  May Ithro confound these invaders, and make their blows go awry!

7 Limestone
I'm a civilian, without even a wooden crossbow or shield, so I'm observing the battle from the shelter of the willow trees that grow next to the temple pond.  Meditating, officially, butI came here to take notes.  The invaders split into two groups and came in separately, a mistake that let our soldiers almost match their numbers.  Espe Stalksilence took the lead, armed with a masterwork falcata and a long blacksteel knife, and accompanied by our two elven mercenaries.  Usually we'd prefer to keep them back for training or security purposes, but with proper equipment in short supply and so little time for training, we need all the veteran fighters we can get.  Espe took a crossbow bolt to the leg during the initial charge, but cut a path through the enemy's advance force to attack them from behind while they engaged the others.  The humans are well armored and skilled at deflecting blows with their weapons, but undertrained at handling strikes and grapples.  Often, it is the swift strike of an open tentacle that gets through their guard to inflict a crippling injury and open them up for the killing blow.  I see now why Daz and Sutu are so devoted to their study of unarmed combat techniques.

Commander Smoxut proves the value of the great axe, cutting two human halberdiers in half at the waist.  Only Espe, an experienced knife fighter who spent months training with the Tanglers before taking leadership of the mercenary squad, seems able to match the commander's lethality.

The last of the advance force is down, but their reinforcements have almost caught up.  Our soldiers won't have time to regroup properly, and most of them are injured.  I doubt the elves will be much use against the second wave.  One of the commander's squad is down with at least two injured legs, but the rest of them look to be in fighting condition still.

I think the fighters are getting frustrated, dealing with all that armor.  A lot of invaders are losing eyes, ears, teeth, and intestines.  One got her throat torn out.  Perhaps Commander Smoxut hopes to make a point to the Confederation, assuming any of these invaders have the sense to run away.

They didn't.  Nineteen invaders dead, and none escaped.  The last human fencer even charged Commander Smoxut while six angry ylth closed in on him from the side.  They pretty well tore him apart.  We didn't lose anyone, but I think every front-line fighter is injured.  So is Unu Fellchilled, the chief medic, who's declared the main dormitory a temporary hospital.  I have a bit of medical training, so I'm heading over there to help out.  Will write more later.

(From the journal of Zadir Witchduties)

[Kagus]

So... You make a lot of stews in that fort?

[Shonai_Dweller]

Hmph another damn cave linking to me economically shortly after embark. Oh, but joyous coincidence, this one is actually owned by my civ, so I can request workers from there right away.

Only the sheriff is listed as he's the only histfig. Exciting, it's the first time I've requested workers who aren't my original takeover squad. I sent a messenger and...nothing.

My messenger came back, the cave is now listed as 'no workers available'.  Did he refuse to come? Is he on his way? Or did my messenger fulfill his dream of becoming a great warrior and stab him in the back?

[Larix]

After a quick and dirty launch experiment i dedicated an entire embark to the advancement of the supersonic minecart. Calculations predicted that the height to which transterminal carts can be launched will escalate very quickly: a two-tier launch should be able to hit ~130 z, a three-tier one ~400z, a height that you're very unlikely to actually have available without editing in extra sky levels via DFHack, and even then you'd need a 13-tile long embark. Even on a maximum-length embark, no more than 500 zlevels of height are possible due to the fixed launch angle.

So first order of business - find a nice embark bordering on mountains, make it long (i settled for 8x2), build a collision array as deep underground as reasonably possible, carve out a flight path so the cart can hit the ceiling. Carving out the path was expectedly the hardest part, mainly because i originally underestimated the steepness of the cart's ascent. It made the full flight from 90z above map bottom to 247. 157 z-levels up in 21 steps, 243 tiles forward. The perfect 45° ascent would have hit the ceiling after "only" 235 tiles, the path didn't curve very much.

The cart sequence used was: bloodthorn cart loaded with one iron goblet (57kg) -> applewood minecart (29kg) -> willow minecart (15kg) -> adamantine minecart (8kg).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A bit more precisely, it was
bloodthorn-->apple=>apple(2)   apple-->willow=>willow(2)  apple-->willow=>willow(2)   willow-->adamantine=>adamantine(2)

apple(2)-->willow(2)=>willow(4)     willow(2)-->adamantine(2)=>adamantine(4)

willow(4)-->adamantine(4)=>adamantine(eight)

I.e. in the first tier we collide eight carts in pairs to get four carts with double starting velocity; in the second tier, those four accelerated carts are bashed together to give two carts with four times starting speed and the third tier combines the last pair to reach a single cart going at 7-8 times starting speed.

I had speculated on adding one or two tiers to the minecart chain, which would require aluminium for the upper end (108 kg, can be made to pass impulse to a preloaded bloodthorn minecart, e.g. loaded with one bronze pick (4kg) to reach 54 and thus 1/2 the weight of the aluminium cart) and featherwood for the lower end (4kg, can take full impulse from adamantine carts).
The embark had featherwood trees and the dwarven civ had native aluminium, so i was all set. I carefully worked out the build order of the minecarts and the floor plan and got to the four-tier shot without errors (added featherwood cart, no aluminium yet), reaching a blistering 36 tiles per step (13,3 times terminal velocity). During the first shot, a crippled cat was crawling around the test track and thus had the dubious distinction to become the first known supersonic creature. The cart stopped moving entirely and the cat shot away at 20 tiles per step, by the canonical conversion 530 m/s, i.e Mach 1,55. After seven steps (and ~130 tiles) it unfortunately touched the wall and blew apart.

After an undisturbed test shot i doubled the size of my collision assembly yet again (to 32 carts) and got the aluminium cart into the mix. After two false starts (vitally important tracks upside down and thus the wrong collision order; wrong distance to the final collision) the third attempt worked out perfectly and i got my five-tier transterminal shot. The featherwood cart reached a top speed of 62,5 tiles per step, 23 times terminal velocity. By the standard conversion of 1 tile/step = 96 km/h (60mph, 26,667 m/s), that's 1667 m/s - a bit over one mile per second or just under Mach 5. Even the exceptional transterminal friction took almost half a dwarf day to drag the cart down to terminal velocity; the cart could have travelled through 23 full world tiles in that time. A ballistic shot could have reached a height of 4300 zlevels.

Since the fully elastic collisions have rather strict conditions - pushing cart no more than twice as heavy than the pushed cart, no excessive speed difference - each tier of collisions takes twice the number of carts to achieve (you have to "pre-heat" the carts so they can actually take the heightened impulses). A five-tier shot takes thirty-two carts (one featherwood, five adamantine, ten willow, ten apple, five bloodthorn, one aluminium). I used impulse-ramp cyclotrons to reach terminal velocity, with carts dropped in via hatch and released into the collision array via doors. Everything was operated by two levers, one linked to 32 hatches, the other to 32 doors. Much fun was had linking it all up.

[Kagus]

More importantly, what are the effects on the average unladen goblin?

[Demonic Gophers]

So... You make a lot of stews in that fort?

Who doesn't love a nice spicy stew?

Ghoulashes, 16 Limestone 351
With Medic Unu still stuck in a hospital bed, I've had my talons full these last few days, but at least I'm not working alone.  None of the other ylth have any medical background, but one of our urluns actually volunteered to assist!  Said he wants to help people, and he seems to be doing a fine job.  So far, we haven't come across any injuries we couldn't handle, although I'd be more comfortable with some decent soap available.  One of the elves stepped in somebody's blood barefoot, but that little exposure shouldn't cause any real problems and the blistering is minor.  Both mercenaries are back on their feet and ready to start training, which they clearly need.

Manager Usek suggested that those who aren't injured or busy ought to pick over the battlefield and gather any useful equipment.  They hadn't gotten very far when the huran caravan arrived, so trading will probably interrupt that project.  At least the hurans should be able to use some of this little armor, so we've got plenty of stuff to sell.[/i]

2 Sandstone
Omot the carpenter rushed out some extra splints and crutches, and we've finally got everyone back on their feet.  Pretty much the whole fortress is carrying remnants from the battlefield to the trading depot.

4 Sandstone
We traded a large pile of small, bloodstained clothing and some fine glasswork that last year's merchants had requested for a load of metal, ore, and fuel, along with supplies for winter and a few odds and ends.  No trade representative arrived with the caravan, and the merchants wouldn't talk about their government, but most of the rumors the discussed involved elven armies on the march.

12 Timber
Commander Smoxut talked the urluns into wearing some human light armor we salvaged when they go out.  Considering how hard it usually is to get urluns to even put on a tunic for a few hours when some easily offended human diplomat is visiting, I figured we'd hear no end of complaining, but the grumbles have actually been pretty mild.  Maybe they take this self defense business more seriously than I thought; I assumed the sabres they carry were just for show.  But seeing the battlefield did shake them up a lot, so that could be having an impact.

3 Moonstone
Recent days have been tense as the miners work on carving a proper opening through the aquifer from below.  It feels like months have dragged by while we wait for them to break through into the red sand tunnels that make up our current living quarters, and the urluns have taken to sparring to pass the time.  But our anticipatory watch was interrupted when the elven mercenary Coce Glittersnarl spotted a human soldier marching into our camp.  Although the man carried no weapon, he rushed in without a word and attacked one of our xrathu that was hunting rats nearby.  He beat the creature to death with his bare hands before Coce could reach him.  The intruder went down quickly when facing an armed opponent, but he probably wasn't a lone madman.  Commander Smoxut is gathering the fighters at the northern edge of the camp to run a sweep for other attackers.

9 Moonstone
The sweep found another invading human army, but this one was smarter.  They ran away after only two more of them died.  Their armor bore the stiletto emblem of the Confining Nation, which has five hamlets within half a day's travel of our location.  They will learn that we are not easy to confine.  But while the warriors were driving off this 'invasion', the miners finished clearing out the aquifer passage.  Soon we can start sealing the walls!

16 Moonstone
A goblin caravan just arrived, so it's just as well the intruders didn't stick around.  We're sealing off the aquifer passage with green glass blocks.  Much hauling to be done.

23 Moonstone
The goblins brought several barrels of berry wine, a fine assortment of metals and ores (mixed in with clay, which we did NOT buy), and various minor supplies.  They also brought an odd little creature like a tiny, glowing human with many tentacles instead of legs.  She has white hair and green skin, and the goblins say her kind live in evil swamps and are immune to most poisons.  We paid them mainly in weapons and darts.  The diplomat told us about more elf attacks, and requested swords, crossbows, and crutches next year.  Seems like they're having some trouble.

(From the journal of Zadir Witchduties)

[Fleeting Frames]

Larix: That makes me wonder whether it'd be possible to take a ride in such a cart in adventure mode.

And gratz on the cat.

Though, how did you arrive at 96 km/h? Seems a little fast, assuming dwarves walk. Basing on peregrine falcons?

[Larix]

You mean by jumping into (or otherwise mounting) a moving cart? You'd have to get an action the very moment it's within reach, and you usually react every 8-12 game steps i think; in that time, a standard supersonic cart covers 200+ tiles.

I had never really looked at the game-internal numbers. Originally, i assumed 1 tile/step to be equivalent to 20 m/s, based on terminal velocity (terminal velocity of a falling human is about 55 m/s; 2,7 tiles per step in the game would convert to 54 m/s). Someone looked at the creature gaits and came up with 80/3 m/s; but that seems to be a bit off now that i look at it. Seems like the "canonic" conversion is 24 m/s, going by the fastest applicable gait, or nine times "walking" (rather jogging) speed. Going with that value, i'm getting 1500 m/s and well over Mach 4 for my fastest cart; fine by me.

[Jazz Cat]

My carpenter is a little stressed, so I checked in with him to see what was wrong. Now, for the following, bear in mind that this is a three-month-old fort:

He felt panicked after reliving being accosted by slugs, and earlier, he felt panicked after being accosted by slugs.

There are no combat logs and no reports of my carpenter being "interrupted by a slug." The units list shows no slugs on the map. I'm thinking this happened during worldgen--is that possible?

I was more amused to see that he absolutely detests slugs. I wonder if that came about after being accosted by them.