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[NCommander]

So after a few abortive attempts, Scorchedgravel now has the Swimmaster 5000, which is a pressure plate monstrosity that also trains climbing a little bit while its at it (though that trains very slowly). Everyone except Nix is now an adequate swimmer. Works completely automatically, and I can use workshop profiles to control who is swimming. I can't get children to use it since they won't pull levers anymore unfortunately. I *might* try a meeting area to see if I can get those kids to go somewhere useful, but I kinda doubt it. Given I can train swimming very quickly now, its kinda moot, and I might as well let them reach legendary as agility means they'll move really fast.

Also another flying webber showed up -_-;

I however learned when dwarfs get stunned, they drop their infant, and babies will not move at all in 6/7 water. I had to drain the swimming area to recover MoonyTheHuman before he drowned. It also generates mist so my dwarfs are even more happy now.

[Kahlish]

Yeaaah, we're gonna need some screenshots of this. It sounds lovely.

[NCommander]

I don't really have enough for a full update, but here's the swimmaster. I need to make a few tweaks to how it works, but for the most part, I'm happy with the design.



Basically how it works is there are a bunch of retracting bridges over a pool of 6/7 water positioned in such a way that a dwarf has to path through several tiles to get out via the ramp near the bottom. The lever at the full end is set to Pull/Repeat at high priority and is not connected to anything. The missing walls at the top are an artifact of an earlier design that I didn't finish, and can be ignored. Here's how it works.

1. Dwarf enters the swimmaster crossing the right-most pressure plate when he takes the "Pull the Lever" job
2. He gets about half way to the lever when the bridges retract.
3. If he fails to climb, he plops into the water below, and has to path out
4. The dwarf will cancel the job with "Dangerous Terrain", making it available for someone else to grab.
5. Another dwarf will get pulled into the swimmaster while the first dwarf paths out via the ramp in the corner.
6. Occasionally however, the dwarf will manage to climb and hang in midair. In that case, he'll path to the lever.
7. The second pressure plate by the lever controls the door at the left.
8. The dwarf will repeat for a bit on the lever for a few moments, then try and leave. The door will only be open while he's on the pressure plate kicking him back out to the beginning
9. Traffic designations make sure dwarfs always path through the swimmaster

Here's the fortress swimming stats after about 2 months

[Fleeting Frames]

@Dame de la Licorne: Any reason for not keeping the burrows in place until they are married? Seems like you wouldn't need doors in that case.

@NCommander: That's quite an elegant design - I like how it trains the dwarves you choose and works with multiple dwarves at once. When it comes to children, pure math and crude experiments suggests that locking people in room with 4/7 water yields about 115 exp per day - long enough to reach adequate and not die of thrist (+18k), though the parents opinions on swim classes may be mixed.

The simplest thing to train them that springs to mind is setting a burrow overlaying the bridges + spot of solid ground for climbing out and food/drink. In my experience, kids stay in burrows nowadays.

However, do babies drown in 1-3 or 4-6/7 water, or just go thristy/hungry because nobody can reach them?

[Dame de la Licorne]

@Dame de la Licorne: Any reason for not keeping the burrows in place until they are married?

Because I came up with the system before burrows existed (and initially used "Station" to get them in there, with a statue to make a meeting area), and I still tend to forget that dwarves have been burrowed, especially if they're restricted to very small ones for a while...

-Dame de la Licorne

[Derro]

This is a dark green donkey leather diary. On it is an image of Mistem 'Derro' Tishhislogem.

Dear diary.

NCommander has created a wonderful thing! After some worries with the water-filled cavern, he decided to build some kind of giant contraption. It works great: a few months and now I'm a much better swimmer than I've ever been! Of course, there's the part where I almost drown, but hey, I'd rather almost drown than actually drown!

[NCommander]

This is a masterwork dog leather journal owned by Kogan 'NCommander' Kelnakuth. On its covered is adored images of seven dwarfs. The image related to the founding of Scorchedgravel, the last Dwarven settlement.

Spring 554

As preparations continue for the cavern wood extraction, I sacrifice one of our few logs to make a wooden barrel for an ashery. This will let us make soap for the hospital, a necessity we're greatly lacking in





Clothing production is ramping up as well as we have three new dwarfs about to become children. Although dwarven clothing is traditionally made out of pig tail, given our low workforce, and large amount of sheerable animals, I've decided to go with yarn.

---

I had a horrid nightmare last night that we begun the tree felling operations.





During the dream, a towercap threaten to fall on Imic and crush him. He managed to dodge out of the way to only land in the underground ocean. All we could do was watch him drown ...

Before we harvest any wood, everyone needs to learn to swim!

---

I give you the Swimmaster 3000



A pressure plate, a few levers, and a bridge. A dwarf tries to go for the lever unsuspecting, and then takes a dump into the water reservoir below. Unfortunately, it didn't work. Nix managed to get across the bridge before the pressure plate could fire, rending the entire design moot.

---

Summer 554

Frak us.



---



The Swimmaster 4000 is ready for field testing. Imic notices that a lever needs to be pulled and ...



Blamo! I give you the swimming king!

---

Swimming progress across the fort is coming along slowly.





Unfortunately, I underestimated the dwarven desire NOT to enter water, and a few [subscript]like Nix[/subscript] rather brace themselves against the wall, and get to the lever. I can't help but feel like I'm trying to design a better mousetrap

---



After a final round of improvements, I give you the Swimmaster 5000! The walls still need to be smoothed out, but this baby has managed to get anyone who tries to get the cheese lever. On the very off chance they get across, a pressure-plated one-way door lets them out to try again.

---

Gah, the Swimmaster worked a little too well. Nix finally managed to go plunk, into the icy water, and let go her grasp of MoonyTheHuman (I have no idea why she named him that, but I'm not going to judge). Right now, Moony is floating in the water alive, but trapped, and Nix refuses to go down to get her baby.

IT'S NOT LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO SWIM!

*sigh*. I had a new pump installed to drain pool (Imic gracefully ran the pump for us).



I had the manager (aka me) forbid Nix from using that lever to prevent a repeat. Overall, knowledge of swimming is growing throughout the fort.



---

Winter 554

Something is banging around in Rodentland.



I'd ignore it, expect through its vibrations, we've made a discovery!



Adamantine, the absolute god of metals. And we're sitting on a boatload of the stuff. We can't get to it now, but I'm happy to know its there. Perhaps it will come in hand when we finally are forced to fight the goblins or humans.

---

I've tried to lure that giant humaniod out of Atlantis by opening up the boreshaft Nix dug.



No luck. The Elk Birds are hiding in trees out of fear.



I can't say I blame them

---

Spring 555

Ok, enough is enough. I've had the wood collection area expanded, and a line of fortifications installed. Imic knocked out the last of the stone seperating Atlantis from the rest of the fort, and a bait dog was placed in the center of the room. Big fat and smelly beast wanders in, and a well timed pulls trap him in the cross fire.





We used a LOT of bolts







I must admit for a time I was worried the beast would not fall despite its injuries



until it finally keeled over with a shot to the head.



I celebrated my first kill with whip wine beer, and a turkey roast.

[Imic]

You accidentally crossed most of your writing out.
Also !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[NCommander]

Fixed, thanks. Updates on SG are on hold for a few days. My turn in Throwback Fortress came up, and I decided to see how much dwarf cheese I can make in a year.

[Fleeting Frames]

If the elk bird won't get down, it sure makes securing the cavern a fair bit easier. Just have to avoid FBs....And thank them for the adamantine and teaching! How good are the marksdwarves now?

[NCommander]

They're getting pretty decent especially since I don't let them train full time. One will occassionally pop off to the range to shoot some bolts, but its been a slow process. I'm level 5, everyone else is level 4. I need to remake their crossbows so they're carrying masterworks which will help with their accuracy.

[Tournesol]

My, these are interesting times, and our leaders provide me with much variety in my life. Given our small numbers, it was inevitable. Already a grower and armourer, I am now also a fighter; a hammerer (though I much prefer getting hammered to hammering) and a marlsdwarf and my crossbow looks like a small ballista. Or something. I have seen batlle. And I am learning to swim, which is useful, though I hope the Swimmaster 6000 will run on barley beer rather than water.

In OOC news I will be traveling and probably not posting anything for about a couple of weeks.

[NCommander]

This is a masterwork dog leather journal owned by Kogan 'NCommander' Kelnakuth. On its covered is adored images of seven dwarfs. The image related to the founding of Scorchedgravel, the last Dwarven settlement.

Summer 555

After everyone had there time with the Swimmaster, we've begun logging in the caverns.



Imic was the first to cut down a mushroom top, and reported that while we could use as wood, we would only get 1-2 usable logs out of it. Damnination. While this will cover our wood needs for now, we will likely have to go deeper for more usable amount of wood. Worse, quite a few of the trees can't be harvested from ground level, which means our yields will be even lower!



None the less, logging is going well. Well, right up until Nix got attacked.




Of course, being able to swim, after she was pulled under, she made her way to the surface on one of the sunken trees, and mined her way to safety.



Swim training: 1, Giant Toad: 0.

One of those beasts have wandered into our log collection area. I'm having traps built in an attempt to catch it, and other cavern wildlife. Which brings my attention longer term. Right now, we're surviving, but we're not really living. We need something to fight for when company eventually comes. I've starting making sketches of an underground city ...



Six main buildings, the long ones five Z high, and the others varying between 8 and 10 Z encased in a cave roughly 15-Z high in total. I need to give everyone something to live for, and for our children to have. We'll dig down one level at a time via channelling leaving giant columns of stone, then hollow those out per mining.

I've told Nix to start digging when she isn't doing anything else.



---

OOC: Megaproject time. I've never really done much with large 3-D builds, so I figured some simple shapes to get started, and we'll keep expanding through the generations

[Fleeting Frames]

Well, that toad gave some good armor user training - only bruises and no actual wounds. It's like an undead hair that can die, make sure to capture it

Still, swim training was useful....Btw, one of the schemes I recently concocted for swim training when using individual rooms is floodgate over the rooms, triggered by a pressure plate and preventing single tile of water from flowing sideways - when dwarf goes to sleep, they go over a pressure plate that triggers the floodgate to open by the time they're laying down in bed. They won't wake up, even when drowning.

Once they're done sleeping, though, they can leave the room through the door, thus also lowering the water level in room and making it pathable again.

Haven't designed a system to be automatically reused for every nap, though.

As for that megaproject...How many miners do you have? Because eyeballing it it is on the scale of hell-deep shafts every 14 tiles or so. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes one or even two years with your current ones.

[NCommander]

Well, that toad gave some good armor user training - only bruises and no actual wounds. It's like an undead hair that can die, make sure to capture it

Still, swim training was useful....Btw, one of the schemes I recently concocted for swim training when using individual rooms is floodgate over the rooms, triggered by a pressure plate and preventing single tile of water from flowing sideways - when dwarf goes to sleep, they go over a pressure plate that triggers the floodgate to open by the time they're laying down in bed. They won't wake up, even when drowning.

Once they're done sleeping, though, they can leave the room through the door, thus also lowering the water level in room and making it pathable again.

Haven't designed a system to be automatically reused for every nap, though.

As for that megaproject...How many miners do you have? Because eyeballing it it is on the scale of hell-deep shafts every 14 tiles or so. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes one or even two years with your current ones.

Nix is the only full time miner, and I think she's at least Legendary+6 now given she's already made a decent dent on the top level. I'm expecting it to take at least 10 in-game years to get what I currently marked to be dug out. Swimming training is paying more divinds than I originally antipicated; everyone is moving much faster now than their base rate. I might build a gym and have them pump train as well though that might be overkill ...

EDIT: One big downside I didn't consider. Without anything visiting the map, I'll never level up my civs knowledge of animal training. Which means everything detames really fast. Great for training an animal trainer. Not so great for domestication.