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Total Members Voted: 4

[QuQuasar]

Hey all, just got a PM from Kametec. He's dealing with some personal issues right now so it might be a couple more days yet, but we should get the write-up reasonably soon.

Moonstone_Flower, you'll be up next according to the turn list. You set?

[Iduno]

What are we supposed to do with all the excess stone that digging produces? As slabs are the only allowed thing, we may end up with a memorial garden with a slab for every bee that the werepanda killed.

Sell them to the elves. "Pet rocks, rocks that look almost like famous dwarves, rock balls for dwarven sports, rocks that look like other rocks, historical rocks, we've got them all." It turns out, you can get them to pay you to haul your garbage off.

[speciesunkn0wn]

What are we supposed to do with all the excess stone that digging produces? As slabs are the only allowed thing, we may end up with a memorial garden with a slab for every bee that the werepanda killed.

Sell them to the elves. "Pet rocks, rocks that look almost like famous dwarves, rock balls for dwarven sports, rocks that look like other rocks, historical rocks, we've got them all." It turns out, you can get them to pay you to haul your garbage off.

That could work.... But the bee thingy is funny. Make it a bronze hive shaped structure above ground.

[Kametec_Housen]

Elves are wimps. Unless they bring some grown wagon wood wagons, they won't be able to carry much stone. On the other hand, they didn't bring anything of value, so it may be viable. I traded stones with dwarven caravan though.

I'm really sorry for the delay. I haven't dissapeared, and I'm slowly progressing toward the update. I try to get something done each day, no matter how small it is. Today I edited 3 screenshots. I have only fraction of time I used to put into DF lately, so please bear with me a little longer.

[Kametec_Housen]

Okay, I've given up on preparing one big update and posting it here once it is done. I'll split it to several smaller posts, mainly in order to show some progress. I'm aware I'm well past my two weeks.

After the demon panda somersaulted into the river, I finally had time to take breath. Let me recap what happened so far. I got asked to become an overseer for a year in the middle of a demon panda assault. Luckily we had been already in safety, but the damn beast killed all our bees before drowning itself.

So. What now? I'm not really sure. There are a couple of things that should be done, but what to do first? New bees should be caught for Imic to count, he looks really sad right now. I wonder if he named all those bees? There is also this deep staircase, looks like Quasar was looking for a cavern but gave up. We could dig deeper. That would be nice. We're using furnaces, smithies and kilns quite regularly, we could save so much fuel if we had magma powered ones instead. Also, new migrants are bound to come. Some housing should be provided for them. A dormitory should suffice until we make them some rooms.

I decided to dig deeper. Just for the hell of it. It is simple and what could go wrong? A quick look tells me, that Amanita, our leading miner, is busy.

Spoiler: Designations (click to show/hide)

I wish I could divine veins like that.

Once you're done with the coal, go and extend the central stairs as down as you can. I let me know as soon as you find anything. You're looking for magma. In the meantime, I want some picks made as well. Since stone is taboo, we're going to need ores. Lots of ores and I think that one miner, even legendary one, is a little too little. We need a herd group of trained miner to supply our ever hungry smelters.

Spoiler: Found it! (click to show/hide)

There it is!

I don't know about expansive, but it sure is hot and glowing, just the way I like it. Now here is the problem: The magma is down there and we live up here. Solution: We bring magma up here! I can come up with 3 means of doing it.

First is magma piston. Causing a massive cave in to bring some magma up. Cheap, relatively fast to set up (lots of digging required, but we have Amanita) but it is one use only. Lacklustre, if you ask me.

Pump stack is better in my opinion. It can pump any amount of magma reliably. It's also not difficult to set up, once you know what you're doing. You hit a power switch and the magma goes up. It's simple as that. Maybe too simple.

But nothing beats minecarts. Noisy, difficult to set up, lots of opportunities to make a mistake, slow (I mean low troughput, the carts themselves are usually fast enough to kill a dwarf), dangerous... I'm sold! Nothing beats the suspension when you give the cart a push and wait for it to make its round. Hoping everything is set up correctly and letting out a madman's laughter of relief once the cart full of magma starts bouncing of a roller put in the wrong direction. Oh yeah, we're the Futile clan, we can do it!

And so the planning began. The idea (see appendix for plans - will be in another post) is to make a minecart drop shaft ending in filling room submergible in magma. Inflow controlled by a floodgate and a pump will be responsible for draining, should a maintenance become necessary. Minecart drops in there, fills with magma, lands on a track equipped with a roller which pulls the cart out of the magma pool. Next will be a corkscrew shaped, roller powered elevator. Once cart is on work floor, it dumps its contents and returns to the drop shaft. I was thinking about making several temporary stations for dumping into 1x1x1 holes. Once the hole is full of magma, the station gets removed, another gets connected to the track circuit and a magma-something gets built over the hole. Once we have enough magma smelters, forges, kilns and whatever, we could have magma brought into a reservoir responsibe for feeding magma wherever and whenever needed. Let me get started! I just need some magma safe material which is not stone or wood. Steel? Hmm, that could work, but do we have enough of it for such project? Being me, I'll probably use it for decorations, bonus walls and stuff like that. Steel is better suited for weapons and armor, I'll keep it as last resort. What metals are magma safe besides steel. Let me see... Nickel! I've seen some garnierite, that will work! I'll need lots of nickel. Nickel blocks for tracks, nickel mechanisms for gear assemblies, nickel chains for rollers. I'm getting all enthusiastic, wasting lots of metal is my hobby and specialty!

I'll need bigger smithy for all this. And smelters. I'll use nickel for tracks and various things that are around the way, like rollers, gears.. Maybe even nickel wall around the whole elevator when it is done. Yeah, that would be nice. But I don't know how much more garnierite we have here. I'll have to order some exploratory mining to see if I can find some. For other stuff I'll use copper. We have lots of tetrahedrite around here, so it is viable.

First thing first, let me see if there is any more garnierite. Which calls for... Exploratory mining! And I just came up with a pattern exactly for this ocation. Ladies and gentledwarfs, I present you:

Spoiler: The star pattern! (click to show/hide)

Designating diagonals is a pain though.

And make a room for forges and smelters while you're at it. Meanwhile I'll have to get my attention to another matter which came up, the elven caravan. Well, talk about pathethic. All they brought is a couple of useless animals. A great owl, a flying squirrel and a black bear. Hmm, I could use the black bear, I'll buy it.

Ah, the smelters are done and the exploratory mining has yielded some garnierite. Well, let's get to it. Make some coke, nickel, copper. Keep the forges busy.

Spoiler: Forges (click to show/hide)

I forgot to make a screenshot when they were built and busy, this is how they look now. The orders are finished.

I also found some intact hives, so I had them put outside. Let's see if we can get some bees for Imic to count.

[speciesunkn0wn]

Ooooh. Minecarts! Something I want to use, but haven't had time to do so. coughstoppedplayingthefortressbeforeigottoit

[QuQuasar]

Metal-only minecart tracks to the magma sea in year 2? In a practically tree-less environment. You're ambitious!

I think the earliest I've brought magma to the surface was year 3, and that was with a simple magma flooding chamber and dwarves hauling the carts. Sooo... good luck!

And yeah, several smaller posts to show progress is a good plan.

I wish I could divine veins like that.

digv is glorious, though I do wish there was a way to designate the vein for digging without the game showing you it's extent ahead of time.

(Edit) Oh, you've probably already worked it out, but those gold bridges on the surface aren't hooked up. You may want to arrange that, since that shitty earthenware palisade is the only thing protecting our animals and hives.

[Kametec_Housen]

Material is not a problem. 130 levels of elevator are 455 construction jobs, composed of blocks, cains and mechanisms. Each is 1 bar, I believe, and each garnierite smelts into 4 bars. Getting that much fuel and ores was not challenge at all. Compare with 3,7k construction jobs that got completed during my turn in Mountainbreed. But there I was designating in large batches and all dwarfs were busy. Here I built level after level and that is much, much slower. Especially when I wanted to screenshot each step designated and then done, so I could prepare instructions for sucessors who want to continue. (And I had some other distractions that caused delays, look forward to updates)

I was thinking abou having the carts hauled as well, but it didn't seem futile enough. (It actually works)

I do wish there was a way to designate the vein for digging without the game showing you it's extent ahead of time.

When designating [d]igging, you can press [a], until you get automining ores/gems. Then you designate at least one tile and it spreads the designation as dwarfs dig. But I suspect it won't work for coal, I think it is considered as economic stone, not ore, but I cannot remember trying it.

(Edit) Oh, you've probably already worked it out, but those gold bridges on the surface aren't hooked up. You may want to arrange that, since that shitty earthenware palisade is the only thing protecting our animals and hives.

I was thinking about it, because I wanted to trap the panda and kill it to avenge the bees and that's when I realized they are not hooked. Then I completely forgot about them until another visit came and I realized they are still not hooked. But I'll spoil you:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The bees survived.

[speciesunkn0wn]

-snip-

I do wish there was a way to designate the vein for digging without the game showing you it's extent ahead of time.

When designating [d]igging, you can press [a], until you get automining ores/gems. Then you designate at least one tile and it spreads the designation as dwarfs dig. But I suspect it won't work for coal, I think it is considered as economic stone, not ore, but I cannot remember trying it.
-snip-

It works for coal. And I could swear that one of those options is a DFHack thingy. I have rarely played the vanilla game so I'm not sure. ^^;

[Fleeting Frames]

Unfortunately, you can't do that, as both waterwheels and windmills use wood & carpentry.

Fortunately, there's numerous ways to bring minecarts filled up with magma powerlessly and automatically. I'm fond of dropping them on an accelerating ramp that leads to two-tile ew magma trench - which luckily is fast enough that it can also work with copper carts, so you don't need to use nickel or steel.

Larix's 17-cart elevator used a cart in 1-tile ns trench which was bumped out by the next cart (which then entered the trench due being on a ramp).

Many have used filling a room and draining it from below, but I've yet to see someone use a retracting bridge to fling minecarts out and onto ramps or stockpile/collision course(/rollers) on downstairs directly, without draining the magma. You can make metal mechanisms, so this is doable (though fps drain from repeating bridge would be terrible).

As for designating diagonals, use macros, or maybe digshape.

@speciesunkn0wn: Nah that particular automining veins is a vanilla option. Though digv is dfhack, yeah.

[Kametec_Housen]

Unfortunately, you can't do that, as both waterwheels and windmills use wood & carpentry.

Don't worry, I asked.

Rule 1. You may not build anything out of either wood or stone. No crafts, constructions, workshops, furnishings rooms or trade goods.
       
* We will make an exception for beds, waterwheels, axles and slabs, since there is no alternative material for these items.
* Charcoal qualifies as wood, and coal as stone. Both may only be used as fuel.

[Fleeting Frames]

Ah, right. Well, good luck with that.

I was thinking "I'd just disable carpentry/wood burning/wood crafting from entity_default pre-generation to force woodless fort" and forgot about the OP.

[Kametec_Housen]

While our beekeepers are chasing bees, let's check how are the excavations near the magma going.

Spoiler: Work in progress (click to show/hide)

Stairs are temporary.

Looks almost done.

What's the commotion outside?

Oh damn. Oops. We have walls and raising bridges. We can survive this provided we raise them in time. The thing is... I totally forgot about them. They weren't raised when the panda attacked, because they weren't linked to anything at the time. I decided that first thing I have to do is to link them to a lever. As it turns out, it was the first thing I forgot about. Now the goblins came and the bridges are still not linked to anything. Its not large force, about six goblins, humans and whatnot. But our current military force consists of 1 dwarf, Species unknown the axecutioner. Not exactly the best ratio of forces. But Species is clad in steel while the goblins are wearing leather. Well, let's hope he kills them before they manage to wound him too seriously. Sigh. Species unknown, CHARGE!!!

...

And they're... gone? Really? They just left? Oh well, that works too, I guess. Not the expected outcome, but probably the best one. Species is in one piece and the goblins are gone.

Spoiler: Or are they? (click to show/hide)

Ah, looks like Species will have to draw blood after all. Species unknown, CHARGE!!! (Hmm, I'm actually starting to like bossing him around like that.)
The goblin started to run the moment he saw Species coming. Species gave chase, but the goblin got away.  No blood was spilled since the demon panda. Probably a good thing, I guess.

(The goblin invasion was announced, so I ordered Species to move towards them and unpaused, hoping for the best. They left the moment I unpaused. I thought goodbye sieges were necro only?)

In the meantime, our beekeepers kept Imic busy and totally oblivious to the ouside world.

Spoiler: Bee count (click to show/hide)

Now to find out why the hell is butcher's shop filled with miasma. I don't remember anything slaughtered, because we have enough food stockpiled already to last us through several years long siege, if I get those damn bridges linked.

Oh dear.

(Blacksmith is a grieving mother)

Spoiler: Victim (click to show/hide)

Foul play suspected. Because the victim is a minor, I have to withhold his identity. But my previous statement still stands, however, as there was apparently no blood spilled since the demon panda attacked. Yet things are getting interesting.

[Fleeting Frames]

That's nice.

And I guess the goblins were accompanying the children protective services. Shame they couldn't rescue poor Asis before he died.

[speciesunkn0wn]

Sometimes the sieges are actually armies/parts of armies moving through the area. That's usually what a 'goodbye' siege is. But hey, maybe I can survive long enough to reach Derm Soulchopper levels of badassery?