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[Jacko13]

I have grown so frustrated with the overly sensitive dwarves throwing tantrums over dead gobbos that I am kinda spamming remove-stress right now

[snow dwarf]

From what I've noticed, after 4 years in a fort without bedrooms and miasma in the main meeting hall since year 2. Half of the fort was stressed and the rest were not bad or even positive. Especially the miners. For some reason they are the ones who never suffer from mental problems.

[Immortal-D]

Home again home again, jiggity jig

Also, in the data links, the first and the third lead to the same message.

Fixed!

From what I've noticed, after 4 years in a fort without bedrooms and miasma in the main meeting hall since year 2. Half of the fort was stressed and the rest were not bad or even positive. Especially the miners. For some reason they are the ones who never suffer from mental problems.

Interesting. Possibly another indication that stress-causing effects are actually normal (relatively speaking), but stress-reducing effects are much weaker.

[LaChouette]

From what I've noticed, after 4 years in a fort without bedrooms and miasma in the main meeting hall since year 2. Half of the fort was stressed and the rest were not bad or even positive. Especially the miners. For some reason they are the ones who never suffer from mental problems.

Interesting. I'm at Late Winter of my second year. I have 60 dwarves. 56 are fine, 2 are happy and 2 are unhappy.
The unhappy ones are two of the fishermen, they get stressed because of the rain a lot, and they both got the trait "cracks easily under pressure", and one of them even has "is rarely happy or enthusiastic".
The happy ones are the miners, just like yours. Maybe them never going outside at all is a major factor for that? No rain, and no issue with cave adaptation because unlike some other dwarves, they don't even go outside a little, so while they're cave adapted, it doesn't come up as an issue.

[Immortal-D]

From what I've noticed, after 4 years in a fort without bedrooms and miasma in the main meeting hall since year 2. Half of the fort was stressed and the rest were not bad or even positive. Especially the miners. For some reason they are the ones who never suffer from mental problems.

Interesting. I'm at Late Winter of my second year. I have 60 dwarves. 56 are fine, 2 are happy and 2 are unhappy.
The unhappy ones are two of the fishermen, they get stressed because of the rain a lot, and they both got the trait "cracks easily under pressure", and one of them even has "is rarely happy or enthusiastic".
The happy ones are the miners, just like yours. Maybe them never going outside at all is a major factor for that? No rain, and no issue with cave adaptation because unlike some other dwarves, they don't even go outside a little, so while they're cave adapted, it doesn't come up as an issue.

How are you guys handling social needs? (partying & praying). I have tested non-stop jobs both underground & aboveground, and consistently found that Dwarves will work themselves to death.

[LaChouette]

Have had no partying in my fort, but my dwarves are regularly going to the temples to pray. I made a generic temple and 3 dedicated temples for the 3 major deities of my population.

[Adequate Swimmer]

Fishermen will prioritize fishing over everything else until they either go insane or create a moderate ecological disaster. You can safely disable fishing and give them another skill to train given how they're prone to stress and don't create added value.

[Miuramir]

I have to admit that the rain thing is getting on my nerves ;-)  My fort is in the swamp.  It rains about 90% of the time.  I am slowly getting roofs over everything, but the rain has really stressed out my dwarfs. 

Not trying to pick on mikekchar specifically, but this serves a good example of something I've been noticing in this thread: a lot of people in this thread seem to have what I would describe as both an overly-optimistic view of their dwarves, and are not allowing for the fact that they are dwarves, not humans. 

Listen to what you're saying for a moment.  Imagine that you have been exiled to a flyspeck micro-town that is in a swamp where it rains 90% of the time, and for quite a while after you got there, there were few proper dry buildings... most things didn't even have roofs.  There's no Internet, no TV, no radio, the entire town only owns a couple of books and you're not cleared to read them, and everyone is too overworked to have much chance of forming friendships.  When you get a little time off, you drink it away in a ramshackle excuse for a tavern with the same people you hate at work every day, or you spend it in church, bleakly hoping, somehow, that prayer will make things better.  One of the few breaks in the routine is when the overseers screw up, and you're sent out in the rain, yanking plants out of the mud so that you don't starve later. 

Most people would be depressed!  And that's *long* before you get assigned to hauling corpses, or desperately defending your terrible little town from horrific alien monsters.  You've given a bunch of people grinding out bleak as fark jobs in miserable conditions a survival horror game to "brighten" their special days.  And humans are far more suited and accustomed to such conditions than dwarves are. 

Which brings around to the second issue: dwarves are not surface creatures.  Rain being stressful above and beyond what it is for humans comes two ways: one is simply that it's a reminder that you are Outside.  Outside is bad for so many reasons.  The other is because, underground, if there is water leaking from the ceiling in quantity, *something has gone horribly wrong, and there's a good chance you're about to die*.  From a dwarf's standpoint, standing around outside is super-stressful to start with (see cave adaptation), but rain cranks up the stress level immensely... the less stable dwarves are probably constantly stressed out because part of their cultural heritage in the back of their head is telling them 90% of their waking hours that they've been sent to breach an aquifer and are about to be sacrificed for the fortress's plumbing. 

Consider that, as humans, many become uncomfortable when they are aware of massive weight just above them; people freak out in caves, mines, and less threatening claustrophobic settings all the time.  Dwarves are the other way around; they are, as a species, basically agoraphobic.  Ten million tons of mountain over their bedroom isn't alarming, it's *comforting*... because it's that many more squares of honest stone between you and the Horrors of Outside. 

I'm not claiming the current system is perfect, or doesn't need tuning.  But really, put yourself in your dwarf's shoes for a moment... consider what a dwarf's idea of a wonderful place is.  Glittering caves, full of gems that sparkle; grand halls carved from the heart of the mountain, and engraved with the stories of their ancestors; "roaring fires, malt beer, ripe meat off the bone" to quote movie Gimli; wondrous crafts and ingenious mechanisms; and so on... all *very* far from a town in a swamp that rains 90% of the time and doesn't come with roofs. 

[Sver]

The problem is that the reaction to the rain is not tied specifically to the race or cave adaptation - it is tied to the civilization's value of nature, e.g. it's cultural. Some human civ's will hold the same life-wrecking opinion about the rain, despite living above ground.

The unfortunate thing about it is that you cannot have rain-resistant lumberjacks. I mean, you can appoint them, but they will receive a bad thought from doing their job - which is what the player was trying to prevent in the first place. They either hate the rain or love the trees - no third option.

Realistically speaking, most people don't enjoy getting all wet and cold, but: (1) getting rained on once is not a turning point of life for them, and, most improtantly, (2) they attempt to seek cover or use special clothing to avoid the negatives of a rain. The dwarves in DF simply don't have the second option and it cannot be properly microed even: if you have any rain on the map, most migrants are guaranteed to get traumatized by it.

[Shonai_Dweller]

The problem is that the reaction to the rain is not tied specifically to the race or cave adaptation - it is tied to the civilization's value of nature, e.g. it's cultural.

The unfortunate thing about it is that you cannot have rain-resistant lumberjacks. They either hate the rain or love the trees - no third option.

But you do have the choice of assigning lumberjacking and plant gathering to the dwarves who don't mind working outdoors. That will minimise the impact (I admit I don't do this myself, but unlike others in this thread, have been lucky so far in that none of my dwarves have ever become terminally stressed from rain).

[Sver]

But you do have the choice of assigning lumberjacking and plant gathering to the dwarves who don't mind working outdoors. That will minimise the impact (I admit I don't do this myself, but unlike others in this thread, have been lucky so far in that none of my dwarves have ever become terminally stressed from rain).

If I recall correctly, that line in the preference screen is used as an indicator of cave adaptation: doesn't mind working outdoors equals level zero. I agree that not letting cave-adapt dwarves suddenly out in the open is reasonable. The problem is that the rain thought specifically ties down to the value of nature. Cave adaptation has it's own related thoughts.

EDIT: the wiki claims, though, that the Ambusher skill negates the effects of rain. Can anyone confirm?

[Fleeting Frames]

Fishermen will prioritize fishing over everything else until they either go insane or create a moderate ecological disaster. You can safely disable fishing and give them another skill to train given how they're prone to stress and don't create added value.

For what's it is worth, anecdotally, I enabled both fishing and animal training on a dwarf migrant I plan to assassinate for latter reasons in 43.03. They did actually train animals several times when called upon, even when fishing zone was available to them. (Then went back to netting mussels with their beards).

[Shonai_Dweller]

But you do have the choice of assigning lumberjacking and plant gathering to the dwarves who don't mind working outdoors. That will minimise the impact (I admit I don't do this myself, but unlike others in this thread, have been lucky so far in that none of my dwarves have ever become terminally stressed from rain).

If I recall correctly, that line in the preference screen is used as an indicator of cave adaptation: doesn't mind working outdoors equals level zero. I agree that not letting cave-adapt dwarves suddenly out in the open is reasonable. The problem is that the rain thought specifically ties down to the value of nature. Cave adaptation has it's own related thoughts.

That's interesting, I assumed the reason I was getting no visible bad rain meltdowns in my last fortresses was because I was playing slightly modded dorfs who are more likely to not mind being outside (I forget what combination of values /ethics caused that).

Although now I'm playing regular dorfs and besides a few minor 'annoyed to be rained on' thoughts there's no real problem.

[LaChouette]

It seems to really depend on the individual dwarves on top of the civilization values. I have around 10 fisherdwarves right now because I don't have the proper infrastructure yet to make them something better and I have enough haulers. Only 2 of those fisherdwarves were unhappy, and they both had a "gets stressed out" easily trait, and one had a "rarely happy" trait, so I'm guessing it didn't help.
My fisherdwarves as a whole are more stressed than other dwarves, but they're mostly fine, thanks to their belongings, the temple, their friends, the good food and alcohol, etc.
Only those 2 were assholes.

[mikekchar]

@Muiramir: I don't disagree with you :-)  I've lived in London before, so "mikekchar is dwelling about not having seen the sun this season" is a thing ;-)  But, yeah, there is some tweaking that needs to happen.  I think I would be perfectly happy if dwarfs came into the fortress having some randomly generated memories from their past.  At the moment, like I said, it takes long enough for migrants to walk from the edge of the embark to the fortress that there is a 100% chance of getting rained on.  Since they have no other memories, they dwell on this fact.  100% of my migrants (even the children -- think of the children!) have altered personalities because of it, and 2 dwarfs picked up "becomes helpless in stressful situations" because of it.  Last night it got to a head where my stressed out weaver (who unfortunately dislikes family and is up to 7 children, plus the rain thing) had a tantrum and punched out the teeth of my leather worker.  The leather worker never gets angry as a result of being rained on, so he didn't fight back (or even attempt to dodge, apparently -- he just got pummelled over and over again).  Now he's panicking remembering the event.

For me it's not a massive thing -- it add flavour to the fortress and otherwise I'd just be optimising my workflows (which is suspiciously like work itself).  It just lacks balance.  Everything in my fortress is a result of the rain an as much as I understand that dwarfs do not like rain, it would be nice if only, say, 50% of them would have life altering thoughts about having migrated in the rain.