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[Ghills]

I might? This fort has the potential to be an entertaining disaster.

[Dunamisdeos]

Go for it I'll be prepared to take the next one, provided we still have blood handy with which to make our paper.

[Ghills]

I can't start right away, but if someone hasn't grabbed it in 2 days I will.

ETA: I got bored and checked out the save. I have so many things to say about this fort design. We don't need to worry about the invaders, FPS is going to kill us before they can.  For starters, having all the bedrooms on one floor is going to mean everyone traveling forever any time they get sleepy. It looks like all the food is in one place too. There's a ton of unnecessary areas that haven't been walled off.

It is at least all clearly laid out, and there's room to start setting up food and drink stockpiles near workstations.  It'll be a good idea to move the bedrooms around once we start getting multiple industry lines up and running since people will have farther to go, but that's a longer term issue.

Is there some reason we haven't streamlined our livestock and are only planting plump helmets? It might be a stocks issue.

Textile industry needs to take off, there's people wearing only garbage.

Taking a vote: Dfhack for cleaning and dumping, yes or no?

[Immortal-D]

Hey all. I'm back for a relatively long stay this time.  Ghils, if you wanna take over, go nuts. I actually haven't seen the new layout, since scourge only posted summary pictures. I'll have a look myself tomorrow, but if you wanna post pictures of 'why this Fort is doomed', that'd be nice, lol.

Taking a vote: Dfhack for cleaning and dumping, yes or no?

Go for it. I'm mostly curious about 1. If we have any books at all, and 2. If I ever got buried

[scourge728]

Dfhack for cleaning and dumping, yes

+1

[Ghills]

I meant to get started this past weekend but RL fell on me like a brick wall.  I'll probably have time to sit down and play either this evening or tomorrow evening, depending on how many fires I put out today.

I'll post a layout analysis while I try to get a handle on the current state of textiles. 

The basic issue is that making a huge block of, say, bedrooms is really efficient for players but causes significant issues for dorfs and their attempts to sleep. They have to take forever to get from workshops to bedrooms and vice versa, so either stuff doesn't get done or they sleep on the floor and get ticked off about it. Ditto for mining out huge areas and digging down to the caverns straight away. It's quick for players, but creates a ton of objects that soak up FPS, are potential causes of job spam, more creatures, etc.

Hurray on DFHack! I will definitely start using that after I take some explanatory screenshots.

[Immortal-D]

I meant to get started this past weekend but RL fell on me like a brick wall.  I'll probably have time to sit down and play either this evening or tomorrow evening, depending on how many fires I put out today.

I'll post a layout analysis while I try to get a handle on the current state of textiles. 

The basic issue is that making a huge block of, say, bedrooms is really efficient for players but causes significant issues for dorfs and their attempts to sleep. They have to take forever to get from workshops to bedrooms and vice versa, so either stuff doesn't get done or they sleep on the floor and get ticked off about it. Ditto for mining out huge areas and digging down to the caverns straight away. It's quick for players, but creates a ton of objects that soak up FPS, are potential causes of job spam, more creatures, etc.

Hurray on DFHack! I will definitely start using that after I take some explanatory screenshots.

You're welcome to keep going, but at this point I think it's safe to say this Fortress is Dead on Arrival   On the plus side, I'm now 5/5 Fortress started and flopped, which I'm pretty sure is a record.

[Ghills]

Nah, we're just having high RLPS (Real Life Per Second). If you all don't mind a slower pace I'll keep going. Here's a short fortress design write-up going over the current state of the fort and what my priorities are going to be. I'll get an actual fort update posted sometime in the next week.  I've only gotten a few days done in game.

Overall: There are a lot of efficiency problems with the fort, but they're mostly fixable.  The structural issues are not fixable, or not easily fixable, and are going to bite us in the FPS a few years down the road.  Streamlining, fixing and starting up some necessary industries is probably going to be the focus of my turn.

The deatiled look at the fort design, where it works, where it doesn't, and where it works right now but will be a liability later on, descending vertically.

Above-ground, a fairly standard and functional layout.  Since there are no enclosed trees wood might become a problem; since we have increased the number of invaders for reasons unknown, I'm comfortable saying that wood is likely to become a problem. Magma forges should be made sooner rather than later, and steel production might have to be managed carefully.


But we have barely any zoom hotkeys set up. Bad idea, zoom hotkeys are really important in succession forts. Without them later players have no freaking clue what you meant that area to do and we end up duplicating work zones or introducing security holes while rebuilding. If we get an alert we have to spend time scrolling through the whole fort to find the problem instead of just being able to say 'Well that was craft job cancellation spam, it's probably in the Craft area'. It's also a good way to check that every industry has a workspace. Priority #1: Get zoom hotkeys set up.


The farm layer isn't particularly bad...except for all those pigs. And all the other random animals. Each of those is a pathfinding FPS hit. It's too bad that a bunch of the extraneous animals are pets, and it's especially too bad that at there are 2 pet breeding pairs. I'll stick those in separate zones and let them die of old age.  Also we have no cats so we're going to have problems with vermin sooner rather than later.  Also, having one big stockpile only works well if it's central to all of them. This layout is surprisingly unworkable for one of the major productivity centers of the fort.

War dogs! Excellent. I've got to make sure all the dogs get trained as war dogs. They're a decent roaming security force.

The workshop balance is weird. 3 stills, 3 kitchens, only one farmers workshop. And the kitchens are all on easy meals instead of lavish, so we're producing low quality goods inefficiently.  This needs to be fixed or we'll have workflow issues.

Priority #2: Butcher excess animals and check back when the pigsplosion finishes growing to cull the herd. Separate breeding pairs until further notice. Fix issues with workshop workflows for steadier throughput and higher value trade goods.


OK this level is not great.  Let's take it from the top.
* There are way, way too many bedrooms. Also, having all the bedrooms in one place is really inefficient. Bedrooms should be near the dwarf's workshop so they don't waste time wandering all over the fort in between shifts. Going up a z-level is one step - the bedrooms should have been put around the staircase on the 2 empty z-levels between this and the farming layer.
* So is this a crafting layer? Can't be, there's no raw materials storage.  There are 2 gigantic stockpiles for finished goods and furniture on literally the opposite side of the level from the workshops, so every time an item gets taken to or from a workshop they get to waste a ton of ticks crossing the entire level.
* This rotating stair design is just...inefficient.  It's not easily blockable for defense, the dwarfs have to change position on the stairs to go up and down. The rotating design would make perfect sense if this was a ramp, but it's not. 
* There's a dining area...and no food storage. So anyone who wants to eat in the dining area gets to hike to wherever food is stored, grab something, come back down, eat.  Also, the dining area is between the workshops and the stockpiles, making everyone walk longer for no good reason.


Pictures are worth a thousand words!


This z-level is OK, except that the inhabited portions take up a lot of space for what they are. Oh, and it crosses the entire z-level.


This is one example of a prospecting level.  All the prospecting levels have been left in a messy, unwalled off state. I'll probably use DFHack to dump the stone near the relevant workshops and wall off the empty space.


That is a really nice library.  The placement is bad for having visiting scholars, but that's literally my only issue. I love the look and it's clearly got a bunch of space.


TL;DR The fort's current state has baked a number of basic mistakes into the structure.  Some of them have straightforward solutions, like the stockpile and workshop issues or the prospecting levels. Some of them, like the central staircase and really large rooms, are going to be trickier to address.


Stuff that's missing:
* Area to stage finished goods close to the trading post.
* TEXTILES. I know some nerds like to pretend that clothing maintenance is optional, but we really do need a textiles industry so the dorfs aren't wearing garbage and/or naked.
* CATS. We'll need vermin control. I'll have to see about importing.

ToDos:
* Slaughter animals
* Fix farming workflows
* Start textiles industry
* Re-org the stonework industry and get stone stockpiles set up
* Wall off a bunch of the useless empty areas

[BlueKanary]

I'd like a turn please

[Fleeting Frames]

Since Ghills hasn't posted for nearly three weeks, go ahead.

Save is here: http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=14019

[Immortal-D]

Wow, back from the dead.  First: Ghills, thank you for the fantastic writeup!   Second: I blame most of those problems on Scourge   BlueKanary, if you want to try and make some order of this mess, feel free.

[applet]

Is anyone playing this?

I'd like to see this fort continue. I've loaded up the save and will start playing, alternate timeline if someone else is playing (Which seems unlikely, give the amount of time passed)

Sorry if this tramples anyone's toes. If this is inapproriate (since no-one of the old overseers approved) I'll move this turn into another thread.


There are a lot of pictures, and not so much text. It seemed appropriate at the beginning, then it just stuck. I did want to get into story mode, but never did


Ghills was right, this is messy.

Status in 303-1-1


There is a siege ongoing


Stress seems ok, this dwarf might become a problem


But we do have 2 temples. Something to keep an eye on.

These work orders...
Here is how I set up perpetual workorders, it reduces cancellation spam when its possible to do this.


I decide that moving the food stockpile, along with the workshops that need be close is a priority.


Farms. Pig tails. We only have a few pig tails. You can make books out of pig tails.
MOAR PIG TAILS.
(Also useful for clothes and booze of course)

Why is there wood here? This stockpile is the closest one to the trade depot, it should have finished goods, but it doesn't.


I repurpose the finished goods stockpile

for raw materials to the workshops - wood, stone, gems. The general stockpile has furniture, wood and some other things forbidden. There is a furniture stockpile south of the old finished goods stockpile, its not ideal, but it'll have to do for now.

Someone is trying to make traction benches


There are chains on work order... but no metal crafters!
Easy to fix at least.
Reduce the 30 traction benches to something more reasonable while at it.

I cancel the infinite raw green glass order. Only useful for gem cutting and products. We should be making glass scroll rollers instead!

I also discover that we have no wheelbarrows. Order some.

No bags.


Lets just suspend glass production until that is fixed, yes?

Potash?

That is odd.. I haven't seen an ashery. Or a wood burner.
Maybe it was traded for? Cancel fertilization for now. (Or did I accidentally enable fertilization?)


This tips me off that there are Repeat orders in the workshops.
Barrels, Tables, Thrones, Chests...

All cancelled, We have a lot of tables, thrones and chests lying around.

Barrels. Pots are lighter and we're going to want that wood for other things. (Later, I discover barrels is the only way we can keep up with drink production)

Bins are also on repeat. That is sorta reasonable, except it will overproduce bins.
Conditional work-order it is!


Traction benches done.
Hospital designated



Uh, What?

Zoom to message origin.. aaand its in the staircase? Slight panic, something died in the staircase?

No. Phew.


Migrants. Hello, are you all a useless bunch of bloodsuckers?


No? Okay, come in then. Shame they don't have any scholarly skills.
Now, how do I lower the bridge?

A notes! Excellent.
I name the lever as well.

Some soldiers somehow got outside, and are now coming in as well. They were all sitting on a sleeping dude it seems, who continues to sleep, probably relieved of not having 3 bodies on top.


Hmm, the squads can sleep in the barracks.. but there are no beds! Maybe time to fix that. We have... 1 bed. GOOD ENOUGH.

As soon as I open the outside gate, I see a dwarf running out with a wheelbarrow (Remember, we have those now?). I follow the dwarf to this. A bunch of hopelessly worn clothes. Nope. Nope. Forbidding those. Oh, there are corpses here too, Okay, fine. Take them. BUT NO XXpig tail socksXX. Capiche?




One of the corpses.. Whats our coffin situation anyway?
Lots of empties. Good.

Traction benches done - Time to set up the hospital.
I decide to floor with gypsum. We're gonna need soap.



Mandates, right. Wait. The mayor is missing a lot of reqs.

Better get on that I suppose

Designate a dig for the mayors dining room. Discover that there are no chests in the tavern. Set those up.

Decide on an old favourite, setting up a goblet stockpile right outside the food storage. Minimizses the drink-by-goblet hauling.

Uh hello? Where did you come from? Why did you kill me dog?


Send in the military!

It seems that either a) My initial assessment that the caves were sealed was wrong or b) the "front gate lever" also opens the caverns. Closed now.




First mood of the year.


New mayor is elected. I set the mayors rooms to be auto-allocated to whoever is mayor by dfhack.


Construction starts!




Eh.



3 Fishery workers, farmer, fish dissector, Glazer and a legendary stonecrafter.
Stonecrafter is gonna be useful, Pots.



Autumn, finally. Time to focus on something worthwhile. Books! Knowledge!

...ffs.



Oh hi there.




Soo... Don't fuck with our swordsmasters..




Or peasants



Because they don't care for your suffering




Before I was so rudely interrupted. Books! Soap!

Again?!



Maybe they got lye...

I order clothes, cloths, leather, alpacas. Mmmm.. Alpacas..


They want this

I finally find the wood furnace.


The broker is sleeping.
...
...
...







wat



WAT

Really?

Well do I ever got the magma solution for that.


Keeping with the circle style

When the broker gets his ass to the depot we trade for cloth, leather, military supplies, bars, sheets, books, food, bags. Lots of bags.. Also an ALPACA! Mmm..

For all this I sacrifice the ash crown artifact as well as all our worn clothes and trap components.



Spent the next 2 months hauling stuff from the depot.



Noteworthy ones: Glassmaker, Bookbinder

Time to start producing glass stuff, now that we have bags. Scroll rollers!

Soap has been produced. And so the hospital is finished



I open the libraries to the public again. Hopefully we can get more scholar residents and some visitors should bring works with them, offsetting what they take with them.




..this is getting stupid. Oh well.








Not a problem for our army

Things trod along slowly, towards the end of obsidian there is another mood.






End of turn.

Spoiler: End of turn report (click to show/hide)

Entryway, stockpile for finished goods + some misc.
Hospital added.


Farms, More pigtails in the fields.
Stockpile repurposed for cloth, leather, bags (with and without sand)
Kitchens, stills removed.


Top-circle stockpile repurposed for raw mats to the crafting stations.
Stone has taken over everything, will need to separate stockpiles.
Sheet stockpile added to the right of the circle stocks.
Soap industry above said stockpile, with mini-stocks for materials.
Mayors bedrooms + office to the right.


New circle-stockpile for food except seeds, lye.
Kitchens linked to stockpile.
Stills & farmers workshops not linked, since that caused problems.
Mayors dining room to the north.
Old lignite branch sealed off.


First 5 nobles quarters. Front room is office, bedroom on right hand, dining on left.


2 more noble suites, same pattern.

These are missing weaponrack/armorstand + engraving. All ordered, but furniture needs to be placed.


Forge area.
2nd forge added, stockpiles added for ores, coal-ores and bars (metal, coal).


This is intended to be the noble tombs, but I ran out of time.

Military needs to be restructured, there are mercenaries which do not have a squad, might be able to free up some regular citizens.

Barracks should probably be expanded, or 1 squad moved to bottom of fort, to counter cavern incursions more easily.

The furniture stockpile is not in a great spot. This is mostly due to the main staircase is so far towards the edges. If the staircase had more room, it would be easier to place stockpiles around the crafters, or vice versa.

Sheet industry has not taken off yet, but we have 200 pig tail seeds.
There are spare rollers.
We should acquire rope reeds.

Clothes need to happen.

I only touched the libraries to add more tables+chairs and open them to visitors. There are books also:




Books:




Bedrooms. Not everyone has one. Also the layout is terrible. Please add more bedrooms closer to the main stairwell. Removing the nobles regular bedrooms would also help, something I did not do.

Forging stuff takes a while, hauling has been disabled for some smiths, but this needs to be looked over.

I've switched over our smelters to smelt bronze from ores, instead of bars. This should be much faster.

Armor is ordered, but only halfway done, and not all pieces were ordered. Hands and Feet needs still be ordered.

There is probably a bunch of stuff that can be done better, but at least we made some progress towards books.





Save: http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=14136

[applet]

Just noticed "The futures of circles" in the book list, very fitting. Unlikely to be authored in our fort however. Maybe that could be checked with legends? I've no idea how that works - still a beginner.

[Immortal-D]

Holy crap, lol.  I honestly wasn't even sure how well the save would play after 1 turn without the modded install, though it looks like the new invaders are working at least (not sure about the custom crafting & gear).  My favorite part of this is "The moving world, problems and solutions", lol.  I feel like the answer to both of those is 'magma'.  I applaud both Ghills & Applet for getting the fort back on track, and making excellent progress on stockpiling our libraries   I'm insanely curious to see the descriptions on a few of those scrolls.  I guess I should finally update the OP to start tracking progress and such.  Which I will do tomorrow, b/c sleep.  However, if anybody wants to continue trying to bring this library back from the dead, the turn list is open.  I might just take a second round myself, though I know I died earlier.

[applet]

(not sure about the custom crafting & gear).

It seems to work. I could craft gypsum beds (had to have a matching hospital, right?).

I also couldn't make greaves, I surmised that there was simply a replacement called t-something. One of the 7 barons has a thing for them too.

I might just take a second round myself, though I know I died earlier.

You totally should, not much of a fort without overseers.

Edit: Here's a teaser!



Also, here's a scholar coming in with the goods mid-save (yes, I checked, he's arriving, not leaving)