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[knutor]

Welcome!

I tend to link SP for a very few cases. One infact. Lumber. Some wood ya just dont wanna turn into ash/coal. And some dorfs ya dont want outside getting hardwood. Only time I use link is with wood and I marry it to burrowed dorfs, like it was intended for. But seldom do I do that. Burrow is best used in military orders, not crafting, imo.

Keep in mind "linking" SP to workshops predates this d material choice in the workshops, which is a slightly more modern change, and completely voids much of the linking stuff. I just found d also lets me choose art, not just material on my figurines, which is really cool, imho. And it voids the bookie, by showing me rough quantaties. Use d.

Since pig iron and steel, take same econ stone, I try and balance the production, based on availb econ stone(say marble). /R on pig iron will leave me unable to make steel, eventually. Soooo, use bookie to findout the exact forts total volume in marble, half it, use manager to make that in pig iron, then use manager to make a batch of steel with other half. No fancy linking reqiured.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Leave your metal goods in the workshop, they can be flagged melt, while sitting in there waiting to be carried to a SP. This saves lotsa footsteps. To hell with linking!

[PatrikLundell]

Skipping the manager and use two repeat jobs on the smelter, one for pig iron and one for steel, allows you to split the resources evenly. If you have multiple smelters you can do that for each of them.

[Leonidas]

The only SP links I use are for querns, when I want dye but not flour.

[Lobster1071]

Burrow is best used in military orders, not crafting, imo.

Yeah, I'm having trouble with burrows and the military too.  Especially the crossbow squad.  I set up a beautiful tower.  Put a fortification around it on the top, then a roof over it.  Out of a 10 man squad, I assign 3 up in the tower on guard duty in a burrow (and leave 5 to train on a schedule).  Then, the first enemy that comes along.  The 3 in the tower shoot a couple bolts, then jump DOWN from the tower, out of the burrow boundaries, and start shooting it from the ground...then run up and start smacking it in the face with the crossbow.  Seems like they aren't following the burrow order too well.  After a little research, not finding a good solution to that one yet.

PS - thanks to all for the tips and spoilers!

[Starver]

I never use burrows for military/emergency use (can never get the alert mode to work, or rather I never really tried) and only in civilian mode for limiting end-points to jobs (though when that generated a particularly large number of misguided jobs that immediately cancel-spammed, it was a pain) as it doesn't stop random/tween wandering in non-burrow areas if it is decided that a dwarf needs to route that way.

It's very good at constraining miners ('exploration' burrow(s) limited to one unique miner (each) concentrates their efforts on the staircase you hope will discover the magma, while another burrow forces the ditch to be dug and another for the <bedrooms|workshops|oreveins|whatever> to be prioritised). Since before the designation prioritisation (1..7) levels, and further improved upon now you can do that too in a sufficiently clever manner to 'order' the servicing of multiple faces of multiple digging projects so that you actually need do less minute-by-minute micromanegement (at the cost of prepping the whole lot in one long pause-to-designate, and then revisiting and shuffling all the lower orders up in priority when you feel that's worthwhile and want to ensure the next onion-layers are ready to be separately defined).

((I'd describe this in more detail, but I suspect it's just too much 'my style of play' to be useful to many other people...))


For forced patrols, I always (well, since available) used the patrol-paths, which sort of worked (still to perfect their use/deal with the peculiarities of their instantiaion). For stopping a ranged-weapon dwarf from jumping down off a wall (into the ditch I'd had dug immediately in front of the fortification-topped wall they'd been patrolling just behind) I'd made those built-wall-carved-into-fortification fortifications with a floor (or other levels of wall) on the level above to overlap their walkway, so that no (non-projectile/ballistic) pathing was trivially possible by a Luke Cage-wannabe who had forgotten he had perfectly good bolts and the skills to loose them off.  Basically, all my turtling-mode designs, proof against forms of theoretical climbing and jumping even before we got proper climbing/jumping arriving as common enemy behaviour, were also equally good at stopping anyone deciding they're Sir George Cayley's servant and trying to glide down from their raised vantage-point...

[Urist9876]

Burrows for archers are only good to position them exactly where you want.
To keep them there they must have absolutely no path to the enemy, climbing included.
The basic solution is to roof over your fortifications.

The better trained your archers are, the more likely they are to stay at ranged until they run out of arrows.
Running up to their deaths has priority above getting ammo for dwarves. If they really can't reach their enemies, they'll fetch more bolts and tear up whole armies.

[martinuzz]

If a workshop is linked to give to a stockpile, it will not give to any non-linked stockpiles.

I forgot about that one and found out the hard way. My farm floor stinks like rotten cheese now because I set a thread (plant) stockpile to take from the farmer's workshop that also makes cheese.  Fix'd now.
I do like linking up stockpiles very much, mostly for direct control over what booze / flour / processed plants to make, and set up some kitchen's with different menu's.
The magical d key on most workshops is an awesome alternative though.

[Lobster1071]

The basic solution is to roof over your fortifications.

Thanks Urist.  I did have a roof over the fortification.  I was watching them, and I know they jumped down anyway after a couple of shots.  It was almost like they warped down there.  Then took a couple more shots from the ground.  The tower was two levels high, with fortifications all around the second level, except for 4 blocks of wall, which I used to make the roof (floor) above the fortifications.  I'm fairly certain I had the doors locked too at the bottom of the tower when the enemies came.  So, I don't know what happened.  I'll have to try again. I already scrapped that world, and am on another now.  I learn more and more with each world I create, so we'll see what happens on this one.  Thanks.

[knutor]

Tricky with archer dwarfs, I think too. Fiddling with it now, will let yas know how it comes out. Trying a pillbox in this 0.0.0 stressfree Joyous embark, building pillbox for archers without fortifications.  1x1 floor grate says it can be fired thru, in center of a 3x3 pillbox, with the 8 surrounding floor tiles, painted for a metal ammo SP w/o bins. The 1x1 defend burrow, in center, atop the floor grate. Overtop maybe, were goblins mingle when cage traps there leader. 3-4z over a killzone. Be sure to put door on pillbox, and to lock it, once shooting starts. Not sure how to tell vertical shooting starts, however, without looking in r menu. But it should yield more headshots.

[Urist9876]

You can lock the door once all archers are listed (station) in the unit screen.
If an archer is sleeping or engaged in a purple activity you might lock the door just as well.

Another post about roofs state it is necessary it includes the wall/fortification, covering the whole building. Making a floor inside it is not enough. I don't know if that was the case.

I often build another level above the level that is used by archers. It will have fortifications and a locked hatch. I use carved fortifications, not the build ones. I never have dwarves jumping to their deaths anymore. It happened a lot before I learned how to set up things right.

[Sarmatian123]

I do use marksdwarves only as police force or hunters.

Why tower? Every level higher shortens archery range. Surface for max archery range maybe better?  How about surface level pillbox like this one?

Code: [Select]

WWWWWWW
F     F
GGGXGGG
W-wall
G-ground
F-Fortification
X-underground entrance through stairs

Though I read, a single fortification is open for enemy archers to shoot in as well. However people write, that making fortification 2 layers tick allows only legendary marksdwarves to shoot through. To make a Dwarf into legendary xbow user doesn't take long. Just few years. So this is maybe the most optimal archery bunker solution:

Code: [Select]

WWWWWWWWW
FF     FF
GGGGXGGGG


[Starver]

When I build a pillbox, I like to do it at ground-level, build external walls then carve them, entry is up from below (at least two levels of stair from access tunnel), fully roofed (or another level above ostensibly for R&R, but that is fully roofed) and a ditch dug immediately up against the footprint (two tilewidthsor more, removing all pill-edge ramps - hence the deeper level of access) where that level-difference matters not due to horizontal closeness.

(If I've ruined the ground below, for some reason, e.g. chasming ditch across which I've set a bridge-causeway (probably already lever-switched into a falling-trap scenario), I've been known to construct drop-nacelle "pillboxes" supported and accessed from above, located a tile or so away from the causeway with nothing beneath them but air, for whatever arbitrary Zs applies. Construction is more complex, and other belly-gunner constructs could be hovering above the route as well. It's mostly for my inner enjoyment than any greater practicalities such systems might enjoy.)

Optional-but-often I make at least one of the pillbox walls a raising bridge-barrier, instead, to pass over the ditch (or sometimes to meet a bridge coming from the other direction, especially over deeper and wider sections of ditch) lever-controlled from my lever-room, along with every other such sally-port and wagon-entry. Every now and then this is useful for emergency ingress or egress (with further protections/complications in the length of access tunnel before it gets to the fort-proper, in more satellite-like pillbox designs).

[Lobster1071]

I'm going to try exactly that pillbox design.  I like it.  Ground level, and no way out except down a shaft back to the main fortress.
I'll try out your suggestions as well Urist, with a tower a level or two above ground..  Thanks!

[Urist9876]

Dwarves can become easy targets if enemy can get next to fortification and wall is only 1 layer. Archers can shoot back and trolls can even grab.

By using height you do not need another layer, but lose one range from height. Can't target enemy standing next to wall though.
By using double fortifications you can position elite marksman on same level as enemy. Still loose one range. Only enemy elite can shoot back. They can anyway.
You can also use a channel to increase distance to the fortifications. I usually do not bother, but a moat can looks nice.

[knutor]

Ive no data on my pillbox, yet. Crazydorfs pop, climbing however. I plan to lift the 3x3 drawbridge, exposing the 2nd fort entrance, a 1x1 downstair. Directly overtop of that 1x1 downstairs, but 3z above is my grate, 1x1 'roost' burrow. I will definately NOT be using any Station orders, as they are wishy washy with where they place soldiers. With ranged, we need precision, wall lickers, or in my case grate lickers, I need all 10 crossbowdwarfs ontop that 1x1 grate/burrow, in order to fire down into the up/down stair, exposed once the drawbridge is raised, as nasty buggers enter, and go down, they get plinked. Thats goal. No other direction do I want them firing.