Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Marlowe]

My Faerie are trying to start a dyeing industry while under constant Orc/Zombie groundhog attack, but there's a problem.

When I order plants milled, the dude in question always choses to mill Whip vines into flour (I wanted them BREWED) instead of working the sliver barb. Thus we don't get any dye and we don't get any sliver barb seeds back.

Workshop permissions only let me to select what Fey are allowed to use the workshop, so that's irrelevant. And the kitchen screen only lets me forbid plants for brewing and cooking, not milling.

Short of never growing any more whip vines, is there a way around this?

[Agent Fransis]

Forbid the whip vines and unforbid them when you'r done milling.

[Marlowe]

och. I'm never going to be done milling. That's going to be really awkward.

[Sutremaine]

Three options, I see.

The first is to rearrange things so that the sliver barbs are closer to the mill than the whip vines.

The second is to grow sliver barbs for half the year and whip vines for the other half, and have enough drink or dye to see you through while the other thing is being produced and half your plants are forbidden. This is what I did with blade weeds and cave wheat, but I'm running a small (~40 dwarf) fortress and the only jobs I have more than one dwarf on are growing, brewing/cooking, and glassmaking.

The third is to grow blade weeds or dimple cups instead, but if you've got sliver barbs available you probably don't want to do that.

(Edit's a bit late, but the forum was playing up for me.)

[Marlowe]

And me. Well, I can try to set up a specific dye plants stockpile near the querns, and in the short term not grow any more whip vines.

I should note, I'm playing Faerie, I have prickle berries, fisher berries, and wild strawberries under cultivation, so I don't need whip vines.

[jester]

you can mass forbid the whip vines on the stocks screen.  Just highlight the section that says whipvines and press F.  awsome little trick.

[JoshuaFH]

Sucker for the whip wine heh Marlowe? i don't blame ya, isn't it like the second best alcohol in the game?

One perfect solution, if climate and fortune permit, is to get sunberries and brew sunshine! Sunshine is better than whip wine, so no worries there.

One not-so-perfect solution if the above suggested solutions don't work is to grow two, three, or even four times as many silver barbs as whip vines, and then increase the number of millers you have threefold, so your statistically more like to be milling sliver barbs and not whip vines.

[BurnedToast]

Well, you can brew all the whip vines before you start milling, or lock them in a separate room.

Or you can just not grow whip vines, grow something you can't mill instead like plump helmets or wild strawberries. No, they are not worth as much as whip wine, but the difference is so small it doesn't really matter.

[Marlowe]

The thing is every time the Whip Vines get milled it uses a bag, which then can't be used for dye or sand. The flour takes a while to be consumed and so the bag is out of action for a fair while. Even a small amount of whip vines therefore, tends to have a disproportionately damping effect on the dyeing and glassmaking industries. I've already devoted most of two seasons to making more bags and buying them off caravans, and I still don't have enough.

Well, the problem was aggravated by me starting with only 3 sliver barb seeds. I've got two more bags of them now, so HOPEFULLY the barb will start to crowd out the vines.

I suppose this means no longland grass either.

[Tcei]

You could try making a stockpile for the silver barbs in a room with a  quern and lock the door, just dump food in periodically or use an air lock set up. Then all you have to do is lock your miller in with the barbs and the quern and wait

[profit]

You could try making a stockpile for the silver barbs in a room with a  quern and lock the door, just dump food in periodically or use an air lock set up. Then all you have to do is lock your miller in with the barbs and the quern and wait

This is the best suggestion for 100% compliance of no whip vine milling.  Put a stockpile around your quern containing. One containing some food, another some booze, another your dimple cups and another your bags.   Let the crafter in and lock the door. 


For about 99% compliance just surround every quern with a 3 deep wide stockpile of dimple cups and a bag stockpile just beyond that. Should keep MOST shenanigans to a minimum.

[Marlowe]

Dimple cups? Well, we have some of them, but it's really the sliver barb we want. It's not every fort that gets to make black socks.

It is a good suggestion. I've already made a custom stockpile for dye plants, and another for whip vines/longland grass right above the still. I'll move the querns into the dye plant stockpile.

On an unrelated note: One of my Fey weaponsmith got a fey mood (how can you tell?) and produced an artifact iron longsword. It's not showy and it's not fancy. Just turtle shell bands and spikes of iron, but its an artifact iron longsword. Who cares how much it's worth? And a legendary weaponsmith too!

Course, I only use weaponsmiths for arrows (I can make flint swords, and I have a legendary stonecrafter to do them), but still, very nice. AND this fort's called Bladecalls! How appropriate!

Only I can't get anyone to equip the thing.

Is there some special thing I have to do to get people to equip artifacts? I don't think I've ever had a really useful one before.

I'm expecting a 3-5 warband orc siege in the next couple of minutes, so no rush.

[JoshuaFH]

yep, no rush at all. I've heard that the only people qualified to wield an artifact weapon are champions or something similar.

also, isn't it possible to dye things multiple times with different dyes?

[Marlowe]

Yep, that looks like the problem. I was trying to give it to a wrestler. Oh well, he'll have to manage with a +flint longsword+. Note to self, get stonecrafter guy to make a fourth exceptional or masterpiece weapon.

I notice another problem from the wiki. Says that a person who equips an artifact weapon will never drop it. That means once I get somebody to equip it I don't dare let him go off duty or he'll massacre the rest of my military sparring. SO, I need to train somebody in swordsfeyship through the roof, get him to equip the thing, and then bling him out so much he doesn't care about being on duty his entire life.

As far as I can tell, there's no way to dye the same cloth twice. There's a line in the wiki that suggests there is but it's basically a badly written way of saying you can dye thread or cloth.

[Devastator]

Actually, experienced soldiers hardly ever wound people in practice.

Mind you, an artifact iron longsword might be pushing the rule a bit..