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[Deathworks]

Hi!

As the somewhat aggressive title of the thread made me wonder, I wanted to put forward a question. Please note that my 40d fortresses have all been with low or no immigration and never reached the minimum population for moods, it seems. So I don't have any personal experience with the current implementation of the mood system.

I was wondering about the point of specific materials. The wiki mentions that at times, a dwarf will require a specific stone or a specific metal due to their preference. Is this (still) the case or is the wiki information in that regard incorrect? If it is true, then it seems that moods are still hazardous, even if the good precautions you mentioned have been taken into account.

Since I hope to eventually get a fortress again with a mood, this question is something I am honestly curious about.

Deathworks

[ZeroGravitas]

Hi!

As the somewhat aggressive title of the thread made me wonder, I wanted to put forward a question. Please note that my 40d fortresses have all been with low or no immigration and never reached the minimum population for moods, it seems. So I don't have any personal experience with the current implementation of the mood system.

I was wondering about the point of specific materials. The wiki mentions that at times, a dwarf will require a specific stone or a specific metal due to their preference. Is this (still) the case or is the wiki information in that regard incorrect? If it is true, then it seems that moods are still hazardous, even if the good precautions you mentioned have been taken into account.

Since I hope to eventually get a fortress again with a mood, this question is something I am honestly curious about.

Deathworks

It seems to be really rare but it still happens. I've had a dwarf demand Pig iron bars on 40d9.

[ZeroGravitas]

Just have a shell-only refuse pile indoors and...you know...not use them?  Non-moody Dwarves won't go use up your shells unless you tell them to do so.  So you don't have to do all that micromanagement to make sure you have shells in stock: just refrain from spamming "decorate with shell" and they won't go anywhere.


Edit:  aaaaaand now I see that Wolfius said pretty much the same thing

"all that micromanagement"? what game are you people playing? it's a trivial thing to do, it takes 5 seconds.

[Neonivek]

There is never an instance where Dwarves cannot get moods.

However the chance is almost insignificant. (1 in 500 chance... probably per season but possibly per year)

[LegacyCWAL]

Just have a shell-only refuse pile indoors and...you know...not use them?  Non-moody Dwarves won't go use up your shells unless you tell them to do so.  So you don't have to do all that micromanagement to make sure you have shells in stock: just refrain from spamming "decorate with shell" and they won't go anywhere.


Edit:  aaaaaand now I see that Wolfius said pretty much the same thing

"all that micromanagement"? what game are you people playing? it's a trivial thing to do, it takes 5 seconds.

There's enough micromanagement as it is already.  I just don't see the point of doing something for the sole and solitary purpose of adding difficulty for no reason whatsoever.  And that "takes 5 seconds" you mention?  Me and Wolfius's way takes literally zero seconds, and doesn't need to be repeated every couple of seasons.

Not to mention the fact that it's a lot easier to notice when the shell stockpile is getting low than it is to constantly check, "how many turtles do I have?  Do I need more?  Do any dwarves like turtles, and if so, should I unforbid some so that they can eat them?  What will I do with the shells, since it's so abhorrent an idea to let them sit there until a moody dwarf needs them?"

[Kanddak]

I don't think I've ever had a mood need a specific material, but once a fort gets started, I try to keep a wide variety of materials on hand, and until very recently I didn't try to micromanage which materials got used, so if I ever had a specific-material need, the dwarf helped himself to what he wanted.

I was baffled by the "but I run out of shells" whining until LegacyCWAL reminded me that you can use them for decorations and other such frivolities.
So I will spell this out: I almost never do anything with shells besides waiting for dwarves to need them for moods. Suddenly a few barrels of turtles at embark will last you for about forever. No bother with forbidding a few for emergency use, only to use those up and find out you didn't forbid enough of them.
The only time I use shells is when I'm getting started in a very dangerous biome, or on a site with no magma or coal, and feel like I'm likely to need some kind of military before I can make metal armor or draft a lot of expendable migrants. Then I'll make a few pieces of shell armor.
They're not really very valuable, anyway, so why use them to put some forgettable decoration on some useless object, when they could save your weaponsmith's life instead?

[Wolfius]

If your fisher dwarves catch turtles, you'll have a constant influx of shell, so you have to do something about it or it'll clog up your indoor refuse stockpiles('do something' can include a special shell stockpile for moods, one outdoors for surplus, and disabling shell for your other indoor refuse stockpiles). Taking, say, a hundred turtle at embark also results in a glut of shell.

For the most part, running out of shell is mismanagement born out of inexperience or an oversight. Nothing wrong with that - we've all been there.

[forsaken1111]

Hi!

As the somewhat aggressive title of the thread made me wonder, I wanted to put forward a question. Please note that my 40d fortresses have all been with low or no immigration and never reached the minimum population for moods, it seems. So I don't have any personal experience with the current implementation of the mood system.

I was wondering about the point of specific materials. The wiki mentions that at times, a dwarf will require a specific stone or a specific metal due to their preference. Is this (still) the case or is the wiki information in that regard incorrect? If it is true, then it seems that moods are still hazardous, even if the good precautions you mentioned have been taken into account.

Since I hope to eventually get a fortress again with a mood, this question is something I am honestly curious about.

Deathworks

Yes, it still happens. I had a dwarf who really REALLY liked nickel. Couldn't get enough of the stuff. He got a fey mood, claimed a magma forge, grabbed three bars of nickel and, of all things, a rock crystal. (There were GOLD and PLATINUM bars next to the work as well as DIAMONDS) and he made an artifact nickel axe with bands of nickel and spikes of nickel, with an image of THE SAME DAMN AXE in rock crystal. Guy became a legendary weaponsmith though... I had him make a whole suit of nickel armor to go with the axe, and he happily charged goblin sieges until he tripped and drowned in a 2 tile 5/7 deep pond.

Guess he shouldn't have been so keen on nickle, I bet wearing aluminum woulda let him swim out.

[Mephansteras]

I remember one fort where this happened to me. One of my smiths went into a secretive mood, only wanted metal, and was just standing around at the forge drawing pictures. I was confused, since I had a bunch of iron and steel bars lying around. So I looked at his preferences and noticed that he liked copper. So I smelted up a few bars from the ore I had and he happily ran off and made an artifact copper scimitar. I was so ticked that he didn't grab the steel instead.

But, yes, more proof that occasionally a very specific material is desired.

[ZeroGravitas]

Just have a shell-only refuse pile indoors and...you know...not use them?  Non-moody Dwarves won't go use up your shells unless you tell them to do so.  So you don't have to do all that micromanagement to make sure you have shells in stock: just refrain from spamming "decorate with shell" and they won't go anywhere.


Edit:  aaaaaand now I see that Wolfius said pretty much the same thing

"all that micromanagement"? what game are you people playing? it's a trivial thing to do, it takes 5 seconds.

There's enough micromanagement as it is already.  I just don't see the point of doing something for the sole and solitary purpose of adding difficulty for no reason whatsoever.  And that "takes 5 seconds" you mention?  Me and Wolfius's way takes literally zero seconds, and doesn't need to be repeated every couple of seasons.

Not to mention the fact that it's a lot easier to notice when the shell stockpile is getting low than it is to constantly check, "how many turtles do I have?  Do I need more?  Do any dwarves like turtles, and if so, should I unforbid some so that they can eat them?  What will I do with the shells, since it's so abhorrent an idea to let them sit there until a moody dwarf needs them?"

Your method doesn't take zero seconds. You have to keep an eye on the shell stockpile. Monitoring a stockpile requires time and attention, AND you can mess it up if you forget to look in a couple season.  My way, you literally never have to pay attention to shells EXCEPT when a dwarf needs them. And I've played fortresses where no mood demanded a shell for like, 5 years straight.   So it's not 5 seconds every few season, it's 5 seconds maybe once few YEARS. And there's no real way to mess it up.

You only unforbid turtles if someone actually asks for one in a mood. Other than that, you never look at turtles, you never check your quantity of turtles, etc.

Not to mention if you're actually fishing or importing enough turtles, you simply keep 10-20 turtles forbidden in the event that a mood happens to coincide with a time  in which no caravan has brought turtles recently, or, if you have fisherdwarves, that a fisherdwarf hasn't caught a turtle recently.  So you rarely, if ever, have to actually unforbid anything.

And finally, my method doesn't even require an indoor refuse stockpile. That's an entire building/area you have to set aside to save the turtle shells.  Forbidden turtles can just sit in your normal food stockpile, in one or two barrels.

[LegacyCWAL]

You're going to have an indoor refuse stockpile for bones anyways (you do use bones for stuff, right?) and the little green things stand out pretty well amongst the white that's mixed in when you check said bones.  And not using up all your shells requires nothing more than not spamming "decorate with shell" and other shell-related activities.

[ZeroGravitas]

You're going to have an indoor refuse stockpile for bones anyways (you do use bones for stuff, right?) and the little green things stand out pretty well amongst the white that's mixed in when you check said bones.  And not using up all your shells requires nothing more than not spamming "decorate with shell" and other shell-related activities.

I've never had an indoor refuse stockpile. I make bones in to bolts as fast as I get them, unless they're something really special like dragon bones or troll bones, and in that rare case I will make an exception and find a place for them.

Why have I never had an indoor refuse stockpile? I've never needed one. I forbid 2 barrels of turtles and I never have to think of it again.

[Astus Ater]

Not really sure what the point of all this is. If your playing Dwarf Fortress to win, you obviously don't get the game.

Failed moods progressing into tantrum spirals are incredibly fun ways to lose, and I see less people crying that their favorite dwarf failed a mood and died than I see people showing off the results of the tantrum spiral and saying how cool it was.

[Shoku]

When I started playing I had a few failed moods from having not set up a blacksmith (and still sometimes get distracted or get real unlucky about the caravans bringing me anvils,) and a few moods where I couldn't decipher what the dwarf wanted but even then I've only ever seen two of them go berzerk instead of just melancholy till they dehydrate or jump into some mode of death.

But after I got a hang of the interface enough to actually try and run a fort I thought would survive for very long failed moods pretty much stopped happening except with some specific material demands. Dealing with failed moods by assigning a bunch of dogs onto the dwarf seems bizarre to me too (and besides, you could just not have any meeting halls and place a meeting zone on the shop to have your whole menagerie ready to tear his throat out-)

biggest problem for me is that i dont have any pools (desert) and only an underground river which only give cave fish nothing else and almost 50% of my dwarfs want those damn shell, really need to decrease the amount of shells needed for moods as my only one i saved was that a human caravan with turtles came last minute.

The fish available in water have nothing to do with where the water came from but rather what biome it is in. Turtles are present in every biome but I suppose that might not include bedrock so pump some of that water up to or near the surface into an artificial (or preexisting,) pond and you'll have yourself some turtles.

*you can fish turtles out of a single tile channeled into an aquifer so you don't need to get all that close to the surface depending on the map.


Oh, and for you people arguing about the best method to prevent shell prevention I think the step that's missing is taking those food options off the menu for your prepared meals.

[Phazer]

biggest problem for me is that i dont have any pools (desert) and only an underground river which only give cave fish nothing else and almost 50% of my dwarfs want those damn shell, really need to decrease the amount of shells needed for moods as my only one i saved was that a human caravan with turtles came last minute.

The fish available in water have nothing to do with where the water came from but rather what biome it is in. Turtles are present in every biome but I suppose that might not include bedrock so pump some of that water up to or near the surface into an artificial (or preexisting,) pond and you'll have yourself some turtles.

*you can fish turtles out of a single tile channeled into an aquifer so you don't need to get all that close to the surface depending on the map.

im not playing on that desert map anymore, as it ended in a bloodbath with reclaiming forces and SoF. thanks anyway but i dont think turtles can be fished in the underwater cave but maybe doing an artificial lake will do, i have not tested but it would be great if someone did.