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[Kyubee]

My biggest facepalm is recurring. Without failure, every moat I dig gets a caravan stuck in it. I've learned to start removing ramps from the inside of my moat, save for leaving one little ramp as an exit.

[bloop_bleep]

Okay, so I'm a newbie, and one of my miners found a cavern. Having read about the creatures that might dwell down there, I decided to seal it up pronto with a wall. So maybe a month passes, and only then do I notice an announcement saying "Urist McWallBuilder cancels Eat: Could not path to item" or something like that. Turns out, the cavern entrance I sealed was also part of the up/down stairway used to get between the mining levels, so my builder was stuck down there for a month. So I got a miner and decided to dig a down stairway to the level the dwarf was stuck on. To do this, I think you know, I have to build a U/D stair on that level, which again opens a path to the caverns. The dwarf was rescued, but I still had to seal up that entrance. I did so with a wall. Three guesses to what happened then.

Okay, so I decided to risk it and destroy the wall sealing the entrance for now, and again the builder dwarf was rescued. A miner then dug an up stairway on that level, and a U/D stairway on the level above it, which I should have done in the first place, since it doesn't reveal a path to the cavern. The builder dwarf then built the wall sealing the entrance a second time, and then proceeded to exit through the aforementioned up stairway. So, happy ending, I guess.

[scourge728]

Consider yourself lucky, a good chunk of the deaths in tomeburies before the fps death set in were to me not noticing as someone got stuck somewhere and dehydrated to death (normally up a tree)

[muldrake]

Consider yourself lucky, a good chunk of the deaths in tomeburies before the fps death set in were to me not noticing as someone got stuck somewhere and dehydrated to death (normally up a tree)

I've found it's worth doing a health check on the z menu every couple weeks.  If you have a dwarf hungry or thirsty, especially with no task, it's worth checking if they're trapped somewhere because they often are.

Another trap I've seen is weird shaped workshops (like the bowyer's workshop) where there are inconveniently located impassable spaces.  If you put workshops into 3x3 rooms with doors, often the dwarf doing it traps himself inside.

[Fleeting Frames]

If you're using dfhack, could also add

Code: [Select]

repeat -time 1 -timeUnits months -command [ warn-starving ]to onMapLoad_extra.init.

For Jeweler's, Bowyer's, etc. See this post: A visual guide to dwarf fortress mode!

Or just remember that all workshops are accessible from a door to north or south.

[muldrake]

I decided to take off the top of a mountain the way coal companies sometimes do, for basically the same reason (it was literally made out of coal).  And just designated the whole thing on multiple levels for mining.

Do you even have to guess what happened?

Are you even surprised I was this dumb?

[Rockphed]

I decided to take off the top of a mountain the way coal companies sometimes do, for basically the same reason (it was literally made out of coal).  And just designated the whole thing on multiple levels for mining.

Do you even have to guess what happened?

Are you even surprised I was this dumb?

I occasionally try to do things like that.  I normally give up before I take the entire top of the mountain off.  The other thing to remember is the ramp and channel commands.  I just wish there was a good way to say "I want to take off the top 10 layers of this mountain, starting at the top".  I think you can easily lay out 3 - 4 levels worth of chopping with the priority commands, but the absolute most you can do is 7.

[Lielac]

A miasma had started from my kitchens. Why? Because, while messing around in the [o]rders menu, I had accidentally hit [f] and told all my dwarves to ignore food. WHOOPS.

[Derro]

I saw a necromancer and his horde, and figured I could send in some guards, kill the 'mancer, and get them back in before the horde reached them.

Turns out I forgot to account for the necromancer running towards the horde. My guards are dead now.

[muldrake]

I occasionally try to do things like that.  I normally give up before I take the entire top of the mountain off.  The other thing to remember is the ramp and channel commands.  I just wish there was a good way to say "I want to take off the top 10 layers of this mountain, starting at the top".  I think you can easily lay out 3 - 4 levels worth of chopping with the priority commands, but the absolute most you can do is 7.

I should have just done it a layer at a time.  But noooo.  I would have done this underground, where I have at least learned by mostly painful experience, but I'm annoyed at myself for failing to generalize that knowledge and instead stupidly failing at it the moment I tried it outside, even though it was painfully obvious once it actually happened.

[muldrake]

Was trying to dig a nice, deep pit to chuck a bunch of trolls/goblins into. Figured 50z would be plenty.


Turns out all that water I was dumping into the caverns as a part of a trap as well as a waterfall in my fortress had to go somewhere. Progress is blocked until I redirect the water elsewhere.

Actually, I could just do down 30z instead and be fine.

I've had 30 work just fine.  There might be something that won't kill, but I haven't seen it yet.  I have yet to see a complete body down there.  It's just a slurry of blood, teeth, body parts and various items.  Very satisfying.

[muldrake]

Besides, they're landing in the caverns. If they survive somehow, whatever happens to be wandering around down there will gladly finish the job.

The most ridiculous thing I've seen something survive happened after another facepalm I had.

I'd dug a 70 z-layer pipe (really a stairway) down from a water-filled cavern layer to fill a 2 layer huge cistern I was going to use to set up wells and do obsidian farming down in the magma sea.  So at the top, I put a floodgate in the 7 deep water, thinking building destroyers were unlikely to get to it.  I didn't bother closing it at the bottom.

Needless to say, my assumption was mistaken.  Months later, a troll somehow got to it and wrecked it, and then went down the pipe along with a flood of water.  Since the cistern wasn't completely full, I had enough time to seal off the area before the entire level was flooded.  The troll rampaged around in the area for a while, and then when the water reached the top, decided to GO BACK UP THE PIPE.

When it got back to the top, every single one of its body parts was red in the wounds menu and its description was a series of wounds, but it was alive.  One of the squad guys there waiting for it punched it and it died.

[Derro]

Lost some dwarves in a fight with undead camels. Saw that none of the bodies were getting up. Decided to slaughter one of my yaks. Yak rose as undead, with all the FUN that entails.

I forgot that mangled corpses (which all casualties were) couldn't rise after death.

[Bumber]

I occasionally try to do things like that.  I normally give up before I take the entire top of the mountain off.  The other thing to remember is the ramp and channel commands.  I just wish there was a good way to say "I want to take off the top 10 layers of this mountain, starting at the top".  I think you can easily lay out 3 - 4 levels worth of chopping with the priority commands, but the absolute most you can do is 7.

I should have just done it a layer at a time.  But noooo.  I would have done this underground, where I have at least learned by mostly painful experience, but I'm annoyed at myself for failing to generalize that knowledge and instead stupidly failing at it the moment I tried it outside, even though it was painfully obvious once it actually happened.

You can dig out the mountain using up-down stairs, then cave-in at the bottom to destroy them.

IIRC, though, there can be permanent FPS consequences for messing with large areas of surface terrain.

[muldrake]

You can dig out the mountain using up-down stairs, then cave-in at the bottom to destroy them.

IIRC, though, there can be permanent FPS consequences for messing with large areas of surface terrain.

I would have preferred to avoid cave-ins entirely, since I had already built much of my fortress in the z-layer directly below where I wanted the top of the mountain gone, and wasn't sure whether it would crash down into my fortress if I did that.  My only luck in this is it didn't do that, because the cave-in was pretty late in the process so I had already mined out most of the useful stuff.  It was full of valuable stuff like lignite and bituminous coal and various iron ores, to the point I named it Steeltop Mountain.  Stuff gets destroyed in cave-ins.