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[Puck]

I have yet to see a convenient and elegant way to prevent cave adaption. Most ideas -at least for me- fail at the "stay inside" order during sieges and whatnot. If the area in question is so well frequented it qualifies for the task, it gets problematic once you order dwarves inside. If the area is not vital enough, dwarves will not pass through often enough.

Note that I actually dont know how much light a dwarf needs to not puke all over the place in case of some sunshine 

Anyway. The easiest solution I could think of would be the following: pick a major traffic area, something every dwarf has to pass regularily. Maybe the entrance to the booze stockpile, for instance. Create a skylight. Now in order for your dwarves to not get pissed about the lack of alcohol either have a backup pile (how ghetto) or just - from the beginning - prepare an alternate entrance, which is totally underground, designated as restricted traffic area.

Now since dwarves like to do the entrance dance a lot, I dont know whether or not they are actually smart enough to pick the restricted route (does a job cancellation due to inside orders qualify as "not pathable" hence make them use the alternate route?) once the need arises, but that can be easily checked.

Anyway, the plan is, during times of peace dwarves pass the lighted tiles and hopefully will not get cave adapted.

BUT! How undwarvy is that approach? It's comparatively not dangerous, not convoluted and not very likely to fail.

So I tried to come up with a more appropriate solution and what I have in mind now is sort of a swimming pool/drowning chamber/statue garden. See, I like the plumbing.

Part 1 is easy, we all know that one. Statue garden on lighted tiles. Floor over for protection against archers.
Part 2 is a bit more tricky. The party thing. Once you have a statue garden, dwarves party. A lot. At least they do from my memory, I havent had anything which allows parties for quite some time. Now what if I wanted my dwarves to get back to work? Undesignate the partyable item? That is too much micromanagment for my taste, also, I wouldnt be surprised if they partied to the end, first. The obvious answer would be (apart from magma) to flush them out, I think.

I dont have too much experience with swimming skill in fortress mode, but I think there is some sort of a problem. If the water in the statue garden rises not high enough, the swimmers might stay longer than the non-swimmers. So I was thinking about... building the access to the whole thing one z level higher and just flooding the bottom level. If there is a glass/floor ceiling to protect against archers, have it higher up, so it's not touching any water tile.

The plan is to flood the thing in a way so each and every dwarf will climb out as soon as I want their workforce, ideally without drowning them in the process. If I think they can relax again, I can just drain the water and thus make the party-hard-area accessible.

I did some minor experimentation with swimming skill, but the rest, even all the stuff about cave adaption is pure speculation. All I know is, that dwarves paint my entrance green some time into the game, and it's not that I dont like it, it's just a bit challenging to come up with simple and reliable way to deal with the matter.

In case anybody of you guys have some input about how what will work and what not, just lemme know.

[bluea]

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L = constructed staircase that is "Light"
X = dug staircase this is "Dark" (At least to the original ground level.)
. = anything not involving Z-levels.

This is the structure of my 'keep' area. The shortest route to basically anywhere involves a lit staircase. But there is a route that's only slightly longer that is entirely inside.

[Trowzers]

How deep does water need to be for dwarves to develop their swimming skill?  I'm considering a similar pool party/sunbathing room for my Dwarven holiday camp (located in the jungle... "The Quiet Jungle"... which is also appropriately full of elephants, alligators, crocodiles and carp - no lions yet, they must be sleeping).

For my own amusement I'm also writing up a bit of a story about this fortress - which is more like a Dwarven theme park than a fortress, where attractions include archery practise, sculpture, microbrewery lessons, wrestling, game hunting and the ever popular 'moving stuff from place to place' and 'running away from bitey things'.

Anyway, I don't mind partying, but I'd like to toughen my dwarves up a little while they party and sunbathe but I've never tried this before.  If I drop the floor down a z-level can I designate it as a pond and fill it up just enough to skill in swimming? How deep is that?

[Rvlion]

When I still played my average fortress long enough to care about cave adaptation I used to take a piece of flat land and build 2 or more staircases down into the ground without any underground opening between each staircase or chamber connecting to it. I used to make 1 for food production, 1 for leisure (dining room, bedrooms… ect.) and 1 for all crafting stuff. Sometimes I build them close together seperated only by a single soil or rock tile and sometimes my dwarfs were in for a 10+ above ground walk from staircase to staircase depending on my mood. Also depending on my mood I liked to combine the food production and the crafting leaving me with just 2.

1 absolute must in this type of construction is a nice safe wall to keep the staircases locked from the outside world, which btw also allows you to let the dwarf walk outside whenever you like during a siege.
If you make the inner courtyard big enough you can even:
-   Start a few farms above ground.
-   Make sure you have 1 or more pools or even part of a river within the perimeter.

As for letting dwarfs enter my fortress, moat and drawbridge were my friends and a few soldiers in case goblins wanted to ambush me.

[Plazek]

Well I only try and keep my soldiers happy in the sun cause they are the only ones who it is important are not stunned when caught outside. That is done easily by defending yourself.

However in this game I have been attacked so much and I hate a messy fort entrance so there have been millions of hauler jobs keeping most of my dwarves outside at least on occasion.

Alternatively holes in the ceiling up to ground level with hatches attached to a lever which can be closed in case of siege.

Your way might work but it seems a bit overcomplicated and may result in drowining

Sounds fun

[dragon0421]

I turn cave adaption off in the raws because:

1. Glass ceilings don't prevent it, which would be the only elegant way of dealing with it. I don't want holes in my fortress.
2. I've never heard of such a thing in any fantasy mythology, so it is not keeping with the dwarven theme. Dwarves are supposed to be tough and resilient.
3. It's a pain in the ass that doesn't make the game more fun.

If you agree with my opinions, I encourage you to turn off cave adaption.

[hexrei]

there was a form of it in the AD&D Dark Elves (Drow) of RA Salvatore's novels, not sure if the Grey Dwarves (Duergar) also suffered from it, but they were residents of the same Underdark and it seems likely they would.

[MrFake]

Puck:

1) Just use meeting zones instead of statue gardens.  No more parties, no more neglecting jobs, and dwarfs will congregate there on their free time just the same.  They get less happy thoughts from it, though, but that's quite easy to compensate for.

2) Roofing over above ground tiles does nothing for cave adaption.  The tiles must be above ground and outdoor.

3) 7/7 water is a definite flushing mechanism.  All adult dwarfs should be able to escape the water if they don't have to travel too far (and don't go unconscious or something).  Children may drown, and babies certainly will.  You could try to figure out a minimum depth to get them to leave, but that's undwarfy.

4) The best ways to prevent cave adaption vomit are to (a) prevent or treat cave adaption, or (b) don't go outside.  For my underground forts, I prefer (b).  My reasoning is that if I find myself in a situation where a dwarf must go outside, I haven't designed my fort properly.

[Neruz]

How do you get wood?

[smjjames]

Traders and a TC farm probably.

[MrFake]

Yeah, traders.  I don't often play on maps with trees.

If I was feeling like expressing my inner elf, I'd probably do it from the comfort of a greenhouse.  Indoor tiles shouldn't trigger negative thoughts from the sun, and supposedly will still grow native flora.  If they don't, well, I'll boil my inner elf with magma and move on.

[dragon0421]

there was a form of it in the AD&D Dark Elves (Drow) of RA Salvatore's novels, not sure if the Grey Dwarves (Duergar) also suffered from it, but they were residents of the same Underdark and it seems likely they would.

Drow aren't dwarves. According to the actual game, duergar do not suffer from cave adaption (neither do drow).

[decius]

Megaproject: Roof the world!
(1)Build a floor at the highest z-level across every buildable tile.
(2)Laugh at cave adaptation!

Bonus points if you build a mosiac into the sky.
More bonus points if the entire 'sky' is blue.
Maximum bonus points if you also wall off the outside at the last buildable tile in blue. (Big blue room!) Entrances (for caravans, seiges, and so forth) are permitted.

[Pie]

How do you get wood?

That's what Viagra is for, Neruz.

But aside from horrible jokes, you can get wood as described previously.

[Albedo]

I have yet to see a convenient and elegant way to prevent cave adaption. Most ideas -at least for me- fail at the "stay inside" order during sieges and whatnot.

Basically, like this:


  (enclosed above ground compound)
___ _meeting area___ ____zoo_______ __
     x|....................|x|....................|x
     x                       x                      x
dormitories          workshops         dining hall
       
 x  = up/down stairs
 |  = linked door
... = sealed tunnel(s)

Under normal conditions, all dorfs have to walk up to the AG compound, across/through something festive (statue garden, zoo, well, whatever) to either eat or sleep, and then back again when they're done.  This means that every dwarf who eats or sleeps goes AG 6x/"day", not including breaks (which are also AG.)  Adding booze AG helps even more, perhaps with dedicated shafts up to those stockpiles to reduce pathing distance.

During a siege, the lever is pulled and the sealed UG tunnel is opened to bypass "above ground". 

I usually build this in something of a rough triangle pattern, and/or with the entry to the dorms and DH very close or the same shaft, and about 10 tiles between the workshop and dorm/DH shafts.

That convenient and elegant enough for ya?