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[Grendus]

Suggestion: Ask all your questions in one thread please? The multiple threads are getting a little spammy.

Your play-by-play of your DF experience wouldn't be captivating news even if I was your BFF on IM.

*GASP*

is a question forum.

i askz mah questions, when i needz em,

i aint evah gonna askz the samez questionz twicez, so,

don't read emz, or answerz emz nicelyz, cuz theyz willz be gonez eventuallyz, thenz uz willz mizz emz

with a z

Two things.

1. This thread has been asked multiple times before. Type in "cloth industry" in the search box, and I guarantee there's a thread about it (I know, I did the search when I started DF).

2. Making multiple threads about multiple questions is fine, so long as the questions come at multiple times. If you have five questions and make five threads to ask them, you're wasting your time. Most players will spit out a bullet point of answers very fast, we enjoy doing it. It's why we lurk the questions forum.

I'm not going to bring up the wiki in this argument, since this isn't exactly covered there. Generally, while clothing can nearly match the produced wealth of stonecrafting, it takes more work to do so. This can be a good thing in later forts where you have more dwarves than you know what to do with, and eventually when Toady develops the supply/demand arc you'll want to be running multiple industries to keep the relative prices of all your goods high. It's a fun industry, so if you like complex economies go ahead and use it, but for raw cash output stonecrafting, metalcrafting, and cooking will yield the most money.

[Maw]

It's why we lurk the questions forum.

Why did this invoke the image of some shady dwarf hidden in the shadows behind some pillar, saying

"psst, ya wanna buy an answer?"

[Albedo]

"...First one's free..." 

[Jackrabbit]

Hey man, hey, get ova here man, c'mon. Hey. You look like you're looking for somethin'. Well, I got somethin' right here. Shh, man, shh. You wanna bring the amphibians down on use? Yeah, it's real. Almost 16% pure too, man, I had to kill three dwarfs to find out this shit. You look like a guy who knows what's good and what ain't. Well, man, I got magma physics, moat building, statue placement, quality shit man. Yeah, you think about. Here, have my card. You'll be back.

[Albedo]

They call it "M" - it's the hottest thing around...

[Sourlout]

Suggestion: Ask all your questions in one thread please? The multiple threads are getting a little spammy.

Your play-by-play of your DF experience wouldn't be captivating news even if I was your BFF on IM.

*GASP*

is a question forum.

i askz mah questions, when i needz em,

i aint evah gonna askz the samez questionz twicez, so,

don't read emz, or answerz emz nicelyz, cuz theyz willz be gonez eventuallyz, thenz uz willz mizz emz

with a z

Ow.... your writing hurts the head.

Also, spamming the forums is bad.  Why not create one topic called, "questions a new player has" and post everything there?  It is a good idea.  Also, you are not the first new player to ask new player questions.  Like others have said, try the search function.   

Heck, you could always use google. 

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.bay12games.com%2Fforum+cloth+industry 

There you go, hope that helps.

[Quietust]

If you did tame a GSC, the GSC silk is pretty unlimited right? Let the GSC web a captured foe continuously.

Basically yes, however there is the problem of the foe getting to a point where your GCS can fire web at him while not pathing to him, and then there's collection issues.
It's really better to get a fresh GCS right outta the bottomless pit, that way you don't have to deal with trapping, roping, whatever.

It's possible to set up a silk farm using pet-impassable doors, fortifications, and a chained goblin - my current fortress had such a setup for many years. However, it is not infinite - giant cave spiders only live for 20-30 years (mine died on the 19th year of my fortress), but during that time you can certainly collect thousands of webs and weave them all into insanely valuable silk cloth.

[Hamster Man]

... ahem. Well.

To answer your original question, I don't really think it is, aside from the novelty of it. If all you're after is dwarfbucks, you can crank out huge stacks of Dwarven Wine Roasts pretty easy and early that'll sell for thousands.

Alot of people consider this exploitative though... seriously, who would trade a set of steel plate mail for a stack of food that won't even survive the trip home? So I suggest if you do, you do so sparingly.

... that aside, trapping GCS is both cool AND dwarvenly, so you should do it regardless.

[darkflagrance]

If you did tame a GSC, the GSC silk is pretty unlimited right? Let the GSC web a captured foe continuously.

Basically yes, however there is the problem of the foe getting to a point where your GCS can fire web at him while not pathing to him, and then there's collection issues.
It's really better to get a fresh GCS right outta the bottomless pit, that way you don't have to deal with trapping, roping, whatever.

It's possible to set up a silk farm using pet-impassable doors, fortifications, and a chained goblin - my current fortress had such a setup for many years. However, it is not infinite - giant cave spiders only live for 20-30 years (mine died on the 19th year of my fortress), but during that time you can certainly collect thousands of webs and weave them all into insanely valuable silk cloth.

Or you can mod GCS to have a lifespan of 100 years...

[Metalax]

Or indeed to breed...

[darkflagrance]

My game only had one...

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Then you might as well mod a reaction to turn sand into HFS wafers.

[kefkakrazy]

Then you might as well mod a reaction to turn sand into HFS wafers.

Don't think reactions can check for objects in containers (like sand) just yet. You can do it from nothing, though.

[darkflagrance]

Eh. I didn't do it because I wanted to win the game. I did it because I enjoyed watching my legendary clothier pump out dwarven cloaks worth 3600 apiece.

I did the adamantine before, by the way, because normally I wouldn't touch the stuff because it was so valuable.

[piesquared]

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
W.......B...B.......W
W.......B+.+B.......W
W.......B+.+B.......W
W.......B+.+B.......W
W.......B+D+B.......W
W......rB+C+Br......W
W.......B+++B.......W
W.......B+.+B.......W
W.......B+.+B.......W
W.......B+.+B.......W
W.......B+.+B.......W
WWWWWDWWWWWWWWWDWWWWW

W = Wall
. = Open
B = Drawbridge
+ = fortification
D = Door
r = restraint (chain with cat/dog/other domestic animal. Oh, and the one time I tried the GCS seemed to ignore kittens and vice versa.)

The idea is this - there is a peculiarity in the AI of things in DF: they won't attack if they can't path to their target. Even though the spider can *see* the bait, the fact that it can't reach them means it won't spit web at them. However, we correct this with another peculiarity, this time in pathfinding. Toady uses something like A* that is generally pretty good but horrible in the case where no path exists. To correct this he maintains a data structure such that the pathfinding algorithm can check if a path exists just by glancing at two tiles. The long and short of it is that there's only one such structure, not a seperate one for dwarves and pets... despite the ability to set a door to pass one but not the other. So if we have a door that a dwarf can path through but a GCS can't, the spider will see a path and attack the bait while being unable to actually reach it.

So, you build the structure in my diagram above (or the picture below it, they're the same) and have the inner door set to "allow passage" but not "allow pets". With the bridge raised the GCS can't see the things and won't bother trying to path to them. People gathering silk can't see it and won't try to run from it. No goblin for anyone to see and/or run from. With the bridge down the GCS can see the bait and path to it, but it can't get to it. The net result will be it bumping against the door a bunch and throwing webs at the bait.

Now personally I'm paranoid so I completely forbid the outer doors when the GCS is webbing, and I tend to completely forbid the inner door when it isn't so that it won't waste a few processor cycles trying to wander through it now and then. I also have a pair of cage traps outside each outer door. It's probably all completely unnecessary and I've never had to use the traps but I tend to go "better safe then sorry". I mean, I've never had to shut off my waterfall either, but I still have the floodgates in place.

Um... I suppose all this is assuming you have a GCS and can trap it. Personally when that is the case I always do go for a silk and dyeing industry, but it might or might not *really* be worth it. I just feel bad when everyone has Xx(Pig Tail Sock)xX (or even nothing at all!) and I can do something about it. Sure, perhaps it mostly means having a dozen Xx(Pig Tail Garment)xX and one *Giant Cave Spider Silk Sock*, but I consider it better. Plus they're ridiculously valuable. Apparently there will be the ability to set a full uniform for my military in the next version, though, so this will all be valuable experience.