Print

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

[Ashery]

There are various pit designs that've been posted but, as I don't use them personally, I would likely misquote their design. You should be able to dig through the forums a bit and find diagrams, though.

For pets you'll want a single tile wide corridor that is a dead end. At the end you'll have a lever and on the approach you'll have a line of the spike traps linked up to the lever. Change the permissions on the lever such that the pet owner is the only one that can use it and then 'P'ull the lever and set it to 'r'epeat.

I may be wrong there as well, though, as I don't personally do that.

[Thorik]

I brought 2 cows for breeding purposes, and built a meeting hall a few stairways down and made it a meeting area, my dogs and my horse went there, but the cows are just walking around outside, how do I get them in?  can they only go on ramps?

[Bauglir]

-snip-

[vorpal+5]

I brought 2 cows for breeding purposes, and built a meeting hall a few stairways down and made it a meeting area, my dogs and my horse went there, but the cows are just walking around outside, how do I get them in?  can they only go on ramps?

cage them in the place you want them to be (a room without pet access so they don't exit)

[Spong]

Is there a way of re-viewing what layers an area has after you've embarked? I know I'm digging through a layer of Obsidian but I forgot what else I've got to play with.

[vorpal+5]

I don't understand how to produce meat with tamed animals?

I have ordered an ox to be 'ready for slaughter', and it is killed rapidly, in a room which has a butchery. I order the butchery to work, and it says I have no animals to use ? What's give?

[Skorpion]

Well, once the animal is slaughtered in a butcher's workshop, it explodes into meat, fat, bones, chunks, and a skull. Only animals killed previously are butchered.

[vorpal+5]

yes, I understand that, but for the animal to be used by the butcher, it must be dead... I believed that the 'Ready for slaughter' switch was to be used to kill the animal, so the butcher can work. This is what I did and I did not work.

[Thorik]

nvm, the cows went to the meetin' area, they just moved REALLY slow, like 1000 pound morbidly obese cows... just askin', did I make the right choice for breeding animals?  I figured it was either cow or muskox, since they give most bones/meat/fat that my civ can get, which one breeds faster, muskox or cow?  It's autumn and the cows haven't had babies, but on other maps, my muskox couple had kids in summer.

[Garth]

I've got  blacksmirth in a mood....
He demands bones, and I have a refuse stockpile FULL of bones. He doesn't seem to want to go get them himself.
How can I get him to get the bones himself? Or do I need to build a specialized stockpile right next to the workshop he's claimed so he notices them?

[assimilateur]

I have ordered an ox to be 'ready for slaughter', and it is killed rapidly, in a room which has a butchery. I order the butchery to work, and it says I have no animals to use ? What's give?

It worked fine: just killing the animal was all the work a butcher does in this situation (hunted animals will be carried to the butchery for processing, but an animal that's killed at the butchery is already processed). You should see the animals meat, fat, skin, chunks, skull and bones at the butchery.

Meat can be eaten raw or cooked, fat processed into tallow and made into soap, cooked or eaten raw, skin has to be processed at a tanner into leather, chunks will be taken to a refuse pile or dumped (in order for chunks to be dumped, you have to look into your standing orders and set the "dwarves dump other" order), skulls and bones will be taken to a refuse pile (though you could dump them as well via the relevant standing order; I recommend doing so with skulls once your bonecarver reaches legendary, because totems aren't worth much; bones, however, are useful for making ammunition). If left at the butchery for too long, those things will rot, stink up the room and eventually dissolve (bones and skulls are an exception, those only rot outside).

(a room without pet access so they don't exit)

Make sure the room is closed via more than one means. You should put a lever-triggered door or floodgate between the pet-forbidden door and the livestock, because merely having blocking their access via a so-called tightly-closed door is a source of lag, and is also liable to let out all of your animals at the drop of a hat (they congregate at such a door, constantly trying to path through it).

I've got  blacksmirth in a mood....
He demands bones, and I have a refuse stockpile FULL of bones. He doesn't seem to want to go get them himself.
How can I get him to get the bones himself? Or do I need to build a specialized stockpile right next to the workshop he's claimed so he notices them?

First off, you have to make sure he can reach that refuse stockpile. Secondly, check to see if those bones aren't forbidden.

Other than that, you don't need to place a stockpile right next to a moody dwarf. They will fetch their ingredients from across the map if need be, as long as they can be reached (check and double-check your standing orders in case you had forbidden your dwarves from going outside).

Another thing that comes to mind is that dwarves will sometimes prefer a given type (or rather subtype) of item. I don't know if this applies to all types of items - I thought it only applied for metals - but you should check whether your dwarf likes a specific kind of bone you don't have around right now.

[Jim Groovester]

I've got  blacksmirth in a mood....
He demands bones, and I have a refuse stockpile FULL of bones. He doesn't seem to want to go get them himself.
How can I get him to get the bones himself? Or do I need to build a specialized stockpile right next to the workshop he's claimed so he notices them?

I doubt the bones are what's holding him up.

You can compare his demands ('q' over the workshop) with what he's gathered so far ('t' over the workshop, scroll to the bottom) to figure out what he's missing, because dwarves gather items for moods in the order that they list them in their demands.

So find what's holding him up and try to provide it for him.

[assimilateur]

I doubt the bones are what's holding him up.

You're probably right, but do I assume correctly that having a preference for, e.g. elephant bone, would keep a guy from using cow bone? Or does that only hold true for metals?

[Thorik]

 did I make the right choice for breeding animals?  I figured it was either cow or muskox, since they give most bones/meat/fat that my civ can get, which one breeds faster, muskox or cow?  It's autumn and the cows haven't had babies, but on other maps, my muskox couple had kids in summer.

[assimilateur]

did I make the right choice for breeding animals?  I figured it was either cow or muskox, since they give most bones/meat/fat that my civ can get, which one breeds faster, muskox or cow?  It's autumn and the cows haven't had babies, but on other maps, my muskox couple had kids in summer.

I thought all animals bred at the same rate (i.e. the pregnancy lasted the same time, litters might depend on raws, but should be the same for most animals), but I've never paid enough attention to it.

One thing has to be said about your choice: next time, choose muskoxen. From my experience, they're the same value for your money, but cows can be ordered from the dwarves* (probably even humans, I forgot), whereas getting muskoxen post-embark depends on your luck in catching them or having elves bring them.

* Note that animals brought by caravans can sometimes not survive the trip if there's a freezing (or perhaps scorching) biome on the way between you and the traders' homelands. Accordingly, cows may end up being impossible to import after all, in which case you're no worse off due to having your muskoxen from the start.