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[Retro]

Genius! On the channeling-up thing, I mean.
So if I understand you correctly, I designate (but do not actually carve out) a mass of upstairs on sublevel 1 (the first underground level). Subsequently, I designate level 0 (ground level) to be channeled, making a moat. I surround a patch of forest with the moat, and I can chop there without getting ambushed. Is this right?
The pool seems to be my only big water source, unfortunately. I do have a few murky pools, but those are very limited.
For the animals: Do you mean put them in the pit? I don't understand, how would retracting a bridge at the top of a pit kill everything in the bottom of the pit?

Thanks for all the help!

You want to channel and dig out the up-stairs; then designate the channels - if there isn't an up-stair or up/down-stair under a channel-designated tile, the miners will try and channel it from above, which could lead to all kinds of crazy fun.

For moving water around, you'll need a pump-stack most likely. Check here for info on that - but if you don't get it (it's hard to get at first), just ask here.

The animals: Build a very deep pit, then put a bridge 1z below the top of the pit. Connect this bridge to a lever, then seal it off. Once you put animals on the bridge on the top of the pit, they'll be locked in and will do nothing but stand around and breed. Then, once you've got lots of them, you can pull the level and they'll all drop and explode gore-riffically into awesome chunks and limbs and stuff that will turn into bones if placed in an outdoor refuse pile.

[NecroRebel]

Actually, if you want to produce bones, an indoor (or, more accurately, underground) refuse stockpile is what you want. Bones and skulls will eventually disappear if they're outside, but will stick around permanently if indoors. Of course, all those limbs and such will produce miasma indoors, so you might want to create 2 refuse stockpiles, one outdoors that specifically doesn't accept fresh raw hides, bones, skulls, or shells, and a second indoors that accepts bones, skulls, and shells.

Also, you might find it beneficial to make 2 or more bridges in your animal-pen-pit things, so you can drop and kill only part of your herd rather than the whole thing. Finally, while a long drop is the most efficient means of killing the animals, I believe that if you want meat and fat from them you have to actually butcher them, so dropping them only 1 level and then having your butcher go to town might be more desirable.



For the secure woodcutting area, I would suggest digging the drymoat first, but then building a wall around the area as well as soon as practical. Bowgoblins will still shoot over the moat, so while the drymoat reduces ambush risk by about 90% it doesn't totally remove it. Also, crossbows are about the most dangerous things goblins can wield anyway, so protecting against them with a wall is very helpful.



Finally, you might want to develop a path, carefully controlled with doors, hatches, and/or screw pumps, to collect rainwater as it falls into your murky pools and direct it into a subterranean cistern. Underground pools have a lot of water in them, true, but if your fort runs long enough you can still run it dry.

[Cheddarius]

Hmmm, all right. I don't need the water pumped - it's actually too high, I'm planning to let it flow into a lower container for a well.
Also, what's damblock?

[Heliman]

Damblock= Damage block: roughly, it's the chance to block damage, the higher it is, the easier it is for the creature to block damage.

Edit: What is the death message given for a dwarf who falls into HFS pit?

[Skorpion]

Damblock= Damage block: roughly, it's the chance to block damage, the higher it is, the easier it is for the creature to block damage.

Edit: What is the death message given for a dwarf who falls into HFS pit?

'Has fallen into a deep chasm'.
I threw a hoary marmot into it the instant I had it safe for use, to see what came up.

'Safe for use' meaning the clowns removed, and all the flaming charcoal extinguished via pond designation from above.

[3]

Damblock= Damage block: roughly, it's the chance to block damage

A technical point, but not quite: what you're thinking of is closer to the BLOCKCHANCE value seen on shields. DAMBLOCK basically just reduces the damage taken (it actually reduces the damage the attacker deals, it's all handled at once) by the number of points it's set to.

[sproingie]

You're going to be sorry when a Hoary Marmot Demon comes back up annihilates your fort.   

[Skorpion]

You're going to be sorry when a Hoary Marmot Demon comes back up annihilates your fort.   

No worries, I emptied the magma down the hole as well, and routed the nearby underground river into it.

I'm honestly irritated I discovered the clown car first. I should've emptied the river in there.

[Sphalerite]

Finally, while a long drop is the most efficient means of killing the animals, I believe that if you want meat and fat from them you have to actually butcher them, so dropping them only 1 level and then having your butcher go to town might be more desirable.

Thus is true for tame animals.  Tame animals can only be made into meat, fat, and skin if slaughtered at a butcher's shop by a dwarf.  Tame animals which die from any other cause, such as being dropped from a bridge down a ten level shaft, cannot be butchered for meat and are only good for bones after their corpses rot away.  Wild animals, on the other hand, can be butchered after being killed by falling, so it is possible to make a meat production system using a bunch of wild animals in a pit and some cleverly designed retracting bridges.

[Zsword]

What is the point of Coke if it still takes Charcoal to make it?

[Grek]

1 charcoal + 1 lignite = 2 coke
1 charcoal + 1 bituminous coal = 3 coke

Coke can be used for everything charcoal can be used for, including making raw coal into more coke.

[NecroRebel]

Also, with a magma smelter, it doesn't take charcoal to make it. This is apparently of limited utility (since if you have a magma smelter you can have magma forges, too), but if you also have flux, it is one of the easiest and safest ways to get steel.

[Zsword]

Aah, so you get multiple Coke for one coal, just making sure because it seemed like at first to be a waste of time/wood. (but isn't a waste of wood besides beds/bins/barrels/Elf angering?)

And also, what is the process of making steel? (ya, total noob much, understand the basics, gotten to sheriff before... something happenned.)

[Skorpion]

First, make a bar of pig iron. This requires a bar of iron, a unit of flux stone (marble, limestone, or chalk), and a bar of coke or charcoal in addition to any fuel.
If you're starting steel production, it's best to have two or three of these kicking around spare to stop hauling interfering with steel production.

Then, you can make steel bars. This takes a bar of pig iron, another bar of iron, another flux stone, and more refined coal in addition to any fuel. This nets you TWO bars of steel per job!

Why bother? Steel is 33% stronger than iron! 33% higher protection and damage!
And it's worth as much as aluminium and platinum.

(Of course, the wiki is much quicker to check for simple answers like this.)

[Hortun]

Like skorpion said, the wiki is your friend. Lots of these little questions can be found in there http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Steel


I'm wondering, is it possible to mod animals so that they can still be purchased on the embark screen and possibly on caravans, but so that immigrants won't arrive with them as pets? While I could just remove the [PET] tag from most animals, that'd stop me from being able to tame any of them for a meat industry.