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Whenever I feel like it

65 (33.7%)

Only to correct bugs and other alpha-related occurances

27 (14%)

Almost never

57 (29.5%)

Losing is fun and savescuming is cheating!

44 (22.8%)

Total Members Voted: 193

[Lord Dakoth]

Sometimes. In my most recent fort, I was channeling out a massive, multiple-level room. Whether by incompetent designation or incompetent channeling, one of my miners dug out a tile right under another miner. For that, I didn't savescum. I lost a legendary miner, and my mining department was severely crippled until I could train up another one, but that's that. It was a result of an oversight on my part. Now I know to channel out floors one row at a time if using more than one miner.

Another time, much more recently, I got a message: Urist McDwarf, Cook, cancels Prepare Lavish Meal: Interrupted by Giant Cave Swallow. I zoom to the cook, and sure enough, he is under attack. Both his lungs were crushed/skewered/torn out, so he suffocated.

I savescummed here. I don't know what the hell he was doing outside my fort. He had no reason to be outside my fort. His only enabled job was Cooking, and that's it. From what I could tell, it was just one of those "DERP DE DERP I'M A DORF" moments. Savescummed and it didn't happen again.

[Quantum Toast]

NEVER NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS 

When something happens in Dwarf mode or adventurer mode I see it as "Loosing is fun, I'll be smarter next time".

Ah, but with savescumming you can get Fun in dozens of different ways with just one fort.

[LordNagash]

I've savescummed a couple of times, but usually I avoid it. I mean, if you've settled in a place where there may be giant cave spiders, you should not complain when they kill everyone.

Also, as a sidenote: how the hell do so many people lose dwarves to them walling themselves in? Do you not pay attention to your dwarves at all?

[HatfieldCW]

Also, as a sidenote: how the hell do so many people lose dwarves to them walling themselves in? Do you not pay attention to your dwarves at all?

I wonder that, too.  Having learned DF from TinyPirate's tutorial, avoiding that was one of the first tricks I learned.  For the uninitiated:  Dwarves will prefer to stand on an "unused" tile when constructing a wall section, so if you occupy all the "bad" places with suspended wall constructions, they won't stand on them, and won't trap their fool selves.

[NewoTigra]

Usually depends on how lazy I feel like being.
I remember occasions where I have savescummed because I build one floor of a megaproject in the wrong place and then built further construction relying on support from below...which is in the wrong place.
I could redo it somewhat easily, but I usually choose not to. Happening less often as time goes on though 

On the other hand, I remember one project that (due to design error on my part) ended up with 1/4 of it having to be built underwater, in the ocean.
The Solution - drop a flaming lignite bin in the ocean, built the project, leave DF running over next few days until lignite burns out (or try and destroy it via collapsing floors)

[Lord Dakoth]

Also, as a sidenote: how the hell do so many people lose dwarves to them walling themselves in? Do you not pay attention to your dwarves at all?

Things get problematic when you have lots dwarves to keep track of.

Running a Dwarven fortress is like babysitting four dozen evil three-year-olds in a room full of baseballs, buckets of paint, and antique porcelain vases.

[Durin]

Also, as a sidenote: how the hell do so many people lose dwarves to them walling themselves in? Do you not pay attention to your dwarves at all?

I wonder that, too.  Having learned DF from TinyPirate's tutorial, avoiding that was one of the first tricks I learned.  For the uninitiated:  Dwarves will prefer to stand on an "unused" tile when constructing a wall section, so if you occupy all the "bad" places with suspended wall constructions, they won't stand on them, and won't trap their fool selves.

The fastest work around for this is build corners first.  The reason a lot of people get this is because it is silly.  Dwarves should not wall themselves in.  They should check for a path first.  I imagine it will be fixed eventually, but if you keep a busy fortress and did not memorize TinyPirate's tutorial, it's pretty much bound to happen to you eventually, and it is sort of goofy to wonder why people would have trouble with it.

It's a known, unfixed bug.  That's why. Yes, DF is in perpetual alpha.  That does not mean every person who picks up the game read the entire wiki before playing.

[Durin]

NEVER NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS 

When something happens in Dwarf mode or adventurer mode I see it as "Loosing is fun, I'll be smarter next time".

Ah, but with savescumming you can get Fun in dozens of different ways with just one fort.

Hehehehe!

I say do whatever floats your boat.  yeah baybay

[DG]

Savescumming is the refuge of those cowards who want to use an interactive medium as a book they know the ending to.

You're becoming increasingly trenchant in your old age.

It's a dragon! He's sooo cute!

awwwwwwww......

It's actually a turtle (man) wearing a helmet.

[Hound]

losing is fun.  If some crappy goblin bowman accidentally kills your greatest champion, that's awesome.  That's not even a disaster, that's just an awesome story.  Plus, it reflects (in my opinion) reality.  Even the greatest can be taken down by one really lucky idiot.  Besides, in it's current form, the game is so easy that there is almost no challenges left that have not been defeated.  A disaster, therefore, is actually entertaining.

[KillerClowns]

When I first started on Dig Deeper, I did a LOT of savescumming while discovering what would and wouldn't kill orcs... took me a while to think to look in the raws.  I still do it if a trap goes wrong for some profoundly stupid reason.  If orcs swim out my drowning chamber, into the lake, and climb out, I kiss my fortress farewell.  If they axe my great champion, well, such is life.  But if they climb out a tiny service tunnel I forgot, well, I might pull up the Task Manager.  For what it's worth (very little) I do feel like a weakling unworthy of Dwarf Fortress for some time thereafter.  EDIT: That said, I save so often that by the time the dominoes start to fall, the previous save is often already too late; I might save as the orcs arrive for fear of it crashing before I can witness their demise, so its too late to actually patch that tunnel even if I do reload.

[Quietust]

In my current fortress, the only times I've savescummed were when goblins ambushed the human/dwarven caravans and slaughtered the liaison, often before he ever gets close to my entrance (from having spawned in the back corner of the map). Considering my embark location is very low on minerals, the loss of the liaison would be an effective dealbreaker for my entire fortress - as it is, I'm effectively limited to 12 bars of each metal per year (4 from humans, 4 from dwarves, and another 4 smelted from ores requested from dwarves).

[Laiska]

Never, but i'm sometimes urged to. like that moment when i was building the central castle walls Fortifications and after a year or so i noticed some piles of bones on top of outer walls.. oh THERE's my lost masons! but then i flooded the aquifier into the main stairway and rolled a new world 

[balath]

Yes, DF is in perpetual alpha.  That does not mean every person who picks up the game read the entire wiki before playing.

I kind of did.  I got introduced to all of this by a friend at college that plays, then read all the "D for Dwarf" wiki articles because I found them funny.  Finally, I decided to play and downloaded the game.  I followed the Your First Fortress tutorial, played with the basic survival stuff, then decided to start fresh and apply the lessons I learned.  Before I tried anything new, though I always read the wiki for it first.  Even HFS, which was partially spoiled for me anyway by the aforementioned friend.

Anyway, I rarely crash and reload.  I was prepared to do it when breaching a magma pipe with a legendary miner who was also a member of the founding seven, but he survived.  I did it another time when I got tired of a tantrum spiral and purposely flooded the fortress, but that probably doesn't count since I lost about 6 dwarf years of gameplay on a fortress that was only maybe 9-10 years old.  (I used to leave this game running on pause for days at a time.  I don't do that any more.)  Another time I did it when my leveling High Master armorer got atom-smashed.  That was a lucky one, though.  I hadn't even been playing five minutes.

[Durin]

Hee!  What does it say when you atom smash one?  "Urist McLuckless has been utterly obliterated."