Print

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

[Arkenstone]

I'd like to post here two of my methods of fortress-building, both of which have been tested, and which are intrinsically linked.

The main concept is of Dwarven Contractors (AKA Slave Gang).
The idea here is that the dwarves embark with 6 miners/engravers + 1 mason/mechanic (optional) and just enough food to last a year. They work till out of food, then are executed.  You then come back to reclaim and repeat; until you're happy and ready to move in permanently.

The second and more important method is the Adamantine Strip Mine.
Essentially just 7 miners who embark a 2x2 area with HFS.  They mine it out, being careful not to dig too greedily and too deep, (at least until the very end) and then extract strands 'til the food runs out.  You come back in adventurer mode, then transport all the strands/raws you can carry to a previously established site (either a pre-gen'd one, or an old fortress of yours).  If you reclaim an old fort with all that _{brightbluegold} in it, you should (haven't tested this part yet) get at least 100+ dwarves on embark, depending on how many strip mines you made.

This method may be very useful for setting up a community fort in, say, the Age of Death; as the high number of starting dwarves will make for some interesting social interactions.
(P.S. Speaking of the age of death, do animalmen count towards that?  With the new camps for them, unending combat may have become possible against the savage, degenerate mutants that survived the Thermonuclearkitty War.)

[RantingRodent]

Wait, stuff you move to a site in adventure mode is there on reclaim?

I've never really been interested in Adventure Mode at all before, but this may have changed my mind a little.

[Arkenstone]

Well...

I'm not sure about reclaim; but I tested moving it all to a goblin tower and then embarking there, it worked fine.

The concept is the same, the only way it wouldn't work is because there was some bug with reclaim.

P.S. The objects you bring will be scattered about when you come back; this is a normal part of the game code and should be expected, especially for lighter objects (including adamantine).

[Kanddak]

Yeah, I've done exactly this successfully.
Instead of making strands I actually built a giant adamantine tower and suspended it on a support, then pulled the collapse lever with my adventurer so it all deconstructed. That prevented the stones from scattering on the abandon & reclaim, but my adventurer got overloaded trying to carry it all. It probably would have been better to make strands and deposit them in platinum or gold bins.
My receiving fort was built deep underground and had a special adventurer entrance: A long chute dropping about 12 levels onto the altar in a shrine to Armok, which the adamantine-laden adventurer would jump down.
Unfortunately the site had a chasm, and after depositing one load of adamantine there, reclaim parties and subsequent adventurers encountered incredibly vast hordes of chasm creatures. The giant reclaim party did manage to defeat them -- most of the map was painted white with antman ichor -- but took enough casualties that they subsequently tantrummed and killed each other.

[612DwarfAvenue]

I always send in a group of 6 Miners and a Woodcutter, to do the initial digging and clearing, and also to dump any obstructing rocks. But digging out the Clownmetal elsewhere and then using an Adventurer to dump it where you wanna set up an actual fort? That's genius.

[Arkenstone]

Unfortunately the site had a chasm, and after depositing one load of adamantine there, reclaim parties and subsequent adventurers encountered incredibly vast hordes of chasm creatures. The giant reclaim party did manage to defeat them -- most of the map was painted white with antman ichor -- but took enough casualties that they subsequently tantrummed and killed each other.

Hmm... that would definitely put a hamper on things...  -I know!
Use a lever near the for entrance to flood the entire place, then just drain into the chasm!  Make sure you use some grates, so that nothing's permanently flooded.

It probably would have been better to make strands and deposit them in platinum or gold bins.

Why not lead?  It's cheaper and heavier.

[darius]

Had similar idea a while back, sadly never done it.
My idea was an artifact museum: Embark->make a lot artifacts-> lead bins-> abandon->adventurer->adventurer retire @ a village (you can take items from his inventory )-> rinse repeat.
Only that artifacts are a bit more random so it would take more time.

Or build a huge fort in village, that way you would only need to put artifacts with adventurer on tables and stuff.

[Kanddak]

It probably would have been better to make strands and deposit them in platinum or gold bins.

Why not lead?  It's cheaper and heavier.

That is untrue by a significant margin. Gold & platinum are respectively 1.70 and 1.88 times heavier than lead.

[MATGLOSS_METAL:LEAD]
[NAME:lead][ADJ:lead][COLOR:0:7:1]
[VALUE:2]
[SPEC_HEAT:130]
[MELTING_POINT:10589]
[BOILING_POINT:13148]
[SOLID_DENSITY:11340]

[MATGLOSS_METAL:GOLD]
[NAME:gold][ADJ:golden][COLOR:6:6:1]
[VALUE:30]
[SPEC_HEAT:129]
[MELTING_POINT:11915]
[BOILING_POINT:15141]
[SOLID_DENSITY:19320]

[MATGLOSS_METAL:PLATINUM]
[NAME:platinum][ADJ:platinum][COLOR:7:7:1]
[VALUE:40]
[SPEC_HEAT:130]
[MELTING_POINT:13182]
[BOILING_POINT:16885]
[SOLID_DENSITY:21400]

A golden bin weighs 1932, a lead bin weighs 1134.

[Quatch]

Wow, combine this with the magma moving adventurer and you have successfully proven that adventurer mode is useful, that persistent game worlds are better than one-offs, and that every dwarf can dream of adamantium.

May your beard grow ever-long!

[Arkenstone]

It probably would have been better to make strands and deposit them in platinum or gold bins.

Why not lead?  It's cheaper and heavier.

That is untrue by a significant margin. Gold & platinum are respectively 1.70 and 1.88 times heavier than lead.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[MATGLOSS_METAL:LEAD]
[NAME:lead][ADJ:lead][COLOR:0:7:1]
[VALUE:2]
[SPEC_HEAT:130]
[MELTING_POINT:10589]
[BOILING_POINT:13148]
[SOLID_DENSITY:11340]

[MATGLOSS_METAL:GOLD]
[NAME:gold][ADJ:golden][COLOR:6:6:1]
[VALUE:30]
[SPEC_HEAT:129]
[MELTING_POINT:11915]
[BOILING_POINT:15141]
[SOLID_DENSITY:19320]

[MATGLOSS_METAL:PLATINUM]
[NAME:platinum][ADJ:platinum][COLOR:7:7:1]
[VALUE:40]
[SPEC_HEAT:130]
[MELTING_POINT:13182]
[BOILING_POINT:16885]
[SOLID_DENSITY:21400]

A golden bin weighs 1932, a lead bin weighs 1134.

Oh, really?  Didn't know that... well, it's still cheaper!  Like a True [PERSONALITY:STUBBORNNESS:100:100:100] Dwarf, I refuse to admit defeat!

[praguepride]

Holy cow, with enough time and patience you could mine out just about every HFS in the game this way and dump it all on one site! 


Urist McDwarf admired his adamantine shirt, decorated with adamantine, adamantine and adamantint. He then walked over to his adamantine dresser, took out some adamantine pants and adamantine socks and adamantine gloves, opened his adamantine door and walked down his adamantine hallway to his adamantine table and adamantine chair to eat his adamantine roast!

[Blargityblarg]

Lead bins are still heavy enough not to move around after abandonment, so yeah. Of course, if you had tonnes of igneous intrusive or magnetite/olivine, gold or platinum might be common enough for you to justify using them.

[Urist Imiknorris]

It probably would have been better to make strands and deposit them in platinum or gold bins.

Why not lead?  It's cheaper and heavier.

That is untrue by a significant margin. Gold & platinum are respectively 1.70 and 1.88 times heavier than lead.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[MATGLOSS_METAL:LEAD]
[NAME:lead][ADJ:lead][COLOR:0:7:1]
[VALUE:2]
[SPEC_HEAT:130]
[MELTING_POINT:10589]
[BOILING_POINT:13148]
[SOLID_DENSITY:11340]

[MATGLOSS_METAL:GOLD]
[NAME:gold][ADJ:golden][COLOR:6:6:1]
[VALUE:30]
[SPEC_HEAT:129]
[MELTING_POINT:11915]
[BOILING_POINT:15141]
[SOLID_DENSITY:19320]

[MATGLOSS_METAL:PLATINUM]
[NAME:platinum][ADJ:platinum][COLOR:7:7:1]
[VALUE:40]
[SPEC_HEAT:130]
[MELTING_POINT:13182]
[BOILING_POINT:16885]
[SOLID_DENSITY:21400]

A golden bin weighs 1932, a lead bin weighs 1134.

Lead is also fifteen and twenty times cheaper, respectively, and smelting enough for all the bins you'd need would by necessity get you silver, which is only slightly lighter.

EDIT: [SOLID_DENSITY:10490], to be exact.

[Kanddak]

"Cheaper"? It's not like you're not going to get a practical amount of either metal from caravans. Lead and gold "cost" practically the same amount of dwarven labor, except for that the heavier gold takes a bit longer to haul (so build your smelter in the gold vein).
The opportunity cost of using either metal for bins rather than something else is basically zero; it's not like there's any better use for gold in this situation. You have a strip mine fort with no purpose except to send wealth to another fort, and you're sitting on a huge pile of adamantine which is 10 times more valuable than gold and almost 100 times lighter for your adventurer to carry. Binmaking is the only reason to mine any non-adamantine metals at all.

[Urist Imiknorris]

"Cheaper"? It's not like you're not going to get a practical amount of either metal from caravans. Lead and gold "cost" practically the same amount of dwarven labor, except for that the heavier gold takes a bit longer to haul (so build your smelter in the gold vein).
The opportunity cost of using either metal for bins rather than something else is basically zero; it's not like there's any better use for gold in this situation. You have a strip mine fort with no purpose except to send wealth to another fort, and you're sitting on a huge pile of adamantine which is 10 times more valuable than gold and almost 100 times lighter for your adventurer to carry. Binmaking is the only reason to mine any non-adamantine metals at all.

Or free ore for the actual fort. I like my hematite, thank you very much. And my dwarven adventurer will schlep it over to my build site with everything else.