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[nil]

(1) ok!! much thanks! But when I clear their order, while retaining them in a squad, they switch to civilian? weird? they even stockpile their weapons....

Well, soldiers in civilian mode should hold onto their weapons unless:
- you accidentally told them to in the schedule screen (m->s->u)
- or, more likely, they're miners or woodcutters.

Depending on how their training is set up, they may or may not be civilians when they have no active order, but unless one of the above applies, the main differences are that
- switching to civilian mode when the dwarf has no civilian skill above dabbling (i.e., they're a light blue 'Peasant') will give a unhappy thought, and switching back to a soldier when they don't have any military skills trained up (i.e., they're a dark grey 'Recruit') will do the same.
- only soldiers will use advanced training, such as sparing or teaching.  Civilians with an assigned barracks will only do "individual combat drills," training their primary weapon, or unarmed skills if they aren't holding a weapons (or, apparently, dodging if they're carrying crossbows, which was news to me).  This isn't necessarily a bad thing; individual combat drills can be lot more effective, especially for fresh recruits.
- and, of course, if they have any civilian labors assigned, they'll do them.
Also civilians will usually, if not always, flee enemies and will respond to the civilian alert level.


As for your side question, they usually only do that if you've somehow assigned multiple weapons to them.

[Faeryx]

I have a little question:

I have my carpenters workshop queued to make barrels and I have plenty of wood and I have made sure my carpenters carpentry labor is active. He has access to the workshop, I did everything I could think of but he still just standing in the meeting room. He isn't eating or drinking or anything just standing there. What do?

[Stormfeather]

What does his job say in the (j)obs or (u)nits list? If it says "On break" it means he's just randomly decided to take a break, despite you wanting him to do stuff. If it says "No Job" (and keeps that for more than say a few seconds it takes to find a new task), then something's wrong.

Things I could think of: make sure you didn't somehow set your carpenter's workshop to not allow that carpenter to use it, and make sure you didn't somehow forbid the wood.

[nil]

Also make sure you didn't accidentally forbid the stone/whatever the workshop is made out of, that one still gets me all the time.

[DrKillPatient]

Does bituminous coal only exist in myths and stories? I've NEVER seen it-- where should I be embarking?

[greycat]

Coal is so totally overrated.  Chop some trees and burn 'em to charcoal.  Works just as well, and it's renewable.

[DrKillPatient]

Isn't it a much higher coal-to-coke ratio with the stuff?

[FuzzyZergling]

Bituminous coal gets three units of coke, but takes up a unit of fuel unless your using a magma smelter. So, it's effectively two bars of fuel for every stone.

[DrKillPatient]

I see...

On a rather unrelated note, setting the volume variable in init.txt doesn't affect anything. The value that you can see in the sound settings ingame is whatever you set it to, but the volume level itself stays at 255 until you change it from that screen.

This may have to do with me using Linux-- is that the case on other systems as well, or not?

[vorpal+5]

(1) ok!! much thanks! But when I clear their order, while retaining them in a squad, they switch to civilian? weird? they even stockpile their weapons....

Well, soldiers in civilian mode should hold onto their weapons unless:
- you accidentally told them to in the schedule screen (m->s->u)
- or, more likely, they're miners or woodcutters.

Depending on how their training is set up, they may or may not be civilians when they have no active order, but unless one of the above applies, the main differences are that
- switching to civilian mode when the dwarf has no civilian skill above dabbling (i.e., they're a light blue 'Peasant') will give a unhappy thought, and switching back to a soldier when they don't have any military skills trained up (i.e., they're a dark grey 'Recruit') will do the same.
- only soldiers will use advanced training, such as sparing or teaching.  Civilians with an assigned barracks will only do "individual combat drills," training their primary weapon, or unarmed skills if they aren't holding a weapons (or, apparently, dodging if they're carrying crossbows, which was news to me).  This isn't necessarily a bad thing; individual combat drills can be lot more effective, especially for fresh recruits.
- and, of course, if they have any civilian labors assigned, they'll do them.
Also civilians will usually, if not always, flee enemies and will respond to the civilian alert level.


As for your side question, they usually only do that if you've somehow assigned multiple weapons to them.

very neat, thanks!

Side question, I'm using your mod... but I get only letters for the new creatures, do you know how I can have some graphics for them?

[Farmerbob]

Is there any convenient way to thaw a river quickly? I embarked in a cold climate, and the river was frozen in early spring. I dug out some channels in it, including a nice well-type area, and turned temperature back on. It should have thawed by now, and the ice thaws as soon as I mine it, but the river appears to be permanently frozen. Is there anything I can do about this? I really need that river for my well and hospital, and for my obsidian farm.

If you have magma for the obsidian farm, you can use it to heat the water.

If you turned off temperature when the ice was frozen, it will never thaw.  You need to turn it off when the water is liquid, if it ever warms enough naturally to go to a liquid state, THEN turn off temperature.

[Farmerbob]

All the mud in my farm disappeared in a year. Is there certain conditions that cause this or is DF cleanmap cleaning too well?

If you allow a farm to be fallow for more than one growing season I think it can lose it's mud.  It might be more than 2 - been a while since I grew underground plants.  These days I like aboveground plants more - no mud required, and you can grow any of them all year around.  Just be sure to embark with lots of meat, and get one dwarf collecting for brewing and seeds ASAP on arrival.

[Farmerbob]

Diagnosis is performed by the Chief Medical Dwarf.

Or by some other dwarf with the Diagnosis labor enabled.  Just so long as there is a CMD assigned.

Oho, thats good to know!

[Farmerbob]

Does bituminous coal only exist in myths and stories? I've NEVER seen it-- where should I be embarking?

I haven't run into a place yet that I haven't found it, but I also always embark in locations with clay, some soil, and multiple deep and multiple shallow metals, plus flux, no aquifier, and a river.

There's a good chance that my particular embark requirements end up yielding me lots of coal and iron.

I also generate tiny regions with no caverns and maximum possible metal content   

[elvenspirit]

My legendary engraver seems to have the blood loss status, how do i go about getting the chief medical officer to check him out? (i zoned out a 4 tile hospital in a small bedroom :S)

Edit: He's walking around and nobody has tried to rescue him or anything... So is it minor? He has moderate blood loss and i kinda panicked when i saw my engraver bleeding all over the place.