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[Imminent]

When I try to get my dwarves to fill a pond from a block of water on a flooded stairway, it says Urist McWaterbearer cancels fill pond: Inappropriate building.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Well that's odd. I assume you've designated that stairway as a water source- check and see if it is still active. Check and see whether you accidentally changed the pond designation back to a pit. Make sure everything is accessible. Hope that fixes it?

I don't see any condition that says the water source is active or inactive, however incidentally the water source is only 2/7 deep. Does this affect the ability of dwarves to extract water from it?

Also the stairway is 1x1 with natural walls completely surrounding it. The staircase is 3 z levels, and currently the bottom section is 7/7 full and the middle section is 2/7 full. I designated the middle stairway to be the water source so that the dwarves could drain it, then proceed to the bottom staircase.

[monk12]

How old do goblins get? I know dwarfs are about 150 years but I have a goblin whos over a thousand years old I swear.

Goblins, like Elves, are immortal- they don't often live a long time since they consider Murder acceptable and they tend to Zerg rush the entire world, but sufficiently badass/lucky goblins can live indefinitely.

When I try to get my dwarves to fill a pond from a block of water on a flooded stairway, it says Urist McWaterbearer cancels fill pond: Inappropriate building.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Well that's odd. I assume you've designated that stairway as a water source- check and see if it is still active. Check and see whether you accidentally changed the pond designation back to a pit. Make sure everything is accessible. Hope that fixes it?

I don't see any condition that says the water source is active or inactive, however incidentally the water source is only 2/7 deep. Does this affect the ability of dwarves to extract water from it?

Also the stairway is 1x1 with natural walls completely surrounding it. The staircase is 3 z levels, and currently the bottom section is 7/7 full and the middle section is 2/7 full. I designated the middle stairway to be the water source so that the dwarves could drain it, then proceed to the bottom staircase.

An active zone will light up and also have a number in parentheses indicating the number of active tiles for a given activity. I do think that once the water falls to 2/7 and below dwarves can no longer extract water from it. However, they can path through it, so you might be able to designate the lowest floor as a water source and draw water from that.

[Malarauko]

How old do goblins get? I know dwarfs are about 150 years but I have a goblin whos over a thousand years old I swear.

Goblins, like Elves, are immortal- they don't often live a long time since they consider Murder acceptable and they tend to Zerg rush the entire world, but sufficiently badass/lucky goblins can live indefinitely.

I'm at war with the goblins in question.... its crossbow time.

[Imminent]

When I try to get my dwarves to fill a pond from a block of water on a flooded stairway, it says Urist McWaterbearer cancels fill pond: Inappropriate building.

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Well that's odd. I assume you've designated that stairway as a water source- check and see if it is still active. Check and see whether you accidentally changed the pond designation back to a pit. Make sure everything is accessible. Hope that fixes it?

I don't see any condition that says the water source is active or inactive, however incidentally the water source is only 2/7 deep. Does this affect the ability of dwarves to extract water from it?

Also the stairway is 1x1 with natural walls completely surrounding it. The staircase is 3 z levels, and currently the bottom section is 7/7 full and the middle section is 2/7 full. I designated the middle stairway to be the water source so that the dwarves could drain it, then proceed to the bottom staircase.

An active zone will light up and also have a number in parentheses indicating the number of active tiles for a given activity. I do think that once the water falls to 2/7 and below dwarves can no longer extract water from it. However, they can path through it, so you might be able to designate the lowest floor as a water source and draw water from that.

I designated the bottom floor as a water source, however I still get the same error.

And in the meanwhile I've been trying to get my dwarves to use magma safe materials to make a couple floodgates and mechanisms, however even though I put a large stockpile of orthoclase RIGHT NEXT TO the mason's workshop, they go far out of their way to pick up non magma safe materials from my regular stockpile.

[Zombiearcher]

Hope this is the right place for this,

What determines whether or not you get occasional attacks by ettins and ogres rather than the usual run of the mill goblin sieges?

(Added) also, whats the advantage of using a powered millstone over a quern?

[Imminent]

Now it seems they abjectly refuse to use orthoclase for any masonry, mechanisms. Anyone know why this is?

[Malarauko]

Now it seems they abjectly refuse to use orthoclase for any masonry, mechanisms. Anyone know why this is?

Check whether its assigned as an economic stone.
Hit "z" then go to the stone menu and find orthoclase. If its red hit enter to make it green and you're set.
Also make sure orthoclase isn't forbidden en masse. This can be check in the stocks menu.

[BackgroundGuy]

Now it seems they abjectly refuse to use orthoclase for any masonry, mechanisms. Anyone know why this is?

If you're playing Genesis Mod, then orthoclase is classified as an economic stone because it can be used in an alchemy reaction to make sun gold.  If you aren't, make sure you didn't toggle the option by accident while doing something else.  When all else fails, try building a small isolated masonry workshop and quantum dumping the orthoclase into it and locking the door.

[monk12]

-snip-

I designated the bottom floor as a water source, however I still get the same error.

And in the meanwhile I've been trying to get my dwarves to use magma safe materials to make a couple floodgates and mechanisms, however even though I put a large stockpile of orthoclase RIGHT NEXT TO the mason's workshop, they go far out of their way to pick up non magma safe materials from my regular stockpile.

Welp, I'm stumped on the water one, so hopefully somebody else can jump in with a solution.

As far as the magma-safe stuff, you can accomplish that by either A) using the burrow system to restrict your masons to taking jobs/using materials near the desired shop and stockpile, or B) using the 'z' Stone menu to disable all the other stones on the list. The downside of A is that it requires working knowledge of the burrow system and, if you're anything like me, you tend to forget about the dwarves you exiled to the burrow even after they produce the goods. The downside of B is that every dwarf in your fortress will only use the allowed stones, so if your magma-safe stone is in limited supply some random craftsdwarf might use it up before your mechanic can. That isn't much of a problem for me, since I habitually do this just to ensure uniformity in my masonry.

The third option (and the way it was done before the burrow system) involves locking the desired professional in a small room with the workshop and stone until the job gets done. It still works, but is somewhat crude and micro-managey. Properly managed burrows can save you work over the long term, and option B works well as a "fire and forget" option.

EDIT: NINJAS!

[Stormfeather]

Re: the question about fat not getting rendered to tallow: since it won't let you do it by hand either, I'm assuming it's not just a problem with the (o)rders screen accidentally having the auto-render clicked off. Is it possible though that you've accidentally forbidden the fat? And you're sure it's fat sitting there, not tallow?

For that matter, what type of fat? I don't think humanoid type stuff can get processed/eaten/used without modifying the game (although I also don't think you can get fat in the first place in that case, but I'm not sure.)

[Andrew425]

I have whip vine seeds in a haunted biome.

Is there any chance of me planting them?

I got them from an elven caravan.

[plynxis]

I have whip vine seeds in a haunted biome.

Is there any chance of me planting them?

I got them from an elven caravan.

sure - i think its fairly standard in this case to build a hatch somewhere, wall around it and plant your crop there. normally you'll have to muddy the area first, but that shouldn't be too hard although a bit inconvenient if you dont have an aquifer or something. its very doable and i have done it in an evil biome with skeletal horses marching around all the time. if there's lots of stuff roaming on the surface, just make a squad, train em (danger room) and have them guard the place while its being built or have them actively kill the hostiles to prevent attacks on your masons/carpenters - though against zombie/skeletal animals that doesnt work well because once you get them, they'll respawn and you'll always have your hands full. in any case, shields and hammers/maces with a bit of skill in shields works wonders against skeletons.

another good way is to channel out an area, making the underground surface count as [Outside], muddy it and plant your stuff there. you might want to cover it up after you channel it as it still counts as outside after its exposed to the surface, no matter what. caving in a surface square is another way to accomplish this.

[Endiqua]

You shouldn't need to muddy it unless you have a stone surface.  When you go to place the plot, it may say something like "no soil for farm plot, needs mud" but if you see green X's (rather than red), that means you can place the plot and plant it.  If you go with the channeling method and the final floor winds up being an "Outside" stone floor, then I think muddying would be necessary.

Now, after throwing a few tantrums and chopping off a tail of our wagon yak, he's been doing what I assume is crawling because of how slow it is around everywhere and not working very fast.  He got two massive jagged scars on both of his legs due to this and not having proper medical care set up, is it likely that he'll die/be a very slow worker for the rest of (what is no doubtingly going to be short) his life?

Without any kind of care and no crutches, seems pretty likely that he'll be snail-like at least for a while.  You can check his Health status to see what his situation actually is - I suppose it's possible he could heal up and get back to normal.

[Mister Always]

How do I make the game not pause and jump to the location of the miners whenever they cancel a digging operation due to wet stone?

[Endiqua]

How do I make the game not pause and jump to the location of the miners whenever they cancel a digging operation due to wet stone?

Open the announcements.txt file in the init folder and look for [DIG_CANCEL_WARM:A_D:D_D:P:R]
[DIG_CANCEL_DAMP:A_D:D_D:P:R] and remove the :P:R from each one.  This will remove both the pause and recenter commands.