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[Ibid Straydrink]

Quick question, long explanation ;
FOOD.
I love the DF food mechanics, just because of the wide variety of them.
However, I have never had a fort last longer than two years because of either...
A ; I run out of food/booze/pots
B ; The pain of constantly micro-managing in 10's drives me crazy

-any tips on this?

Create two separate food stockpiles. Forbid everything but booze in one, and allowing everything edible except for booze in the other. Allocate ~half of your barrels to each, and create new barrels/expand the stockpile as necessary. Periodically, go to a still, tell it to brew, and put the job on repeat.


Question:
Saw a newbie building what looked like a farm without muddying it first, and it appeared as if stuff was growing. Do we not have to muddy dirt caverns underground, anymore..?

[Sphalerite]

Saw a newbie building what looked like a farm without muddying it first, and it appeared as if stuff was growing. Do we not have to muddy dirt caverns underground, anymore..?

Correct.  Soil floors do not need to be muddied.  Caverns often have muddy floors already, and do not need to be muddied.  Only un-muddy stone floors need to be muddied before you can farm them.

[Xen0n]

Quick question, long explanation ;
FOOD.
I love the DF food mechanics, just because of the wide variety of them.
However, I have never had a fort last longer than two years because of either...
A ; I run out of food/booze/pots
B ; The pain of constantly micro-managing in 10's drives me crazy

-any tips on this?

Sorry if I don't quite understand; could you clarify what you mean by "in 10's"?

In general, just have a masonry workshop with "make stone pots" set on 'r'epeat for the first year or so if you keep running out.  For running out of food, bringing a dozen or so seeds on embark and making a few 3x3 farm plots set to grow plump helmets in the first soil layer with two dwarves set to farming will give you more than enough food for many years.  There are many other ways to set up food industries, but this is a very easy and reliable method while you are getting the hang of things.

Question:
Saw a newbie building what looked like a farm without muddying it first, and it appeared as if stuff was growing. Do we not have to muddy dirt caverns underground, anymore..?

That's right.  Any soil (dirt, sand, clay etc.), above or below ground, does not need to be muddied to grow shrubs, trees, or build a farm plot in 31.25.
EDIT: Oops Sphalerite beat me to it

[i2amroy]

Quick question, long explanation ;
FOOD.
I love the DF food mechanics, just because of the wide variety of them.
However, I have never had a fort last longer than two years because of either...
A ; I run out of food/booze/pots
B ; The pain of constantly micro-managing in 10's drives me crazy
-any tips on this?

A
1) If you set up like 6 5x5 farm plots and just have them producing plump helmets year round you shouldn't run out of food even with larger dwarves unless you do something stupid.
2) On that note don't cook too much, as it will remove the seeds you would have gotten from said produce and as such reduce your total planting ability.
3) I usually buy every single piece of wood and barrel (save for those really expensive extracts) for traders. It's not that expensive in most cases, and if you then quickly craft all of your wood except for a few "mood-saver" pieces into barrels, bins, and beds then caravans will always bring a lot of wood. Requesting more wood from the dwarves each year will also increase the amounts that they bring. (Do this a lot, I've had fortresses that have gone 20+ years and usually I am still buying all of the wood and all of the barrels that come on caravans just to support my bin/bed/barrel needs.
B
On the note of micromanagement, I strongly suggest that you
1) first go to your stock[p]ile screen and set the "reserved barrel" option to something like 5. This should insure that unless you have already filled up all of your barrels you will still have some for making booze, and then if any empty themselves they will wait to be filled by the still instead of being filled with some type of food immediately, thus blocking booze production.
2) Use the [j]ob [m]anagement screen. It really helps when you can order a given amount of booze jobs without needing to replace them if they get accidentally canceled. I also later on when my farms are definitely over-producing more food then I need just simply have my stills set to [r]epeat the brewing job with brewers that have no hauling jobs enabled. That pretty much guarantees that as long as you have barrels you will have booze.

Note 1: Also though making mead can help make bee-keeping useful I find that because it only really comes in stacks of 5 or so to the barrel it greatly limits your ability to hold booze in your stockpiles (50 barrels x 5 mead each = 250 drinks, whereas 50 barrels x 20 booze each = 1000 drinks)

Note 2: Another good way to free up barrels is to designate a separate stockpile for prepared food that has the "allowed barrels" setting set to 0. Because of the way prepared food works, many times a single prepared food stack will fill up an entire barrel as opposed to having several smaller food stacks fit in the same barrel. 1 stack per barrel is a much worse ratio then 4-5 stacks per barrel, so this can allow you to greatly expand your stockpile's food holding capabilities as well.

[greycat]

B ; The pain of constantly micro-managing in 10's drives me crazy

Sorry if I don't quite understand; could you clarify what you mean by "in 10's"?

If you're manually adding jobs at a workshop, you can only add 10 jobs at a time, per workshop.

If you want to make 100 rock pots, you can order it through the manager -- (j) (m) (q).  The manager will queue up the jobs at a random(?) workshop, and you'll get a notice when they're all done.  I hope you aren't fussy about which workshop makes the pots.

[Tiruin]

When building a waterway for a indoor waterfall/mist cloud generator, I smoothen the rock where the water will pass from. Does this stop any plants/trees growing on the smoothened area?

[Sphalerite]

When building a waterway for a indoor waterfall/mist cloud generator, I smoothen the rock where the water will pass from. Does this stop any plants/trees growing on the smoothened area?

No, plants will still grow on smoothed rock floors.  You need to build constructed floors, or roads or other buildings there.

[Fredd]

If you have dwarves with Thresher skill,cooking skill and several extra bags, along with the associated workshops, cooked quarry bush can provides huge stacks of meals, while conserving seeds, which are saved when those plants are processed. Also can provide nice trade goods.
 Rock pots are your friend for containers as stated in prior posts.
Besides defense, creating farms is a priority for both booze and food items. For a really sneaky trick embark with a dozen sand bags. When you arrive dump the sand, keep the bags for seed/food containers(quarry bush leaves, wheat,sugar)

[Tiruin]

Thanks Sphalerite and others who answered my Q's

Now...Can one equip both helm and cap? My military seems bugged that they only equip one of the other, the other thing on the head is a hood. How do I remove the hood?

[Pukako]

Legendary miner not mining.

The search function here could be a little better, as I have no idea if this has been discussed before, but the problem is what it says on the tin.

Was assaulted in first year (Fortress Defence Mod) and had to throw ALL the dwarves into the militia, and then disband it once they had killed the Dark Wrestlers.  But Mosus has been mining since, and has suddenly gone all elven on me.

Any ideas? I NEED mining now, and the other two can't dig fast enough on their own.  And he's rather popular, so introducing him to magma wouldn't be good for the fort...

[Tiruin]

Legendary miner not mining.

The search function here could be a little better, as I have no idea if this has been discussed before, but the problem is what it says on the tin.

Was assaulted in first year (Fortress Defence Mod) and had to throw ALL the dwarves into the militia, and then disband it once they had killed the Dark Wrestlers.  But Mosus has been mining since, and has suddenly gone all elven on me.

Any ideas? I NEED mining now, and the other two can't dig fast enough on their own.  And he's rather popular, so introducing him to magma wouldn't be good for the fort...

1. Is he in the military and assigned a pick? With the mining skill turned on and if he is in the military then you would have problems there.
2. Is he trapped or burrowed? No pathing = No mining
3. Does he have a pick?

Maybe others would have better answers 

[Wiles]

I have a couple of more questions about the military.

My elite marksdwarf becomes a normal marksdwarf when the season changes (I think it has to do with him going off active duty and then back on again). After he practices for a while or fights goblins he becomes an elite marksdwarf again. Is this some kind of bug?

My military dwarves weapons always end up forbidden, so when they drop them no one can pick them up. Why do their weapons become forbidden?

[SirAaronIII]

Do fungi and cave shrubs and saplings grow on smooth muddy floors?
Another question: How do you stop dwarves from cleaning an area? They keep removing the mud in the farms.

[Table Turning]

Alright, I'm really having a problem.  All the options for jobs in my smelter are currently in red, even though I have a supply of fuel, and there's ores to smelt all over the place.  Nothing is blocking dorfs from the smelter or the materials.

[scriver]

I have a couple of more questions about the military.

My elite marksdwarf becomes a normal marksdwarf when the season changes (I think it has to do with him going off active duty and then back on again). After he practices for a while or fights goblins he becomes an elite marksdwarf again. Is this some kind of bug?

My military dwarves weapons always end up forbidden, so when they drop them no one can pick them up. Why do their weapons become forbidden?

Skills degrade when unused. Maybe he's just on the border to Elite and has very bad memory? Does the skill says Marksdwarf (rusty) or anything like that?

Do fungi and cave shrubs and saplings grow on smooth muddy floors?
Another question: How do you stop dwarves from cleaning an area? They keep removing the mud in the farms.

Yep, you have to use constructed floors to keep things from growing (and even then trees and such will still grow under them, funnily enough, but not break through, so if you remove said floors there might pop up trees and such immediately).

I can't really answer the cleaning question. Are the floor smoothed or anything such? Does it effect farming if they clean away the mud after the farm has been constructed?

Alright, I'm really having a problem.  All the options for jobs in my smelter are currently in red, even though I have a supply of fuel, and there's ores to smelt all over the place.  Nothing is blocking dorfs from the smelter or the materials.

Have you been using burrows on the area the smelter is in? I believe there was a burrow-related bug causing smelters and forge to not recognise stuff as useable.
If you have, try deleting the burrow and see if it helps.