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[tryrar]

How good are lashers? The human caravan just brought a few whips for sale, and I was wondering if I should bother...

[proxn_punkd]

Quite good, if TV Tropes is telling me right. They have a tiny contact area, so they do whole worlds of hurting.

[tryrar]

Thanx. Now next question, what about pikes? I got a ton of the off the gobs, and I can't decide between using them and just melting them...

[Karlito]

Melt them. Silver war hammers are the best weapon against an armored opponent. If the opponent lacks armor, an axe or a sword will work better. Pikes and spears are somewhat effective against megabeasts: if a squad of spear wielding dwarves attacks a dragon, a few of those strikes will penetrate and damage vital organs, but they're less effective against goblins and the like. Whips have changed substantially through the course of my play (at one point they were effectively lightsabers), and I can't speak to their current effectiveness, but you're probably better off with another weapon.

[i2amroy]

Thanx. Now next question, what about pikes? I got a ton of the off the gobs, and I can't decide between using them and just melting them...

Melt them down or put them in a weapon trap. According to the raws the minimum size to wield a pike is 62500, which is greater than the average adult dwarf size of 60000. This means that all but the fattest/strongest of dwarves are going to be unable to wield pikes anyways so you might as well get something out of them. Now invaders don't really respect that limit that well, but it does still limit your dwarves.

[Tiruin]

Melt them. Silver war hammers are the best weapon against an armored opponent.

About that, you can get silver whips from goblins if you are (un)lucky. Checking the raw files, whips are damn better than hammers, very very fast, tiny contact area (bullet size?) and they give satisfying combat reports, not to mention visual effects.

Question on the above post, the size of the dwarf also increases by their weight? I thought only the height mattered, like "large for a dwarf".

[assimilateur]

Question on the above post, the size of the dwarf also increases by their weight? I thought only the height mattered, like "large for a dwarf".

There's a height and a broadness modifier for size. For it to count it probably has to be congenital, because my dwarves, who are "strapped with massive amounts of muscles and lard" after having trained for years, still refused to pick equip two-handed swords.

[Grumbledwarfskin]

Nice to hear some evidence (if only anecdotal) on the effects of strength on weight...so it doesn't seem to do anything?

About 3 in 49 dwarves are heavy enough to use a pike/halberd/two handed sword/maul/great axe in one hand, based purely on the modifiers in the raws (size 77500 required to wield the weapon in one hand, seven size modifiers for both height and broadness, largest being 105% and 125%, you need 105% * 125%, 125% * 105%, or 125% * 125% to get high enough weight), so about 12 candidates on average for large foreign weapons in a fortress of 200 dwarves.

It's possible the genetics of your civ could play a role in the chances of getting dwarves tall/broad enough, but I'm not sure the game looks at the genetics of your civ when randomly generating non-historical figures to send to your fortress. Next version genetics will have some impact, with historical figures descended from your ten founders now able to migrate to your site.

[assimilateur]

I've got a couple of alligators who've been occupying nestboxes for at least half a year now. I've got a male too, so I don't expect the eggs to be unfertilized. Am I missing something here or is their incubation period simply very (unrealistically) long?

[HammerHand]

Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong with my catapults and ballista?

Did you make sure you had ballista bolts made?  Not sure what to tell you on the catapults, though, unless you don't have anyone with the "Siege Operating" labor enabled.  It's a problematic labor, too, because your civilian siege operators will get scared by the enemies they have to shoot at, and your soldiers won't do it while on duty.  Unless that's changed since 40d, I guess.  I haven't used siege engines in a long time.  Weapon traps do the trick, though they're considerably less fun.

Also make sure you have nearby stockpiles for ammunition of both engines.  If your catapult-ammo stone stockpile is full of economic stones or mineral ores there may be significant delays between shots fired as your dwarves run all over the fortress to find suitable stone.

I've got a couple of alligators who've been occupying nestboxes for at least half a year now. I've got a male too, so I don't expect the eggs to be unfertilized. Am I missing something here or is their incubation period simply very (unrealistically) long?

This isn't the first time I've heard of trouble with breeding alligators.  From what I recall, all attempts met with failure.  But it was months ago.

[Greiger]

I have modded crocodile like creatures I'm trying to breed myself.  First clutch worked fine, all subsequent clutches seem to be failing.  Not sure what is causing it.

The hatchlings from the first clutch should be mature soon, and it's a male and female, so I'll try again with them once they grow up. (Yay for inbreeding!) But there is clearly something missing in the community's understanding of egg laying critters.

[i2amroy]

Question on the above post, the size of the dwarf also increases by their weight? I thought only the height mattered, like "large for a dwarf".

There's a height and a broadness modifier for size. For it to count it probably has to be congenital, because my dwarves, who are "strapped with massive amounts of muscles and lard" after having trained for years, still refused to pick equip two-handed swords.

In order for it to matter a dwarf also has to be rather large for their size. I believe the finding was that if a dwarf was "large for a dwarf" or if they were "exceptionally broad" then they could make up for not having the other one by being covered in muscles and lard. So while it still renders it out of reach to most dwarves, a small handful of them can reach the goal of being able to wield those weapons two handed.

[assimilateur]

When I read about muscles and lard I assumed this had to do with their broadness modifier. I mean, it would totally make sense if a buff dwarf was able to use larger weapons than a scrawny one, even if he isn't taller. But alas this seems to be a congenital stat, one that won't be modified by training. Otherwise, we can safely assume that every properly trained dwarf would be able to use two-handed weapons. It's also why I'm tempted to mod the minimum size of some of those weapons to slightly below average for a dwarf.

[Kat]

what affects the chances of 2 dwarfs getting married? is it just spending time together while being single and opposite gender? or do personalities have to fit? and if so, how?

[beefsupreme]

Wood doesn't go bad or anything, does it? I have my legendary woodcutter set to cut down every tree on the surface, and I don't have nearly the stockpile space to hold it. Will anything bad happen if I just let it sit outside?