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[orius]

What's the difference between the Core Quality and Total Quality categories in the stockpile menu?

[Yaotzin]

Can a flying creature move diagonally across Z levels?

From the side:

XXY
XZX

Z= critter, Y= open space, X= walls. Can the flyer get into Y?

[Imp]

What's the difference between the Core Quality and Total Quality categories in the stockpile menu?

Items themselves have quality levels, but so too do decoration levels.  And when you're working with clothing, you have both the quality of the woven cloth and the quality of the tailored clothing.

Core quality is the item itself - an 'exceptional mace' is core quality exceptional, end of story.

That same mace could be decorated with masterful decorations, changing its total quality upwards.

to quote the wiki:  So if you have *«+steel battle axe+»*, you have a +steel battle axe+ with *decorations*

a few useful wikilinks  (though to my reading, there's not been any science done on exactly how decoration/raw material quality affects total quality compared to core quality) -
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Value
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Decoration
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Quality

[Imp]

Can a flying creature move diagonally across Z levels?

From the side:

XXY
XZX

Z= critter, Y= open space, X= walls. Can the flyer get into Y?

Under there own power, I've never seen or heard of one doing so.

I've read strange and scary things about water pressure forcing objects (some alive) through places that normally these creatures could not pass.  This generall refers to grates and fortifications - but I'd be very careful about mixing pressure and liquid with that system just in case.

[Tiruin]

I've read strange and scary things about water pressure forcing objects (some alive) through places that normally these creatures could not pass.  This generally refers to grates and fortifications - but I'd be very careful about mixing pressure and liquid with that system just in case.

This does happen. Including magma flow, beware.

[Yaotzin]

2 questions:

1) Are artifact bows especially good, or do they just help the bashing heads in part?
2) How can I find a cave spider, fast? I have no silk and he demands it I don't think I've ever seen a cave spider. I always have cats around which I'll pasture somewhere, but I still have no idea where to find the spiders.

Stupid elfs only bringing their rope reed stuff as usual. Sigh.

[greycat]

If you want tons of an item, but only a specific number, the manager is a pretty handy thing to use (i.e. I need 300 blocks to finish this tower.)

Having a manager also allows you to issue an order for a job without having to zoom to the workshop, so it's nice for lazy players too.

And also, having one lets you restrict workshops to a specific set of dwarves, or a specific range of skill levels.  The manager doesn't evern have to go to her office for this; simply having the role filled activates that menu within the workshop.  So then you can set up things like one mason's shop that churns out blocks all day long (for low-skilled masons to practice), and a second mason's shop that produces high-quality furniture (restricted to high-skilled masons).

) How can I find a cave spider, fast? I have no silk and he demands it I don't think I've ever seen a cave spider.

You'll rarely actually see them, because they're vermin.  Mostly you'll see the webs they left behind.  Try the caverns (all 3 layers).  If you see webs in one of them, you can issue a "collect webs" job from a loom (the game automatically issues these if you didn't turn that option off).

You may need to send the military to explore the cavern and reveal all of it, lest you get spammed by pathing failures for webs that the weavers want to collect (they have X-ray web vision) but which aren't pathable (they can only see un-revealed webs, not un-revealed cavern tiles).

[Yaotzin]

Pity I have no military.

Venture forth, brave miners!

ah too late. Damn game.

He went Mad =( Should I order him killed before he messes up my fortress or does that make for worse thoughts?

[Tiruin]

2 questions:

1) Are artifact bows especially good, or do they just help the bashing heads in part?
2) How can I find a cave spider, fast? I have no silk and he demands it I don't think I've ever seen a cave spider. I always have cats around which I'll pasture somewhere, but I still have no idea where to find the spiders.

Stupid elfs only bringing their rope reed stuff as usual. Sigh.

Artifact bows/crossbows are amongst the most powerful ranged weapons you can get, if dwarves can wield such (which is labelled as Foreign, I think [Vanilla DF]) so you'll have trouble finding an abundant source of ammo for said bow. Bashing is a last resort option for ranged soldiers, but bashing with an artifact is better.

Generally, it asks for ANY silk cloth, meaning any spider silk can also be used. The silk is just a preference (I guess), find it by digging deeper.

[Imp]

2 questions:

1) Are artifact bows especially good, or do they just help the bashing heads in part?

Here's what the wiki says:  As ranged weapons, "The quality of the crossbow affects the accuracy of the shot, while the material of the crossbow is unimportant. "

As melee weapons: "Choosing a better material will, of course, result in a more damaging butt-stroke - but crossbows make a poor melee weapon anyway. "

2) How can I find a cave spider, fast? I have no silk and he demands it
Stupid elfs only bringing their rope reed stuff as usual. Sigh.

You may need to send the military to explore the cavern and reveal all of it, lest you get spammed by pathing failures for webs that the weavers want to collect (they have X-ray web vision) but which aren't pathable (they can only see un-revealed webs, not un-revealed cavern tiles).

Two adendums:  if you have a skilled enough bookkeeper, you can 'magically see' at least some of these webs too.  Forbid them all, then specifically unforbid those that you know your dwarves can reach - that's likely faster than getting a militia down there and the whole caverns searched out (least the way I play).  If you mean to save this dwarf, and if the elves just came - dig down and down and down.  Fast and fast and fast - find those caverns or he is toast.

Also, for your future embarks, you might want to give some thought to what items dwarves tend to ask for when they have moods that are hard for you to supply, and bring maybe 5 of each with you straight as you embark.  You can count on at least a full year and a half from the point of embark before you can reliably get whatever you ordered from the first dwarven caravan - so bring enough for a couple moods at least.  Many materials are very common, but silk/glass/yarn/shell can be difficult to produce without sustained effort to get them.

[Imp]

He went Mad =( Should I order him killed before he messes up my fortress or does that make for worse thoughts?

Kinda depends on how he went mad, and where he went after he went mad - a berzerk dwarf is often a serious problem - but one of the first ones I ever had ran outside of the fortress and kinda ravaged the outer edges of the map until a goblin ambush put him down one day.  He surely would have starved eventually or something, and if he'd wandered back inside he'd have been dangerous to the fortress, sure.  Most of the others are relatively harmless, and when they actually die that's when the fortress takes a hit to their moods, so sometimes planning for when you want a dwarf to die makes sense (or at least giving them all some time off or something to talk and destress in their dwarfy ways), though if his friends and family are happy enough already that wont be an issue.

[Yaotzin]

Good point. I set out with a hunter so yarn was no concern, but I had no real hope for silk and probably other things.

Speaking of shells, why do I *always* get turtles when fishing? Can I mod it for some more variety or something?

[Sphalerite]

He went Mad =( Should I order him killed before he messes up my fortress or does that make for worse thoughts?

If he went berserk, he will automatically become hostile, and you can order your military to kill him safely (and probably should do so, before he kills other dwarves). If he went insane or melancholy, you can't order him killed, but he will eventually die on his own.

[Sphalerite]

Speaking of shells, why do I *always* get turtles when fishing? Can I mod it for some more variety or something?

Because your fisherdwarf is fishing in a biome where turtles are the only fishable creatures - presumably murky ponds in a swamp biome.  If you have a river or brook, you can set create an activity zone for fishing on it and then set the option to force zone-only fishing, and then you should get river/brook fish instead.

[greycat]

Also, for your future embarks, you might want to give some thought to what items dwarves tend to ask for when they have moods that are hard for you to supply, and bring maybe 5 of each with you straight as you embark.  You can count on at least a full year and a half from the point of embark before you can reliably get whatever you ordered from the first dwarven caravan - so bring enough for a couple moods at least.  Many materials are very common, but silk/glass/yarn/shell can be difficult to produce without sustained effort to get them.

Unfortunately you can't embark with shells.  Nor can you request them from the caravans.  Shells are only produced when you process raw shell-bearing "fish", and you cannot get raw fish/turtles/etc. from your civilization.

(Assuming an un-modded game.)

I have all of my workshops (except querns) in walled areas, and later I put doors in the entry points.  The primary purpose for these doors is being able to lock a moody dwarf inside the workshop if she's about to go insane.  That will prevent her from taking anyone else out with her, while she slowly dies of thirst.