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[Orgull]

I've started playing again and I've managed to figure out a lot of things on my own, which is part of the fun. But I'm having two problems that are driving me batshit crazy.

1) I just started a new fortress and my miner died of thirst. I tried digging down for a change instead of sprawling, so I made a main 'stairway' out of ramps. My miner dug his way down there but then couldn't get out. I tried building a food/drink storage near the miner and hauling stuff down there but no one would go more than halfway down the stairs. What am I missing regarding ramps/stairs that lets my miners dig down but then not get back up?

2) How the hell do I control stone hauling? I build a stone storage near my workshop. There are stones in the next room where I want to build a meeting hall, but the dwarves wont remove the stones form the future meeting hall. No, they follow my damn miners 5 levels down and 5 km across the map and get stones from there to fill the stockpile. Can anyone explain why? Do dwarves have a preference for which stones they like to haul?

Also, why if I start off with weapons (swords, extra battleaxe etc.) do none of my dwarves use them? Why does no one ever fight when theres a threat to the fortress? They all just stand around hauling stones and let the children and pets get killed. I must be missing something.

And how do I get my dwarves to use something? Say I manage to go through all the insanity necessary to get a forge up and running and I craft a lovely iron pick. I 'allow' mining as a job on one of my more useless immigrants. Nothing happens. Nobody ever picks up the pick and goes mining. Sigh.

I could go on all day with questions. I've tried the wiki but half of what it talks about doesn't exist in the game. "Just build farms on underground soil, dont bother with irrigation". What soil, where? I've dug over a dozen fortresses in the past month and I've never seen soil ever, anywhere. In my last fortess I got a gorgeous irrigation system going and it was useless because I ended up trading gem-encrusted crafts for meat and no one ever ate the grown food, it all just got brewed. And where the hell is all the meat coming from? Rivers never EVER have fish in them and by the time I get a butcher shop going there are no animals on the map. Yeargh! 

Signed, Frustrated in Fortressville

[Sidhien]

Yo. I just lost a long reply I was writing (grumble), but to summarize:

1) As of the latest major release, ramps are bugged. Use stairs.

2) Don't use stone stockpiles. Make a dump zone ( i, then g once you've made it) and designate the stone for dumping (d -> b -> d).

3) You need a military to get dwarves to fight. Here is the page on v31's military. You should know that on top of being insanely more complex then v28's, it also still has quite a few bugs. Very powerful when it works though. If you don't want to deal with it go to the d_init file in data -> init and change

[INVADERS:YES] to [INVADERS:NO]

4) Unless you're using Dwarf Therapist (a 3rd party tool) to assign the mining labor, no idea. Make sure the dwarves can path to the picks.

Misc) Soil - Soil layers (sand, loam, clay etc.) as opposed to stone layers (basalt, granite, limestone and the like). Although farming in soil underground was only possible in previous versions. Now you have to irrigate regardless.

Fishing woes - There was a recently fixed bug that made rivers not have any fish. And acid rain. I believe they were related.

If you're still new to df and not wildly masochistic, I suggest downloading the previous version here. It's a little easier to learn and much more stable. Also the version most tutorials were written for.

EDIT: And welcome to Dwarf Fortress!

[o_O[WTFace]]

Well first off, ramps only work in very specific situations and if you build them wrong they become one way and eat your dwarfs and your FPS's.  Just use stairs, all those need to work is a down stair one one level and an up stair below it.  UP/DOWN stairs count as both, so just build/dig those as deep as you need them. 

The underground soil everyone is talking about is cavern soil.  Find a cavern, plant stuff on the ground in it.  All you have to do to find a cavern is dig, more or less.  Its hard not to find them. 

If you don't have stuff the wiki is talking about, then search for it on the wiki.  The 2010 pages are generally incomplete, but most of the 40d stuff should still be fairly accurate, with the exception of military and healthcare. 

[MrWiggles]

If picks are in a stockpile, Dwarf cannot equip them. FWI.

[Orgull]

If picks are in a stockpile, Dwarf cannot equip them. FWI.

Ok now that helps. Explains why my dwarves never use anything I make, I make sure everything goes into stockpiles.

The underground soil everyone is talking about is cavern soil.  Find a cavern, plant stuff on the ground in it.  All you have to do to find a cavern is dig, more or less.  Its hard not to find them.

I'm down 20 levels in my current fortress. Over a dozen fortresses and I've never seen a cavern yet. I'll keep digging though.

Thanks for all the help. This round has been easier so far. (I solved my ramp issues by designing a large central stairway that can't be bugged or caved in, it works GREAT)

[Psieye]

The underground soil everyone is talking about is cavern soil.  Find a cavern, plant stuff on the ground in it.  All you have to do to find a cavern is dig, more or less.  Its hard not to find them.

I'm down 20 levels in my current fortress. Over a dozen fortresses and I've never seen a cavern yet. I'll keep digging though.

Where is the bottom of the map? Keep moving the view downwards until you see where the bottom z-level is on your map. That'll give you a rough idea of how far below the caverns are - some maps have them almost 100 z-levels below your starting point.

[MrWiggles]

For my current it was about 20 levels down, with the magma ocean at around 60 levels down, and that goes on for about 30 levels itself. @.@

[Urist McPenguin]

If picks are in a stockpile, Dwarf cannot equip them. FWI.

Quick derail, I've never noticed this issue, but come to think about it I do sometimes end up with idle dwarves that have mining activated and I've never thought much of it, figured it was a bug as its always been the dwarves that don't have any mining experience. What's the best way to retrieve these picks? I imagine either dumping and reclaiming them or dezoning the stockpile are the two best options? Or does disabling a stockpile from holding an item that's in it make that item count as no longer in the stockpile?

Back on track, is there any disadvantage to using up/down stairs instead of a down and up stair (for a shaft)? I tend to have my primary shaft as a 2x2 block of up/down stairs, would there be any pros/cons to using 2 up and 2 down (lining them up on each level of course) besides taking longer to designate?


FYI, the latest version of Dwarf Therapist (0.5.3 at time of writing) has fixed the bugs with setting mining/woodcutting labours and now works.

[Psieye]

The only benefit to using separate up and down staircases for your main shaft is that it's easier to seal back up if you happen to breach the underground caverns accidentally.

[Urist McPenguin]

The only benefit to using separate up and down staircases for your main shaft is that it's easier to seal back up if you happen to breach the underground caverns accidentally.

What about steps? Does a dwarf going up an up/down shaft move up.up.up.up and a separated one up.right.up.left.up.right.up, therefore doubling the amount of moves it takes to move Z levels? Or is there a penalty on the up/down staircase? And I imagine the up/down shaft allows for more total throughput?