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[Electric]

Ok, so I've been on these forums for a bit, a month maybe. And people just seem to know how to do EVERYTHING.
There are plenty of things newbies need to know how to do, including myself.
Including, but not limited to:
How do you move creatures with such precision, I read a post where a dude said he dropped 3 puppies into a pit. How did he do it?
How to pump water. How do you use pumps effectively.
Causing cave-ins. These seem kinda hard to do on purpose. I can't seem to get it.
These are all common knowledge to lots of forumers, so can anyone explain or ask more newbie questions?

[Tai_MT]

The puppies one I can handle...  The rest, I simply didn't care to learn, 'cause I could find no viable use for them.

Well, the pumps thing, I just generally connect my pumps to waterwheels or windmills....  And I don't use them in the ways that other players do.  I generally use my water pumps to get water DOWN levels without increasing pressure and causing the water to fill and flood my entire fortress.

Puppies is easy.

Make a pit.  Put a zone over the pit (i button).  Mark the zone as "pit".  You can then hit "P" from the main screen and assign an animal to your pit.  The dwarf will then lead said animal to the pit and drop it in...

Though, it's been a while since I've "pitted" anything, so I'm not sure if this has changed or not.

[Electric]

thanks. lol now I can pit enemies!
Any other questions or answers? This could help lots of people, or just me, either way I'm happy.

[Scarpa]

Pitting enemies can be Fun. My advice is to place your cage stockpile close to the pit, some enemies can be slippery and get away en route to the pit.

Pump usage is something you just gotta try. The wiki helps but it's best just to build some and learn via experimentation.

Cave-ins can range from trivial to elaborate trigger based mayhem. The easiest way to cavein is to channel around a floor until it's unsupported. You could also build a support, link it to a lever and then channel/deconstruct all other supports. Then pull the lever and watch the magic knockout dust fly.

Embrace the 'losing is fun' and 'dwarfy'*  mentality and you'll learn fast.

*(meaning uneccesarily dangerous and complex)

[mrbaggins]

Pumps are epically useful, and I've only made one!

Well worth learning. The wiki is great for these.

Short version is:
Make the three pieces (Pipe, Enourmous Corkscrew, Block).

Then have an architect (you probably need to assign someone this labor) go put it together.

When placing it, it is exactly like a workshop. The dark green spot ends up as a wall. Nothing can go through it, including water.
The lightgreen spot is where a dwarf will stand if they're pumping it manually.

You pump water from the level below and behind the light spot, to the spot directly in front of the dark spot.
Side View:

########
#__Xx ###
#####~~~~

The # are solid rock walls.
The _ is where the water comes out
The X is the Dark part of the pump, which acts as a wall
The x is where you stand to pump.
The ~ is water on the next level down. (You'll need to channel the hole)

[Electric]

Ok, I see, so like:
Floor with prosecuted:
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
Floor above:
CCCCCCC
CXXXXXC
CXXXXXC
CXXXXXC
CXXXXXC
CCCCCCC
?
And what are pipes useful FOR? The only reason you ever need water is sick dwarves and for cleaning, so why not just bring it in by bucket?

[twilightdusk]

And what are pipes useful FOR? The only reason you ever need water is sick dwarves and for cleaning, so why not just bring it in by bucket?

getting mass quantities of water up z-levels, applications range from as simple as water for farming with, to as elaborate as water cannon based defense systems.

Pumping magma up from the magma sea is also useful on non-volcano maps.

[Il Palazzo]

The only use of pipes currently is as a component of pumps. You can't use them to play the Mad Plumber.
To play the Mad Plumber, you must use channels, tunnels, floodgates, floor hatches, bridges, pumps, doors, water, magma, goblins and whatever else you can put your hands on.

[Fishbulb]

And what are pipes useful FOR? The only reason you ever need water is sick dwarves and for cleaning, so why not just bring it in by bucket?

Drowning invaders. Drowning elf trading caravans. Drowning injured dwarves that will never walk again. Drowning nobles.

And, when you foolishly put floor hatch on your high-pressure water pipe rather than just flooring it off, drowning the whole damn fort when a building destroyer makes it past your perimeter.

[mrbaggins]

Ok, I see, so like:
Floor with prosecuted:
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
Floor above:
CCCCCCC
CXXXXXC
CXXXXXC
CXXXXXC
CXXXXXC
CCCCCCC
?
And what are pipes useful FOR? The only reason you ever need water is sick dwarves and for cleaning, so why not just bring it in by bucket?

That first question didn't make sense.... to me anyway...

As for the second and what pumps are useful for... Imagine you're near the coast, and need fresh water for dwarves. The only fresh water is the river ALL the way over the other side. Sure, you can send a hapless dwarf with a bucket, but he's likely to be eaten by a grue. Build an aqueduct! Pump that water over! Make a reservoir and store a years supply of water!

I used it to pump the water from my farm overflow chamber back into another farm plot on the same level. But I can see them being really nice for moving large amounts of water around... I really should embark on a river for my next fort. Maybe even in a freezing/cold area.

[Nameless Archon]

The ability and desire to alter the landscape to suit is a dwarven hallmark. Pumps facilitate the relocation of liquids as desired. Among their uses:

1. A push trap or "toilet trap", to wash foes off bridges, into pits, onto spikes, into a dragon's pit, etc.
2. One word: Magma. Okay, two words: Magma trap. All right, THREE words: !!Dwarven Magma Deathtrap!!
3. Irrigation for farming on a large scale, or large underground tree farms.
4. Providing power for millstones and other machines. (See also: Water reactor on the wiki, a dwarven perpetual motion machine.)
5. Desalination requires pumps to get fresh water from salt water en masse.
6. Building a binary adder.

Pumps are practically a must have at some point.

Cave-ins occur when a section of geometry (floors, walls, etc) doesn't have anything holding it up. This is defined as having no orthogonal (up/down/west/east/north/south) connection to a piece of geometry comprised of stable ground. If you sever the last connection (leaving a floating chunk of rock/dirt, even if it's only a single floor tile) it will cave in, causing panic, death and destruction below it. The wiki also has an article on this that may help.

The wiki: df.magmawiki.com

Enjoy.

[Scarpa]

And what are pipes useful FOR? The only reason you ever need water is sick dwarves and for cleaning, so why not just bring it in by bucket?

Ooh goody you've given me the perfect excuse to dig up this old pic of mine. You can't do THIS with buckets....

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[mrbaggins]

I'm not entirely sure what I'm seeing there... (I use a tileset >.>)

But I like it.

Is the red magma, or blood in the water?

And where does the water come from to fill the trap?

[Fellhuhn]

The red is blood washed away from the water. Most likely the water comes from above, where it was pumped with the help of some pipes and pumps.

[Scarpa]

Yep, the red is the blood from that pile of goblins my champion took care of. This was a classic 'wrong lever' scenario that had my champions stuck in the trap area initially. They were drowning/learning to swim and I had to open the front gate to let them and the flood out whereby they proceeded to anhiliate the invaders in spectacular fashion.

The water came from a 10x10x7z cistern above the trade depot area. And yes, copious amounts of pumps, axles, waterwheels were used.