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[plisskin]

EDIT: Many thanks to the denizens of this forum for their advice.

Hey first post and hello. Time to stop lurking for me.

Been playing fresh out of n00b academy for a few days and run a few fortresses, most of which I've abandoned in the course of just messing about or had die due to crashes. I've compiled a list of questions that I needed answered in further detail than I've found on existing guides.

1. Butcher Shop mayhem!

Making a butcher shop thus far has been a mess. I can't seem to get the butcher to separate the fresh meat from the corpses and make sure nothing rots. Basically, I need someone to hold my hand through what exact kind of stockpile to put next to the butcher shop for prepared meats, what kind of stockpile to put as my trash heap and what containers I need to keep the meat from going bad. My most recent attempt at a butcher shop ended up with miasma all over the place because these guys can't tell where to put anything. What parameters should I set for the stockpiles around the shop? What tasks should I be setting my butcher to do? How do I get him to collect fresh corpses reliably?

2. Stockpile! Why won't they put the right things on the correct stockpile?

Whenever I distinguish exacting standards for stockpiles the dorfs don't seem to want to put anything on them. For example: Furniture / Doors, Tables, Chairs / Wood. I'll set those parameters, or . . . at least I think I have. The shops just pile up with the goods and they aren't placed where they should. I've got a stockpile specifically set up to accept nothing but stone doors next to my mason, and yet they aren't hauling them aside to make way for more. Is there any way I could be screwing up the details of how to organize a specific-goods stockpile? Do I need to make sure I hit the forbid/permit commands in a certain way? Do I need to make sure I permit all qualities of goods?

Also, the corpses of animals dragged in by cats seem to pile up everywhere they shouldn't and, curiously, generate no miasma. And the dorfs will not haul them off to a corpse/refuse pile pile, even if commanded to dump them in a garbage dump zone. And I have found no way to make any other use of them. Can these things be butchered? Am I just stuck with toad corpses dragged in by my housecat army?

EDIT: Solved these problems by making sure that all qualities of goods were accepted, permitting metals due to all stone types being listed amongst them and making sure there were enough haulers around and ready to rid the place of vermin corpses.

3. Go hunt, you layabout!

When I tell a dorf to hunt, he sits on his lazy ass and does not hunt. Do I need a ranged weapon for him? Can't he just go piledrive some marmots since everyone's starving?

EDIT: They need ranged weapons or direct orders to slaughter.

4. Forts lost due to CTDs!

EDIT: Was using the OS X port and suffered CTDs. Reinstalled it in WINE and I'm livin' breezy now.

[NecroRebel]

All forms of meat, including the various prepared organs, go into a food stockpile. Setting a custom stockpile to accept only meat will store those there. Barrels will make storage more efficient, space-wise, and will help prevent loss of food from vermin (usually a fairly minor concern). As for the other stuff the butcher produces, they go into a refuse stockpile. However, you may find it more effective to make a refuse stockpile that accepts only bones, hooves and horns, shells, and teeth, as those are the actually-useful parts that will keep. Make sure none of your refuse stocks accept fresh raw hide and put your tanner's shop near the butcher's, and then periodically manually dump all the other useless crap that piles up in your butcher's shops.

If your butcher's shop is outside, and your have the (o)rders set so that (r)efuse (o)utside is ignored (which it is by default), your dwarves will not haul that refuse, nor will they dump those things. You may also have inadvertently set your orders such that your dwarves ignore all refuse, in which case they'll ignore all refuse.



As for stockpiles, there's one very likely problem you're having, and one possible problem. First, the possible problem. You say you enabled doors, tables, and chairs made of wood. Might you have inadvertently disabled all of the qualities? Your dwarves won't store a *wood door* in a stockpile that doesn't allow *items*, so you must also have all, or at least some, of the base-quality and total-quality options active. Also, furniture can't be stockpiled on a square that includes a stone, so that'll stop storage.

Second, the very likely problem. You made a stockpile to accept only stone doors. I take that to mean that you disabled all metals on that stockpile's furniture list? Because that is a problem. You see, every type of stone is listed, individually, under metals (due to a bug), so if you allow stone but disallow all metals, you're essentially allowing any stone in general except every one in particular. So, nothing can get put in there. Allow metals, or just disable the "real" metals, to fix that problem.



Vermin corpses cats drag in go into refuse stockpiles set to accept... body parts? Corpses? I don't remember, exactly, as I long ago decided that cats were more trouble than they were worth. Those vermin corpses are totally useless. See my comments on the butcher's shop for why they might be getting ignored due to orders.



IIRC hunting requires a ranged weapon. I've not used it in the new versions, so I'm not sure. You may find it easier to draft your hunters into the military and manually give them kill orders for stuff you want hunted.

[Nameless Archon]

1. Butcher Shop mayhem!

Making a butcher shop thus far has been a mess. I can't seem to get the butcher to separate the fresh meat from the corpses and make sure nothing rots. Basically, I need someone to hold my hand through what exact kind of stockpile to put next to the butcher shop for prepared meats, what kind of stockpile to put as my trash heap and what containers I need to keep the meat from going bad.

For a large meat processing operation (like for elephants) you will almost certainly need:

1. Multiple butchers.
2. Multiple butcher's shops.
3. A designated garbage ZONE (i->g)
4. A corpse stockpile for hunted corpses.
5. Some way to deal with skins (tanners or garbage dumping).
6. Enough haulers to haul the meat to a food (Meat) stockpile.
7. A Food (Meat) stockpile to haul the prepared meat to.

Create butcher shops. Make sure butchers are idle. Supply corpses. Wait. Prepared meats won't rot unless they're left in the butcher's shop. Make sure you have haulers to move them away. Skins must be tanned or disposed of, or they will rot. Several items (cartilage, nervous tissue) will rot but have no use. Dump these.

My most recent attempt at a butcher shop ended up with miasma all over the place because these guys can't tell where to put anything.

Use a garbage chute or doors to block the flow of miasma. Dump items until you have cleared all rotten items, and begin anew.

What parameters should I set for the stockpiles around the shop? What tasks should I be setting my butcher to do? How do I get him to collect fresh corpses reliably?

I think it's just "Corpses". Your butcher will need butchery. Your haulers will need refuse hauling (to dump things you designate) and/or food hauling (to move meat to stockpiles).

2. Stockpile! Why won't they put the right things on the correct stockpile?

For the most part, they do. Some items aren't stock-able, like wooden blocks.

Whenever I distinguish exacting standards for stockpiles the dorfs don't seem to want to put anything on them. For example: Furniture / Doors, Tables, Chairs / Wood. I'll set those parameters, or . . . at least I think I have. The shops just pile up with the goods and they aren't placed where they should. I've got a stockpile specifically set up to accept nothing but stone doors next to my mason, and yet they aren't hauling them aside to make way for more. Is there any way I could be screwing up the details of how to organize a specific-goods stockpile? Do I need to make sure I hit the forbid/permit commands in a certain way? Do I need to make sure I permit all qualities of goods?

Do you have enough haulers? Do they have the labor? Is a burrow interfering? Does your stockpile limit quality, stone types, or other criteria that might eliminate your doors?

Also, the corpses of animals dragged in by cats seem to pile up everywhere they shouldn't and, curiously, generate no miasma.

If vermin corpses generated miasma, no one would play DF for long.

And the dorfs will not haul them off to a corpse/refuse pile pile, even if commanded to dump them in a garbage dump zone.

Do you have dwarves set to ignore vermin corpses? Have you manually designated them for dumping? It's not automatic...

3. Go hunt, you layabout!

When I tell a dorf to hunt, he sits on his lazy ass and does not hunt. Do I need a ranged weapon for him? Can't he just go piledrive some marmots since everyone's starving?

If starvation is a problem, herbalism is your go-to "quickie" solution. Hunting requires the labor, a quiver, bolts and a ranged weapon. If you don't have those items, you won't have a hunt, and if your hunter isn't exceptionally lucky or reasonably skilled, you won't hunt meat for food quickly.

If you have the bows, bolts, and quivers, however, hunting can supply large amounts of food (multiple elephants per herd) if you have multiple hunters of decent skill. Be wary of overwhelming your butchers with corpses.

[Schmlok]

-There is a new collect vermin corpse option in .18 I believe.

-You can practice with stockpiles by making generic ones and filling normally, then creating customs and using the "take from stockpile" to see what it grabs.
-Also I prefer to make default stockpiles and pare them down rather than customs.  Only gets me with placing bins when I want 0 default.

-Crashing:  what are your embark dimensions? Z-levels in height on your embarks?  Large embarks and lots of Z can quickly fill up ram+swap.

[plisskin]

Woo thanks guys.

Do you have enough haulers? Do they have the labor? Is a burrow interfering? Does your stockpile limit quality, stone types, or other criteria that might eliminate your doors?

I realize my problem here: the quality modifiers. I'm pretty sure that this is the issue I was having with them: I'd "disable" everything and then demand the stockpile consist of very specific things . . . minus the quality fields. I assumed that they accepted all qualities if the section was disabled, but it looks like the game works strictly based on things being set up as "On/Off." If its Off, it's Off. Fortress = big logic puzzle.

I also think I'm overworking my dorfs: I'm so rushed to get everything set up as I see their food and alcohol reserves dwindling that by the time I'm setting up stockpiles for crafts they already have five to ten tasks lined up for them and there just aren't enough haulers around to do things in a set order. I haven't gotten the hang of micromanaging their labors yet since it's easy to lose track of them all running around doing X, Y or Z thing. I'm guessing there's probably a program out there, or two, that allows for easier task management.

Sometimes there'll be a load of migrants sitting around the common room doing nothing even though I've told them to haul. I'll try telling them all to do nothing but haul.

Second, the very likely problem. You made a stockpile to accept only stone doors. I take that to mean that you disabled all metals on that stockpile's furniture list? Because that is a problem. You see, every type of stone is listed, individually, under metals (due to a bug), so if you allow stone but disallow all metals, you're essentially allowing any stone in general except every one in particular. So, nothing can get put in there. Allow metals, or just disable the "real" metals, to fix that problem.

I had no idea that such a bug existed! I'll allow for metal/stone both, then, or find the droids I'm looking for within the metals category. It's hard to figure out exactly what kind of material is considered what sometimes. I just want to make sure I'm not hauling goods all the way across my fort just because I've started crafting metal goods and haulers are sending them up to my mason's stockpile.

I'm also seeing that having a small squad of dedicated haulers is a good idea. Hate to waste a skilled dorf on just hauling things, but that's what lazy migrants are for, right?

All forms of meat, including the various prepared organs, go into a food stockpile. Setting a custom stockpile to accept only meat will store those there. Barrels will make storage more efficient, space-wise, and will help prevent loss of food from vermin (usually a fairly minor concern). As for the other stuff the butcher produces, they go into a refuse stockpile. However, you may find it more effective to make a refuse stockpile that accepts only bones, hooves and horns, shells, and teeth, as those are the actually-useful parts that will keep. Make sure none of your refuse stocks accept fresh raw hide and put your tanner's shop near the butcher's, and then periodically manually dump all the other useless crap that piles up in your butcher's shops.

I'm getting the picture now. Butchery seems like a pretty big operation that requires a lot of space. I was trying to be like "Oh, I'll just tuck my butcher shop into a corner over here by my kitchen and brewery and etc." It looks like it'll require a walled-off external butchery zone or it's own big section underneath the farm/cooking/brewing quarters. I'll need to have several "mats" of stockpiles for efficient sorting, and probably set a burrow over the butcher shop and have an assigned "butcher's assistant" who stays there and just hauls prepped meat into barrels, tosses all the craftable discards into a pile and then dumps the rest into the garbage zone aka "The Purple Room."

Crashing:  what are your embark dimensions? Z-levels in height on your embarks?  Large embarks and lots of Z can quickly fill up ram+swap.

I'm not sure about the Z-level count, but my embarks are always the standard 4x4. Maybe I should stick to a 3x4 or a 3x3. Should I try embarking on some lowlands, or can I manually limit the Z-count myself?

[Bobinater]

I'm guessing there's probably a program out there, or two, that allows for easier task management.

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=66525.0 The game is literally unplayable without it

[Jurph]

I like to place my butcher's shop and tanner's shop in 5x5 rooms that hang off of the corner of a 1x1 diagonal doorway.  Another way to visualize it is to make a single 1x1 "notch" in the wall of a hallway, and dig two 5x5 rooms off of the corners of that notch.  You can connect them to each other if you like -- the goal is that the diagonal doorway functions as a miasma airlock and prevents your mistakes from offending the dorfs' delicate sensibilities ("Silk clothing soaked in goblin blood?  Sweet!  Booze until I'm in a stupor?  Awesome!  Smell of rotten meat?  WORLD-ENDING SORROW!").

Build a tanner's shop in the center of one 5x5, and a butcher's shop in the center of the other.  Around the tanner's shop lay a stockpile that accepts Fresh Raw Hide, but does not accept Rotten Raw Hide.  Around the butcher's shop lay two separate types of stockpiles: one that accepts meat, and uses barrels; the other that holds stacks of any kind of bone/skull/horn/shell/ivory.  Elsewhere in your fort you'll want to add these piles:
 
A leather pile in your garment district should accept Leather / Tanned Hide, and use bins.
A refuse pile outside should accept Rotten Raw Hide and pull from the tanner's pile.
A bone pile near a craftsdwarf workshop should accept bones, skulls, horn, and teeth, and pull from the butcher's bone pile.
A meat pile near your kitchens should accept all meat, and pull from the butcher's meat pile.

In this manner, the outputs of each operation can be hauled a very short distance to somewhere that's miasma-safe and greatly reduces rotting.  In the unlikely event of miasma, the diagonal airlock will keep it from spreading to the rest of the fort.  You should also probably build an animal breeding room (with a kennel, an Animal stockpile, and plenty of 2x1 wall nooks for ropes and cages) near your butcher's shop to reduce the likelihood of animals being released because your butcher got thirsty during his hike from the cages to the chopping block.

[Nameless Archon]

I also think I'm overworking my dorfs: I'm so rushed to get everything set up as I see their food and alcohol reserves dwindling that by the time I'm setting up stockpiles for crafts they already have five to ten tasks lined up for them and there just aren't enough haulers around to do things in a set order. I haven't gotten the hang of micromanaging their labors yet since it's easy to lose track of them all running around doing X, Y or Z thing. I'm guessing there's probably a program out there, or two, that allows for easier task management.

Yes. If you don't already have a Dwarf Therapist, go get one.

Go. Get. One. Now.

I'm also seeing that having a small squad of dedicated haulers is a good idea. Hate to waste a skilled dorf on just hauling things, but that's what lazy migrants are for, right?

Yes. Early on, when the fort is small, your dwarves can probably manage their own hauling. Once you get to ~40-50 dwarves, you start to notice it become harder to find jobs for everyone without creating a Too Much Stuff problem. By the time you ave 80-100 dwarves, you probably have some idle dwarves doing hauling just from the logistics of trying to keep them all 100% busy.

I'm getting the picture now. Butchery seems like a pretty big operation that requires a lot of space.

It can be done small, but you have to think about what's coming in and what's going out, and how you'll get it there, because unlike stonecrafts, foodcrafts can rot, and rot makes dwarves very unhappy.

I was trying to be like "Oh, I'll just tuck my butcher shop into a corner over here by my kitchen and brewery and etc." It looks like it'll require a walled-off external butchery zone or it's own big section underneath the farm/cooking/brewing quarters.

I've tucked my butcher's shops into the same area as my kitchens/stills/farmersworkshops... but I note that butchers shops aren't usually 100% hands off, because you need to monitor for rotting items if there's a backlog.

Using "take from pile" can help with skins, as Jurph notes, but it doesn't help with rotting food items, which must be manually dumped.

then dumps the rest into the garbage zone aka "The Purple Room."

Assuming 2+ z-levels are available, you can build a 1x1 garbage chute connected diagonally to your fortress that requires no doors and is 100% miasma proof.

can I manually limit the Z-count myself?

Yes, if you use "create new world with advanced parameters" you can control the number of Z-levels to a degree.

[plisskin]

Thanks for the guide, Jurph and Nameless. I'm trying out a little underground butchery complex as we speak I type and I'll try to use these tips. Also working on my first fishery from a brook, although some Elk keep menacing my poor civilians. They appear ot be giving them dirty looks or something because they're running away from those Elk at all cost.

Yes. If you don't already have a Dwarf Therapist, go get one.

Go. Get. One. Now.

I'm using OS X, is there a d/l for a Mac-compatible version on the site? I wasn't able to find one.

Assuming 2+ z-levels are available, you can build a 1x1 garbage chute connected diagonally to your fortress that requires no doors and is 100% miasma proof.

Is that a 1x1 square channel chipped into the corner of a room with a garbage dump zone placed over it? A sort of sneaky quantum storage setup that drops down a level or two?

I noticed that with my first butchering operation, the food seemed to rot FAST. Like, IRL seconds fast. How long does it take to get nasty?

Yes, if you use "create new world with advanced parameters" you can control the number of Z-levels to a degree.

I tried making a smaller game world and starting from a lower elevation and so far no crashes, and I'm down a few levels and up to 11 dwarves which is where I'd tend to crash. We'll see what happens.

[Maklak]

I set up a part of my butchering industry outside. I have a big refuse pile that accepts corpses, and next to it 2 butcher's shops, 2 or 3 tanneries (with no stockpiles for raw hides, so they have to take form butcher's directly). This seems to work well, and there is no miasma.

My leather stockpile is inside next to leatherworks.

I have a bone / hoof / horn / ivory stockpile next to my craftdwarf's workshops.

Outside I have one refuse stockpile set to accept useless parts (hair, catriliege (or whtever it is spelled)). I dump it's contents periodically. No othere stockpile accepts these parts.

With some cage traps and farms I have too much food.

[brucemo]

There are a variety of "normal" places to be in the DF world:

1) Underground with a natural roof over you.  Stuff rots here, and this is a bad thing due to miasma.

2) Aboveground, exposed to threats with daggers and arrows and so on.  Stuff that rots doesn't produce miasma here, but things can walk up to you and kill you.  You'll also get rained and snowed on, which makes dwarves unhappy.

3) Aboveground, walled off.  This stops things without wings, but if there is a hill nearby, ranged things might shoot over the walls, you still get snowed and rained on, and things with wings do exist.  If you take a little care you can probably be okay with this, and have your farms and refuse pile and butcher/tanner operation outside safely.

4) Aboveground, walled off, with a roof over you.  You can make a building with no way in, including doors and open roof, except from underground.  No rain, no snow, no miasma, no getting shot or hacked to death.

5) Underground, in a place that was exposed to sky at some point via channeling or cave-in, but has been roofed over.  This is the same as the previous case, and ususally easier and cheaper to do.

You can put a butcher shop and a refuse pile in any of the above places.  There are persistent drawbacks to some of them.  Others have few or no drawbacks but require some planning, digging, and/or construction.  The work necessary to do the last one is trivial -- rather than digging out a room right below the surface, you start on the surface and channel it out, then you roof over it.  Roofing over a room is simple, especially if you use something like DwarfTherapist to assign everyone the mason labor (you can use the workshop "Profile" to make sure that only your mason can work in the workshop while you are doing this).

So what I'm working up to saying is that if take advantage of the fact that stuff doesn't produce miasma outside, you won't have to worry about miasma being produced inside.

[Nameless Archon]

Thanks for the guide, Jurph and Nameless. I'm trying out a little underground butchery complex as we speak I type and I'll try to use these tips. Also working on my first fishery from a brook, although some Elk keep menacing my poor civilians. They appear ot be giving them dirty looks or something because they're running away from those Elk at all cost.

Most citizens will flee from wildlife. Hunters will (mostly) eliminate this problem, but will also put an extra burden on your butchers (elephants take a while, you know?).

Yes. If you don't already have a Dwarf Therapist, go get one.

I'm using OS X, is there a d/l for a Mac-compatible version on the site? I wasn't able to find one.

I don't think so - at least, not that I'm seeing. There's a version for Linux, however.

...and I was, able to find a guide to installing Linux applications under OSX, if you're willing to take a look. That might allow you to run both Dwarf Fortress and Dwarf Therapist under OSX as Linux applications, if you wish.

Is that a 1x1 square channel chipped into the corner of a room with a garbage dump zone placed over it? A sort of sneaky quantum storage setup that drops down a level or two?

Just so.

I noticed that with my first butchering operation, the food seemed to rot FAST. Like, IRL seconds fast. How long does it take to get nasty?

Very little, from your perspective or mine. (I can't be more specific, the wiki is vague.) Make sure your haulers can handle the load before you embark on a mass butchering operation or start butchering large animals.

The wiki has information about biomes you might find instructive if you plan to use hunters, or if you're planning a butchering operation (meat/fat yields, product values, etc.). If you plan to rely heavily on hunting, you may wish to choose to start learning with a location in a good, tropical forest, which yields unicorn and elephant products. Butchering an elephant or two can provide a LOT of food, to say nothing of their higher intrinsic product value, likewise with unicorns. (You'll also probably be able to find sun berries and possibly whip vines, for your herbalists to pick and your planters to grow.)

4) Aboveground, walled off, with a roof over you.  You can make a building with no way in, including doors and open roof, except from underground.  No rain, no snow, no miasma, no getting shot or hacked to death.

5) Underground, in a place that was exposed to sky at some point via channeling or cave-in, but has been roofed over.  This is the same as the previous case, and ususally easier and cheaper to do.

Huh. I've applied this to underground farming of aboveground plants, but never thought to apply it to rot. To the NEW FORTRESS BUTTON, Urist!

[plisskin]

Maklak: Your butcher setup sounds pretty nice, although for now I'm already pretty much locked into an underground operation. Just setting up the shop is making for some gruesome imagery. Getting assigned to butcher shop duty is like being sent to Antarctica for the winter.

Brucemo: Next fort I'm definitely going to make a giant butcher's pit. Apparently once the earth sees the sky it believes it is the surface forevermore.

...and I was, able to find a guide to installing Linux applications under OSX, if you're willing to take a look. That might allow you to run both Dwarf Fortress and Dwarf Therapist under OSX as Linux applications, if you wish.

Thank you.

If you plan to rely heavily on hunting, you may wish to choose to start learning with a location in a good, tropical forest, which yields unicorn and elephant products.

Those sound like intimidating quarry, but sure. I've been trying to embark in plant-heavy areas due to my n00bish need for emergency supplies so next time I'll head further towards the equator.


Also, do trade caravans get picky about what they're willing to take? I had a stonecrafter making mugs for two seasons in hopes that the next caravan would buy up the lot, but they didn't even want a single mug. I rushed to start making crafts but it was too late: they'd flown it.

[bowie]

Also, do trade caravans get picky about what they're willing to take? I had a stonecrafter making mugs for two seasons in hopes that the next caravan would buy up the lot, but they didn't even want a single mug. I rushed to start making crafts but it was too late: they'd flown it.

Ready both your face and your palm:
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Trading

[Jurph]

Also, do trade caravans get picky about what they're willing to take? I had a stonecrafter making mugs for two seasons in hopes that the next caravan would buy up the lot, but they didn't even want a single mug. I rushed to start making crafts but it was too late: they'd flown it.

Can you be more specific about what happened here?  Specifically, I'm interested to the answers to these questions:

• Did you manage to move all of the items to your Trade Depot?
• Did your broker have sufficient appraisal skill to understand that mugs are individually very inexpensive?
• Did you try to trade the mugs to the elves in wooden bins?
• How did you conclude that they "didn't want a single mug"?