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[randyshipp]

Hi folks!  I've only gotten into this game in the last three days or so, so please bear with my stupid questions and feel free to give me links to existing answers...I'll read if I know where to go!  I have a million questions, but I'll start with this one:

First, my fortress has 24 or so dwarfs in it after one or two waves of newcomers.  I'm mostly trying to follow the advice in the Quickstart Guide for this first serious attempt, and I'm almost wrapping up the portion above the first "Checkpoint."  In other words, I'm building bedrooms like mad, trying in vain to understand how to get stockpiles, garbage dumps, and a million other things to work, and trying to get my basic industries up and running.  I dug into my hillside without really thinking about where the hell my farms would get their water, so I had to do a fair amount just to get a measly 2-square rain pool to flood a room of black sand.  I'm sure that's not good.

Anyway, the issue for this post is that my expedition leader came down with a bad case of the strange moods, specifically the possessed sort.  He's holed up in the mechanic's shop and won't come out.  I've read what I can find in the wiki, and it would seem he thinks we don't have whatever sort of materials he needs to construct his masterpiece.  At this point, I don't really care about the quality of whatever he makes...I just don't want my leader/bookkeeper/appraiser/broker/etc. to die.  When I check the workshop, he's asking for "stone...rock" and "cloth...thread".  I have stone coming out of my ears, so the only thing I can figure is that he's looking for something specific which I don't have.  His Facebook profile lists "bituminous coal" as one of his favorite things...is it possible he's holding out for that?  As for the cloth, I guess he's picky about that, too?  I have the pig tail fiber cloth I brought with me on embark, but he's not budging.  Thoughts?

Randy...

[Nameless Archon]

Moody (including possessed) dwarves repeat ALL ingredients they need, even if you have them (or they've already gathered them) as long as there is at least one they do not have.

stone...rock, cloth...thread likely means he needs both a stone and a unit of silk cloth (or possibly animal cloth, like wool and so forth). If you have the stone on hand, but not the cloth in the fortress, he will keep repeating the request until you have thread to amke cloth and/or the cloth or he fails to craft his artifact. Failing to craft has bad consequences for that dwarf, and can cause much Fun for the fortress.

Note that dwarves won't distinguish between items of the same type (eg. stone 1 = stone 2), but will distinguish between two different TYPES of items, and cloth(silk) isn't the same as cloth(plant). (This isn't immediately intuitive, but can be seen in the embark screen, where Cloth has three listings, one for silk, one for plant, and one for yarn.)

[Birdy Bot]

Hey Randy, welcome to DF!


If I'm reading your post right, looks like while you've got the stone for your Bossman's mood, you're missing the thread. I don't suppose you happened to bring any on your embark, so you'll have to make it the old fashioned way.

Your best bet (IMO) is probably to quickly harvest some top-side plants that are fiberous, like rope-reed, and build a loom to process the plants into thread.

Either that, or wait with sweating palms for a trader to come, who hopefully has some thread in his pack.

Good luck!

[billybobfred]

Moody dwarves who want thread or cloth are very picky about the type. They'll want animal wool, plant fiber (pig tails or rope reeds), or spider silk, and won't accept the two other kinds.

[Minnakht]

Moody dwarves who want thread or cloth are very picky about the type. They'll want animal wool, plant fiber (pig tails or rope reeds), or spider silk, and won't accept the two other kinds.

True. And that's a problem, as obtaining silk cloth is quite problematic and involves caverns.

If you brought any llamas or sheep or alpacas or such with you, try shearing them at a Farmer's Workshop, then spinning the thread, then weaving it... that's one possibility.

[randyshipp]

So, to make sure I'm getting this:

He's probably NOT picky about what sort of stone it is?  He should use the dolomite or quartzite or slate or microcline or whatever is laying around?  But it's likely he DOES want a type of cloth other than plant fiber, since he's not showing any interest in pig tail fiber cloth?

[Newbunkle]

I won't repeat the advice above, but just a few comments on the rest of your post:

- The guide is a little out of date. There used to be a bug where you had to irrigate soil layers before you could use them, but in recent versions you don't have to. You should be able to build a farm plot on sand without irrigating it first.

- Bedrooms give positive thoughts to dwarves, but if you can't keep up with demand consider building a dormitory instead. Dorms don't give happy thoughts, but they at least protect you from negative thoughts (i.e. slept in dirt). They're especially useful to handle sudden large migrant waves while you're building proper bedrooms.

[Birdy Bot]

Yeah, you got it Randy.


I find, and this may just be my experience, that possessed (or other moody) dwarves have a certain order that they want to add their ingredients. So, your expedition leader is getting hung up on being threadless, despite the fact that he could grab all the stone he could dream of. I think that once you get the thread, he'll burst into action, and after grabbing some thread, he'll grab up the scattered stone he needs too.

[randyshipp]

Sadly, though, he wants a type of cloth I don't have.  I'm not totally against the idea of figuring out whether I have a way to make thread and cloth from animals, but I'm still very shaky on how to get dwarves to do exactly the tasks I want them to do, or how to get materials moved around the way they need to.  For example, I have a Fishery that I could swear has storage around it for uncleaned fish, but it sits idle...but z, Stocks says I have 70+ uncleaned fish.  No idea where the disconnect is.  Sigh.

[Skivverus]

Well, for the fishing, I'd suspect "no fish cleaners" as your culprit. As for the rest of it, the advice given so far is good - I'd add that if it shows up in time, the next caravan will probably have usable cloth, although it can be a bit expensive for a new fort more interested in other goods.

[Nameless Archon]

For example, I have a Fishery that I could swear has storage around it for uncleaned fish, but it sits idle...but z, Stocks says I have 70+ uncleaned fish.  No idea where the disconnect is.  Sigh.

If you have another stockpile with uncleaned fish permitted, they're already stockpiled, and won't be moved until you either disable uncleaned fish from the first pile, or use the "take from pile" option on the second pile to force it to take uncleaned fish from the first pile.

[khearn]

You can use the 't' command to see what objects are in the workshop he's using. If you see something listed with [TSK] next to it, it's an item he's using in his current task (which is making an artifact). Moody dwarves always collect stuff in the order that they ask for it. If he's asking for stone first and you don't see any [TSK] stone in the workshop, then that's what he currently wants. It doesn't sound like that should be the case, though.

If he's already got some stone, then he's stuck on the second item, which would be cloth. As has been mentioned by others, you can't tell what kind of cloth a possessed dwarf wants. Only Fey dwarves will be that specific. You already have pigtail fiber cloth handy, so that's not it. So he either wants yarn cloth or silk cloth. You should make a crash program to make both of those.

First off, build a farmer's workshop and a loom. If you haven't dug to the caverns yet, get your miners going downward ASAP.

Yarn cloth requires wool, which is obtained by shearing sheep, llamas, alpacas, and trolls. If you don't have any of those, you're stuck and have to pray for a caravan with either yarn cloth, yarn, wool (do caravans ever bring wool?), or one of those animals. If you've got one of those animals, you need a farmer's workshop and someone with the shearing labor enabled. Give the workshop a "shear animal" task (or whatever it's called). Then you'll need someone with the spinning labor enabled and a farmer's workshop to spin the wool into thread. Then you'll need a loom and someone with weaving enabled to make it into yarn cloth.

Silk cloth requires spider silk, which can only be found in caverns. Once you breach the caverns (and have dug a route to the floor), go to your loom and queue up a "collect silk" task. Someone with weaving enabled will then trot on down to the cavern and collect some silk. You might want to station a military squad down there to keep nasty critters from eating your weaver. You don't have to do a separate spinning step with silk, it's already thread when it's collected. Just weave it at the loom and you're done.

Good luck, they're both multi-step processes and may take longer than you have, but what alternative do you have? This is why moods can be FUN!

  Keith

[Ancre]

Well, for the fishing, I'd suspect "no fish cleaners" as your culprit. As for the rest of it, the advice given so far is good - I'd add that if it shows up in time, the next caravan will probably have usable cloth, although it can be a bit expensive for a new fort more interested in other goods.

Buying just one piece of cloth however should be doable.

Good luck !

[Newbunkle]

I'm not sure how to help with the fishery as I'd need to know how you've set everything up. Here's how to get some different threads though:

You'll need to know how to enable labours on dwarves so they do the jobs you want them to. I assume you know how, but if not you highlight them with the view units command [v], go to preferences [p], labours [l], and then navigate that menu for turning labours on and off. Or, you can download a program called Dwarf Therapist which makes this a million times easier.

Anyway...

1) Making rope reed thread/cloth:
- Designate an area for plants to be gathered with [d], [p] (and hope you gather some rope reed)
- Build a farmer's workshop [ b], [w], [w]
- Order the rope reed to be processed at the workshop [q], [a], [p] (+[r] for repeat)
- Build a loom [ b], [w], [ o] if you need to turn the thread into cloth.
Note: you will need dwarves with the "plant gathering" (herbalist), "plant processing" (threshing), and weaving labours enabled.

2) Making yarn cloth:
- Build a farmer's workshop [ b], [w], [w]
- Order an animal to be sheared [q], [a], [ s] (+[r] for repeat).
- Order wool to be spun into yarn at the same workshop [q], [a], [shift+s], (+[r] for repeat)
- Build a loom [ b], [w], [ o] if you need to turn the thread into cloth.
Note: you will need dwarves with the shearing, spinning, and weaving labours enabled. You will also need animals that can be sheared.
Note2: If you already butchered those animals, you normally get left with the wool as a product of the butchering. If that wool was dumped in a refuse pile outside, you may need to let your dwarves know they can pick up refuse from outside using the orders menu. Use [ o] orders, [r] refuse, [ o] outside.

3) Making cave spider silk cloth:
- Dig down until you breach a cavern.
- Build a loom [ b], [w], [ o]
- By default, looms will automatically generate collect web jobs for weavers.
- By default, the same looms will probably turn the cave spider silk into thread.
Note: you will need a dwarf with the weaving labour enabled.
Note 2: the caverns can produce tough wild animals and monsters - you might want to seal it back up afterwards, or build drawbridges and doors for extra security.

4) Alternatively, trading for cloth:
- You will need to build a trade depot [ b], [shift + d]
- You will need a dwarf appointed to the position of broker using the nobles screen [n]
- You will need trade goods to sell (or any junk you don't need anymore).
- You will need to keep your fingers crossed that traders come before the dwarf goes nuts.
Note: a trade depot, like a few other buildings, needs a dwarf with the architecture labour enabled before it will be built.



Edit: Frickin' formatting! Grr...

[randyshipp]

For example, I have a Fishery that I could swear has storage around it for uncleaned fish, but it sits idle...but z, Stocks says I have 70+ uncleaned fish.  No idea where the disconnect is.  Sigh.

If you have another stockpile with uncleaned fish permitted, they're already stockpiled, and won't be moved until you either disable uncleaned fish from the first pile, or use the "take from pile" option on the second pile to force it to take uncleaned fish from the first pile.

OK, but wouldn't the fish cleaner still grab them from wherever they're stored and take them to the Fishery?