Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Unibot the Righteous!

Bayar the Gatekeeper!

[Chessrook44]

Dorna walked in to Valrandir's office, looking at the massive piles of stone blocks, and seeing him working on another in his workshop.  "Valrandir, I wanted to talk about... ok, WHAT are you doing?"

"Making blocks," Valrandir said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"OK I can see that," Dorna said. "But WHY?  Don't you think we have enough?" She gestured at the storage room that was literally filled floor to ceiling with stone blocks.

Valrandir shook his head.  "Nope.  Could always use more stone blocks."

"For WHAT?  Building things?  Regular rock works wonders for that, and it doesn't take extra time to do."

"It's smoother!"

"So you're saying dwarves can't smooth rock when they make their constructions?  Or take advantage of the natural inconsistencies in natural rock to make a more interesting and unique construction?"

"What?  No I..."

"Then tell me, please... WHAT is the benefit of so many stone blocks?  I have to hear this."

((Serious inquiry, Val.))

Blocks are good.
Rough stones are bad.

Rough stones, when left unchecked, are found in every halls and every rooms.
They are the ugliness of any fortress.
They hinder stockpiles efforts, and twist the ankles of unwary dwarves.
They pollute everywhere by their presence.
What good is digging in stones compared to dirt, if we get stones all over the floor all the time?

With blocks, we organize 10 stones into one big square pile of order.
With blocks, we _process_ the stone.
With blocks, we can build worthy constructions.
How exactly would you clean a rough stone floor?
The dirt and everything hides in the cracks.
What would you do, when some goblin brains gets splashed against your rough staircases?
Nothing, it will be soiled, forever.

Smooth constructions are, by definition, cleanable.

Then, when the times come to build a majestic tower in the sky, to store our gold and gems and tombs, we shall have smooth blocks! We shall move them close to the construction site not one by one, but 10 by 10 with bins!!

We must have clean corridors.
We must have smooth everything.
We must have storage space.
We must organize rough things into pile of smooth squares in bins.

You would have me perform surgery next to a random rough wall, standing on a rough floor?
Now be silent and leave me to my important work.

Dorna waved her hand with a bah.  "Fine, have your smooth rooms and stone blocks.  But just you remember, some of the best mechanisms and crafts come from regular rocks, taking advantage of the natural curves and the great amount of space present within the chunks broken off."  She walked out of the room, muttering something to herself.

[plisskin]

Oh boy! Ideological drama!

[RTiger]

Bah. You want Blocks. What good are blocks anyway. Blocks are smooth, but plain, and after made into a block, nothing more can be done with it. I prefer the rough stone. Stone that can be shaped, be carved, and can tell the history of the home. Even the rough, chopped stone I can turn into beautiful art.

Tiger then steps out, returning to his task of proving the Doc wrong by making the most of natural stone.

OOC: Reminds the mechanic that you need both rough stone and smoothed blocks for engineering. More rough stone though.

Even though my dwarf is fuming, even he would prefer to see a construction made of smooth block, but much more prefers it to just be natural stone and not a construction if at all possible.

[Valrandir]

Bah. You want Blocks. What good are blocks anyway. Blocks are smooth, but plain, and after made into a block, nothing more can be done with it. I prefer the rough stone. Stone that can be shaped, be carved, and can tell the history of the home. Even the rough, chopped stone I can turn into beautiful art.

Tiger then steps out, returning to his task of proving the Doc wrong by making the most of natural stone.

Where would you store all that stones?
You would need vast dirt areas to move it all, and store it... forever?
Then how would you deal with further mining after that? Would you mine more storage area in stone, to store the stone that you just mined?

Some of the best rough stone should kept in a stockpile near a mason workship, craft and mechanics workshops.

The remaining thousands must be made into blocks, to be used in future grand constructions.

Also I do not want to document each and every rough stone in my paperwork, with its location "somewhere" in our fort. Stone Block as much easier to count as they are organized in bins in one central location.

So yes, go ahead and reserve a number of rough stone for future craftage needs, and if you are concerned with having enough rough available I can help you by forbidding some of your rough stone storage.
But with so many rocks all around, above and below us it should never become a serious concern.

[goukaryuujin]

Hmmmm.... did you set Spera in a marksdwarf squad...? 

[RTiger]

I wasn't talking about constructions made of the rough, loose stone, I am talking about not having to put up constructions in the first place. If you must make a construction, feel free to use smooth blocks. I would like that, but don't expect me to be able to turn those block walls into art. (Can't engrave block walls)

[Powder Miner]

Continue working.

[plisskin]

Hmmmm.... did you set Spera in a marksdwarf squad...? 

Yeah, she's in her own squad. She's set to train 8 out of 12 months at the archery range, minimum one soldier with crossbow as a hard selection for her weapon. She's got a quiver. Wait, does she have a quiver? I'll have to double check that.

[Haika]

Archery practice is only done when the scheduled dwarf is set for no scheduled order. So might want to remove that training if you have it set. And they practice at random as long as the squad is allowed to train there.

[Valrandir]

Archery practice is only done when the scheduled dwarf is set for no scheduled order. So might want to remove that training if you have it set. And they practice at random as long as the squad is allowed to train there.

In one of my fort I've had a squad of crossbow dwarves scheduled to train and activated, with a barrack set to train and four archery range set to train as well. The dwarves would alternate between training in the barrack and shooting in the archery range.

This could be a good setup as well, to have them train both shooting bolts, and fighting/dodging.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Build an extra masonry workshop close to the rock stockpile. Preferably in the one of the designated masonry workshop areas (I know there is one). Continue to construct rock blocks to train masonry.

[Valrandir]

Build an extra masonry workshop close to the rock stockpile. Preferably in the one of the designated masonry workshop areas (I know there is one). Continue to construct rock blocks to train masonry.

USEC_OFFICER, I would like to offer your masonry a spot in my rough stone stockpile.
If you accept, your workshop can be built right in the middle of my rough stone stockpile.
The 3x3 area can be undesignated and your workshop built.

Do you accept this?
I think that this is a generous offer since the other workshop area is not yet mined out.
You would only need to stay clean. This is near my office afterall.

[RevolutionaryDorf]

Rev's hands were layered with dirt. He didn't plan to wash them. The soil was comfortably damp on his cracked skin. Finally, the real work would begin.

    1. I request to see the stock of above-ground seeds.
    2. Whichever is the most numerous, Rev will plant on his farm to grow all seasons.
    3. He will attempt to claim a bedroom! If he has one, He'll make a 2 square booze stockpile accepting only above-ground drinks.


When are we having our first saboteur "election"?

[USEC_OFFICER]

Build an extra masonry workshop close to the rock stockpile. Preferably in the one of the designated masonry workshop areas (I know there is one). Continue to construct rock blocks to train masonry.

USEC_OFFICER, I would like to offer your masonry a spot in my rough stone stockpile.
If you accept, your workshop can be built right in the middle of my rough stone stockpile.
The 3x3 area can be undesignated and your workshop built.

Do you accept this?
I think that this is a generous offer since the other workshop area is not yet mined out.
You would only need to stay clean. This is near my office afterall.

Sure. The rock won't smooth itself out into rectangular shapes, after all.

[plisskin]

Rev's hands were layered with dirt. He didn't plan to wash them. The soil was comfortably damp on his cracked skin. Finally, the real work would begin.

    1. I request to see the stock of above-ground seeds.
    2. Whichever is the most numerous, Rev will plant on his farm to grow all seasons.
    3. He will attempt to claim a bedroom! If he has one, He'll make a 2 square booze stockpile accepting only above-ground drinks.


When are we having our first saboteur "election"?

 And as for the answer to that most excellent question . . . I'm not sure. I've considered waiting until it's clear to all dwarves that there ARE saboteurs present. Suspicion is high but have we suffered any true accidents as of yet? Nobody was around for Vabok's death besides URISTs, and Vladina's death too could have either been an oversight or . . . engineered.

 It'll be difficult to start pointing fingers until the fort is really rolling, so I think we may want to wait on an election, but I will admit now and only once that certain actions have already been given by traitors at present.