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[DeadlyMarmot]

I'm new to Dwarf Fortress and trying to figure out the optimal size of a hospital to service my 140-dwarf army (100 melee, 40 archers in watch towers). I'm making each room a private 2x3 with a table, bed, and traction bench each. Everything will be made out of magma safe obsidian and I'll be able to flood each individual room with magma to get the permanent residents out. I was thinking 20 beds, a diagnostic-only dwarf, five doctors, 5 nurses/EMTs (only feed water & recover wounded enabled), and three wells. Do you think that is too small?

What is the best way to ensure all vistors and wounded are cleaned? A waterfall, wading pool, or wading stream for an entrance? I'm very worried about my fort dying to contaminents.

What is the best way to recover wounded? I was thinking only assigning feed & recover wounded to five dwarves to prevent my civilians getting caught in the fighting. Would my soldiers wait for the battle to end to recover wounded if I assign them that duty instead?

I think this has to have been asked before, but a search of "hospital size" and "EMTs" returned nothing useful that I saw.

[Girlinhat]

My hospitals tend to be a collection of beds along the wall, and some nearby chests.  Usually 10-20 beds, and 5-10 chests, fitting my 20-30 military.  Worst case scenario, is that all of your soldiers stub their toe, because dwarves go to the doctor for every little scrape.  Either way, I usually shoot for 1/2 of my military.  But since you're going big, I can imagine you building a separate room for every soldier.

As for washing, I'd suggest mist generators.  A simple 1x3 dorfbath would suffice, mostly, but you're going big, still, so mist!  This is one reason it might pay to bundle rooms, if you could stuff 7-8 beds around one floor grate, the mist would soothe them all, and mist will slowly wash away contaminants as well (so I've heard).  In this way, your wounded get cleansed, the room is washed, and everyone's happy.  That's right, in DF having a clean hospital is actually bad.  Heavy fog and dewdrops on the operating table is preferable.  *Waits for someone to sig that*

[Psieye]

Personally I assign medical skills on all my non-artisan dwarves. I've not been through enough injured dwarves to make it conclusive, but I don't see much benefit in having particularly skilled doctors. Availability and willingness to do the job have always been much more critical.

The size of your hospital... you've not given enough information. How many casualties you take is greatly influenced by your defensive architecture philosophy. I'm assuming this is vanilla DF with no modding whatsoever.

Every casualty will need a bed, but not all will need a table or a traction bench. Of course, you can't choose which beds the casualties will take so I guess your magma plumbing will demand all rooms to have a table and traction bench.

Recovering wounded is a civilian job, soldiers won't do it until you inactivate them. For that matter, if you're using burrows then your civilians will refuse to do it too if it's in an out-of-bounds area.

[AutomataKittay]

The best size varies with how many causilities you takes and how badly hurt they are. With such large army, assuming vanilla, I wouldn't think you'd need too many beds, maybe 1/4 to 1/6 of the army. I've heard elsewhere that high altruism makes for better doctors and caretakers than anything, so plan them wisely. Make sure that your traction benches uses at least iron chains, or other magma-safe metals for it, since you're already using obsidian. I'd also suggest seeking out nethercap for bed, since according to rumours it's magma-safe wood ( Haven't found them yet myself ).

Have a cleaning trench in the entryway ( just a pool of 2/7 water, possibly with one tile of 3/7 bouncing to make 'flow' over one-tile wide ramp trench across the entrance ), it'll help wash most of them off before they gets to bed! Having a well and soap stash within will be very helpful.

If you're worried about the wound recovers, make an squad and assign a uniform with shields and fair armor, never activate it, but make sure they get equipped.

[Girlinhat]

Also of note: There are no more permanent residents.  Crutches and plaster casts work properly.  Unless, I suppose, a dwarf loses both hands and a leg, then he can't hold a crutch, but there's not much use for that dwarf anyways.

[Couchmonster]

Code: [Select]

#############
#_b_d___d_b_#
#btb#c_c#btb#
#_b_#c_c#_b_#
#d###c_c###d#
#_ccc___ccc_#
#_____T_____#
#_ccc___ccc_#
#d###c_c###d#
#_b_#c_c#_b_#
#btb#c_c#btb#
#_b_d___d_b_#
#############
# = wall
b = bed
d = internal door
t = table
_ = floor
c = coffer
T = traction bench

looks cool... has room for all of the equipment

[Pukako]

Gee 

I usually put up a hospital when the first serious happens, and it's 2-4 beds with a chest, some bags and probably a cabinet.

No-ones really died of anything too unavoidable, but I still get the odd cripple wandering around on crutches.  Had one missing an arm and a leg who managed to work at a glass furnace in later years ... Infection sucks, but the circus of soap making makes me avoid it unless I really have to.

And 140 dwarf armies? Wow.  Those must be serious invasions, or trap-free forts?  I don't have the patience for more than 20 or so...

[thegoatgod_pan]

You need many many chests for a hospital that size, and haul injured/give food on all random haulers.  I don't think surgery or bone repair are good in the hands of unskilled dwarves--I always get bones infected and surgery that causes heavy bleeding when I do that.

[Couchmonster]

Erm you need at least tables next to the beds for surgery. Which is always needed if something is smashed open or torn open.
Or your dwarf will soon die from hospital vacation eternal with infection.

[AutomataKittay]

I always have table and traction benches right next to bed because longer they have to haul the wounded to fix them up, the more likely they're going to cancel doing it from "Patient not resting" cancelling

My usual arrangement for the patient holding cluster is

Code: [Select]

tBt
BTB
tBt

t = table
B = bed
T = traction bench


[DeadlyMarmot]

My usual arrangement for the patient holding cluster is

Code: [Select]

tBt
BTB
tBt

t = table
B = bed
T = traction bench


I really like that layout especially with Girlinhat's mist idea. Can a surgeon or bone doctor do their job while occupying the same space as a dwarf in a bed?

Would this work equally well to support the grate Girlinhat mentioned for the misting system?

Code: [Select]

tBT
BgB
TBt

t = table
B = bed
T = traction bench
g = grate


And 140 dwarf armies? Wow.  Those must be serious invasions, or trap-free forts?  I don't have the patience for more than 20 or so...

No build-menu traps and there must always be one route from the outside (and caverns once breached) to every dwarf. My friend and I just started playing this game yesterday with those rules. Most complex, impressive, and valuable fortress by next Sunday wins. My entry is a 34x34x34 cast obsidian cube that houses my entire fortress and grows every type of alchol. The only defenses planned are the military and some very dwarfy traps using water-logic and magma. The goal is to make it run itself once completed.

[Couchmonster]

The Doctor and the Patient occupy the same spot when they are treated.

[AutomataKittay]

I uses that layout because traction bench takes a table, rope/chain and a mechanism, and I tend to forget to queue any up. Less tractions needed, less I misses out! Though since you're playing no-trap fortress, I'd really strongly suggest having more traction benches, as in your misting layout.

Don't worry about the doctor and the patients being in same squares, that's just how they works sometimes.

[DeadlyMarmot]

An example of my final layout choice for any noobies searching from Google later. Two rooms shown. Thank you all for your help.

Code: [Select]

o o o o o o o
o   T o   T o
o w b o w b o
o   t o   t o
o d o o d o o

o = wall
b = bed
T = traction bench
t = table
w = waterfall for mist generator
d = door

This design gives each dwarf an individual room so that you can lock the rare permanent residents in to die, every room gets mist, and all the rooms use the same mist generator to reduce lag. The hospital can even just share a part of a large fortress-wide mist generator.

Relevant: Mist Dwarf Fortress Wiki & AncientEnemy's mist generator