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Author Topic: Noob guide requested  (Read 31339 times)

Loud Whispers

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Re: Noob guide requested
« Reply #120 on: November 19, 2011, 08:09:36 am »

Things falling on spears will get damaged by them though, useful if you want to make a medieval ditch full of spikes ^_^

murlocdummy

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Re: Noob guide requested
« Reply #121 on: November 19, 2011, 12:20:44 pm »

No, the spear traps have to be in the same squares the dwarves are for an effective danger room.

Okay, so I built a floor over the channels that I dug.  I'll test out the functionality of the danger room later.  For now, though, my main issue is maintaining a quarry bush farm.  My dwarves keep eating the rock nuts whenever I find/buy them.  Is there any way to prevent them from eating them, but allow them to plant them?
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Garath

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Re: Noob guide requested
« Reply #122 on: November 19, 2011, 12:22:43 pm »

training spears in traps on the floor, one trigger outside. Get fully equiped soldiers in, lock door. Repeat pull lever. Watch those levels soar. mostly fighter and shield, slight armor user, some dodge and weapon skill too. though the higher the dodge is in the first place, the faster it goes up

after intensive training room i'm totally happy with 10 weapn, 7 dodge, 15 armor, 20 fighter, 20 shield

They wont be very much better fighters, but very, very hard to kill
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Garath

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Re: Noob guide requested
« Reply #123 on: November 19, 2011, 12:29:58 pm »

No, the spear traps have to be in the same squares the dwarves are for an effective danger room.

Okay, so I built a floor over the channels that I dug.  I'll test out the functionality of the danger room later.  For now, though, my main issue is maintaining a quarry bush farm.  My dwarves keep eating the rock nuts whenever I find/buy them.  Is there any way to prevent them from eating them, but allow them to plant them?

give them better food. Since i get lots of food from farms and weapon traps, trading and slaughtering and even fishing, i usually have a full time cook. They'll prefer those cooked meals unless they have a big liking for rock nuts to begin with. One of my crew occasionally eats a plump helmet, even though plump helmet roast is available

if you dont have a good cook yet, you should get one. Not only do they make very good trade goods, they also make the subjects very happy

I just wish there was a way to store the food outside barrels and pots, ie forbid it for them, since its killing my brewing
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Quote from: Urist Imiknorris
Jam a door with its corpse and let all the goblins in. Hey, nobody said it had to be a weapon against your enemies.
Quote from: Frogwarrior
And then everyone melted.

murlocdummy

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Re: Noob guide requested
« Reply #124 on: November 19, 2011, 01:31:59 pm »

No, the spear traps have to be in the same squares the dwarves are for an effective danger room.

Okay, so I built a floor over the channels that I dug.  I'll test out the functionality of the danger room later.  For now, though, my main issue is maintaining a quarry bush farm.  My dwarves keep eating the rock nuts whenever I find/buy them.  Is there any way to prevent them from eating them, but allow them to plant them?

give them better food. Since i get lots of food from farms and weapon traps, trading and slaughtering and even fishing, i usually have a full time cook. They'll prefer those cooked meals unless they have a big liking for rock nuts to begin with. One of my crew occasionally eats a plump helmet, even though plump helmet roast is available

if you dont have a good cook yet, you should get one. Not only do they make very good trade goods, they also make the subjects very happy

I just wish there was a way to store the food outside barrels and pots, ie forbid it for them, since its killing my brewing

So the only way to prevent them from eating rock nuts is to just hope and pray that the dwarves that like rock nuts don't eat them?  Well, that sucks.  I guess I'll never be able to maintain a quarry bush farm, then.  I'll just have to rely on my very slow animal industry to get me the tallow I need, then.
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Newbunkle

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Re: Noob guide requested
« Reply #125 on: November 19, 2011, 02:00:46 pm »

Will I have to assign them a training schedule to get them to equip armor?

If you give them an order like "station" then they should grab the equipment before they go. To get them to wear armour permanently, go to the schedules section of the military screen [m]+[s ] and you'll find an option for uniforms. I think the key for changing the uniform rules is [u ]. You can set it to be worn at all times, even when off duty.

I just wish there was a way to store the food outside barrels and pots, ie forbid it for them, since its killing my brewing

There is. You can make custom stockpiles for specific types of goods.

1. Start a custom stockpile [p], [t]
2. Make sure all stockpile types are disabled [d] on the left-most list.
3. Enable the food option [e]
4. Block all kinds of food [b ]
5. Enabled prepared meals [u ]

Once you've placed that stockpile, you need to turn off the use of barrels.

1. Go to building properties [q]
2. Select the custom stockpile
3. Press [shift + e] to set the number of barrels to the minimum (zero).

You'll need to make sure that prepared meals are turned off in every other food stockpile. To modify existing food stockpiles:

1. Go to building properties [q]
2. Select the food stockpile
3. Highlight the food option in the left-most list.
4. Press [u ] to turn off prepared meals.

Note: If your existing food stockpiles contain prepared meals that are already in barrels, then they won't be moved to the new one because the dwarves want to move the whole barrel or nothing.

So the only way to prevent them from eating rock nuts is to just hope and pray that the dwarves that like rock nuts don't eat them?  Well, that sucks.  I guess I'll never be able to maintain a quarry bush farm, then.  I'll just have to rely on my very slow animal industry to get me the tallow I need, then.

This is weird. I've never seen my dwarves eat my rock nuts. I've never tried forbidding other kinds of food to see if they start grabbing them, but as far as I can tell they don't touch them when other things are available.
« Last Edit: November 19, 2011, 02:05:38 pm by Newbunkle »
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proxn_punkd

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Re: Noob guide requested
« Reply #126 on: November 19, 2011, 04:17:48 pm »

I've never seen dwarves eating rock nuts raw, either. Are you cooking them into meals that your dwarves are eating? Use (z) and go to Kitchens to see a list of ingredients you can have enabled/disabled for cooking and brewing.
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murlocdummy

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Re: Noob guide requested
« Reply #127 on: November 19, 2011, 05:30:38 pm »

I've never seen dwarves eating rock nuts raw, either. Are you cooking them into meals that your dwarves are eating? Use (z) and go to Kitchens to see a list of ingredients you can have enabled/disabled for cooking and brewing.

They've been disabled since before my Prepared Meal industry began.  I've had all of my seed items disabled in the Kitchen menu since embarkation.  I was able to start up a few more quarry bushes with a few dozen rock nuts that I recently bought, but I know that it's not going to last long before my dwarves grab them all up.  That stuff's like crack to these dwarves.

On a somewhat unrelated note, there's this red C and green H on the left side of my display window.  Have no idea what they are.  Maybe they're a temperature indicator?

Anyway, I ended up starting up a fairly decent military without the need for the danger room or a useful metal industry.  I just buy up all of the metal items that merchants bring in and equip my people with them.  One note about caravans is that they'll stop trading with you and get ready to leave your base if they engage the enemy, so it's a good idea to trade with them first, then open your airlock and let the enemy at them.  What's the best industry for trading?  I've been using my stonecrafting dwarves since I started the game.
« Last Edit: November 19, 2011, 06:03:35 pm by murlocdummy »
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krenshala

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Re: Noob guide requested
« Reply #128 on: November 19, 2011, 06:13:58 pm »

That one got me too, at first.  The red C means you have a combat [ r ]eport you can view.  A blue S means there is a report about your military sparring.  A gree H means you have a hunting report you can view.  All three are combat reports, it is just that the type matters.

The C shows up when badgers attack your plant gatherers or fisherdwarves, as well as when your troops are in combat.  The H shows up when you allow someone with the Hunting profession to gain access to a crossbow and bolts of some flavor (not sure if other missile weapons work or not).
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Zepave Dawnhogs the Butterfly of Vales the Marsh Titan ... was taken out by a single novice axedwarf and his pet war kitten. Long Live Domas Etasastesh Adilloram, slayer of the snow butterfly!
Doesn't quite have the ring of heroics to it...
Mother: "...and after the evil snow butterfly was defeated, Domas and his kitten lived happily ever after!"
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murlocdummy

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Re: Noob guide requested
« Reply #129 on: November 20, 2011, 01:48:28 am »

So the little letters on the side of the screen have only to do with combat?  That seems kind of useless in comparison to the myriad of other things that having a little HUD indicator could be used for.

Have I complained about the difficulty of using the interface, yet?  Because if not, I'd like to say that I decided to starve to death a portion of my livestock simply because I couldn't find their names in the zoning list.  I know they're there, but I looked through the list 3 times over 15 minutes and didn't see their names, so they can just fucking die.  I won't even bother to look for their names in the Animals listing to slaughter them, either.  I'm not spending another 15 minutes just to look for 3 deers,  a rabbit, and a few other livestock, so they can just rot to fucking hell for all I care.  I'm not going to think twice about moving around zones and killing more livestock again.  The next time I decide to move around pen zones, I hope that more of my livestock starves to death so that I don't have such a long list of animals to keep track of.

A good game is supposed to make you beat your head against the wall because you LOST, not because you have to scroll through endless lists of crap just to find a few things.  Really, the only reason why I'm still playing despite Toady intentionally making the interface completely fucked up is because I love Settlers style gameplay.  I'm starting to seriously consider quitting this game altogether and just playing Settlers...

Anyway, my fort has just surpassed 1000000☼.  I started my game around year 250, and now it's year 255.  I'm getting ready my first wind power plant, and I recently found a lava pool.  I'm going to try and build an outpost around the pool to maintain a magma industry.  I tried looking for metals, but the caverns are full of nothing but tetrahedrite.  I've reached height 85, and all I'm finding is underground trees and gems.  Other than that, just more tetrahedrite.  Do I have to dig deeper to find iron?

My sole source of anything that's not copper or silver is from merchant caravans.  Ever since I found out how to use bins, my dwarves have become extra efficient at bringing items to the depot.  The main problem is sifting through the bins one item at a time, looking for trade goods.  I feel like Toady is taunting us by having a search function for only the Transfer Goods to Depot menu.

Also, my beekeeping industry isn't producing anything.  I've read that you shouldn't have more than 40 hives or else your production will be penalized.  At first, I had several beekeepers, but they ended up wandering out into the wilderness and staring into space, so then I limited it to 1 beekeeper, and now he's almost constantly stuck with No Job despite all of my hives being full of honeycombs and royal jelly.  I got stone jugs, stone pots, and wooden barrels coming out of my ass.  I thought that I'd covered all of my bases to acquire honey.  What am I doing wrong?
« Last Edit: November 20, 2011, 05:05:49 am by murlocdummy »
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Newbunkle

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Re: Noob guide requested
« Reply #130 on: November 20, 2011, 04:49:00 am »

My sole source of anything that's not copper or silver is from merchant caravans.  Ever since I found out how to use bins, my dwarves have become extra efficient at bringing items to the depot.  The main problem is sifting through the bins one item at a time, looking for trade goods.  I feel like Toady is taunting us by having a search function for only the Transfer Goods to Depot menu.

That does get a bit frustrating, but you can minimize it if you have a custom stockpile just for the items you wish to use as trade goods.
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murlocdummy

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Re: Noob guide requested
« Reply #131 on: November 20, 2011, 05:20:42 am »

My sole source of anything that's not copper or silver is from merchant caravans.  Ever since I found out how to use bins, my dwarves have become extra efficient at bringing items to the depot.  The main problem is sifting through the bins one item at a time, looking for trade goods.  I feel like Toady is taunting us by having a search function for only the Transfer Goods to Depot menu.

That does get a bit frustrating, but you can minimize it if you have a custom stockpile just for the items you wish to use as trade goods.

That's brilliant!  Why didn't I think of that?  For once, the game mechanics actually work.  Now, I just need to figure out how to get my honey industry going.

I've also recently become a duchy.  I think that getting title upgrades is largely due to trade output and fort value.
« Last Edit: November 20, 2011, 05:38:38 am by murlocdummy »
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Noob guide requested
« Reply #132 on: November 20, 2011, 07:06:21 am »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
You could've just butchered your useless livestock >_>
[z] [Animals]
Also, it's more likely than not that you've embarked with no iron, happens a lot, just go for candy or cannibalised goblinite ^-^
And make sure the Beekeeper can actually reach the hives (burrows included)
Oh wait...
Quote from: Murlocdummy
several beekeepers

Bug, never have more than one beekeeper, or they will do nothing. Basically, you're now stuffed. If you feel an urge to destroy DF and your computer, feel free too, I myself rage quit DF many times the first times I played.

DF forces you to have fun by creating the most horrific abhorrations possible just to do the mundane. Have !fun!

Rince Wind

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Re: Noob guide requested
« Reply #133 on: November 20, 2011, 08:58:16 am »

murlocdummy, i suggest watching the youtube tutorials by captainduck.
You can skip the ones you don't need.
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Garath

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Re: Noob guide requested
« Reply #134 on: November 20, 2011, 11:35:22 am »

i dont do beekeeping anymore due to the weird amount of micromanagement needed. set x for harvest so y are split, then set y for harvets, turn x off so z is split, then stop and wait... my farms dont need me watching every bit. nor does any other part
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Quote from: Urist Imiknorris
Jam a door with its corpse and let all the goblins in. Hey, nobody said it had to be a weapon against your enemies.
Quote from: Frogwarrior
And then everyone melted.
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