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[hoylemd]

Hello DF forum!

I keep running into a problem with my fortresses, especially if I make a lot of steel: I run out of coal!

I only ever seem to find it in the first 10 or so layers, and that doesn't really last me super-long.  How do you guys deal with this problem? do you cut down a ton of trees for charcoal? do you dig down to magma? if so, what's the best way to do it safely?

[Dsarker]

Magma pump stack.

[Oliolli]

Necro is apparently still muted.

[Dsarker]

Got a two week mute after the one week one ran out

[proxn_punkd]

We started dogpiling an illiterate braggart and repeatedly invoking the meme. ToadyOne himself locked the thread and muted Necro.

I usually start in thickly-wooded areas and do my best to get a tree farm underway so I can harvest the bounties of nature for my forge. This also means bribing the elves to look the other way, but c'est la vie (c'est lava?).

[Ottofar]

bribing the elves

Now kids, what did we do wrong here?

[assimilateur]

(flaming removed)

[Sutremaine]

Having a large empty stockpile seems to make the elves and humans bring more wood. Other than that you can request coke, charcoal, and wood off the liaison. Lignite and especially coal are great if you can get them ordered in. Steel itself will always be available, though not necessarily in bar form. I prefer ordering steel anvils. They're never decorated, never have quality levels, and melt down into exactly 1 bar.

Steel is a massive fuel sink if you're not using magma. From ore to bar, it takes 6 fuel to make 2 bars. Magma cuts this down to 2 fuel for 2 bars.

[assimilateur]

Steel itself will always be available, though not necessarily in bar form.

There's this bug where alloys are always available even without base materials. Hence, even if your people don't have iron or flux, they'll still bring steel bars. The downside here is that the amounts are going to be trifling at best.

[King DZA]

Magma.

Also, requesting logs from the liaison, and buying them from my pointy-eared bros.

[Sutremaine]

There's this bug where alloys are always available even without base materials. Hence, even if your people don't have iron or flux, they'll still bring steel bars. The downside here is that the amounts are going to be trifling at best.

That came out wrong...

What I meant to say that steel you get isn't necessarily in bar form. You'll get four or maybe five bars ready for use, but depending on what steel items the caravan brings you can get some extra from melting. One other thing I've just remembered about anvils -- you can specify the material, unlike with armour and weapons.

[assimilateur]

Either way, even if you order both bars and anvils the imported amount of steel is going to be piddling.

[Andrew425]

That really depends on how fast you're growing your fortress.


If you want 40 steel clad dwarves in 5 years its going to be a bit of a stretch, but if you can stick around for 15 its not so much of an issue.

[Jake]

One of the most easily overlooked techniques to conserve coal is to only smelt ore or make alloys when you need them, rather than setting the task to repeat and forgetting about it until you buy your first anvil; you'll look a right prune if you find yourself with enough iron ingots to build a couple of frigates and a completely deforested and/or mined out map.

Also, the trickle of weapons you can buy off caravans is best used as-is rather than melted down; last I heard you still only got a third of the metal back, and it uses up two bars of fuel to reforge into something dwarfier into the bargain. The same goes for battlefield loot, at least in the short term.

[dyllionaire]

My main source of coal to burn is lignite and bituminous coal. You can easily double your stocks quite quickly with a legendary furnace operator.