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#1: Put the Alarm Siren in the Military Garrison, it fits and is one buildings less.

#1: Keep the Alarm Siren seperate, I want to have it near my other levers.

#2: I have traded with Gnomes, build Artificer and Weather Control Station.

#2: I have NOT traded with Gnomes, did not have the chance to build their buildings.

[marcusbjol]

I like the option to upgrade the weapons and armor.  Starting to explore it.  Less different types of both would be nice tho.

Having a problem with sorting out Lamallar leather; after going through the rigourous process to make it, I DONOT want to end up with quivers made of it.

I have tried making one stockpile that accepts all leather and another that accepts only lamallar leather; the second stockpile doesnt seem to ever take the Lamallar.  Any Ideas?

[sharix]

I bought a caged hawk and a caged raptor from a caravan. are those two safe to assign to a pasture or should they be kept in cages?

edit: also, I think I found a bug, not sure if it's Masterwork's fault though:
when I buy caged animals and they are transferred to a stockpile, I can see images of the animals. When I then move the cages to my zoo, images aren't displayed anymore and I see the default letters.

edit: also: when I want to build a fountain of tech research lab (in the building menu) it says in red taht I need 4 or 5 non-commercial stone, but I have plenty.

[silverfur11]

Can someone please do a Text document or something version of the Manual/25 Tips and Tricks because my computer doesnt like opening PDF files for some reason.

[sharix]

Here you are:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. Mass Dumping
By pressing d-b-d you can select every item on the screen for dumping. In the same menu you will find the shortcuts for Unumping (d-b-D), Forbidding (d-b-f) and Reclaiming (d-b-c)
2. Quantum Stockpiles
In stockpile, every item requires one square. By making an open-space square and marking it as a garbage dump, you can throw unlimited items into it. Everything will staple in a place one Z-level below. Just dig an access tunnel and unforbid the items to use them. Note that no actual stockpiles are necessary.
3. Atom smashing
Items under a closing drawbridge will be removed from the game. An atom-smashing device would use a Quantum Stockpile and a raised drawbrigde that closes upon the Quantum stockpile, destroying everything inside. Used to remove clutter and help FPS. Can also be used as an exploit (?) to kill creatures. Creatures of immense size will instead destroy the bridge, when lowered.
4. Watchtowers
Ambusher will move invisible over the map, till they encounter a living being. By placing pets on chains on chokepoints you can detect them safely.
5. Building destroyer traps
A creature with the building destroyer will path to the nearest building. Building a little maze with a statue inside, protected by cage/weapon-traps will neutralize the threat. Works most awesomely with a Support holding a 3x3 floor one Z-level above. Support gets destroyed and the 3x3 square will fall down, killing everything with a cave-in.
6. Trapping trap-avoid creatures
It is possible to trap creatures that avoid traps by placing a web over the trap. Getting a gaint-cave- spider to shoot at your traps does somehow require some preperation. Easier when done with tamed spiders. Cave-In dust will also push creatures into traps. The stun-effect will disable the trapavoid.
7. Saving dwarves that are outside during invasion
Build small rooms in the countryside, 3x3, with a floorhatch and some food/drinks inside. When a force of darkness arrives, send your dwarves into those by adding them to burrows you made in these bunkers. Afterwards lock the floorhatch. Miner can rescue themselves, by digging a 1x1 channel, and then again a 1x1 channel in the same square. No direct pathing and no direct line of sight will keep the invaders away. Afterwards dig exit stairs.
8. Wells can be built with as many Z-levels as you want between them and water. A 50 Z-level drop to a cavern lake is absolutely possible. But note that the bucket has a longer way to travel, making them less effective.
9. Water can be drained by engraving fortifactions on the map edge. All water will now flow through and off the map.
10. Picks use the mining skill even in combat. Assign legendary miners into your army, or draft them as a back up militia. Enables fast training for your soldiers as well, just designate a huge area for digging, enable mining labor and give all your soldiers picks. Legendary weapon skill in no time.
11.Ballistas are very inaccurate. By building a 3-tile wide corridor and a 5-tile wide room in the end you can build 3 ballistas that cover one corridor. Build the first ballista to the left, the second behind it one tile to the right, the third behind it another tile to the right.
12. Dwarves build walls from the wrong side. Default is to build from the left or top to build a construction. To avoid getting your dwarves stuck just build a wall in the square you want your dwarves to avoid, and suspend it before it is finished. Then finish the construction you wanted, and cancel the suspended wall. Dwarves will always choose to stand on a normal square then a square designated to be used in any way.
13. When you designate, for example, every tree to be cut the woodcutters will start top-left, no matter how far away this is. To avoid long distances for your workers and haulers designate a smaller block nearby, afterwards expand slowly. That is also safer, since your dwarves will no longer be scattered all over the map.
14. If you want to avoid caverns and get straight to the magma, dig your stairs in a straight line in one of the corners of the map. That reduces the chance to hit a cavern significantly.
15. Designation over multiple Z-levels By using your mouse to do a designation, holding the mouse button down and then scrolling Z- levels you will apply the designation in every Z-level. Helps a lof for building long Up-down- staircases and pumpstacks.
16. Free marksman equipment If the ambusher skill is the highest skill a dwarf has at embark, he will embark with a leather armor, a crossbow and 25 random material bolts. Just disable the hunter labor and you have a fully geared back-up marksdwarf from the very start.
17. Make your woodcutter your animal trainer. Woodcutters are the most exposed and endangered dwarves you have. Adding wardogs will protect them, but the bads thougt of dead pets might cause tantruming. But unassigned war-animals will always follor their trainer. This way you can protect your woodcutters and keep your wardogs free for other assignments if needed.
18. The trade depot has an alternate setting for finding tradegoods. You can sort by distance (default) or by value, or even find by name. Just look at the hotkeys in the bottom of the tradescreen. This saves a lot of time.
19. By pressing D you can see if a 3-tile path is aviable from the map edge to your trade depot. Although wagons do not work in the current version (31.25) it is still possible to control the caravan spawn point. If you have only one path aviable from depot to edge, the caravan will always spawn there. Makes it easy to protect them from ambushes/invaders,
20. Dodge trap. Almost an exploit, you could build weapon traps on a 1-tile wide floor, with open space on both sides. Imagine a long, narrow bridge made of floor-tiles, covered in weapon traps. Creatures that step on the traps will try to dodge and fall into the pit next to them. This is extremly effective. Most useful when a natural pit is aviable, like a river.
21. Wildlife trap. Free roaming animals will almost never get into one of your cagetraps. To increase the change build a gaint X on the map made of walls. Leave the center tile free, so animals can path through it. Then build cagetraps in the center. The larger the X, the higher the change for a catch. Will also work for ambushers and invaders.
22. Metal furniture can be built by a mason out of the metal. No need for a forge and coal. Uses the mason skill. You have to enable the material first in the Stone screen. Press z and go to Stones at the top.
23. If you have frozen rivers or lakes and want to avoid drowning dwarves in spring, go to the traffic designations, d-o-r, and mark all ice as restricted. Dwarves will now walk around it.
24. If you want to prevent trees from growing in your soil and clay corridors, create a stockpile with no goods enabled over them. Plants will no longer grow there, but take care: As soon as you remove the stockpile all trees that did grow invisible underneath it will pop up instantly.
25. Spoiler Material – Read with careIf you ever happen to have a blue metallic thread in your possesion, take care to limit access to it. Doctors will use it to suture patients.If you ever happen to find a blue masterpiece weapon on your map, construct a floor in front of it. The weapon can be deconstructed like a building and claimed for your army. But beware, if you build the floor, you will rob yourself of fun.
Honorable mention: Danger Room
A danger room is a small 3x3 – 5x5 room full of upright spike traps, filled with wooden training spears. Linked to a lever that has: Pull the lever (R) activated this causes everyone stationed in the room to learn combat skills very fast. Be careful not to station mothers with babys or petowners in the room. A locked door helps keeping people in longer. Quite a few people regard this as an exploit, since your dwarfs become overpowered.

edited for legibility

[Meph]

Daggers as bayonetts sounds reasonable. I like it. Just have to enable daggers in the entity file then.

@sharix: The sprite display with caged creatures is vanilla DF. And all creatures from caravans should be tame (?) I dont think you'll have problems with those.

Grenadier profession ? I dont think so, the special ammo will be just ammo. Crossbow dwarves will be able to use it, no special anything needed. It is more "dynamite tied to an arrow" then a grenade. Rest will go the magic route of special spells.

The rest has been answered, although I dont think that the "workshop reactions are red" should show up when you dont use burrows at all. Thats sounds unreasonable.

[silverfur11]

Here you are:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. Mass Dumping
By pressing d-b-d you can select every item on the screen for dumping. In the same menu you will find the shortcuts for Unumping (d-b-D), Forbidding (d-b-f) and Reclaiming (d-b-c)
2. Quantum Stockpiles
In stockpile, every item requires one square. By making an open-space square and marking it as a garbage dump, you can throw unlimited items into it. Everything will staple in a place one Z-level below. Just dig an access tunnel and unforbid the items to use them. Note that no actual stockpiles are necessary.
3. Atom smashing
Items under a closing drawbridge will be removed from the game. An atom-smashing device would use a Quantum Stockpile and a raised drawbrigde that closes upon the Quantum stockpile, destroying everything inside. Used to remove clutter and help FPS. Can also be used as an exploit (?) to kill creatures. Creatures of immense size will instead destroy the bridge, when lowered.
4. Watchtowers
Ambusher will move invisible over the map, till they encounter a living being. By placing pets on chains on chokepoints you can detect them safely.
5. Building destroyer traps
A creature with the building destroyer will path to the nearest building. Building a little maze with a statue inside, protected by cage/weapon-traps will neutralize the threat. Works most awesomely with a Support holding a 3x3 floor one Z-level above. Support gets destroyed and the 3x3 square will fall down, killing everything with a cave-in.
6. Trapping trap-avoid creatures
It is possible to trap creatures that avoid traps by placing a web over the trap. Getting a gaint-cave- spider to shoot at your traps does somehow require some preperation. Easier when done with tamed spiders. Cave-In dust will also push creatures into traps. The stun-effect will disable the trapavoid.
7. Saving dwarves that are outside during invasion
Build small rooms in the countryside, 3x3, with a floorhatch and some food/drinks inside. When a force of darkness arrives, send your dwarves into those by adding them to burrows you made in these bunkers. Afterwards lock the floorhatch. Miner can rescue themselves, by digging a 1x1 channel, and then again a 1x1 channel in the same square. No direct pathing and no direct line of sight will keep the invaders away. Afterwards dig exit stairs.
8. Wells can be built with as many Z-levels as you want between them and water. A 50 Z-level drop to a cavern lake is absolutely possible. But note that the bucket has a longer way to travel, making them less effective.
9. Water can be drained by engraving fortifactions on the map edge. All water will now flow through and off the map.
10. Picks use the mining skill even in combat. Assign legendary miners into your army, or draft them as a back up militia. Enables fast training for your soldiers as well, just designate a huge area for digging, enable mining labor and give all your soldiers picks. Legendary weapon skill in no time.
11.Ballistas are very inaccurate. By building a 3-tile wide corridor and a 5-tile wide room in the end you can build 3 ballistas that cover one corridor. Build the first ballista to the left, the second behind it one tile to the right, the third behind it another tile to the right.
12. Dwarves build walls from the wrong side. Default is to build from the left or top to build a construction. To avoid getting your dwarves stuck just build a wall in the square you want your dwarves to avoid, and suspend it before it is finished. Then finish the construction you wanted, and cancel the suspended wall. Dwarves will always choose to stand on a normal square then a square designated to be used in any way.
13. When you designate, for example, every tree to be cut the woodcutters will start top-left, no matter how far away this is. To avoid long distances for your workers and haulers designate a smaller block nearby, afterwards expand slowly. That is also safer, since your dwarves will no longer be scattered all over the map.
14. If you want to avoid caverns and get straight to the magma, dig your stairs in a straight line in one of the corners of the map. That reduces the chance to hit a cavern significantly.
15. Designation over multiple Z-levels By using your mouse to do a designation, holding the mouse button down and then scrolling Z- levels you will apply the designation in every Z-level. Helps a lof for building long Up-down- staircases and pumpstacks.
16. Free marksman equipment If the ambusher skill is the highest skill a dwarf has at embark, he will embark with a leather armor, a crossbow and 25 random material bolts. Just disable the hunter labor and you have a fully geared back-up marksdwarf from the very start.
17. Make your woodcutter your animal trainer. Woodcutters are the most exposed and endangered dwarves you have. Adding wardogs will protect them, but the bads thougt of dead pets might cause tantruming. But unassigned war-animals will always follor their trainer. This way you can protect your woodcutters and keep your wardogs free for other assignments if needed.
18. The trade depot has an alternate setting for finding tradegoods. You can sort by distance (default) or by value, or even find by name. Just look at the hotkeys in the bottom of the tradescreen. This saves a lot of time.
19. By pressing D you can see if a 3-tile path is aviable from the map edge to your trade depot. Although wagons do not work in the current version (31.25) it is still possible to control the caravan spawn point. If you have only one path aviable from depot to edge, the caravan will always spawn there. Makes it easy to protect them from ambushes/invaders,
20. Dodge trap. Almost an exploit, you could build weapon traps on a 1-tile wide floor, with open space on both sides. Imagine a long, narrow bridge made of floor-tiles, covered in weapon traps. Creatures that step on the traps will try to dodge and fall into the pit next to them. This is extremly effective. Most useful when a natural pit is aviable, like a river.
21. Wildlife trap. Free roaming animals will almost never get into one of your cagetraps. To increase the change build a gaint X on the map made of walls. Leave the center tile free, so animals can path through it. Then build cagetraps in the center. The larger the X, the higher the change for a catch. Will also work for ambushers and invaders.
22. Metal furniture can be built by a mason out of the metal. No need for a forge and coal. Uses the mason skill. You have to enable the material first in the Stone screen. Press z and go to Stones at the top.
23. If you have frozen rivers or lakes and want to avoid drowning dwarves in spring, go to the traffic designations, d-o-r, and mark all ice as restricted. Dwarves will now walk around it.
24. If you want to prevent trees from growing in your soil and clay corridors, create a stockpile with no goods enabled over them. Plants will no longer grow there, but take care: As soon as you remove the stockpile all trees that did grow invisible underneath it will pop up instantly.
25. Spoiler Material – Read with careIf you ever happen to have a blue metallic thread in your possesion, take care to limit access to it. Doctors will use it to suture patients.If you ever happen to find a blue masterpiece weapon on your map, construct a floor in front of it. The weapon can be deconstructed like a building and claimed for your army. But beware, if you build the floor, you will rob yourself of fun.
Honorable mention: Danger Room
A danger room is a small 3x3 – 5x5 room full of upright spike traps, filled with wooden training spears. Linked to a lever that has: Pull the lever (R) activated this causes everyone stationed in the room to learn combat skills very fast. Be careful not to station mothers with babys or petowners in the room. A locked door helps keeping people in longer. Quite a few people regard this as an exploit, since your dwarfs become overpowered.

edited for legibility

Thanks

[sharix]

I'm talking about the same creatures that were bought from caravans. First they have images, then the vanilla sprites when I move them.

[Meph]

>>> NEW DOWNLOAD 1.9.5 (Win) <<<

 - Changed chemists brimstone reaction, brimstone was the "magma in bags" that arrived with caravans.
 - Removed NOSTUN from syndrome of mage transformation, no more endless sleep.
 - Legendary skill essence is now created into a container, no more 1000-stuff spam.
 - Bronze armorplates now aviable
 - Dwarves can no longer become crazed from reactions, since this will cause loyality cascades.
 - Plategreaves and spikegreaves have a higher layer permit, allowing clothing underneath.
 - Added the weapon balancing fixes done by wrex and smakemupagus. Thanks
 - Fixed golem hearts brought by traders.
 - Metallurgist now needs a copper bar instead of a bronze bar. Mixed that up previously.
 - Rest-oil from boiling leather in oil now is produces inside the container, not outside.
 - Added FROSTBRAND. A legendary weapon in the research lab. Try it out
 - Added The great bifrost forge for specific bifrost items
 - Added new library system. Essays, Books and Masterpieces.
 - Added new design for golem forge and temple of armok.
 - Bone blocks are now stockpiled.
 - Wicker blocks are now stockpiled.
 - Illithids removed completely.
 - Blast Furnace removed.
 - Fishing nets now needs blocks (5) instead of boulders (5).
 - Added fishpond design, replaced fishfarm.
 - Added newest Dwarf Therapist (splinterz branch, v17).
 - Added direct reactions for siegeammo. 1 bar = 3 ballista bolts.

Notes: Just a few bugfixes and balancing here. There are also some tiny new features, the bifrost forge, the new library system and the unique artefact, the frostbrand. This one is in as a test, but very high tech, you need to kill some frost giants for it first. It should result in a weapon... with a description.

I also put ~65h of work into v.2, but the alpha is far from playable. ~25h went into the manual I guess. The 1.9.5 will be the last update, before the big overhaul. Please excuse me not testing the 1.9.5 version, I only did the raw changes and checked the errorlog. But the alpha I am working on is currently absolutely, 100% bug-free.

[Wrex]

It's unfortunate that the illithid venom induces crashes- it's a good idea, but as far as I can tell if an illithid bites someone during worldgen, everything goes down the shitter. Granted, I could be wrong, but as far as I know, that's the issue.

[Scruffy]

Seems good. I will test it later tonight. What kind of weapon balancing did you do?
Shame about the blast furnace though. I liked it so think that I will add it back for my next fort. Too bad that it was always cluttered.

Keep up the good work

[Meph]

The buildings and reactions are still there for the blast furnace. Just the entity lines (permitted_something) are missing. Easy for you to fix.

Oh, yes, in case you wondered: This is the new design for the golem forge:


And there will be a new industry, related to farming animals...
The Slaughterhouse

[Meph]

Just doing a little bit of research and hanging out with a fraternity on the MIT. Fun guys

Chemist:
blackpowder => brimstone, saltpeter, charcoal.

Dynamite => nitroglycerin, sawdust/similar stuff, wrapped in paper.

Nitroglycerin =>  is a heavy, colorless, oily, explosive liquid produced by nitrating glycerol.

Glycerol => Glycerol forms the backbone of triglycerides, and is chiefly produced by saponification of fats as a byproduct of soap-making. ALTERNATE: It is also a byproduct of the production of biodiesel via transesterification. This form of crude glycerin is often dark in appearance with a thick, syrup-like consistency. Triglycerides (1) are treated with an alcohol such as ethanol (2) with catalytic base to give ethyl esters of fatty acids (3) and glycerol.

TNT => First, toluene is nitrated with a mixture of sulfuric and nitric acid to produce mono-nitrotoluene or MNT. The MNT is separated and then renitrated to dinitrotoluene or DNT. In the final step, the DNT is nitrated to trinitrotoluene or TNT using an anhydrous mixture of nitric acid and oleum. Nitric acid is consumed by the manufacturing process, but the diluted sulfuric acid can be reconcentrated and reused. 

All this leads to this conclusion: Blackpowder is easy, dwarven tech, and will be used for guns and turrets. TNT is too f*cking complicated to simulate. Dynamite is a go. Needs nitroglycerin, and this needs glycerol. Glycerol => Bi-product of soapmaking (Fight Club ftw) or farming oil bearing plants. To make it clear: Make soap/farm plants => glycerol => +flux => nitroglycerin => +wood&coal => Dynamite => +bolt => Fun explosive ammo

I am also thinking about mineral oils and inorganic dyes made in the chemist. I dont know how much I will work with actual powders in bags (works horribly in DF, and there is the bug that this stuff is not found when the bags are stored in barrels, so I rather keep it to tools and boulders)

[Maur]

My newly appointed Baron is on break for a season already. For the record, he was on break when he was appointed.

Also, he (actually, another baron, but nevermin) and his consort don't do mechanic job, even though they do others (didn't check all, but weapon/armorsmith work).

What's up?

[Panopticon]

Did you mean to make Bloodsteel something I can mine? Cause it is.

Seems to be a layer stone, showing up in the soil areas, leaves behind stone at the 1 in 4 ratio, doesn't seem to be good for anything, can't build stuff, can't smelt it.

Found it in Garden of Gaia, v1.9.5, I did no raw editing, changed no options for materials in the settings.

[Goodwin]

Do you need a special noble for praying for golem hearts? I have people with strand extraction enabled and no job, but no one will do it. I also have a corpse from a sacrifice in the middle of the temple. Will that matter?