So I bit the bullet and finally redownloaded to give this game another try.
This is not a learning curve. It is a vertical wall.

>>88291
What's the biggest question you have right now?

Also if you have any questions feel free to hit me on MSN (same as my email).

>>88291

The magma wiki (http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Dwarf_Fortress_Wiki:Magmawiki) is your best friend.

See you on the other side.

>>88292
Thanks man, but I don't have MSN. I've got AIM and Yahoo! though. Yahoo! is the same name, while AIM is 'awadofgum'. Also, Skype.
It's not a sexual pun. A decade and more ago my friends and I, in a bit of ironic hipster humor, made ourselves a 'gang' and used junk food and candy as nicknames.

As for what question I have, well.. it's probably not something that can be asked. I'm still adjusting to the designations of this new and unfamiliar thing called a 'roguelike.' Downloaded the latest version, looked up this tileset I'd heard about called Stone Sense. Downloaded that. Wasn't sure wat to do. Tried to run Stone Sense, it just searched for Dorf Fort for 5 minutes before I closed it. I would like to go on record and admit I've never messed with this sort of thing before.

So far I've been able to designate spots for the dorfs to put shit, tell a miner to go tunnel into a mountain side and managed to make a carpentry shop + lots of beds for the dorfs. I tried to plant seeds, but then some friends told me that you couldn't plant them without a source of water and muddy ground.. so, no nourishment, and it would tell me I had no seeds despite having caps and rock nuts.

I've had my shit stolen by macaques and buzzards. Those fuckers!

>>88309
Indeed.

>>88333
Wait, how is a wad of gum a sexual pun?

>>88334
I was asked once if the word GUM was supposed to be some sort of get-around for censorship before. The implication being I was trying to use the phrase 'a wad of cum.'
Probably more word play or.. something. But whatever leads to that conclusion, it ain't right.

>>88333
WHAT DID I TELL YOU MAN? Look at >>78248
The latest version is not for the uninitiated. And if I remember correctly it was still very glitchy (in the bad way).

Use the version of DF provided with the guide. You'll do better.

>>88333

If you're not going to back out and use a tutorial:

To start farming you need to cover the tiles you want to farm with water. The simplest way to do this is to dig out a room next to a murky pool and then dig out the wall seperating the pool and the room. Once the room is flooded construct a wall over the tile you just dug out to prevent any future rain from entering the room. Construct a plot over the muddied floor and enable the crop you want to grow by [q]uerying the plot, don't forget to enable the crop for each season.

Yes, it's that simple.

>>88341
Straight forwards and helpful. This I like. Thank you.

What I want to do is probably bassackwards to your standard Dwarf Fort objective. I think I'd like to make some sort of invulnerable tower above ground. Why?.. I have no idea. It's Dorf Fort. Maybe some sort of draw bridge defense system. I've heard you can still catapult dorfs on top of drawbridges. Maybe knocking out a wall high up in the tower and making it a choke point would serve as both a defense and a way to fling invaders off the side of the tower.
Do goblins and etc. take damage from high falls?

>>88345
Yeah, they take damage, though it has to be pretty high. Like 5+ to wound them and 10+ for a kill.

>>88354
I am absolutely positively okay with this.

What is the maximum depth you can dig? What's the maximum height you can build?

>>88355
In the old verisons, you were limited to about 40 Z-levels, more or less depending on what elevation you started at. In the new versions, there's a LOT more. Usually it will be around 150. There's a couple layers of caverns that you can breach, and eventually you'll hit magma and Fun. You really, really, really don't want to dig down too enthusiastically in the new version.

I'm not sure how far up you can go; I think it varies depending on the map. 15 seems like a good ballpark.

Also, for farms: in the old versions, you used to be able to put a farm plot on soil without irrigating it. In the new version, you have to irrigate soil and rock before you can put down a farm plot.

Eventually you'll want a fancier, controllable irrigation system (especially if you run out of ponds). If you have an underground water source or a river/stream, one thing you might want to try is building yourself a reservoir. First have your dwarves build a couple floodgates and mechanisms. I think you'll need a mason's shop and a craftsdwarf's shop. Mine out a large room adjacent to the water source. Build a channel from the room to the water, leaving one block. Put a floodgate in that room, and at the entrance to the room. Next to the reservoir, put a farm.

Now, build a couple Levers. (uhhh... b/T/l I think?) View them with q, then follow the menu to link them to the floodgates. Link each floodgate to a separate lever.

When you have those linked up, you can channel out the one remaining tile separating the water source from the reservoir. Open the outer floodgate to fill the reservoir, then close it. Then, open the inner floodgate to irrigate.

About sizes: each tile can hold 7 units of water. You need each farmable tile to have 1 unit of water to muddy it for farming and then evaporate. I forget the sizes, but basically you want your farm plots to be seven times the area of the reservoir's capacity. For example, a one tile reservoir will effectively irrigate a one-by-seven row of farm tiles.

>>88359
I get the feeling I'm going to be angry at my computer as dwarves unintentionally drown themselves.

>>88369
Yeah, there are going to be casualties. If you're careful you can do it safely, but for some reason when it comes to channeling the AI becomes suicidal.

>>88359

Honestly I never saw the need for creating floodgates just for farming, a medium sized murky pool can usually irrigate enough tiles to feed and booze 80 dorfs indefinitely and if you're low you can always butcher whatever animals you've accumulated and sell junk to the traders for whatever food they're selling.

More dumb Ram questions.
Uhm.. Well, I'm not entirely sure how to get the water from one place to another.
For instance, that one place I built two days ago. It was a cave adjacent to a lake. I hadn't yet tried to dig below that particular level of ground yet.

Do you dig one level down and then dig towards the lake? Or is the command 'channel' capable of routing water towards the crops on the same level? And when tunneling down, do Dorfs get stuck, or do you need a shop for stairs/ladders or what?

>>88426

I'm really confused by your questions so these might not be the answers you're looking for.

Channeling will not route water to the same level it was designated on unless the water pressure forces it out of the channel. FYI channeling removes the floor from the z-level it was designated on and digs out the tile(s) below at the same time.


Digging down is as simple as designating a downstairs over a free tile [d]-[j] and then designating an upstairs on the tile beneath the stairs you've just created [d]-[u].

Alternatively you can just use up/downstairs [d]-[i] but if a dorf falls down several flights of up/downstairs (yes, they can fall) they'll injure themselves.

Creating stairs in areas that has already been dug out is done by the build menu, all you need is some variety of stone, block or log. [b]-[C]-[x] for up/down, [b]-[C]-[u] for up and [b]-[C]-[d] for down.

>>88430
Spot on answers, despite your confusion. :)

Welp. Made progress today. Found an underground lake and drained it. I am now the proud owner of a 5X5 plot of plump helmet spawn. Also, discovered the button to move through the Z-axis. Cookin' with gas nao.

Now to make some doors for my dorfs.

>>88404
I've never been on a map with more than one or two murky pools, and they were never placed conveniently. Also, I like to tower-cap farm, and those needed occasional re-irrigations.

>>88462
I chose my location wisely. Sadly the map I chose also possessed about two enemy forts. Two evil goblin forts and one dark dwarf fort. I'll probably get ransacked.

Won't be too long before I'll be trying to plow through new maps. It's just a bit of a bummer that, to the best of my knowledge, dorfs don't seem to have a system in place to move large quantities of water through pipes for plumbing. (do they?)
It'd be wonderful to make a tower or something, but apparently without access to a downward slope and water, there'll be no farming. :(

>>88476
Behold, the screw pump!
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Screw_pump

>>88480
BRILLIANT!
Now... plans to surround an entire lake with flooring and walls. Uwahaha.

>>88462

Hurm, well I usually embark at sea level in heavily forested areas.

Mmokay, Dorfs. There's a cliff here, and a low ledge down there, and it leads to the ocean. There's also some fresh water.. uh.. lake things. So watch out for those.

.. No, I misclicked! No! Augh fuck what's the command to make them NOT dig a place! No, don't DIG THAT!
FUUUUUUCK
>tunnel flood separating the guys above from the guys below.

>>88747
I think that's d/x. It's "clear designation" or something like that.

My Carpenter/WCer just drowned after he somehow fell into a pool...

>>89460
He might have been fighting an animal maybe? Dorfs are terrible at not dodging into certain death. Also they can't swim for shit.

>>89468

No reports and the only animal on the map was a fox bumming around the top left corner.

>>89460
>>89468
CAVE CARP DEMANDS TRIBUTE.

>>89469
Weird.

this means you have a ~ghoooooooost~

It would make sense dwarves wouldn't float. They are composed almost entirely out of bone and muscle. And covered in dirt.

They probably sink.

You know what needs to happen? Build a model of a Left 4 Dead map in DF, stick a couple dwarves in one end and have them path to the surface or something, then recreate hordes and special infected by putting goblins and titans in isolated rooms and opening the doors when the dwarves walk by.

And you'd think the mountain of corpses would be a warning to future invaders.

On a strange note I've started to get Elves accompanying the goblins in ambushes.

>>89710
They were probably baby-napped and raised as soldiers.

>>89716

I thought you were joking at first, but then I went back to corpse heap at the base of the tower.

The Elf had a Goblin name and there was no Elven equipment amongst the debris.

Holy shit.

>>89720
What do you think the goblins used all those babies for?

>>89732

Same thing I use goblins for; exterior decor.

Behold, the legend of Cacame.
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Cacame_Awemedinade

Due to some modding gone wrong I now have bars.

They're worth 5 dorfbux and their description reads: This is a bars.

nothing terribly bad seems to be happening in my fort.
everyone's happy and there have been absolutely no signs of goblin sieges.
one way to keep them working is hauling all the fucking limestone into one of my cavernous, underground storage rooms

Don't mind me, just posting a 2212 z-level adamantine spire.

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=61507.0

>>90735

>slowpoke.jpg

>>90735 >>90739

>Finally get DF and DT working on my oldish Macbook
>Find a nice embark
>Upon embarking I see my fort is called Twistedknife
>It's mid Autumn, I have plenty of vendor trash and my magma smelters are now operational
>Migrant wave reduces my fps to a crawl

Nothing you ever do will surpass this.

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=65024.0

You're all small time.

Is there anyway to melt snow into water in Adventurer mode? There's snow everywhere I can gather and I can start plenty of tree fires but I can find no one to melt the snow without destroying the container or lightning myself on fire.

>>92247

Not as far as I know.

>>92255
Well, I finally found a way, though it only works for getting things warm and not cooking (which Toady is only planning right now): stand next to a fire while holding a container and check the temperature to make sure it is warm or hot, then just wait a while until the ice melts.

So, the new version is out, and the populations of towns are now spread ridiculously far out.

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=66142.0