What's the easiest way to explore my fortresses in adventure mode, without all the preparation?

Question

I'd really like to explore my fortresses in adventure mode, but I don't really like spending an hour to solve quests, gain followers, buy equipment and find the actual fortress.

Is there some kind of shortcut to get me closer to what I want?

Asked by Anna

Answer

The best shortcut is to prepare an armory for your adventurer at the entrance. Spend a few years making a suit of full masterwork adamantine gear, including adamantine underwear and mittens. Put all of it in lead/gold/platinum bins to prevent the items from scattering upon the fortress's death. After your adventurer makes it to the room, they will be nearly invincible (although some demons may still splatter you against a wall, and an adamantine chainshirt heated by dragonfire will burn your flesh the same as an iron chainshirt).

Bludgeoning weapons and shield bashes do not benefit from adamantine's exceptional properties, heavier metals must be used instead for best results. Silver is the best metal for war hammers and maces sans moods (If you have a moody weaponsmith who likes war hammers, get him some platinum or lead, the resulting weapon will hit with the power of a thousand suns).

This of course only works for adventurers which can equip dwarven-made armor. Dwarves and elves qualify. Most dwarven-made weapons should be good for any vanilla adventurer race, and having a sword that decapitates in one hit is always a plus; playing with a tiny race will obviously make regular weapons difficult.

Actually finding the fortress can be quite difficult. Make note of where it is on the world map when you create it (you may also use reclaim to see it on the map), then try to match its position to what you see on the travel map in adventure mode. If that's not helping, try to start with a civ that is nearby the fortress site and use legends mode map viewer to figure out how the position of your starter town relates to the fortress's position.

Answered by kotekzot

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Do coffins block movement?

Question

Do coffins block the movement of dwaves, like statues seem to do?

Asked by Anna

Answer

No, coffins do not block movement.

PROTIP: mined-out and engraved clusters/veins of precious minerals are a great place for a snotty noble's tomb.

Answered by kotekzot

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What's the name of the current settlement?

Question

How to find the name of the current settlement? The Dwarven name is in the civilizations screen ("Imports from ..."), but I can't see the translation anywhere.

Asked by Anna

Answer

It's on the Z-Stocks Screen.

Alas, no freehand circles.

Answered by Raven Dreamer

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Who are The Dwarves of the Pink Galley?

Question

The dwarves of The Pink Galley now know a few facts about eagle training.

This message appeared after the Dwarven caravan (from The Rim of Perplexing) had left. Just before, I had trained an eagle from wild to semi-wild. Who are the dwarves of The Pink Galley, and who told them about my eagle?

Asked by Anna

Answer

Dwarf Fortress is a procedurally generated game. This means that every time you make a world, an entirely new, never-before-seen continent/history/civilization/etc. is created.¹

The Dwarves of The Pink Galley are dwarves who, in your world, happen to live in some place that got the name "The Pink Galley." There's really no more to it than that. There's no Dwarf Fortress canon or official backstory wiki, etc. You can load your world in the Legends mode, where you may be able to discern some of the history of whatever place happens to be called The Pink Galley.

As mentioned in the comments, the message you're seeing is one about your own settlement. Congratulations, The Pink Galley is you, and you know how to train eagles!

---

^{1 - You can 'seed' the world generator in order to reproduce a previous world, but this is the exception, not the norm.}

Answered by Dan Rasmussen

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Why do I need a “screw trap component” for building a screw pump?

Question

When I try to build a screw pump with bMs, I see the red text:

Needs screw trap component

I've already built seven pumps, and still have blocks, pipe sections, mechanisms and enormous corkscrews to go. Nothing is forbidden, and no burrows are activated. What could I be missing?

Edit: It does work now, and AFAIK nothing changed. So the question is: What could I have been missing?

Asked by Anna

Answer

Having items unforbidden is not always enough to make them eligible for constructing buildings.

My guess is that one or more of your Enormous Corkscrews had been scheduled to be picked up (that is to say, there was a dwarf moving towards it) or was being actively moved.

Once your dwarves put down your giant corkscrews, they'll become usable again, as you observed.

Answered by Raven Dreamer

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Dwarf Fortress World Gen

Question

I'm trying to generate a very specific map: one with an arctic ocean, a volcano, and preferably a taiga (or other frozen, wood-filled land).

I've managed to generate a couple of coastal volcanoes so far, (including one with a sub-ocean magma pipe. that was a fun embark -- 5 minutes of "cave in has occurred" as water became obsidian and then fell to the bottom of the magma sea) but they're never close enough to the poles to be in an arctic ocean. (I have a strong desire to acquire War Walruses, you see, so I simply must have an arctic biome :P )

Is there any way I can decrease the temperature on an already generated world? How can I increase the number of Cold or Freezing squares on each map?

Asked by Raven Dreamer

Answer

So from what I gather is that you want to create a specific map or decrease the temperature on an already created map. I don't know the latter but I can help with the former:

1. Open up DF
2. On the main screen select Design New World With Parameters
3. Select one of the presets and press the e key
4. Scroll down till you see the following (should be the second page):

1. Change the Maximum Temperature and Minimum Volcanism values
   • good values for Temperature are ~45
   • good values for Volcanism are >50
2. Finally, to ensure a good Taiga you'll want to play with the Rainfall parameter.

Answered by tzenes

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How do I get my fisherdwarf to fish (or how to create a fishing zone)?

Question

How do I get my dwarves to start fishing? I have enabled the fishing labor, and made sure that the standing orders do not forbid fishing outside of zones, but my dwarves never seem to go fishing. There are a couple of murky pools on the map, but whenever I try to create a fishing zone on or around them, it only says 0 no matter how many tiles I select.

Asked by Leo

Answer

Sounds like there just aren't fish to be caught on the map (Except perhaps in the caverns? Did you discover any underground bodies of water yet?) Perhaps the biome you are in is inhospitable to fish. If that's the case, you probably won't ever be able to fish in that fortress.

That said, fishing is a rather minor part of the food industry, and can be easily ignored.

Answered by kotekzot

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Is there a stone bin?

Question

I recently found out that there's a stone pot that functions like a barrel. Is there, similarly, a stone substitute for bins? Or any other material that isn't wood or metal?

Asked by Anna

Answer

No, there are no stone bins. Bins must be made out of wood or metal, barring strange moods producing bin-artifacts.

Answered by Raven Dreamer

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What does this noble activity mean?

Question

Apparently Mountainhome is happy with my colony, so I got to appoint a baronness, and chose my legendary miner. Now she spends most of her time doing the activity "Noble" in her room. What's that? Should I avoid appointing important dwarves to high positions?

Asked by Anna

Answer

As the Wiki says:

Nobles are snotty good-for-nothing parasites

Jokes aside, noble dwarf are quite demanding, but they are useful because they unlock the possibility to appoint other nobles.

Your baroness, as you can see in the table in the link, will let you appoint Champions and Dungeon Masters (and Tax Collectors in the future)

Answered by Kappei

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Why is there so much empty space on some DF screens?

Question

In some Dwarf Fortress screens, there's a lot of empty space. For example, on the health screen, I need to scroll through the units even though they'd fit on one screen if all the space was used. There's also horizontal scrolling for some reason.

Is there any way to fix this?

Asked by Anna

Answer

Unfortunately not. The game is still very much a work in progress and the UI is rather low on the list of priorities.

Answered by kotekzot

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Will pumping from a river affect the frame rate?

Question

I've found that digging around a river or stream to change its shape greatly decreases my frame rate. Would pumping out some water have the same effect, if I stop the pump afterwards?

Asked by Anna

Answer

If the water you pump out does not move around a lot, it should have no appreciable effect on FPS after the riverbed fills back up to capacity.

To maximize FPS, try to make sure there are no partial water tiles (below 7/7), though that could be difficult if you're going to be using the water. Minimizing the surface area of the reservoir could lead to lesser number of partial tiles moving around, though the benefit is likely to be minimal.

Answered by kotekzot

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Why is “Cages & Chains: 3 of 20” in red letters?

Question

On the tile of my Justice screen, it says "Cages & Chains: 3 of 20", with "3 of 20" in bright-red letters. Does this mean that I need 17 more cages or chains, or is the red text not a warning?

The prison is currently empty, and has always been. There's just one crime, but no sentence pending.

Asked by Anna

Answer

Once again, linking from the Wiki:

In the upper right of this screen is "Cages & Chains", which shows the total number of combined cages plus restraints designated for justice out of the total currently available. It's important to note that although it says "chains", it's counting both ropes and chains as well as cages - and ropes are not as desirable as chains when used as restraints for this purpose. If you have adequate chains and cages (at least 1 cage, rope or chain for every 10 dwarves) the number will be blue, or red if you don't have enough.

As you can see, the problem is not how many of those are free, but that you don't have enough when compared to the number of dwarves in your fortress.

Answered by Kappei

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What can be done with artifact clothes?

Question

My fortress has produced an artifact leather coat, leather shirt and gold bracelet. Can these be used for anything except selling them?

For example, could I specify that a dwarf can wear them?

Asked by Anna

Answer

You can assign artifact clothing to be worn by a particular dwarf through the military menu. Don't think it works for jewelry.

Answered by kotekzot

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What can be done with artefact clothes?

Question

My fortress has produced an arterfact leather coat, leather shirt and gold bracelet. Can these be used for anything except selling them?

For example, could I specify that a dwarf can wear them?

Asked by Anna

Answer

Only weapon and armor artifacts can be effectively used by your dwarfs. Clothing and crafted goods artifacts only add to your fortress value.

Answered by Kappei

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Is it possible to capture a webspinning forgotten beast / titan?

Question

I would dearly like to cage trap a web-spinning forgotten beast (or other procedural creature, like a titan) so as to make a forgotten beast silk factory. (Yeah, I know giant cave spider silk is worth more. I don't care; having things made out of FB silk is awesome.) Unfortunately:

1. All procedural creatures have basic trap immunity.
2. The usual workaround for that, webbing on the cage trap, doesn't work because webspinners are immune to webs.
3. Procedural creatures also cannot be stunned, so luring them into cage-trap-paved areas and attacking them doesn't (as far as I can tell) seem to result in them ever losing consciousness and getting trapped.

So, does anybody know of any methods that might work? Maybe circumstances where an FB might be rendered unconscious other than by the usual stunning? Or a strategy I'm overlooking? Or are they just uncapturable?

Asked by chaos

Answer

You're going at your problem the wrong way. You don't need to capture a Demon or Forgotten Beast in a cage trap to start a silk farm - all you need to do is trap it in an area such that it can shoot its webs but not otherwise bother you.

Mitchewawa on the Bay12 Forums has quite an extensive topic on this very subject.

The crux of it involves exploiting pathing and the fact that building destroyers cannot destroy hatches from below. Basically, you want to isolate your webber, then use caveins etc. then dig out a silk farm area based on where you isolated it, and finally, sacrifice a migrant to get it into the silk farm area (with the possibility of orchestrating a cave trap to seal it off again).

Answered by Raven Dreamer

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How to reliably hurt dwarves without killing them?

Question

I've been trying to hurt dwarves, for my healthcare dwarf to practice on, by building a retracting bridge, stationing a squad there, and then retracting the bridge.

If the fall is just 1z, i.e. the bridge is on the level right above the ground, the dwarves just get stunned and not damaged. If the fall is 2z, they die every time.

How can I reliably hurt dwarves without killing them?

Asked by Anna

Answer

You could try to use a danger room to injure them. It consist of a spike trap triggered by a lever, where your... test subject will stand and be injured.

The last time I did one, I used an actual wooden menacing pike instead of a training spear as the advice in the article, and I noticed that it tends to give your dwarf a nice wound after just a single lever pull.

Answered by Jupotter

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How did the ram get up there?

Question

Suddenly, I found my huntsdwarf's ram on the wall. There has never been any ramp or stairs up there, so how could it have happened?

I'm in an Untamed Wilds biome, and have seen flying (non-aggressive) wild animals. Could any of them have put the ram up there?

Asked by Anna

Answer

In combat, it's possible to dodge up a Z-level onto the top of an adjacent wall, without any kind of stairway or ramp. Hysterical strength, I guess. It's a little-known phenomenon because the circumstances for it are pretty rare. That's probably what happened to your ram.

Answered by chaos

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What is the easiest way to block this submerged tunnel under my walls?

Question

I walled in the entrance to my fortress, and solved the problem of a water-filled channel by walling right across it. The problem is, apparently people can just walk through that channel, as it's usually only filled 3/7 of water. What's the easiest way of blocking this one tile?

Asked by Anna

Answer

A screenshot or rendition of the specific layout might be helpful, but I'll give answering a try anyway.

There are essentially two options for closing the tunnel. If you can drain it completely, at least for a while, you can simply construct a wall, door or floodgate to seal it completely, or fortifications, a grate, vertical bars or a statue if you need to let water through.

A second, more involved option, but that doesn't require draining the tunnel first is applying magma to the opening, turning the whole thing into obsidian, but that won't let water through (although fortifications can be carved into it at a later point).

Edit: Another option is to floor over any access points to the tunnel, on either side.

Answered by Williham Totland

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How to reserve barrels for drink?

Question

My fortress is overflowing with food barrels, but there is very little drink left. I do have seeds for brewing more, but cannot, since there are no more barrels. There is no wood available for making more. What can I do?

Asked by Anna

Answer

You can also make barrels out of metal (at a forge or magma forge by a dwarf with metalsmithing enabled), and in recent versions you can also make large pots out of stone (at a craftsdwarf's workshop by a dwarf with stonecrafting enabled).

Answered by TheBeardyMan

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How to dig up, through a level surface?

Question

I can dig out staircases upwards, but how do I actually cross the surface?

____
#X##
#X##       _ is the ground surface
#X         X are staircases
####       # is earth

Asked by Anna

Answer

Carve a ramp, they go upwards. You can then build a downward staircase and replace the ramp with an upward staircase. The ramp may become unusable after constructing the upper staircase, so send that fish dissector if the area is dangerous or you are expecting delays.

Answered by kotekzot

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