Newbie questions

[Lazy Joe]

1) Can we just place blueprints for furniture like in many other games instead of ordering specific number of bed/chair/door to be made? I find this quite disruptive during building. I was trying to make a dining hall with 8 chairs, the game "interrupts" me everytime and pauses the game when i tried to place a chair which i don't have yet.

Yet at same time, npcs seem to use cooking/butcher/fishing table on their own. I don't understand what's the point then, ordering them to prepare meal or butcher animals. As someone who got too used to rimworld, this is all very confusing to me. (And i have only options between "produce this once" and "produce this endlessly"? So what do i do if i want 20 chairs? Manually scroll thru the list 20 times?

2) How to deal with (or make use of) underground water leak? My colony reached winter and the river dried up, but one room was filling up with water, yet all of my people died from thirst.
Another time i was planning to dig a stairway that goes down several floors at one go, halfway thru the digging, the work was cancelled cos they encountered damp rock, so eventually the "shaft" was filled with water. Can i pump the water out somehow? Marking it as "water source" zone doesn't seem to do anything either.

3) Where do i check the requirement for a build? I was trying to build a well, and the game just doesn't let me, but at same time it doesn't tell me what material is missing, or which condition i haven't met yet.

4) How to get rid/prevent flies on my food stockpile?

5) The "help" interface pops up every game even tho i clicked the "don't show this again" box.

[TPark]

1a) If you don't have the chair you can't place it. Unless you use DFHacks building manager tool
1b) Work orders allow you to specify a number (such as build 20 chairs). It also allows you to specify conditions on when to build them such as smelt 10 hematite ore if the number of available iron bars is less than 40.
2) The water was likely coming from an underground aquifer. If a tile is labeled as damp stone it is either next to water, next to an aquifer tile or is an aquifer tile. Aquifer tiles leak constantly to all sides AND to the tile directly below them unless the aquifer tile is removed by mining. Also, there are two types of aquifer: light aquifers which leak slowly; and heavy aquifers which leak really fast. Light aquifers can be mined out faster than they leak, heavy aquifers you have to have pumps.
Yes, you can pump the water out with a screw pump (check the wiki for details).
3) Every time I've tried to build a well and didn't have the required materials, the game doesn't build it and gives me a pop up saying "Need bucket" or whatever I'm missing. So I'm not sure how your experience is different - maybe you missed seeing the message? It doesn't appear near the cursor but at the top of the screen.
4) flies are vermin. Either assign dwarves as vermin hunters (apparently inefficient) or bring cats (very good at hunting and killing vermin).
5) By help interface, do you mean the tutorial page when you are getting ready to embark?

[Tanaka Khan]

1- Some tasks are automatically set to be automated (fishing/preparing fish, skinning/gutting animals (you just have to select the animal to be slaughtered in the livestock menu). Look at the Labour window for the settings.
2- If you were brewing alcohol your dwarfs shouldn't have died from thirst, they only drink water in dire circumstances.
3- Top left on the screen the message will appear briefly telling you what you're lacking.
4- Cats, and have all your food in barrels.
5- Help pages appear EVERY time you start a new game, just press the don't appear again button once for that play through.

[Lazy Joe]

Originally posted by TPark:

3) Every time I've tried to build a well and didn't have the required materials, the game doesn't build it and gives me a pop up saying "Need bucket" or whatever I'm missing. So I'm not sure how your experience is different - maybe you missed seeing the message? It doesn't appear near the cursor but at the top of the screen.

5) By help interface, do you mean the tutorial page when you are getting ready to embark?

I have noticed the notification when i couldn't place the well, if i remember it correctly, it just tells me something about "needs to be in open space" or something, and thats too vague for me. Does the well have to be outside? Without a ceiling above it? Next to water too? Above water too? Need more details for this kinda thing.

And by the help interface, i mean the ingame tutorial help, everytime for the first time in a new run, i open up the work tab for example, the one where you decide who can do mining/tree chopping, the help window is always there, and i have to close it.

[Lazy Joe]

Originally posted by Tanaka Khan:

2- If you were brewing alcohol your dwarfs shouldn't have died from thirst, they only drink water in dire circumstances.

4- Cats, and have all your food in barrels.

Oh im still far from brewing alcohol yet, dont know even how to do that, cant even remember seeing any crafting station related to that, still just busy digging and planning a somewhat decent looking settlement without them dying on me.

I noticed alot of food got put into barrels, is that something i can manually decide or does it just happen automatically. I didnt know cats can deal with vermins so i kinda butchered all the animals from the start, so in my food zone theres alot of meat parts and that attracted alot of flies.

[LOSERCITY RESIDENT]

You need a "still" to start brewing drinks, its in workshops->farming->still
You can brew almost any plant and fruit but make sure uncheck cooking them in kitchen tab(hammer icon on lower left->kitchen->fruits and plants) otherwise your dwarfs will cook them to make food and cooking plants and fruits don't give you seeds back.

You can gather plants and fruits by using gather tool that should be next to mining tool and harvest surface plants.
plump helmets are best and later you can plant different types of plants or fruits to brew

Your dwarfs don't need water unless they are hospitalized and they only drink it when there is nothing to drink and get upset

First click to crown icon on lower left and set your manager so you can unlock work orders

[Tanaka Khan]

Brewing alcohol is a major thing. It's always one of the first workshops I create.
You'll find that after a few years, your dog and cat population will be quite large. I just let the cats do their thing, the dogs, I train most to be war dogs and assign one each to each dwarf in the military squads. The other dogs I train into hunting hounds, and pen them (and a couple of war hounds) to the entry of my fortress as they can detect invisible enemies.

[Tanaka Khan]

Also, just my opinion (still newish myself), don't worry straight away on building an awesome fortress. Just build something easily defensible and get all your work stations built (Just down a few z levels). Once you've got all your basics settled, then you can spend your time planning and building your ultimate fortress

[TPark]

Originally posted by Lazy Joe:

Originally posted by TPark:

3) Every time I've tried to build a well and didn't have the required materials, the game doesn't build it and gives me a pop up saying "Need bucket" or whatever I'm missing. So I'm not sure how your experience is different - maybe you missed seeing the message? It doesn't appear near the cursor but at the top of the screen.

5) By help interface, do you mean the tutorial page when you are getting ready to embark?

I have noticed the notification when i couldn't place the well, if i remember it correctly, it just tells me something about "needs to be in open space" or something, and thats too vague for me. Does the well have to be outside? Without a ceiling above it? Next to water too? Above water too? Need more details for this kinda thing.

And by the help interface, i mean the ingame tutorial help, everytime for the first time in a new run, i open up the work tab for example, the one where you decide who can do mining/tree chopping, the help window is always there, and i have to close it.

Did you mine out the floor where you are trying to put the well? It has to say "open space" when you hover over the tile you want. If there isn't water below it, the well can be built but it won't work (as in "the well is dry"). have you used the Dwarf Fortress Wiki? It provides a lot of information on how to build various things including wells.

For the help interface, I don't see it anymore. But I think that might be a setting I chose on DFHack.

[Lazy Joe]

Ok i made some big progress yesterday (my 2nd day of playing)

I had enemies disabled, so i could just focus on getting familiar with other stuff first.

Managed to build the well, i dug a channel from a pond of water, and could place the well on top of that tile, saw the requirements more clearly too this time, i didnt have stone blocks and mechanism, first i thought mechanism is supposed to be some "technology" that i must research, turned out its really just some item.

I fooled around alot with the work orders, i really like that, and now my colony is thriving quite well, population is growing, plenty food and drinks, no meat or fish tho, pest problem is under control because i didnt kill all my cats this time.


1) Another thing i noticed, there is one spot which was "ground" before, but now is a open hole, i can see one level below, how did that happen?

2) Some have need to pray to some certain gods, it seems, i managed to build and place an altar, but what do i put on top of it and how do i craft it?

3) i see you can turn dining hall/dorm into tavern, i assigned innkeeper and bard, will i get visitors and will it bring me coins? It says i lack goblets.

[Tanaka Khan]

1- You would have cut down a tree and tunnelled below it on the next level. I always go down at least 2 levels before I start any major construction, but sometimes you do need to build one z level down to build underground farms.

2- Build a room, and turn it into a meeting hall, then select Temple. That will bring up a list of what gods there are in your game, and how many dwarfs follow them. You'll sometimes get petitions to create temples to certain gods as well.

3- Create your Tavern, don't be too worried in the beginning about assigning innkeepers and bards, do that when you have plenty of dwarfs. Place a couple of coffers/chests in the tavern and make some rock mugs, they'll be placed in there. You won't make any coins, but it keeps your dwarfs happy.

What I do is make a dinning hall next to the tavern and have the only way to get there is through the tavern, so the dwarfs will get both mood bonuses. I don't do rooms for the taverns, at this point in time I only want dwarfs living in my fortress and don't want outside races...filthy elves!

[TPark]

1) If there is a tree growing above a location that you have mined out, when you cut down the tree it takes the floor with it, leaving the mined out tile one z-level down open. Tanaka Khan's solution is one way to avoid this. Or you can just make sure you pay attention when you give orders to cut down trees and cover the holes with floors.
2) You make temples the same way you made an Inn. Designate a room as a meeting area and then designate the meeting area as a temple. You can also choose to make the temple to "no specific deity". Then any dwarf will use it. Funnily enough, a temple needs a chest with musical instruments, but doesn't need an altar.
3) I never assign an innkeeper. I believe there are only two effects from assigning an innkeeper: a) the innkeeper will keep serving drinks to any person in the tavern regardless of whether they want one or not, resulting in massive inebriation and sometimes alcohol poisoning. And might hear rumors when serving visitors.
A tavern does need to have a chest to hold goblets (mugs, cups, etc. depending on the material they are made from) and musical instruments.

[Lazy Joe]

Another thing i noticed is that my dwarfs apparently dont eat. Im sure they do eat, but i just cant see them doing it. I had the impression that nobody was even using the dining hall until i turned it into tavern, then they started going there for music and story sessions. While drinking is much more noticable, they just walk to the barrel and after a short moment, the barrel becomes empty. While i have no idea whats happening with the food, most of the time things happen so fast, especially when the npcs dont actually "move" but teleports from grid to grid.

1) Should i have provided more than just table and chairs??? Like do they need bowls? spoons?

2) Barrel that have previously held drink inside, becomes empty after use, can they be used again or are they trash now? And how do i get rid of "trash" like animal bones. I know they probably arent trash and i just havent bothered using them for something yet, but just in case, what if i have stuff i dont want and its taking up space in my stockpile zone. Like i have noticed dead hamsters in my wood zone, i have a zone for "refuse" and corpses, and yet it is not being moved to there.

[LOSERCITY RESIDENT]

Originally posted by Lazy Joe:

Another thing i noticed is that my dwarfs apparently dont eat. Im sure they do eat, but i just cant see them doing it. I had the impression that nobody was even using the dining hall until i turned it into tavern, then they started going there for music and story sessions. While drinking is much more noticable, they just walk to the barrel and after a short moment, the barrel becomes empty. While i have no idea whats happening with the food, most of the time things happen so fast, especially when the npcs dont actually "move" but teleports from grid to grid.

1) Should i have provided more than just table and chairs??? Like do they need bowls? spoons?

2) Barrel that have previously held drink inside, becomes empty after use, can they be used again or are they trash now? And how do i get rid of "trash" like animal bones. I know they probably arent trash and i just havent bothered using them for something yet, but just in case, what if i have stuff i dont want and its taking up space in my stockpile zone. Like i have noticed dead hamsters in my wood zone, i have a zone for "refuse" and corpses, and yet it is not being moved to there.

My dwarfs rarely eat in my dining room and they mostly eat in my prison cells(dungeon)

You can put table and chairs inside your tavern and put dining hall zone over it.
This may reduce value, you can remove tavern zone tiles over your tables and chairs and a few tiles spaces so you can put some artifacts on that.
This way they should get dining room mood bonus.

Storage items can be used agains, they don't wear and tear over time but my knowledge is limited and i read they can burn if they are in hot areas.

For trash, you can create a stockpile and select refuse or select custom and go to refuse tab and select which thing you want to put there, i generally don't throw bones since strange moods can wants them.
I have outdoor refuse and corpse stockpile and indoor refuse stockpile.
I store bones, skulls, shells, wools/hair in indoor one.
I also read that refuse stockpiles removes items in them overtime and i don't know if it true.

Btw you can make underground farms that 1 level below from surface and build some roof over it(just make channel with mining tool tab from surface you only need one tile that over your farm tile and put floor from any materials so nothing can get inside) to grow fruits and plants that only grow in surface which is very good since they grow year round.

If you have rope reed(they grow near rivers and brooks) you can have materials forever for your clothing industry.
Otherwise pig tails and spider silks for clothing.

Also make sure uncheck pig tails drink icon from your kitchen so they don't brew into drink and build a farmer's workshop for making threads from pig tails and get seeds back

[Lazy Joe]

Ok nevermind, they do eat, and will actually sit on chairs to eat.

Half of my settlement died from thirst because i didnt make more empty barrels, so i had plenty materials to make drinks, but those used empty barrel apparently are useless after all. Only after i started making fresh empty barrels, did my dwarfs pick up alcohol production again...

[LOSERCITY RESIDENT]

Weird, empty barrels, bins and pots can used again but they don't stack liquid unless you use dfhack's combine.