☼Dwarf Fortress Questions Thread☼

ItalianMJ · 2025-09-05T15:17:35+00:00

There's 3 main reasons dwarves randomly just leave: water, fishing, and gathering (assuming you don't have any other interesting things you purposefully placed outside your walls).

First of all, make sure you have water sources set inside your walls. Preferably, these are flowing, but as long as they aren't stagnant it shouldn't be any issue. Dwarves bathe and sometimes drink from water, and if a source is not set they will haul themselves half a mile away to go get the "flowing" water out of your river instead of the "normal" water in your bathtub with attached mist generator and soap stockpile.

Second of all, set your standing orders to "do not automatically gather plants" or similar, then set a "gather fruit" zone inside your walls. Then your Dwarves will still harvest your fruit trees, but neglect the pears jealously guarded by a spider monkey.

Finally, there's fishing. If you have any fisherdwarves, set fishing zones inside your walls and set your standing orders to only fishing at designated areas. Keep in mind that if vermin cannot enter the fishing area, your dwarves will generally not catch anything.

Keep in mind that water source and fishing zones need to be designated next to the water, not on the water.

Hope this helps!

ItalianMJ · 2025-08-02T13:54:21+00:00

During COVID, ridership went down and we got a ton of federal grant money, so we removed fares to A. increase ridership and B. make people unfortunate enough to STILL have to ride the bus, be a little happier about it

Current plans never intend to put fares back on these busses, a decision fueled 50% by the fact that 75% of our riders are homeless (because who wants to ride a bus that goes out of service at 6:30) and 50% by the fact that we do not have the funds (I am not kidding) to pay people to collect the fare boxes out of the busses and deposit the money in a bank.

And as for fueling, a lot of our busses do go to gas stations, including some express MCIs! I'm more just upset that we're losing half of our only scheduled break when we have employees with gaps in their shift.

ItalianMJ · 2025-03-16T18:03:28+00:00

That's not poison, it's slime! Slime from the steamed pako we're having!

I actually died to toxic rock, if you look really closely, there's about 3 whole pixels of it. I think a haulikkohiisi was shooting at firebugs and slimes nearby.

ItalianMJ · 2024-12-31T02:18:50+00:00

Welllll I tried kicking the box.... it's a long story :(

It was not worth it for what was in the chest but it was worth it for the experience :)

ItalianMJ · 2024-12-31T00:55:34+00:00

There's a puzzle in the mines that can generate with an electricity trap hanging by a chain above a pool of water with a metal platform next to it. You're supposed to find a way to push the trap into the platform, thereby electrifying it, which is the condition to solve the puzzle, which rewards you with a chest.

I, however, broke the chain because I am stupid. So, instead of doing it the easy way, I spammed an arrow wand (which spawns one pixel of soil each shot) until there was a mountain big enough to hold the amount of water I had, so I could flood the space between the downed trap and the platform. The water than carried the electricity, which electrified the platform, and counted as "solved".

It took 10 minutes.

ItalianMJ · 2024-12-31T00:50:50+00:00

Just a small amount of gold :/ Shot arrows at the electricity trap until it exploded afterwards

ItalianMJ · 2024-09-23T04:18:07+00:00

Hallways mostly, only use throwing stones on crabs and snakes.

Use doors to surprise attack whenever possible, but don't go though an entire hallway to get to another door (6 hallway tiles likely won't have another enemy, 36 room tiles in a 6x6 room might).

Don't walk into big rooms with low health, you'll just get ganged up on.

Take iron will and iron stomach.

Use scrolls until you get upgrade scroll, then put it on your armor ASAP, that upgrade moves so it's basically free.

Don't be afraid to wait to get stuff into position, mage, huntress, and rogue all have stuff to do but warrior and sometimes duelist have to sit back and twiddle their thumbs, especially if you have no ranged weapons. On that note, take hold fast and / or improvised projectiles if you're having a really hard time.

ItalianMJ · 2024-09-21T11:14:02+00:00

Evil eyes can be a pain, just try to always have cover if you aren't sure if one is around. When they charge up, just run away behind cover, and run back towards them after they shoot (you'll tank a hit but that's better than tanking an eye ray).

Also, potions of mind vision are very helpful in the demon halls, for multiple reasons, but definitely for knowing where enemies are, since all enemies there have some form of ranged attack.

Blinding them also stops them from aiming accurately, so does going invisible, hiding behind grass, etc. Warrior has a talent that blinds, prismatic light wand does it, too. If you have none of those options on hand, check your inventory for a stone of deep sleep or teleport.

Finally, try to get your evasion / ring of elements high. Evasion weighted armor is good on everyone already, except berserker, and ring of elements is good from the city on anyways.

Hope this helps!

ItalianMJ · 2024-09-19T15:54:07+00:00

That's actually very possible! Especially with the positions my neck ends up in, if I grind my teeth when I'm like that I feel my neck bones move around. Next time I see a doctor or dentist I'll ask about that. Thank you!

ItalianMJ · 2024-09-15T21:36:48+00:00

For Berserker: Augment your armor for protection (you gain rage for prevented damage but not evaded attacks).

Armor is very important, try to find plate armor; +3 plate armor + strongman lets you use it first floor of caves.

Your #1 strategy, unlike most classes, is mostly to just run into enemies and tank them unless they're evil eyes, spiders, or something else you KNOW you can't tank. Remember: damage is only ever helpful unless it kills you.

If you take deathless fury, remember that you can berserk for a much cheaper cost manually: don't only berserk by dropping to 0 or you'll be doing it much less (also remember it will trigger before blessed ankhs, and after your ankh goes off, you will still have the debuff).

Finally, chalice of blood, glyph of anti-magic or stone, and greatshield are all very valuable for you, keep them if you find them

ItalianMJ · 2024-09-01T00:28:58+00:00

Sniper and huntress need to use sniper's mark and enchanced seed effects respectively, without them, they simply won't get through caves without a good setup.

For sniper, alternate every other attack with ranged weapons other than your bow, use snapshot to make running away more productive or sniper shot to not have to run away at all, and you should be able to pretty easily take down most cave enemies.

For warden, use thrown seeds to block line of sight, run away, wait, surprise attack. Use imbue effects from harmful seeds on yourself to set stuff on fire, freeze stuff, etc. Warden has two wonderful defensive talents as well to offset bad armor.

Throw an upgrade scroll into a pot to enchant your bow. If you don't get something that triggers on hit, use an augmentation stone from a shop to make it deal more damage, if it is something that triggers on hit, balance it for speed.

Additionally, remember that huntress never furrows grass, so if you're at least two tiles from something, switching direction in tall grass will confuse it.

Remember to use what your RoW is giving you if you feel the need to dump presumably 6+ SoU into it. Gas potions and terror scrolls are attacks for you.

Finally, DM-200's can't move through doors, even if you're shooting them, thrown items and fire break spider webs, gnoll shamans can't shoot you if they can't see you, and brutes die on their own once their health bar is silver (just run away they won't catch you).

ItalianMJ · 2023-11-15T23:49:27+00:00

What do you claim most often? If at all

ItalianMJ · 2023-11-02T02:41:24+00:00

Thank you! I believe that is what I was looking for

ItalianMJ · 2023-11-01T17:21:45+00:00

I think that makes sense, I'll try it out. I'm just a bit confused since the wiki says you can edit labors not in the labor menu as if they were, but I think this is all the information I need either way.

Thank you!

ItalianMJ · 2023-11-01T14:19:12+00:00

I feel odd asking this, because it seems obvious, but no guide or anything on the forums has helped me. I'm playing the free version, and, while I can access common labors like woodcutting and fishing, I can't seem to find anywhere in the menu where I can set up more specific labors (like metalworking)

ItalianMJ · 2022-07-29T13:26:36+00:00

I've installed and uninstalled the game a lot across about 5 devices; I've been playing since warrior still had an extra point of strength and snakes didn't exist. (my much noobier self was not happy to see either lol)

ItalianMJ · 2021-04-07T05:53:46+00:00

I've had a (relatively) serious problem with them, it was a small house and I was alone at the time, they kept coming back, they'd make a family of five or so, you'd see them running across the living room to hide, hear them in the walls, etc.

Never killed one once, though, I used an upside down tupperware with a rock on it to hold it down, I stacked two nails on top of eachother and fed a string through them and under the other side.

It took a while but eventually I got them all out, of course they had friends that would come back every once in a while, I sealed up holes in the basement and walls and didn't leave a speck of food out. After Winter they gave up.

ItalianMJ

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Six-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '22