Dwarf Fortress

I just started playing this game. Is it possible to dump some water from a lake into a pool of magma and channel the steam to the gates of my fortress? What about using the steam to run turbines?

I don't think steam does anything at the moment. Windmills and waterwheels are the only ways to produce power.

You can, however, make perpetual motion water wheels.

that you can. or make tsunami moats, Seen that done too.

My current fortress lies beneath the waves, protected by the junction of two raging rivers, who will sweep away all who try to path to the walls.

there are currently only two ways to get into my fortress, and for both of them the enemy would need Building Destroyer 2.

and to swim through at least 2 z-levels of water moving at a rate I've hitherto never seen.

oh, and in Autumn they freeze, ,wrapping my fortress' few weaknesses in a protective blanket of ice. not to thaw until just before summer.

this allows me to make repairs and explore the banks a bit (I only have access to one side) during that 3/4 of the year.

the only serious danger lies in the caverns, but the area I have claimed is entirely walled off, all the way to the ceiling, nothing goes in or out.

Hope you don't run short on supplies.

My question again: Can I guard my fortress with an artificial geyser?

it shouldn't spurt up a lot, but yes. all you need to do is put the geyser at the upward end of a U bend with a pump several stories above.

also, we've been down here for years dude, plenty selfsufficient

edited 23rd Jun '10 12:36:10 AM by Lanceleoghauni

That won't work in the current version, since steam no longer causes damage. It would work in much older versions, but it would take some effort to reload, since you'd have to drain the lava and water and then mine out the obsidian before you could fire it again.

...though it would still be pretty awesome.

Why doesn't steam cause damage? Is it another of various Good Bad Bugs, or intentional?

I think today had too many other things to worry about and steam damage caused problems somewhere he was too lazy/distracted from to fix. so he just took it out for now. it will likely be back... eventually.

Yeah the latest version has a some stuff missing or broken because it was more important to merge all the versions together and convert it all to Open GL or something. The only thing that really annoys me is the bug that makes you irrogate sand if you want to farm, since I usally try to avoid messing with water until I get something stable.

edited 23rd Jun '10 11:19:28 PM by mahel042

The ideal defense, I think (Which still allows for entrance and egress) is a magma moat with a passage opened through it using the Red Sea Effect, and heavily trapped. The main problem is that the moat will be impassable for a long time after you part the waves, though.

nonono you should have a drawbridge that extends through a magma fall. nah but seriously it shouldn't be that hard to make a relatively safe entry , and once you start getting more people you just keep a military guarding the place since after awhile you have problems finding work for your dwarves.

There are so many ideal defenses it's ridiculous. The fun is designing your own.

For my first fortress, I planned out an enormous gauntlet that enemies would have to go through when I closed my drawbridge (since if you close all paths to your fortress, enemies will just sit around). First I sent them through a huge Space-Filling Path with ballistae aimed down every corridor. From there they were going to have to climb up a tower with no walls. That tower would have been next to my fortified tower full of marksdwarves. Once they got to the top of that tower, they'd cross a retractable bridge, which could activate and send them falling to their deaths. If they crossed the bridge, they'd enter a third tower, which would flood with water when they were halfway through. (I'd use magma instead, but I didn't have any bauxite.)

Of course, I never got around to building any of that aside from the ballista gauntlet and some of the marksdwarf tower, and the marksdwarf tower was all I needed for anything I encountered, but I had fun planning it.

Long corridor full of spike traps, ballista holes and various other nasties... with a locked door at the end and a magma trap triggered at the end of the hallway to drown the few survivors in magma?

Has anyone ever tried having an entryway which contains a Descending Ceiling?

Is that possible? You can engineer a cave-in, but that'll only work once.

I want to build traps that involve dropping other things on the enemy - maybe stones, maybe booze (with a nearby caged Fire Imp or something to ignite it). I don't know how possible that is, though. I don't think you can designate stockpiles to put those things on retracting bridges, but maybe you can designate dumping zones one level up from the bridges and put them there that way? (Also I don't know whether falling stones will even hurt enemies.)

edited 24th Jun '10 5:27:47 PM by Comonad

I don't mean a permanently Descending Ceiling, I basically mean replacing a lifted gate with a block of stone which can be moved up or down to crush enemies that try to go under it.

Basically a Hammer of Armok, except instead of it being in front of your entrance it's just inside your entrance. I'm not sure if it's possible either, I'm just wondering.

Well, there's the Dwarven Atom Smasher. But aside from bridges, I don't think there's any way to raise or lower blocks of stone or anything.

Mahel: that's not a bug.

It's a permanent feature now.

Best defense? seal if off from the world.

Immigrants? place a ton of pickaxes in a stockpile outside protected from thieves. have them quarry some stone, then wall themselves in above the original (now sealed) Entrance, than allow them inside.

Well it was a bug last time I checked , which I admit was when DF 2010 just came out so... Anyway once you get used to it it doesn't really matter anymore, you just need to bucket-brigade for a while before farming anything. One thing that bugs me about the game though is that it takes way to long for time to pass not to do things but for things to grow up, this is the reason my dwarf are vegetarians since growing animals takes to much time.

Also just want to confess my love for the new mousezoom/scroll thing.

edited 25th Jun '10 7:10:27 AM by mahel042

That's no fun, though! Also you can't trade.

I'm playing adventure mode and I can't remember: can bolts/arrows be retrieved after being fired or do they just disappear?

EDIT: Also, I'm in a snowy area and am getting thirsty. Is there a good way to melt some ice or snow for water? I'm having a pretty easy time setting fire...

edited 25th Jun '10 9:49:50 PM by thatother1dude