In which we follow the outpost Ringstaff.

PSA: Change of season, change of version: 0.40.24 from now on (January 7th, 2015).

Summer 125
We mark some more areas for digging. Here we will build, from top to bottom: stockpiles for raw materials, workshops and stockpiles for finished goods. The small area on the uppermost level will become a gem stockpile, joined by three jewellers’ workshops. Yes, there are additional staircases. Why? To make for shorter ways. In my early days, I’d have piles and workshops on the same level. The staircases cut out a good amount of running around, and I can fit most of my workshops on one screen. Which obviously is a netbook-only problem.
We also create a work area below the food stockpile.There are no doors on the screenshots because I designated the basic layout first, took the screenshots and then went looking for the positions of the doors. What’s to look for? Sometimes things stand in front of walls. Things like tables or cabinets. The workshops have a standardised floor plan, and impassable areas are shown dark green in the placement tool:If you’re not sure, look first and then break down the walls. If you’re sure, look anyway. We could just place our workshops in an open hall, but I’m not sure whether this produces unhappy thoughts or not. Furthermore, should a moody dwarf go nuts (this will be explained as soon as we encounter our first mood), we can lock him up in his workshop, thus removing the danger he poses.
In the meantime, Urist McMason gets some work to do: we’re gonna build several new workshops, so he better makes us some blocks. Blocks are a) a way to use our resources more economically (one stone yields 4 blocks), b) a way to save time (stone are heavy and slow our workers down unless they use a wheelbarrow, which they don’t for construction) and c) produce higher quality buildings, resulting in a happier workforce.While Vucar and Unib dig on, Urist McPlanter Meng tills the land. The equals sign indicates tiles where something is planted, in this case plump helmets – the purple (I guess) spade is a grown plant, ready for harvest, consumption, cooking and/or fermentation. More on that as soon as we start building the respective workshops. What other seeds do we have? Let’s take a look at the stocks.On the left: categories. Next to them the number of items in stock, courtesy of Bëmbul. The red number next to it are inaccessible item, eg. planted seeds, placed furniture or forbidden item. Further to the left the detailed stocks, grouped by type. We can also get a list with every single item, but it’s a bit unwieldy.
The first room on the workshop floor is done, and it’s for a masonry. Which we build and start producing doors.As I’ve said, stones are heavy and slow our workers down. As our intended stone stockpile is nearly finished, let’s build some wheelbarrows – a job for Sodel.Suddenly: migrants. Some migrants have arrived!
At the time of writing, the 0.40.24-memory layout is not yet available, so we’ll take a look at our new citizens later. Dwarf Therapist can show us all new migrants as soon as the wave is announced – the unit screen waits until the dwarf is actually on the map. The first migrants lost their “new arrival”-status before the last had arrived…New stockpiles: wood on the right, stone on the left. The stone stockpile gets three wheelbarrows, which is the maximum assignable amount.A stockpile with no assigned wheelbarrow is serviced on foot. As soon as we assign at least one wheelbarrow, the stockpile will only be serviced by wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrows are symbolised by the great letter Ö.
The industrial floor excavations are finished for now, so we’ll now order the construction of workshops and the placement of doors. The “look for professional work before hauling”-improvement doesn’t seem to work so well. Or the game is just so slow that it takes forever to finish a hauling job. Probably the latter.Up next: improving our storage capabilities. Barrels and bins can be used to store (and collect) smaller item: gems, crafts, food… they preserve storage space and make the handling of large amounts of small stuff so much easier – among them the allocation of crafts to the trade depot. Again, there will be details as soon as the situation demands it.

And with this, autumn has come. See you next week.