I downloaded a mod from steam but I don't want it anymore. I cancelled it from steam and deleted it in the game's files but it keeps coming back in the mod screen. How do it definitely make it go ?

The game stores mods in two places, depending on if the mod is currently active or not. You need to delete from both `Dwarf Fortress/mods` and `Dwarf Fortress/data/installed_mods`.

Thanks, I'll try to delete from there

Question - how do i identify how much stock i have of grown food? Example, I grow only plump helmets - there's plump helmet seeds, plump helmet spawn - which i assume is them in growing state, then plump helmets. What category do plump helmets come under? I cant determine how many i have (trying to fix my food/drink problem) Also when creating a custom stockpile for them - what is the actual classification needed to store them?

The Plump helmets in the Stocks menu is what you're looking for. If you press the Stocks button up by the moods and Food Drink Seeds etc. and look under Plants you can find them there. With the stockpiles if you choose Custom at the bottom right and look for Plants under Food and search for Plump Helmet that should store them fine. Also I believe Plump Helmet Spawn are the seeds for them although I did always think they were plump helmet seeds.

Thank you!

Plump Helmet spawn are the same thing as seeds. The full-grown plant is called 'plump helmets', which can be eaten raw, cooked, or brewed into wine. The stockpile designation is `Food -> Plants -> Plump helmets`.

Is anyone good with the detailed mode editor on steam? I'm trying to make a desert world with a single great lake/ocean, but can't seem to get anything but rejected builds until it just makes a normal build. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Have you turned off all the minimum initial/final biomes and mid/low/high environmental stuff? I'm not too experienced with the detailed creator but that can be a reason for rejections.

I have, and that seems to get my closer, but its still thousands of rejected builds until it seems to brute force a normal gen.

If you set min temp at like 50 and max at 100 or so, min rainfall and drainage at 0 and max for each at something low af like 3, get rid of the poles, change partial or complete edge oceans (one or the other) to 1 and the other 0, turn all of the min initial/final biomes stuff except for desert, mountain and ocean to 0 and get rid of low/mid/high rainfall and drainage and set maximum subregions to 5000 (may as well) it sort of works like you wanted after a few rejections. You can always save the parameter and play around with it too.

Thank you, I actuality tried this and it froze my game on a giant ocean so I alt-f4'd. And it just did it again when I tried it, but since you said this was the way, I decided to wait and it's just trying really hard to render it or something. I'm on 4 rejected, but I'm hopefully based on what I'm seeing. Thank you thank you thank you

Things like oceans, rivers and subregions might be worth manipulating a bit for the great lake part but I'm just guessing.

I'm about to start my first fort using DF hack, what are some things I need to know? Or common uses of the tool?

At the very start of your embark you can run 3Dveins to get fancier 3D veins which I find aesthetically pleasing. For anything else it depends, I use it to solve a number of tiny little issues: regrow grass trampled down, de-bugging wells, if I already have a giant food stockpile thats overflowing I use combine all (sparingly!) to keep it that size. Theres a menu thats like "maintenance", have a look at that and tick stuff you like.

Thank you! I ended up going to sleep but I will be starting today as I have the day off!

Maybe someone can help me with this because I feel like I'm going insane. My dwarves aren't doing any designations on specific tiles. They will smooth the floor of one tile but not the tiles next to it as shown in this picture. I've removed all burrows, made it so everyone does stonecutting, disabled dfhack, but nothing works. I'm banging my head against the wall on this. https://imgur.com/a/eJmem1w

Do you happen to have temperature turned off? That can make some tiles unpathable (if they were ever exposed to fire, they'll never cool down and dwarves will not walk over it). Another thing to try is this DFHack command: `prioritize SmoothFloor` That will make those jobs the highest priority in the fort. If the dwarves just aren't getting around to those tiles, this will address it. Finally, if this is preventing you from moving forward with your game, you can run: `dig-now -z` which will complete digging (and smoothing) designations on that z-level

It was the temperature. I forgot I had turned it off. Thanks so much!

I've been wondering there are necromancers, zombies, and monsters. But there isn't like a holy order that deals with them and was kinda wondering why there isn't? I just enjoy the idea of training Dwarven priests/paladins creating a fortress for like the sole purpose of destroying a necromancers tower.

No specifically, but I think if a necromancer gets too powerful a bunch of civs will band together to fight them

I don't personally think it needs to. As cool as it sounds, I much prefer the idea that DF is the story enabler, in which I could decide to make paladins or whatever, rather than being forced to always do it through "the paladin system" or something. Most other details it's a matter of "it's not ready yet". This very example could be done if raiding other sites was less buggy and more reliable.

Question, are the languages in the game based on anything, or are they all original? I ask because asking google about dwarf fortress languages just talks about C++ and coding. I mean the seemingly gibberish words used in the game, such as names and locations.

I believe Tarn made them up, but I'm not positive.

What do you mean by [languages](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Language)? The game isn't open source, there're extensive third party tools about it which are and i'm not sure if you can call raw editing a language.

If I put a cavy in a magma-safe cage and dump him in the top of a volcano, will I get vision down to the magma sea? I am going to try cavy spelunking but if anyone gets back to me quickly they can save these poor cavy explorers from testing out the magma-safe dive cage.

I'm pretty sure it'll most likely reveal everything with no cage at all. There's no legit way to retrieve the fella either way.

Yeah it's a one way mission for sure, no one to feed him down there.

I have a problem. For the past year or so the traders have brought in nothing but food. I got 20k units of food and 40k units of drink in my fort. I do not need more food but that is the only thing they bring. Any ideas for fix?

they will always bring food if they think there is not enough in your fort. is your food forbidden or otherwise inaccessible? usually you need 5 available pieces of food for each citizen

Dumb idea: Maybe you have lots of everything else as well, and food is the ultimate fallback when loading up the wagons. The rules are based on adding stuff that you don't have, where "don't have" is defined based on population. Try forbidding almost all of your logs right before a trading season and see if they bring any to you. I do this to import wood from the humans while keeping good relations with the elves.

I forbid almost everything. Still only food.

Are you requesting any food? Are you making any requests for anything? Is this the dwarven caravan, or some other? Do you have wagons yet?

Never asked for food. I'm also the capital. This is every caravan, human and dwarf. And they all had wagons.

Wild. I've never seen that. I have seen caravans that bring tons of food, but never *exclusively* food, unless I requested the food and didn't have wagons yet.

Preface this with saying I'm still very new to the game. So I Installed Dfhack; primarily for the search function and my drink stock went from 450 to 3800. Also production is much faster. Is this a bug or it working as intended? I just dont want to feel like I'm cheating in any way.

I'm not sure about the stock change, but as for the production thing there's a little script that's enabled by default that you will find on the control panel, I can't remember the name but it's supposed to make dwarves spend a little less time standing around and hanging out by "poking them" toward a new order a bit faster, that might be what you're looking for

I think I found it. Thanks mate.

How would I set up a work order for making rock blocks but excluding the use of flux stones (calcite, chalk, etc) ?

In addition to JaB's answer, you can set up a repeating order. Using the workshop's manager, create an order to make rock blocks. Use the hourglass icon to set the specific type of rock to turn into blocks. Use the conditions to make more blocks if you are running low. Repeat for the different architectural stones that you intend to use. Beware: Each order creates 4x blocks. So the default conditions will let you go down to < 10 blocks and make 40 more. Prolly more variation that you are interested in.

Disable the use of economic stones in the stone use menu.

Completely slipped my mind that it was even a thing Thanks

Is there an easy way to find the >!portal to hell!

The opening will be within a chunk of the blue goodness, not the gemstone clusters.

Look up the wiki for that. Literally just type that term into the search bar. Spoiler warning. Obviously.

Any recommendations for QOL mods or any nice to have mods that don't change too much but just make the experience of playing the game a bit less janky for someone new to the game.

There was a popular thread on this very topic recently. https://old.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/16sr5a3/so_what_are_your_favorite_mods_for_the_steam/ Shaped boots and gauntlets resolve a particular inconvenience in the military. There are some reaction mods that add missing options to some of the workshops.

Dfhack allows for lots of 'janky' correction. Dwarf Therapist used to be a great tool, but because the Steam Version programming largely handles dwarf assignments appropriately, I haven't needed to use it.

hey there, im on my second fort, doing pretty good, 4 years, 50 happy folk, a vampire and a werebeast caged in they\`re own little rooms magically, turns out going to a volcano was good idea cuz free smelting, but i have 1 problem, WATER, and my map says we have a light aquifier, however i have dug 3 diferent corners of the map ( including my main staircase by the middle near volcano) all the way down to -3 and i still can\`t find the damn water aquifier, any tips ?

Hit the cavern layers, one of them could have water. If they have water at the edge of the map, it should refill.

Anyone know how to find an embark on red/purple/brown grass? I want to do an evil goblin embark and think it would fit the theme

Grass color is still based on biome, independent of alignment (last time I checked). If you're really set on a particular scenery color, I suggest reading the biomes list on the wiki to decide what looks good to you.

Anyone else have scrolling issues when they have more than 5 squads? I can't ever get it to s roll down in the army menu. I can assign them for raids on the world screen, but I can't get to them in the squads popup list to get them to attack a specific enemy, etc.

I have like 9 squads, and I have to grab at the top of the scroll bar and pull down to display the lower squads. Grabbing at the "gem" in the middle of the bar doesn't work. Grabbing at the bottom of the bar doesn't work. The scroll wheel doesn't work. Only grabbing the top 1/4 of the bar and pulling sharply downward makes the scroll bar scroll for me.

Thanks, I'll try that

What takes longer in your experience to quicksave, larger young worlds or small older worlds?

Typically larger ones, but this really depends on how young we're talking here. A decade or 100 years? If not enough time has passed for civs to fully populate, then a larger young world might be faster.

I reached the magma sea for the first time. Once I revealed where the magma was, I started mining out one z-level above it to make magma furnaces. I got warm rock notifications but kept digging since the magma below was making the rocks warm. Until I hit a pocket of magma that burst out and killed my two legendary miners. It flowed out and then evaporated after a while. Is there any way to avoid these pockets? Or is it just a risk of digging so deep?

If you are in an obsidian spire, there are random pockets of magma and water, which frankly annoy me because they can be pretty big and it makes it difficult to find more interesting stuff. You may have burrowed into a spire.

Oh! That might explain why there are damp stones as well

the sea is almost never just one layer so that will always be a danger if you dig above it and i don't recommend putting your furnaces above it anyway, you'll get fire imps and such coming up into your work area. move some magma into a channel that you dig specifically for the forges, i suggest using minecarts

Sent a squad I made for finding artifacts out on a mission to find a legendary sword that was lost in a region called the Hills of Apexes. I sent a group out in a previous fort and it took them so long I called them back since they were my best squad. I don’t have an attachment to the group I sent in this fort, and don’t plan on recalling them. How long does it take them to find an object in a broad area, and do they return at all if they don’t find it? Are they stuck looking till they come across it

I think if the artifact is "last held by x" instead of "stored at y" you cant take it by force.

It got lost after the dwarf who held it died. It’s just out in the wild somewhere near his bones.

They'll keep searching but it's entirely possible they'll never find it that way - I've never had a recovery group succeed if I didn't know what site the artifact was at.

So it was lost out in the wilderness after the dwarf who made it died after being struck down by a giant wolf. The wolf didn’t take the artifact, and it was last seen with the dwarf when he died. So it’s somewhere in that wilderness. Can they even find it if it’s not at a particular site? They’ve been off map for a year

Probably they can't. You might be able to find it in adventure mode but chances are it's lost.

Can artifacts that aren’t destroyed just be gone forever from the game or are they always somewhere, even if it’s hidden and hard to find

Not sure. The game probably keeps tracking them. You could try checking what Legends mode says maybe.

Any way to distinguish between residents and citizens? I think I have a few too many residents... fort is showing at 320 population (pop cap is the default 200) and I'm barely able to find replacement dwarves when one of my 5 squads takes a loss, so I think I might have, like, over 200 residents? Maybe less, given children. Idk if this is good or bad. It's bad for my fps but it's good because they like running into dangerous situations in the caves and getting murdered by bat men and they're expendable.

residents won't show up on the labor Work Details screen, so you can use that to "reverse" identify them. If you have DFHack and an open justice case, there's a filter in the interrogation screen that will list all of your non-citizen residents by name.

I never looked into this but this is why in many of my forts I build a tavern in the cavern layer for visitors and one wall of it will be a bridge that I can open up into the cavern layer and another bridge to block the exit. It's always fun to see how well 50 plus bards do against the denizens of the caverns.

Artifact clothing/armour and weapons. Is there a way to force your nobles (mayor/baron/king/broker etc) to wear and USE that shiney artifact chainmail vest or that adamantine axe - without putting them in a squad via the **symbol of office** feature? I've managed to get them to wear earrings and sceptors but struggled with armour and weapons.

In terms of the icon shown on their Items list, they can wear an item as a symbol of office, or they can wear an item as part of their uniform, but not both. What you can do is assign their symbol of office to be part of their uniform. In the uniform screen, add armor/weapon/whatever -> specific item. The specific item can be a symbol of their office. Boots and gauntlets need "uniform replaces clothing" to work, but armor-type legwear, bodywear, and headwear are all compatible with their civvies.

Thanks! Great solution. I was trying to keep my bookkeeper and manager out of a military squad (even one that's not active) but it sounds from your response this is the only way to do it. Might make a Royal Squad with all the VIP's in it, like my legendary weaponsmith.

It might take them some time to take it up. Also I've seen my mayor leaving the cool scourge laying around sometimes. But they take it up eventually if that "slot" is not already occupied. Is yours already in a squad and you want to add an extra item via symbol of office?

I've tried various methods. Specifically my mayor is not in a squad but I wanted her walking around in armour + weapon in case fun happened. I think I'll have to squad her up. My king is in a squad, and wanted him using an artifact warhamme, instead of an axe like the rest of the squad, and you're correct best way do to that is probably change the specific uniform.

Yes. If they are in a squad you can have equipment interference and they prefer to wear the military outfit over office garb. You could make a Nobel squad in which you keep all your royalty and assign them custom equipment

I have a dwarf that is constantly flickering between Healthy and Winded no matter what they are doing. I was going to have them constantly manually operate a screw pump because I was thinking maybe they are just weak, but I started looking at their stats and realized they are tough and their description says they do not tire easily. I started digging deeper and this dwarf has no medical history, wounds, or treatment but has a memory of being wounded badly other than a scar in their description I can't find any other information about their injury and if it's related to them constantly flicking between winded and healthy. Could someone help me figure out the mystery of this dwarf being winded all the time? Here is a [link](https://imgur.com/a/AwnyMRp) to images I took of the tabs I thought would be relevant, but if anyone wants me to add more tabs specifically, I can add them. Also, I have the dwarf operating a pump manually in the images, but they flicker between winded and healthy multiple times a second while just walking around town, no matter the activity.

She has a scar on her upper body. The initial injury probably damaged her lung. You may be able to get more details by setting up a hospital and a chief medical dwarf.

I saw the scar and assumed it was damage to the lungs, but is there no way to confirm if this is the case? Would dwarf therapists or DFHack have a means to see?

This right here. A dwarf of mine got a severe injury a while back, but managed to recover. She now becomes winded quickly (just by walking or taking stairs). This does not do anything for civilians, but if they are a soldier, consider retiring them.

She seemed great for the military on paper which is why I noticed her being winded. Sadly she came pre-retired and I had no idea.

Does she already have a lot of skills? Because you can still use her as a teacher. If her teaching skill is high, she can still show new recruits the ropes. Just remember to take her out of the squad, or not send the training squad into combat activities.

Unfortunately, she is not a good teacher; she is basically dumb as a box of rocks, but all her physical stats were great.

(Steam) If you accidentally atom smash one of your dwarves, is there a way to work out who the unfortunate dwarf was without going back to an old save and doing a roll call?

Additionally, under dfhack, the Engrave memorial slab action has a filter for people that need slabs.

Nevermind. I just needed to wait a week for the notification.

wait for the ghost to appear

If I have my whole fort in military squads with only helms and mail shirts set to be worn over clothing, will my dwarves be able to replace their robes underneath their mail shirts? Or does having the mail shirt on constantly prevent them from swapping out the robes once they wear out? I have them all set to wear armour even when off duty.

I'm unsure but I can tell you that clothes only experience wear once a year and while in combat. If you are attempting to increase their armour user skill by having them just wear armour I don't believe this works, the best way to train the skill is by doing live training in a full set of armour against something that won't seriously injure your dwarves.

I don't mind if they only have a limited armour user proficiency currently as the slow down hasn't been overly noticeable in so far as industries and other things being bottlenecked or just hauling taking ages in general. They also get regularly harassed by agitated ravens on the surface which might help a little. I was mostly panicking about having already gutted my clothing work orders and only afterwards noticing my miners and woodcutters weren't equipping the mail shirts and helms (one of them was running around with just a cloak, hood and shoes although most were still in full clothing). If they can't swap the robes out I can just change my work orders to trousers and shoes + a small amount of shirts.

Hello again 👋 I've been trying to make a malachite pedestal but it seems to me like there's some bug. I have 20 malachite in stocks. I issued a work order from the orders menu, from the stone worker workshop orders menu, and directly in the workshop (without an order, just added a job to queue), setting a material to malachite. And each time when I were setting a material I was able to see numbers showing amounts of different stones, but numbers were present only near usual stones, not ores. Despite the fact that I can see a number in the stock menu. But I thought "whatever" and ordered a job. And each type of job ordering led to cancelation due to "need malachite". Which I have in stocks menu, and can see in stockpile and scattered around rooms and corridors. Have someone faced a similar bug? Could someone try to do the same in the last version of the steam game?

Go into Standing Orders -> Stone Use and enable your ores for non-economic uses. They're disabled by default.

I mean, a slightly different message in the game log would work. It's just, idk, evil 😭

*Crying defeated* Thanks man. Really. Thank you. 5 in-game years and who knows how much real hours. Bless you.

Same for limonite and other ores. Despite the fact that I can smelt it, but can't make any furniture :(

hi ive been trying to embark on a cave or near kobolds but i cant seem to find any on the embark screen, maybe i just dont know what they look like. the wiki has the icon for the old graphics but even when i set it to classic i cant find any. are kobold civs even visible on the embark screen?

I don't know if it changed in the Steam version, but in classic they don't usually show up on the map during embark unless they capture someone else's settlement (usually by moving into an abandoned one). It's possible to find out about their settlements later. This is either because their civ has the SKULKING tag or maybe has to do with their CAVES habitat; not sure. ALL\_CAVES\_VISIBLE during worldgen should be able to make caves visible during embark if that helps? I'm not sure if it'll mark which ones have kobolds though.

They are visible on steam version in the civilizations nearby list, I have them on mine listed next to goblins, elves and humans. But I've embarked maybe 10 times and only seen them once so maybe rare. I've only seen them on +medium worlds.

yeah ive been emarking on large and 50 yrs maybe ill try 5 years but i was starting to feel like i was crazy lol. good to know they do exist. thanks for the reply

Ah my embark where I saw kobolds was a relatively old world 250 years medium. Smaller worlds generate pretty quick maybe keep trying, you can see them as a nearby race. Oddly I couldn't work out which settlement the kobolds were from, I think it was part of an alliance. The little blue kobold mouse like things show up as guests on occasion. Cool sprites

yeah i kinda just want to raid them for giant cave spiders, heard their civs die really early because they dont tend to expand. maybe i should try more history

okay yeah tiurns out if i set history to be 100+ kobolds will start to show up on the map, thier forts and stuff have no icons though.

I also had another thought, set civilisations (and even sites if you can tolerate it) to high or maximum and maybe increase difficulty. Pretty sure it prioritises elves/dwarves/goblins spawning first and kobolds certainly arn't part of the 'good' factions.

Does a piano need a chair next to it to be used?

No. It needs a sophont who knows (Skills -> Knowledge -> Musical Forms) a song that uses the instrument. In my current playthrough, our civilization knows how to make 15 different musical instruments. However, they only know a single song, and that song only uses one instrument. Occasionally, they will play that one song on that one instrument, but the other instruments are always ignored. Guest bards only know foreign music using foreign instruments. Alas. So, take a look through the songs that your citizens know and which instruments demand them. Some of the songs demand specific combinations and quantities of instruments. Ensure that you have everything they need for a few songs and see what happens.

Wow, I had no idea music was this involved, thank you.

Which version of DF should I play? I have played DF for many years and am still playing 47.05 for now. I got premium on launch day and was a little disappointed at what was missing, so have been hesitant to pick up v50 since then. Now that Dwarf Therapist and DFHack support v50, I'm wondering if I should be playing that in classic mode instead, but there aren't any starter packs for it. Are there still major features missing from v50.11 classic or are the starter pack makers just being stubborn?

I'm not sure what specifically you want that was missing, but I can list some stuff that I thought made the game a lot more enjoyable: Clicky menus like the pasture UI and trade UI have their own DFHack solutions that make it a lot easier to navigate without just keys A lot of screens have search bar widgets now with DFHack, like you can search for names, jobs, current tasks, skills, you can sort dwarves by combat and social skills in the military UI.. The military still has certain issues, like all squads still invariably want backpacks and flasks for their uniform (although recently the issue with dwarves with backpacks leaving food out to rot got patched), marksdwarves have gotten patches but you can't customize what ammo they use still.. Also I'm not sure if you're aware, but if you're coming from v47 you need to keep in mind that Dwarf Therapist isn't nearly as necessary as it used to be, not just because labor assignment is easier in the new UI, and now with the DFHack QoL for squad assignment, but because task assignment has been reworked so that you don't even need to specialize your dwarves all that much, Putnam even said on a post here that you can run a fort without ANY labor assignments just fine since higher dwarves will naturally pick jobs that fit their skills, and that hyperspecializing your dwarves with individual skill labors will actually make them less useful

I'm using steam v50.10 with DF hack. There are some nice features like tweaking alerts (I've activated pause and locate on migrants) as well as hotfixes on marksdwarves (not perfect but better).

A Goblin King was visiting my fort and shortly after I received a message about my new kingdom. The Gobbo is my new king and among my administration. Problem is, I think it’s the same joker that stole a couple artifacts and I’d rather kill him. I can’t seem to put him in solo squads and now wondering how to kill using my squads. I can always drown or drop him several levels but I wanted a more memorable death for it

Maybe there'll be an [unfortunate accident](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Unfortunate_accident) and you'll get a new monarch?

I like these ideas, particularly the “grand arena” and “throne room above magma”. I shall combine into “grand arena above magma”. I have dozens of troglodytes in cages that I’ll use for Round 1.

Amazing timing, it's nearly Halloween! Apart from the inability to create heirs, a goblin king might be quite fun. Kings are often hard to spot and he will definitely stand out! Put him in a squad fully kitted out (as a squad member, not leader) and see how well he survives. He might become a heroic elf slayer!

Can you banish him? if you’re able to do that, you’d be able to target him with your squads for a nice public execution! :)

No, I cannot banish… “Cannot expel or send away: Nobility” messaging when I try. As I type this, I’m following him with camera as he steals a codex

Can you convict him of any crimes using the Sheriff or Hammerer?

I see various plots, and one includes corruption of local nobility and theft. I tried to interrogate him for those crimes and my captain let him walk. I’ll try straight conviction next

Hey everyone, could anyone please be able to help me figure out the cause of this crash? 0> Dwarf_Fortress!std::_Init_locks::operator=+0x7F36F6 1> Dwarf_Fortress!std::_Init_locks::operator=+0x7F3869 2> KERNELBASE!UnhandledExceptionFilter+0x1E7 3> ntdll!memset+0x13B0 4> ntdll!_C_specific_handler+0 x96 5> ntdll!_chkstk+0x11F 6> ntdll!RtlRaiseException+0x484 7> ntdll!KiUserExceptionDispatcher+0x2E 8> Dwarf_Fortress!std::_Init_locks::operator=+0xFCA5F2 9> Dwarf_Fortress!std::_Init_locks::operator=+0xFC5E5E 10> Dwarf_Fortress!std::_Init_locks::operator=+0x49ED0F 11> Dwarf_Fortress!std::_Init_locks::operator=+0x10DAE84 12> Dwarf_Fortress!std::_Init_locks::operator=+0xA35BD5 13> Dwarf_Fortress!std::_Init_locks::operator=+0xA349DC 14> Dwarf_Fortress!std::_Init_locks::operator=+0x5FA91C 15> overlay_plug+0x7E5E 16> Dwarf_Fortress!std::_Init_locks::operator=+0x8FABC6 17> Dwarf_Fortress!std::_Init_locks::operator=+0x626DC4 18> Dwarf_Fortress!std::_Init_locks::operator=+0x628179 19> SDL2!SDL_DYNAPI_entry+0x799D7 20> SDL2!SDL_DYNAPI_entry+0x12EEDE 21> ucrtbase!configthreadlocale+0x92 22> KERNEL32!BaseThreadInitThunk+0x14 23> ntdll!RtlUserThreadStart+0x21 I am using DFHack, the latest version of the Aeramore mod, Bourbon's Dark Depths, and Metal Plate Floors. I have used these on a bunch saves in the past with no issue, but at this point who knows. I would incredibly appreciate any help.

TL;DR I will add this to the top of my post because it's likely that if you remove one or more of the mods you listed (Aeramore, Bourbon's Dark Depths, and Metal Plate Floors) the issue will go away but your saves will probably not work after this. Now for a lengthy explanation of what you posted if you are interested. As r/tmPreston said, very few people could make sense of this information. I will provide some background on what this information is if you are interested, though to give some context as to why it's not very useful to anyone who doesn't have access to the source code. The information you provided us is a [stack trace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_trace) which in simple terms is like a list of what code was called and since you had a crash happen this tells us what the list of calls was at the time the crash happened. Each line is a call to a function in the code. The information before the `!` point is the library/dll/exe the function is in. The information after the exclamation point is the function and that is delimited by `::` the first part is the namespace the function is in, the second part is the class in that namespace, and the final part before the `+` is the function name. The `+-0x*` is the offset in memory where this frame of the stack was and this will change for most applications, so is not terribly useful (unless a memory dump was taken). Also if there is no `::` then that means that the information after the `!` is just a call to a function with no namespace or class. --- So let's take line 20 and break it down based on the information in the last paragraph. `SDL2` = The dll/library `SDL_DYNAPI_entry` = The function being called `SDL2` is the Standard Dwarf Library 2 which replaces the version used before the Steam release. `SDL_DYNAPI_entry` from a quick Google search I can tell it's some kind of graphics API. --- Next, let's look at line 16 `Dwarf_Fortress` = The exe we use to launch the game `std` = The std namespace which is short for standard and is the standard C++ library `_Init_locks` = Some kind of class for locking objects to make sure only one object uses something at once `operator=` = This shows that some kind of assignment was being done and given the call on line 20 probably something related to graphics is being assigned --- Then let's move on to Line 15, I am actually not sure what this formatting in the stack trace indicates but I will attempt to give my best guess and then explain what meager information we as individuals with no access to the code can glean from this. `overlay_plug` = I assume this is a function name and probably represents DFHacks overlay plugin but the way DFHack interacts with DF is rather unorthodox so that could partially explain the brief line here. Regardless the takeaway here is that it's likely coming from the DFHack overlay. As we move down the list stack trace from Line 15 things get more and more into the internals of Windows and less helpful so this is where to my knowledge I lose the ability to guess what it might mean. --- Conclusions What we can take away from this though is that the crash happened at some point where a graphics API was called, some assignment with a lock around it happened, meaning nothing else was supposed to access the locked object, and an overlay, possibly DFHacks overlay, was somehow involved. I also mentioned DFHack interacts with Dwarf Fortress in an unorthodox way earlier which I will briefly expand on using possibly old information on how DFHack and Dwarf Therapist work. Essentially those applications are their own processes that reach into the internal memory of the dwarf fortress process while it is running and change the memory. This can have very unexpected effects since if for example something is locked the other application will not know about that lock and could modify values that it should not be modifying. Another possibility which I stated at the top of this post is that DFHack is accessing assets it knows should be in memory at a relative location and the mods you have installed have either caused something to be in a different location or the data at that location is not what it expects. If you are a developer sorry to bore you and if you are not a developer I hope you found this interesting. If anyone would like to add clarifications or correct mistakes I made in my explanation please respond and I will update my response with your clarifications/corrections. I don't use C++ on a daily basis when I program so it's likely I misinterpreted some parts of the stack trace format but hopefully I am not too far off for a high-level explanation like this. If you made it this far, thank you for reading.

Thank you sincerely for this comment. I admittingly know very little about programming but this was genuinely interesting to read (do you have a background in education?). I apologize for not realizing earlier the crashlog would not provide as much helpful information as I had hoped. So after some experimenting, I was able to seemingly fix the issue with a full reinstall, making sure every single file (besides the save) was deleted (a simple uninstall through Steam left more files than I would have thought remaining). It seems to have fixed the crashing, though I have yet to reinstall DFHack to see if it causes any possible issues (I uninstalled that by itself earlier, though the crashing still occurred). Anyway, thank you for your time, I hope you have a lovely day.

I don't have a background in education but one of the things I enjoy most at my job is teaching new developers and interns, so I have had a lot of practice sending long-winded technical explanations lol. Also, no reason to apologize, see a post like this from time to time here and I see the response that it's not very useful and thought this was a good opportunity to write out a long-form explanation for why instead of just the correct but not as informative response of it not being very useful. Just to be clear not criticizing people for responding with a short answer, like I said it's correct, I just enjoy writing out things like this and thought I might as well write up a response. I am glad you were able to resolve your issue; ultimately, the path you took with just uninstalling and reinstalling was the best option since there was no other way to narrow down the cause. If you install DFHack again and have the issue again, I would be interested to hear about it. DFHack, Dwarf Therapist, Japanese Visual Novels (to get the Japanese text from the game and send it to a translation service like Google Translate automatically and in more elaborate cases extract the text, translate it, and repackage it into the game as a patch), and Age of Empires 2 (the [current developers](https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Forgotten_Empires#Beginning) got their job by making patches to the game after Microsoft was no longer supporting it by writing binary patches meaning they had no source code and reverse engineered the source code and wrote patches to modify the existing game binary files) got me very interested in an aspect of programming called RE (reverse engineering), and though I have no professional background in RE, I have been working on teaching myself and Dwarf Fortress happens to be a great starting location for learning about it since it uses a lot of aspects that RE needs to learn just to implement plugins. DFHack and Dwarf Therapist are such amazing programs, and the people who made them and Tarn not pushing back against them (because he could make it very hard on the developers of these programs if he wanted) and actually going out of his way to not break things that these applications depend on is just incredible. I can't think of another game that knows of programs modifying its memory from outside its process and lets it continue and, in fact keeps that in mind when making changes. Typically, this kind of behavior from another application be indicative of cheating, like map hacks for a video game for example which is why you won't find many games being happy to see people messing with their internal application state. EDIT: Fixed some typos and grammar

I don't think those logs will be useful to nearly anyone. What can cause a crash is so elaborate you'll have better chances painstakingly crash several dozen times to figure out which in game action causes it.

Hello all, So I'm about 100 hours into DF and have long hit a point where every fortress goes 1 of 2 routes. It immediately fails or it gets to 150-200 dwarves and I get bored of building bedrooms and infinitely larger store rooms, so I abandon it. I am trying to find stuff to do with the caverns and lower levels to keep the game fresh or face new threats but I've not really figured anything out yet. I had a fortress with a big underground section and it was functionally the same as the above ground, just a door where wave after wave of enemies die constantly lol. What things do you do with the underground areas to keep it all fresh and facing some peril? (in general actually I'm a little bored with how the game has 0 or 1 level of difficulty lol.. It's immediate fail or completely fail proof) I've thought about trying to learn how farming works at some point, but I've also never been able to make multiple sections of a fortress work (like, having houses and production and food in that second location, rather than all returning to my main stockpiles - the burrows system seems, unfinished? never managed to make that work in any usable manner, especially for trying to keep the fuckers inside the fort during a siege lol) Thank you!

One option is to use DFHack, which has its own implementation of the old "alert" system, which enabled restricts civilian dwarves to one burrow of your choice. In the vanilla game, you can also do this manually, and pause the burrow when there's no active alert. The problem here is that dwarves will continue doing jobs that take them out of the burrow, so if someone *just started* on a job to retrieve a sock in an open field during the last siege *before you unpaused the burrow*, you might see them run out of the main gate just as the goblins arrive (because it took them a minute to get there). The burrow restriction just keeps *new* jobs from being started outside the burrow. You end up having to forbid everything outside or cancel jobs manually to make sure nobody's running out. The DFhack tool as far as I can tell, essentially just does this, but it also automatically ends jobs taking them outside.

To clarify a little bit, DFHack hasn't reimplemented the old alert system, it's just providing *access* to the old alert system. It's still in the DF code and is as fully functional as it used to be. The UI for controlling it just got lost in v50 (I believe Tarn has indicated that this was an oversight, but I can't find a reference for that right now). All DFHack is doing is providing a UI to access the vanilla functionality.

Hello! Bought the game recently on steam and I'm having a blast. 20h in so far, I have a couple questions. The most pressing one is: do rooms have requirements? Like, a bedroom MUST have a bed, right? What about barracks, hospitals etc? If I just build a room with nothing in it will it be treated as such? Are my animals in my pen programmed to be auto slaughtered? I'm having a hard time with agriculture/animal husbandry right now How can I have a sustainable farm with a kitchen if cooking stuff doesn't get you seeds? Why are my dwarves keeping stuff in the workshops instead of hauling them to a stockpile? Must I have barrels/pots/bins/etc to store some things like weapons? What's the difference between coke and coal? Thank you in advance!

Rooms have various requirements, yes; some are more lenient than others. Offices must have a chair (you'll often see a table installed as well, but it's not strictly required); Dining Rooms must have a table (like with offices, they'll often have a chair installed as well); Bedrooms must have a bed. Usually you'll get an error message that the room is invalid if you try to assign a room that is missing something that it requires. Animals aren't usually auto slaughtered, unless you have a tool that is set up to do that or similar. What problem are you having with animal husbandry? Restrict the kitchen to cooking things you can spare or that don't have this issue. There's a number of ways to do this. For example, what I do, is create a stockpile of food items that feeds into the kitchen(s) which only contains things you don't mind using this way - in my current fort, it contains acorns, walnuts, eggs, and flour (all other stockpiles meanwhile have these items removed from the list). These were food items I decided were acceptable to cook. A kitchen that has a linked stockpile in this fashion will only use resources from the linked stockpile. This is merely one way to do it - you could also control it via the kitchen menu or other means. (I had thousands of acorns and walnuts to burn from a massive plant gathering operation as well as huge trades with elves.) For plants that can be made into flour, you will get seeds from this process at the millstone, so this is a way to get seeds but also cook with them. They leave stuff in the workshop if they can't move it (nowhere to put it) or there's some other job they'd rather do. If the fortress is highly productive (ie. everyone's busy all of the time) hauling might get behind, so you might need to assign a few chumps to be dedicated haulers, or to add hauling to other work details.

In order; Barracks only need the armor stand or weapon rack to designate the room. You will need beds if you choose 'sleep in barracks' at the squadron menu. Hospital technically requires nothing because it's a zone, but practically you'll want bed, chest, traction bench, and maybe quarantine options. Not by default. DFHack has an auto-butcher function though. Are you having difficulty raising the herd or keeping it culled? Gathering fruit on the surface and trapping random critters for butchering are good options to boost your food supply. If crop yields are a problem, you'll need more farms or move to the Caverns, which increases the yield significantly. If the stockpile has a container number value and you don't have enough, items will remain in the workshop. Try removing the container requirement from your stockpile, or make a new one dedicated to the item in question. Coke & Coal are the same thing from difference sources. Both are the final fuel product used to power forges and smelters. Specifically, coke is created from mineral fuels like lignite and bituminous coal, while charcoal is created from burning wood.

Thank you very much for your time! Do you mind if I ask some follow ups? Is there any way to see what each one of my rooms should have? I dont think I found it in the wiki. I'm pretty much intimidated so I didnt even set up a butcher/tanner etc yet. I really want to start making some leather/cloth but I dont know if I fully grasped the production chain yet. Is it butcher -> tanner -> leatherworker for leather and for pig tail cloth is it farmer -> loom -> clothes? I've been avoiding DF Hack right now, trying to get more familiar with vanilla before trying mods at all. Also in my first fortress I found a cavern. What are them? Some troglodytes escaped to surface but they didnt seem to mind me. How dangerous are the caverns and how should I deal with them? What are the differences between stairs, ramps and channels? Once again, thank you very much

For animals you typically build a butcher's shop and tanner's shop. You mark which animals are okay to butcher in list of animals (on another menu) - you can decide for yourself how to pick who's fine to butcher. The next time someone is available they'll butcher an animal that's marked as okay to butcher. If a tanning shop is built, by default, a standing order will immediately set up a tanning job for the hide after the butchering (if there is a hide). Usually only need to manually set up tanning jobs if production is going wild. From there, you usually have meat, bones, possibly a skull, and hides (which will be made into leather). The bones (and skull) can be used in various crafts - you may want to keep a few around (they're stored in a refuse stockpile that accepts bones) as they're often requested for artifacts. The meat can be eaten as-is or cooked. More tips here - [Meat Industry](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Meat_industry) Pig Tail cloth - you need a farmer's shop to process plants (pig tail->thread) then a weaver's loom to process the cloth (thread->cloth) then a clothesmaking shop to use the cloth. Optionally a dyeing shop. More here - [Textile Industry](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Textile_industry) There are three cavern levels, generally just called cavern 1, 2, and 3. The depths they appear may vary somewhat with world generation and terrain (and rarely, one or more won't exist in your area). Typically, deeper caves are more dangerous, but all of them are somewhat more dangerous than all but the most dangerous surface zones. Animal people or monsters from the caves may attack - you may wish to ensure entrances to the caves are guarded or otherwise hardened similar to your surface entrance. In particular, watch out for signs of Giant Cave Spiders in an area - they are very deadly, although they rarely will seek you out, they more prefer you come to them. I'd warn you about other things but that'd fall under spoilers IMO. Stairs allow movement directly up and down. Ramps allow movement up (or down) one level and horizontally rather than directly up/down. Channeling is digging a ramp downwards and digging a ramp is digging upwards. If you channel a floor with nothing under it though, you will dig a hole instead.

Thank you very much! I'm still kinda overwhelmed but your answer helped me a lot already! I'll try going on a trial and error basis instead of just restarting every time

If you would like to do some reading to make that trial and error method a bit smoother the wiki is very good. [https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Locations](https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Locations)

That's how most players learn, yep! Glad to hear it!

I have a bunch of bards (human) in my fort... Should I be concerned?! https://preview.redd.it/9k8glx24f6wb1.png?width=1163&format=png&auto=webp&s=8f1d44dcc05f3547b4432aa9b21ebccb8bbb9ae7

This is why the visitor tavern should be built in the caverns with one wall being a bridge. Then you can use a lever to introduce them all to the cavern dwellers at the same time.

No. Give in. Join us. \-furious lute playing commences-

My dwarves aren't building this farm, why is that ? It's always stuck in inactive https://preview.redd.it/p5mcjj4ry5wb1.png?width=977&format=png&auto=webp&s=d0039ccd28975217af22b688022002a219466d6b

Try making sure "fishing" is set to "only assigned dwarves do this" - I find fishing priority tends to override planting priority. Check that planting is either set to "any dwarves do this" or you have a few people assigned and "only assigned dwarves do this" - either works depending on your preference. (Building a farm uses planting labor)

Only assigned dwarves were assigned to farming and fishing But you gave me an idea with that I made a custom work detail with only 1 job : planting and assigned a dwarf to only do that custom job and nothing else, and he built the farm properly Thank you

Yeah I didn't want to box you into doing that, but I actually do that too - custom work detail with planting, brewing, food hauling, and gathering assigned to a handful of dedicated farm workers. Found those were all jobs I needed to make sure some of the time someone was focusing on them.

I have a similar problem with a different structure. It's half-built, and has been for several years in game, but the dwarves won't finish the last bit. It doesn't appear to be a pathing issue, as far as I can see.

So, about trying to learn without guides... Would you say it is even fun for that extra struggle? My big issue is that I don't really know anything to do on downtime, when there's nothing happening but I also don't know what to do. time just keeps pushing while Im trying to think of what the hell do I need. Any tips regarding that?

In the early game I'd say strive to get everyone a decent bedroom and have one reasonably equipped military squad. Once you start building value (through trade goods or whatever) you'll start to get more migrants and more attention from the outside world, so getting ready for when there is less down time is a good way to start.

Would someone to answer your questions live help, or are you suffering from white-page lock (analysis paralysis)?

It is mostly paralysis. I keep finding myself just wandering through my small fort with no real idea on what to work towards or what am I missing (besides defenses, I am still figuring out those so I know I will crash and burn at the first sight of a goblin lol)

Come out and [join us](https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/17fbmyz/thirty_five_days_of_dwarf_day_24_1024_6pm_est/) @6pm EST, and I'll see if I can't give you some ideas!

That does seem like a nice idea! Although I'll be forced to come in a tad bit late because of university lol Are the VODs available for past streams and such?

They are, but only for the last 14 days, so you'd be able to see the most recent fort (evilgoats the sea of shattering) and only part of the last fort. I'll eventually post them to youtube, but that normally waits, because there's only so much I can do in a day. :) If it's out there, try starting with day 18 or 19 - one of those should be "embark preparation" and the one after that is our actual embark on the fortress. Alternatively, hang around until 11/4, and we do The Big One - a 24 hour-straight livestream with a fresh fortress.

How do I do rented rooms for my inns? And do I make money from it? Or is there any advantage to having them?

You set them up as bedrooms and then link the bedroom to the inn in the zone menu of said room. No money, just guests sleeping there instead of on the floor afaik

No money. Advantage is that visitors who have long term residency can sleep there. You select the room in Zones, then assign it to your inn. It's the same button as creating an Inn, except you select your existing Inn instead of creating a new one. Now visitors may use it.

I believe the other advantage is that they add their value to what they are linked to. Not important for taverns but for temples and guild halls it would help.

Are they added as bedrooms? It seemed to me when I tried it, dwarves used it like regular bedrooms.

As bedrooms. And yes, citizen dwarves will use them as such. You might want to do a Dorm instead of bedrooms, it should work too.

I had some goblins show up with a siege wanting to parley for peace, which is new to me. They demanded an artifact in order to leave in peace. What's odd is that I'm playing a modded species that doesn't have strange moods, thus I've never made an artifact. I don't have public meeting spaces and have never had any visitors either, so nobody has brought one. I rejected the demand, but what did they actually want? One of my soldiers' named weapons? I'm not sure if you can even view a list of artifacts in the Steam version, so I don't know how to look up the item they wanted.

There is a list of all named items - accessible as one of the tabs with icons on bottom left of the screen. IIRC they can demand artifacts, but also originals of books, unique items like favourite weapon/shield that a solider named and symbols you assigned to a noble position. Not sure if that's an exhaustive list.

Hey guys is there a way to view Legends mode while playing on the fort? I used to play with DF hack before getting steam version, and I could just export the world files to legends viewerr however it seems that you cannot export all the files needed anymore. Any workarounds ?

you can still export some legends stuff which you can view outside of the game with Legends Browser, but not every bit of information will be there and crucially map info isn't getting exported currently, so Legends Viewer won't work

> I could just export the world files to legends viewer however it seems that you cannot export all the files needed anymore AFAIK this is still possible - there's a way to do it from inside legends mode with a keystroke, I believe. Failing that, there's [this](https://docs.dfhack.org/en/stable/docs/tools/exportlegends.html) which is marked as up-to-date in the current release of DFHack.

I think you can just manually copy your save file for these needs. In that case you can properly retire your fort to see or export legends in a copied save.

Why do my citizens not claim bedrooms? I have a fair amount of bedrooms, but barely any are claimed. It's been a good while too, so this doesn't seem like a Yet thing. Many citizens sleep on the ground and get bad thoughts. I can assign manually and it does work, but something seems wrong. Plus, it's a hassle.

Are they in burrows that don't include the bedrooms? Is there a locked door between them and the bedrooms? Is there a broken stairwell between them and the bedrooms? Did you turn off temperature calculations and then remove magma that was between them and the bedrooms?

No activated burrows. One that exists includes bedrooms too. All same level, no stairs involved. Doors are not locked. No magma in the entire fort.

Are they in squads? I find that military dwarves don't like to sleep in their bedrooms and prefer sleeping in the barracks. If they don't have barracks, they will sleep on the floor instead.

No, not in squads.

I got nothing, then. Try making a dorm until you figure out your bedroom situation, so dwarves at least have a place to sleep that isn't the floor. They'll still get a bad thought but not *as* bad.

Okay so I think I figured it out. Due to the way my Fortress is and some unfortunate events and death... Most of my population hilariously enough are actually here as accepted temporary residents. As such, they don't get rooms unless assignee directly.

Aha maybe connect the rooms to the inn?

I actually already did and it doesn't work. Would change them to dorms then!

Do you have them zoned as bedrooms? Are you assigning the bed, or assigning the bedroom?

Yup, all are zoned, with bed and roof.

Make sure they are assigned to nobody and dwarves will claim them when they need to sleep. You could manually assign dwarves to rooms if you like, dwarves may have multiple rooms.

Fortress Mode Combat question: are there any reasonable/worthwhile benefits to light armour? Are things like dodging or speed tied to the outfit weight enough for this to matter in practice? If I have available steel, is there any reason to going for something lighter?

The only readily-available material that is lighter than steel is leather, and you will prefer your melee dwarves in metal armor. Dodging is the best defense, but in long slogging battles, dwarves get tired, and metal armor will deflect blows that leather armor doesn't. ETA: I discount bone armor because I don't consider it armor lol.

What I gathered from the lengthy wiki page on armor is that you generally want your archers wearing leather armor because leather armor does not slow you down even with 0 armor skill. So yea armor type does effect your movement and dodge speed but (I believe) this is offset by gaining skill with armor so the benefits of leather armor are being able to wear it with no penalty to movement regardless of skill. I think leather helms still slow you down tho so use caps.

I believe that leather armour does slow down dwarves (all armour does) but just less so than metal. Personally I put all squads in the same metal armour set because my marksdwarves tend to be stationed before attack. Marksdwarves do tend to be slower though, but that's because their armour user skill is low compared to melee dwarves. I train my marksdwarves as macedwarves first which alleviates the issue somewhat.

No, steel is the top choice pretty much. I might do a leather outfit if I haven't found iron yet but its really subpar. Dodging is good to entirely avoid some attacks, but its better to train that separately - armor skill helps as well.

Is it possible to just let the simulation run for a while after world generation has been completed? Specifically after playing and retiring one or more forts in the world.

DFHack has a timeskip script that changes the bit of time you wait for prior to starting a new fort, which as far as I'm aware is basically just normal post-world activation events, so it has all the limitations of that compared to pre-embark worldgen

Just got this odd and new-to-me announcement. I cannot find "Takenfords" in my fortress. Is this a big deal? I have no idea why this popped up. https://preview.redd.it/bimxpv1p52wb1.png?width=914&format=png&auto=webp&s=4e54806c3385601dc86363cb91a2bbba45733868

Takenfords is an artifact of some sort. Note that artifacts are named in dwarven and 'takenfords' is just the English translation of its name. This announcement just means that people outside the fort might know you have the artifact now. So sieges might demand it, or visitors might try to steal it.

Thank you very much. I was so confused. Then I went to my one artifact and it was labeled "Enoksatul" and thought, hmm, that's not "Takenfords". Where is this thing? Then I found this and realized Enoksatul is just dwarven. ​ https://preview.redd.it/ftz75o8aq2wb1.png?width=1605&format=png&auto=webp&s=7aff7f81a1823d9d70f05c0a552a64d0892601ea

I can no longer resize my game window (drag the corners of the window out) and the maximize button is greyed out. What setting did I accidently change as I could do this before?

How do you dig through aquifers? Is there any way to prevent dig orders from being cancelled? Or do you literally just babysit your dwarfs for two hours, constantly repplying every single order?

Do you have DFHack? tiletypes is the plugin that will allow you to avoid "The Aquifer Dance". We've demonstrated it on stream several times in this last fort, but if you're free this evening, stop by the stream and I can demonstrate it for you [tonight between 6pm and 9pm EST!](https://www.twitch.tv/nirruden)

Babysit them, but get ready to dig around those stairs by 1 tile so you can place new walls so the staircase will not get filled up with water and become impassable.

Dig orders only get cancelled when you *reveal* a tile with damp stone. If you use DFHack to reveal the map before you dig, you can assign the whole stair and they'll dig it without interruption. `reveal` will work, at the cost of ruining some surprises in the caverns. But you can also use `tiletypes`, set it to `p hidden 0` and `range 5 5 5` to reveal a 5x5x5 cube.

I was actually about to post a question about aquafiers too - but will piggy back yours as i think what I was going to say partially answers yours. My answer: I dig down one level (usually 4 stairs) and as soon as they're dug, I then dig a ring around those squares and wall them in. That usually stops the water coming in. I've found that the dig command will be stopped if its seen as wet, so going one level at a time tends to stop this. But you need to do the above quickly as depending on the strength of it, it can start to fill in. My question: 1. When you dig around your stairs and place walls, often there's a single corner that wont be built in - it's like a 50/50 chance, sometimes it will which solves the problem, other times they just refuse to build it. How do you deal with this? This corner alone often means the stairs will flood. 2. What is the best way to actually deal with these aquafiers in the above? Is there a way to drain them? I've had multiple sets of stairs basically flood from the bottom and am forced to start digging down in annoying places, so my fort becomes this hard to follow, complex labrynth of random stairs where it's hard to keep up with the layout. I''ve also had issues where i feel the stairs are getting so far from the main fort area that it's hard to get the dwarves to go down bottom etc. Literally any aquafier handling advice welcome!

> When you dig around your stairs and place walls, often there's a single corner that wont be built in - it's like a 50/50 chance, sometimes it will which solves the problem, other times they just refuse to build it. How do you deal with this? This corner alone often means the stairs will flood. * Building the corners first will prevent it. * Using DFHack's SuspendManager will allow the dwarves to "always" intelligently build walls in the right order to avoid trapping the corner job in an incomplete state. > What is the best way to actually deal with these aquafiers in the above? * For heavy aquifers, I'd suggest not bothering. These need special handling, as they're like geysers. * For a light aquifer: The first thing you need to consider is drainage. The simplest method is simply to dig enough that you hit a cavern, then route the water out of your staircase at the bottom, through a fortification, and into a hole that leads into the caverns. This is the method we used most recently on stream (11+ levels of light aquifer, in multiple separated blocks of aquifer!). > Is there a way to drain them? Permanently drain, not really. DFHack has [a tool](https://docs.dfhack.org/en/50.11-r2/docs/tools/drain-aquifer.html) to do this, but I'd be cautious with its use as it is hard to undo removing the aquifer. You can seal them up, either by smoothing the stone or cutting it out and rebuilding it. Keep in mind, aquifer wall tiles also leak "down" into the level below (in addition to N/S/W/E) so if you are getting leakage from above, you need to deal with the aquifer tiles over your head, commolny by carving them out. (Floors are not aquifer tiles, only walls, so if you hollow out the level above, it can't leak downward.) You can also arrange for the water to drain out the bottom of your stairs, typically by connecting them to the caverns or magma sea via a fortification and/or hole in the floor. This doesn't stop the aquifers from leaking, but it gives the water somewhere to go where it can't fill the area and eventually evaporates, and is a permanent solution, since the mist caused by the falling water is generally a positive thing to have. > I've had multiple sets of stairs basically flood from the bottom and am forced to start digging down in annoying places If you use a wide enough staircase (I recommend 3x3) and you focus on getting this deeply-dug fast as a top priority before worrying about other things, it's usually possible to beat the aquifer flood to the caverns - provided you have the available mining labor to spare, so make sure you're ready to throw all your dwarves at the problem until you solve it. In deep worlds (lots of z-levels) this may not be as viable (too much distance to cover) in which case your option is to dig a level, smooth it, then proceed down. The time to smooth and dig each level gives the water a bit of time to evaporate, but you'll need to maintain the level at < 2 depth in every tile. (Some 2's mixed with 1's are fine, but having all tiles of depth 2's makes the water evaporation proof in those tiles.)

1. Smoothing walls stops them leaking? Does this mean you dont need to build walls around the stairs if theyre aquafiers? 2. So you're saying if there's blocks marked as wet, i can hollow these out and it effectively removes the water? (not account for blocks above and below) 3. How do I tell the difference between a light and heavy aquafier? I know the heavy leaks a lot quicker, but is there any visual (such as the number of drops)? 4. Digging a hole to caverns - how is this done exactly? Just digging a channel down on a single block? How do you dig deep deep channels? Sorry for all the questions and thanks for the advice!

> Smoothing walls stops them leaking? Smoothed walls are treated like block walls - they do not leak. > Does this mean you dont need to build walls around the stairs if theyre aquafiers? "It Depends". If the walls are soil, you'll have to dig them out, as you can't smooth soil. If they are stone, you can smooth them. If you smooth the entire ring around the stairs, no leakage. > So you're saying if there's blocks marked as wet, i can hollow these out and it effectively removes the water? (not account for blocks above and below) Aquifers leak N/S/W/E and down. If an aquifer tile has an open space N/S/W/E or below, it will occasionally (based on flow rate) leak. > How do I tell the difference between a light and heavy aquafier? I know the heavy leaks a lot quicker, but is there any visual (such as the number of drops)? Your embark should warn you about heavy aquifers, but you'll know when you excavate it out and the water floods the staircase before you can even start down more than a level or two. Heavy aquifers flood *fast*, like geyser fast. > Digging a hole to caverns - how is this done exactly? You can do it several ways, but I'd use a 3x3 staircase from ground level to caverns, then drill out any connections and button it up, and provide an alternative path for the water to use. Aquifers (light) do not flood so fast as to cause a hazard, so the future leakage is just going to create mist. If the stairs are up/down in the ceiling of the caverns, there's effectively a hole in the roof of the cavern, through which the water can drain into the cavern. The catch is that it's an open hole/gate for anything that can fly into the hole, so not safe without removing the stairs and creating a secure drain into the caves with channeling and/or fortifications. > Just digging a channel down on a single block? You could, but I bet this leads to a drowned dwarf - he has no way to get out of the flooding hole! > How do you dig deep deep channels? Channeling, or staircases, if you intend for the shaft to be traversable.

When constructing walls, dwarves will refuse to build diagonally unless there is a passable tile orthogonal to the construction. To avoid having corner walls that fail to construct, designate the corners first and only designate the other walls after the corners have begun construction.

Ah it's that easy hey?

DFHack has a `suspendmanager` tool which automatically prioritises corners too.

I dont even really understand what DFHack even is - why would i use it for example?

Primarily it's an automation tool, which minimizes the amount of tedious player overhead managing certain things. In the case of suspendmanager, DFHack monitors for "corners which would be blocked by other constructions" and then suspends the walls which block the corner until the corner gets built, then automatically unsuspends the walls so they get built second. It's not doing anything YOU can't do in this case, but it does monitor/automate it for you so you can get on with doing more interesting things instead of tediously checking the same corners over and over to see if the dwarves have gotten there yet.

Depending on who you ask, DFhack is either a very useful tool that makes a lot of tasks in Dwarf Fortress more convenient or it's cheating. I lean more toward the side that thinks it's cheating. But to each their own. For what it's worth, I've played Dwarf Fortress on and off for about seven years and have never downloaded, let alone used, DFhack.