My fortress seems to be glitching the pathing systems a bit and I end up with a bunch of dwarfs, mostly foreigners, who like to jump into a river and fall off a waterfall. That has left me with a bunch of line items on the dead list. Im a little paranoid that one of my dwarfs is on there and I missed it. How can I tell if something on that list is mine?
How to tell if a dead dwarf is mine
dwarf-fortress
Related Solutions
I found one of the easiest ways to simplify the game without hacking or removing many sources of Fun is to lower the population cap. I found that once my fortress grew to 100 dwarves or beyond, I couldn't figure out how to manage all of them and keep them working productive jobs. So instead they all just sat around throwing parties and pestering my productive dwarves. Until you get enough experience to handle a fortress that size, try lowering the cap to 40 or 50 dwarves.
To do this in v0.31.08, edit data/init/d_init.txt and change the value of this line:
[POPULATION_CAP:200]
Note: your actual population may still go above the cap you set, you just stop getting new immigrant waves after you reach or surpass that cap. And apparently births don't respect caps. Also I think (but I haven't tested) that you can change this mid-game if you save and quit first.
Ok, I'm going to give you a crash course in Geology.
In traditional Geology there are three kinds of Rock: Sedimentary, Metamorphic and Igneous (actually that's an over simplification, but pretend its true). Dwarf Fortress is modeled on this system but it further breaks Igneous down into Igneous Extrusive and Igneous Intrusive (Lava that cooled on the surface and lava that cooled underground, obviously magma is found in the latter). To these layers DF also adds Soil and Aquifers. So our full list is:
- Sedimentary
- Metamorphic
- Igneous Extrusive
- Igneous Intrusive
- Soil
- Aquifer
Now on your embark screen you'll not see these layers, instead you'll see things like: Gabbro, Gneiss, Shale, Basalt, etc. Each of these indicates one of the above layers,
- Shale -> Sedimentary
- Basalt -> Extrusive
- Gabbro -> Intrusive
- Gneiss -> Metamorphic
So why describe them as certain stones instead of what the layer is? Well, the stone indicated is the most common stone in that layer, it is NOT the only stone in that layer. In addition to deposits (Jet, Gold, Hematite, etc) any other type of similar stone can be found.
So how do you tell if you have Marble? Well if you see Marble on your embark screen, that's a big hint (but you said you didn't). So the next thing you need to look for is a similar stone. Marble happens to be a Metamorphic rock, so it can be found if you have other Metamorphic rock, namely: Quartzite, Slate, Phyllite, Schist, and Gneiss. If you have none of those, then the answer is NO. If you have at least one then the answer is MAYBE.
Only way to tell in a MAYBE circumstance is to dig... Sorry
For those of you who actually care more about Rock, I've defined the terms further here. All rock essentially starts at as Magma. As Magma is heated by the pressure at the Earth's core it rises (remember 10th Grade Chemistry? Hot things rise!). It eventually reaches the surface and becomes Igneous Rock. Whether it becomes Intrusive or Extrusive has to do with whether it makes it all the way to the top. So we can say, all rock starts as Magma and becomes Igneous.
From there it can be weathered down by the elements, earth, rain, water, etc. This weathered down rock becomes sand or soil. These soils build up over time and eventually are submerged below other soil (or sometimes other rock). Eventually enough pressure builds up and the soil becomes hard and becomes a rock known as Sandstone. Sandstone is soil that has been compressed back into rock.
In a world without continents that's all there would be, but in our Earth we have massive continents. These continents are formed of large rock beds deep within the Earth's crust. As they heat they rise to the surface. At the surface they lose heat and cool. Eventually they cool so much they are subducted by newer Continents. This is not a subtle process, but actually a very violent one, with massive forces of pressure, stress and strain. These forces warp Igneous and Sandstone compacting it. The end result is a new kind of stone called Metamorphic rock (meta is Greek for change, and morph for form). Its usually identifiable by the stress lines present.
Congrats, that was your crash course in Geology, here is your Diploma.
The Advanced Class!
So someone asked about Flux and I figured given its importance in DF it might be worthwhile for me to explain what Flux is. Flux is often an ambiguous term give its preference in different scientific disciplines. The Flux referred to by DF is the term from Metallurgy. In metallurgy flux is a substance which removes oxidation from metals, usually used in soldering, brazing, and welding. Additionally, flux is used in smelting to remove impurities from the metal (also to liquefy slag, but that a different discussion). In modern steel making we use burnt lime or dolomite as a flux material.
Even though steel making is an industrial technology, the Dwarves natural instincts with relationship to rock have given them an innate understanding of the necessary complexities of steel making. As a result, Dwarven steel is far more pure than the period would otherwise suggest (modern steel making wasn't invented till the 17th century).
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Best Answer
One way is to give all of your dwaves nick-names while they are still alive, then you can tell if a corpse is yours based on whether it has a nickname or not.
Obviously, that doesn't help when you already have mystery corpses strewn around.
If one of your dwarves dies where another of your dwarves can see them, you get a message report that they died. If no one sees them die, then a week later, you get a message that so-and-so has been missing for a week. (Or it might be after two weeks, can't remember). "Missing" means "dead, but with no witnesses". You can update the announcements.txt file to have it stop the game every time there's a 'died' or 'missing' report (and stop it from stopping the game and recentering the screen for every darn birth), but that's a separate question :). There's information about how to do that on the wiki.
Make blank slabs if you don't have any already. If/when you do, go to a craft-dwarf workshop, and choose engrave (I think it's alt-S, don't remember for sure.) It will give you a list of people that you can create tombstones for; any of your own dwarves that have died but have not been memorialized will show up at the top of the list. If you see a death on there that you know is NOT one of yours, then no name below that name is yours either.
Depending on how many dwarves you have (Or if you use the Dwarf Therapist utility), you can check the thoughts of your remaining dwarves to see if they are unhappy about losing someone or worried about someone missing. You can also check their relationships, to see if any are marked as "deceased". If one of your dwarves has a "deceased" relation that has the same name as a mystery corpse, it's probably one of yours.
Finally,