Originally Posted by
Zayex
I have all of those except I have no idea how to make beer, and my dumb shit rangers are hunting rats instead of the various animals.
Hunters need crossbows and arrows, and it also seems that in the newer updates they need quivers as well.
Craftdwarves can make wooden or bone bolts, and a Bowyer can make crossbows out of bone or wood too. Quivers are made of leather iirc, which would require a leatherworks and suitable dwarf for the job. Unfortunately, leather would require dead animals, of which you have none but I'll get to that later.
The reason your hunters are hunting rats and other vermin is probably because you don't have any food, bolts, quivers, or crossbows - or maybe all of the above. As a result, they're eating vermin to survive (they'll have a note about that in their status menu).
Here's a step-by-step on how to try and resolve your problems with your fortress before it goes under:
1) Farming. You'll need to make a farm plot, one above ground for normal plants, and one below ground for mushrooms such as PLUMP HELMETS. Plump helmets are great because they provide both a source of alcohol and food in one tasty little morsel. Make sure to use "q" to set the plants which are to be planted. Your farmers will get onto it sooner or later, provided you've set some dwarves for farming.
1a) It helps if you "d"esignate an area for dwarves to "gather plants" so you'll have a good supply of booze-yielding plants and seeds available.
2) Booze. Once you have sufficient alcohol-making plants available, go to your still (it's a workshop, so press "b", then "w", then "l") and set it to brew a drink. You'll always need barrels to keep the stuff in, so make sure you have a carpenter on that or you'll have no booze at all. Keep in mind that just about any plant can be made into alcohol, and that dwarves don't like having to drink the same stuff for too long.
3) Hunting. Since your hunters are apparently ill-equipped, the next best thing is to set up a "m"ilitary. Chuck a couple of dwarves into a squad in the military menu (preferably ones with some combat skills - it'll tell you under "relevant skills") then go back to the main screen, press "s" for squads, "a" to select your first squad, and then "k" and "l" to get a list of things to send them out to kill. There'll likely be some harmless animals milling about outside, so send them after something less dangerous like hoary marmots or elk. With time, they'll be able to hunt down and kill something for you - just remember to cancel the kill order once they're done or they'll just sit around the carcass like tentative vultures until they starve to death.
4) Butchery/Cooking. The first and most important thing to do is to go into the "o"rders screen, then "r"efuse, and then allow your dwarves to collect corpses from outside. Make sure you have both a kitchen and a butchery set up, and a corpse stockpile (corpse under the refuse list in the stockpile settings, not the "corpses" listing by itself) nearby. You'll want to either build the butchery and corpse stockpile together above ground, or below ground and far away from anything else with air vents dug into the roof above (channelled using the designate menu). Once you've got the butchery and corpse pile set up, and a dwarf set for butchering then your butcher will automatically set about butchering any animal corpses nearby. This will provide food for your cook to prepare. Now all you need to do is go to the kitchen and set it to prepare a meal. I like to stick the kitchen on "prepare fine meal" and set it to repeat.
5) Equipping your hunters. Now that you have corpses being butchered, you'll have some skin sitting around. If you have a tannery set up, your tanner dwarf will take any skin he can find and turn it into leather. Once he's done, a leatherworks and leathermaking dwarf will let you produce quivers (and armor!) for your hunters. The crossbows and bolts can be made out of the bones you'll have from butchered corpses (or wood), and all you need is a bowyer's workshop and a craftsdwarf workshop, and of course dwarves set to the task. From then on, your hunters set to the "hunting" job will set about shooting down and retrieving animals. It's also helpful to set used ammunition as collectable in the orders menu if you don't want to be wasting resources on bolts.
6) Burying the dead. Since you're having problems with that, all you need to do is have caskets or coffins made by either carpenters or masons. Then have a room underground somewhere where you can build the coffins. All you need to do after that is to press "q" go to the coffin and set it to be available for burial. Another thing you can do is have a mason build a slab and a craftsdwarf engrave it. Both ways should prevent ghosts from rising and tormenting the living.
Hopefully that's all correct and will fix your problems - provided you work fast enough before your dwarves all starve or start having tantrums. If those insane dwarves are still around killing people, try to lock them in a room with a door by forbidding passage through it. Otherwise you could send a couple of military dwarves after them - they shouldn't be too much of a threat.
As a side note, I use the default interface for dealing with jobs, and yes it is a long and arduous process, especially with migrant dwarves who seem to need help deciding that they should put their "Skilled Fisherdwarf" skill to use in a fishery rather than just sitting around eating food, drinking booze and generally acting like mobile fortress cancer. I think I'll be getting that Dwarf Therapist thing soon.
Last edited by 4zb41; Apr 29, 2012 at 08:30 AM.