There seems to be a bug in the latest version that causes some strange mood crafting events to never finish crafting, resulting in the dwarf working till they mentally break and are killed by other dwarves.
#Strange mood causing dwarf mental breakdown
fluid cove
formal nova
Are you sure they had all the materials they needed to complete the crafting job? They don't always just need standard materials. I screwed myself over once by refining all of my bituminous coal, then a dwarf wanted some raw to craft with and I couldn't find any in time before they went mad.
muted charm
When they are sitting in the workshop not moving, click on the workshop, and see if they are still asking for anything specific like bones or cut gems etc. They aren't working until it says "has begun a mysterious construction"
fluid cove
Yeah they were asking for stuff. Is that something we have to respond to?
They literally just wait on the player till the point of insanity if they don't have the materials on-hand?
nova stirrup
They literally just wait on the player till the point of insanity if they don't ...
correct, that's how strange moods have always worked. once a dwarf is possessed, they will not do anything else until they either create the thing in their mind, or they go insane
fluid cove
Huh, well I guess it's not really a bug then. Weird
robust lark
yeah, that's just how strange moods work
they claim a workshop if the proper one is available, they ask for items in sequence, then make their artifact
and if there's a month(?) wait between steps, they go insane
tough hazel
You need to figure out what they're asking for, and the way they ask for it differs depending on the type of strange mood. A fey mood just tells you what they want without being weird about it ("I must have raw clear glass!") but other moods are less forthcoming and require some intepretation.
stiff flame
Just go read dfwk for such matters
fluid cove
And how do I actually provide the resources they want to them? I just had one that was requesting wood, so I ordered the copping of a bunch of trees, but then the dude never actually went to go get the wood once it was in the stockpile right next to him.
noble needle
He was probably looking for a specific type of wood. It could have been some surface wood or something found in the caverns
fluid cove
Is this a disableable mechanic?
hollow patrol
Is this a disableable mechanic?
Yes, look for "artifact moods" in settings
I don't think they ask for specific kinds of wood, though.
hollow patrol
They literally just wait on the player till the point of insanity if they don't ...
After all how would they or the game decide when and where for the dwarf to build new workshops to produce the materials? I don't want dwarves building workshops randomly in my fort.
fluid cove
More like... the dwarves give up after a period of time?
I wasn't asking for ai-expansion lol
hollow patrol
I think kinda the point of the mood is that they have received otherworldly or divine inspiration, and madness is the price they pay for failing it.
This is borne out by dwarves who have successfully completed a mood being immune to insanity at all in the future.
Some of the strange mood alerts imply that 'lore wise' the dwarf is not in charge here - possessed and fey moods being the most obvious.
nova stirrup
And how do I actually provide the resources they want to them? I just had one th...
the resources they request will be listed in the shop, but the dwarves won't necessarily grab ones that are available if they have other resource needs that haven't been met first. e.g., they might request wood, uncut gems, cut gems, and leather, and you might have wood and uncut gems and leather, but the dwarf won't grab leather until they can get some cut gems first
it's a bit unintuitive that they request them in order, but the end results are more or less the same. if you don't have all the requested materials, they won't be able to make the thing and will eventually go insane.
you can also see what things they've already grabbed by looking at the workshop inventory. also, they may sometimes request multiples of a single thing, so if you're sure you have all of the requested items, you might just not have enough
fluid cove
Well that's even more confusing because the message that tells me what they need rotates through them rather than listing them, so I don't actually know which is first?
nova stirrup
right, it doesn't really matter which is first though, just that you have all the items they need
fluid cove
And how can I easily tell which of the items I don't have?
Because as far as I can tell with the Stocks menu, I have everything needed.
nova stirrup
look at the workshop they claimed and see what's already there
fluid cove
mk
nova stirrup
the stocks menu only tells you all of the items that exist in your fortress, regardless of if those items are currently claimed or in use by something else
the one other caveat is that the items the dwarf needs must be in a stockpile somewhere that they can access. they will make claims to things before any other task, so you don't have to worry about the items getting sucked up by other tasks in the fort, just they have to be provided the items
the benefit to strange moods is that the item they make becomes an artifact for your world, and the creator immediately becomes a legendary crafter for whatever crafting skill was used
fluid cove
Gotcha. On my first fortress I had no problems meeting all the conditions they required during moods so I never had trouble with them going nuts. I'm not sure why I am on this fort, because this one is significantly better imo
late axle
Sometimes dwarves do infinitely gather materials for strange moods. I saw this once during testing but was unable to replicate it properly.
