Bay 12 Games Forum

Regarding the soundtrack question from last time - the Fortress Mode soundtrack should have wavs now!

With regards to the new forums, are you planning on just updating bay12forums.com to use https (i.e. https://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php), or are you planning on moving the forums so that they are under bay12games.com (e.g. http://www.bay12games.com/smf/index.php or http://www.bay12games.com/forums/index.php) in order to take advantage of the fact that bay12games.com is already set up to use https?  If the latter, Is there anything that'll be done to avoid breaking links on other websites (I know you can just have the main page of the old forums redirect to the new forums, but can the server be set up so that, if someone tries to directly access a specific post on the old forums, it'll automatically redirect them to the same post on the new forums)?

I think we're going to set up https for bay12forums.com.  The urls should remain unchanged.

Is Dwarf Fortress officially now just Dwarf Fortress or is it still officially Slaves to Armok God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress, or is the latter just for the free ASCII version?

Will you ever publish any more crayon art? Do you ever bust the crayons out when conceptualising new features, creatures or objects?

Inarius: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8536658#msg8536658
Silverwing235: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8536661#msg8536661
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8536732#msg8536732

Dwarf Fortress is increasingly official for all versions, yeah.  The free version is also using it.  But the readme still uses the Armok title.  I know CRPG Addict uses title screen, documentation, and box cover, something like that, and picks the winner 2 out of 3 to handle inconsistencies.  We don't have a box cover, so right now it's a 50-50 tie.

We never used crayon for concepts.  We had those tablets, which are just pencil or ink.

Quote from: Rumrusher

hmm having now thought about this if premium adv mode is getting a soundtrack is the classic build of adv mode going to stay silent or is there going to be like a toadyone original adv mode classic track for that also?

Quote from: Lemunde

To add a suggestion onto this, it might be fun to add lo-fi chiptune versions of the songs to classic. Understandable if that might be too much work.

Rumrusher (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8537185#msg8537185

I'm not planning to make any more music myself at this point.  There's a lot of regular work to do.

Are there plans to implement schisms / civil wars as part of the villains arc? It would make sense that parts of the kingdom may rebel against a usurper. It may also help prevent snowballing in worldgen. It would also be interesting if the different sides had opposing preferences, like blue vs red clothing or cow symbols vs eagle symbols, different religious sects...

Rumrusher: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8537039#msg8537039
TranquilRiverGiant (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8537057#msg8537057
Rumrusher: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8537148#msg8537148

Doing full breaks (or merges) or civilizations has always been held back by the entity code, and was going to be part of the entity rewrite stuff - which is now going to be done in smaller pieces.  We have coups as an official villain plot, and schisms as a planned religious feature, and the old insurrections as mentioned.  There are lots of things pointing this way, but the main work to be done involves just allowing entity structures to be more flexible.

Did you get any nice presents?

I did!  I got a knit frog with a knit sweater.  Otherwise it was a low key birthday focused on food ha ha.

Quote from: DPh Kraken

The adventure mode OST is fire (my complements to the chefs), but I checked the raws and didn't find any tokens for it. It looks like the playing logic is hardcoded (due to the dynamic mixing), will we be able to add our own music and sounds to adventure mode eventually?

Quote from: Doren I

What cues certain music tracks to play in Fortress mode?  I know the song “Vile Force of Darkness” plays when a siege arrives, but when, for example, does “Death Spiral” get triggered?  Will there be similar cues in adventure?

DPh Kraken (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8538013#msg8538013

Yeah, we're waiting for the work to settle down before we come up with a raw format.  The adventure music is not yet complete - right now it just plays songs randomly, and we're going to set up cues.  The fortress mode cues are all in the existing raw files that DPh Kraken linked.  I don't recall exactly, but the death spiral event relates to a number and/or percentage of citizen/resident deaths in a short period of time.

Do doors play different sounds when they're opened in adventure mode, depending on the material the doors are made out of?

Interesting if true.  But if the answer to that question is "yes", do "soap doors" specifically have their own sound effect?

And if the answer to that question is also "yes" ... then "why?"  And then where did you even get the sound?!

Did you and/or someone else actually try to make a door out of actual soap, just like smooshed together, and then have Three-Toe open it, while Putnam sat and recorded it with a directional mic?  Because I'd have mad respect for that.

Ha ha, Parker Bert did the sound effects for adventure mode.  I have literally no idea how they did them, but there are lots of them and they are cool.  We did get a bit carried away with materials.

Would it be possible to consider the return of ASCII creature graphics in future versions?
and the multi-view implemented in ASCII somehow.

Doorkeeper: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8537962#msg8537962

Could an option be added to character creation (maybe in a debug section?) to force change the random indexes in graphics files? Talking about 'CONDITION_RANDOM_PART_INDEX', some UI that shows the ID and a number field clamped to go from 1 to whatever the max was set to. It would make creating highly customizable modded races way way nicer, for example I could let players pick a preferred clothing color option, or pick tail color and type, wing color, etc.

I want to do an appearance customizer (as in many games) at some point which should cover everything.

I'm a big fan of AD&D's Underdark, and I think Dwarf Fortress does a fantastic job generating cavern layouts and featuring a subterranean ecology that rivals what is described in TSR's books. Currently, subterranean animal people in DF serve a similar role to D&D's Kuo-toa; With the upcoming map-rewrite, do you plan to include exclusively subterranean civilizations that might fulfill the roles similar to dark elves or dark dwarves? If so, would these be distinct races, or would they simply be elven and dwarven civilizations whose inhabitants possess malevolent personality traits (like goblins do)?

DPh Kraken: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8537737#msg8537737
Egan_BW: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8537747#msg8537747

Ha ha, DPh Kraken encouraging me to add an [INCORRUPTIBLE] tag to gorlaks.  The map+entity rewrite stuff was finally going to get us to better underground civs.  A lot is missing to make it work.  We want gorlaks to work, we want underground animal people to work, including things like ant people which have never worked and which could be really interesting with their own cave layouts and more proper caste usage and such.

I noticed some portraits are inconsistent with the world sprites for dwarves - usually this is seen in hair color. Is it just that shades like "saffron" are yet to get dwarf portraits & will in the future, or is the system intended to work by approximating an array of in-text hair colors to, say, a single off-white?

We're hoping to get to the full palettes yeah, but they take time.  The hair is especially inconsistent yeah, I might be sitting on a fix for that which will at least line it up with the portraits.  I'm always one step behind the artists, especially for beta.

Any news on the Mac version?

Doorkeeper: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8537962#msg8537962

Will there ever be modding support for implementing things like firedamp? Blackdamp, whitedamp, etc?
More to the point, is the mining mechanic in its current iteration "finished"?

    Firedamp is any flammable gas found in coal mines, typically coalbed methane.
    It is particularly found in areas where the coal is bituminous.
    The gas accumulates in pockets in the coal and adjacent strata and when they are penetrated the release can trigger explosions.
    Historically, if such a pocket was highly pressurized, it was termed a "bag of foulness".

Basically, support for letting gas spawn and then linger. Custom gas evaporates very quickly, which is problematic for certain modding endeavors.

Goody towers lean close to something approaching a natural mining hazard, but obviously they are very much their own thing.

I could understand maybe wanting to shrug off adding in better gas simulation support until way off in the far future. Like, I get that.

Nothing's ever finished, and the map rewrite stuff, now coming in piecemeal, is supposed to make the underground more interesting.  Dunno if there'll be natural mining changes specifically.

Are there any plans to fully overhaul the small scale layered creature sprites in the future, with the new capabilities that came with procedural portraits?  (missing body parts, palletization, etc)

Additionally, I've noticed that NPCs never wear any headwear except for masks and face veils and never wear loincloths or thongs.
This is new since the steam release and I assume it was intentionally added to reduce clutter but it is a bit odd and makes kobolds always have bad thoughts for having no pants.
If this is changed I think kobolds should be given sandals too, to make them not get bad thoughts for having no footwear.

Yeah, it's on the list, and a lot of the palettized art is already done.

I don't recall a headwear change.  The PLAINS entity has all the types there, including the pants ones as well.  And dwarves have loincloths listed.  Are things not spawning correctly?

I wonder if it is possible in theory to send a squad of dwarves in a mission outside my fort to demand or raid an enemy village and being able to join them in combat when I un-retire an adventurer or if I create a new adventurer in the target village and help them defend against the squad that is on the way.

I can make the unretire (or creation of new adventurer) simulation progress time at the start to be 1 day with DFHack (as the two weeks always are much more time than the travel time to the site). Even with that, would my squad actually reach the site if I could be there with an adventurer waiting? Or the mission are all abstract math behind the scenes and nothing would "physically" happen If I were there observing?

What about If I leave a squad member behind to be the ruler of the new site... I guess he would be there I would be able to find the dwarf?

Eric Blank: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8538352#msg8538352

Hmm, yeah, I have literally no idea what happens to squads on missions when you retire.  If they aren't otherwise handled, they should just continue on their way with the same "army controller" etc., which means they'd do their thing, but most of their things aren't actually programmed in adventure mode, so you wouldn't get to see them do anything zoomed up.  That's all former army arc/current piecemeal stuff, getting to the zoomed in army stuff.  You should be able to find administrators you leave in fort mode, or other occupiers.  Some artifact seekers also hunt for quite a while and might even be findable with the two week calendar.

1. One thing I noticed from the current version of the adventure mode beta is we don't have progress bars for skills anymore like in the old version. Will those eventually be readded?
2. Since priorities are currently in flux regarding what gets implemented next what are the chances in one of the updates following adventure mode's release this year or next that we will be able to purchase houses/plots of land in towns? It was on the old to do list and it would be a nice variation on the base building that existed in the old version with building our own mead halls.
3. Are towns going to get any new kinds of buildings/features/organizations with the town updates? Previously libraries and guilds halls in towns didn't do much and it would be cool to see them have their own little quest types/if possible be joinable factions like mercenary companies are.
4. Will random edible leaves picked from the ground still be worth a small amount of money in trading? Stuff like lettuce and what not. In early versions you could pay for your inn room with lettuce leaves in a quick pinch.

1. Yeah.
2. The priorities are in flux and I don't know the chances.  Finishing the menus and getting the new deity/tutorial stuff in is the current focus.
3. Temples will be the first focus most likely (after shops are fixed), because they relate to the sure additions.
4. Ha ha ha, I haven't changed anything.  That seems like it could afford to be tightened up, but who knows how much that will happen.

Ever since the villains release, there has been an event where a villain can send people to corrupt your dwarves to steal an artifact of yours which is great flavour.
But for some reason it seems to be abnormally common. I'm talking hundreds of historical figures "Claiming from afar" in Legends mode almost the instant it is made for me a lot of the time.

This results in the majority of your guests being thieves, which both means you won't get many regular visitors and you'll need to seal away your artifacts 100% of the time (or disallow visitors).
Or, if you want more regular visitors, just get rid of your artifacts.
I'd guess this would be one of the things looked at when Villains is revisited and it's probably just a side effect of it not being finished right?

Yeah, we postponed villain completion right as heists were being finished so it's not surprising the frequencies are messed up.

Are there any plans to make walls and raised bridges destructible by enemies?
It is ridiculous that a single wall tile or a raised bridge can completely neutralize almost any threat from the outside.
The defense of the fortress is now so simple that it is difficult to lose for fun.

Eric Blank: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8539174#msg8539174
Rumrusher: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8539291#msg8539291

Some months ago I noted that the soundtrack DLC on steam only contains low quality mp3 files, whereas the bandcamp release has FLAC files available. The recently released Adventure Mode soundtrack DLC has the opposite problem - it includes the chonky, gigabyte-sized uncompressed WAVs (which I feel is waaaay overkill for a soundtrack release IMO but of course so much better than just MP3s still).
Is there a chance that the original soundtrack will get the WAVs too, or that both of the releases will get FLAC files? I imagine the former would be better, as it would unify the releases, and it's fairly easy for anyone to convert WAVs to FLAC themselves.

I'll have to ask Kitfox.  The mp3/flac thing was a condition of the sound people, but if that's out the window then I have no idea what the current conditions are.  I'll get back to you when I hear.

(gonna have to try again with fewer participants)

Will there be non-player demigod characters? Like, will they show up in legends as just the children of whatever god and influence the world?

Yeah, this was the hope, once it's complete.  It's a good way for us to introduce new people for fort mode, new companions and adversaries and others in adv mode as well.  Should be good fun, but won't be in immediately in April.

How much are the other controls changing and are any of the current ones are merging?

We've kept most of the current keys.  I don't remember any counterexamples off the top of my head.  Since we're not using WASD, the keys weren't exploded like they were in fort mode, so most everything could remain intact.

Hey Toady! I assume by the time you read this the bug tracker will be fixed; but in future, who should we contact/how should we let somebody know when the bug tracker is broken?

clinodev: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8528641#msg8528641

Hello! I watched Blind's recent video on "What to expect from Adventure mode and Magic healing!" and got very interested in the latter part. While at first I was very unsure of implementing a sort of magical healing that could revert otherwise permanent injuries, I started to think about what would be an interesting implementation that could fall in line with the feel of DF, so this got me thinking:

- Is this new way of healing conceptualized like a mage casting a healing spell on an injuried person or more like an alchemist or a traditional healer rubbing a combination of weeds and other materials on the injury?
- Will the new healing method serve as a single multipurpose heal-it-all solution or will there be specific (hopefully randomized for each world!) requirements and quirks for each sort of injury? For example, if you're trying to heal torn ligaments the material/other requirements are somewhat different from if you're trying to heal nerve damage. In this case, will there be different recipes for these different kinds of healing? Will scholars in fortress mode be able to discover these recipes by doing research and discussing with other smartpants who come visit your fort?
- How viable are you planning to make having an adventurer be dedicated to medicine? Would be very cool to have yet another different niche to specialize in the coming adventure mode.

Eric Blank: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8528843#msg8528843

Yeah, it's certainly going to be randomized on a per-world basis, and the particulars are just going to come in over time.  There'll probably be some powerful effects in the beginning and then it'll become diversified with some weaker stuff as we spend some time with it.  Relating it to scholarship in fort mode is a myth/magic goal but that won't happen at first, and hospitals won't see anything for a bit, but eventually they'll notice the new possibilities ha ha.  Integrating fort mode generally with magic is exciting and challenging and right in front of us.

For dedicated medical adventurers, who aren't just party members helping out, I see the basic issue there just being that there aren't a lot of randomly wounded/sick people out in the world.  Naturally, we'd like to make life miserable for everybody, randomly, but that'll take some doing.

Hello, Toady, have you come up with any new monsters or creatures randomly as you've been working on the adventure mode stuff?

PlumpHelmetMan: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8529607#msg8529607
Pillbo: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8531922#msg8531922

Nothing new yet!  It has mainly been interface and graphics and audio, and we aren't even caught up with all the existing features.  But there will be something to play!  (as seen in the combat video)  And new monsters should start coming as we go through our demigod/dungeon/temple roadmap - this won't be complete in April's beta either, but will be coming in as the update comes out of beta.

When the biomes become sphere-aligned primarily, instead of being Good/Evil/Wild, what are your thoughts on the "surroundings" descriptor? I.e the one that says "calm", "haunted", "joyous wilds", etc. on the embark screen. Some sphere-alignments, like a land of thunder, don't map clearly to any of the existing descriptions. But at the same time, having descriptions for all spheres, or combinations of spheres, seems like it could be a lot. Both to develop, but also for the player embarking. E.g. if a biome is "rumbling" or "chaotic", how difficult is that?

Those adjectives are particularly linked to the three existing properties, so I imagine they'll get exploded.  Musical timbre is an example of us kind of going expansive with a collection of adjectives along a bunch of related axes, and something similar could happen.  I'm not sure adjectives will be sufficient though.  Hopefully places will be interesting enough eventually to describe with a sentence or two ha ha.

Will alive demigods influence the name of the age? vampires and necromancers already influence it, along with werebeasts and other creatures.

I'm not sure if we'll get to tweaks to age names here before they undergo more serious changes.

Hello!  Im very excited for the map rewrite and was wondering what sort of plans there are to expand the surface level in fort mode.  I understand when you embark you can change the grid size but currently you have to load all Z levels below the surface.  Has there been any thoughts to having 2 embark selections?  One for surface and one for the underground?  I can envision having a 25x25 surface fortress sprawling with hamlets, houses and temples while having a 3x3 underground area to mine out and explore.

Caldfir: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8531106#msg8531106
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8531130#msg8531130

I think the replies covered this one!  It's definitely one of the things we want to accomplish.

1. The portraits look like they're set up to automatically apply the hundred-or-so raw colors for worn items and eyes, but I haven't seen them applied to any previews. Will there be palette support for layered graphics? Any new uses for palettes planned, like doing unit-colored clothing as a palleted graphic?

2. Adventure crafting is minimal without modded reactions, and thus end up running into unexpected limitations. Is it likely we will see any bugfixes for typical reaction pitfalls, like unwearable gloves or stacked/dimensioned reagents (bone, bars, globs, etc) in the April update?

1. Yeah, that's in now, generally.  You can define multiple custom palettes to use for it, and also use the default one.

2. No, not for the April update.  But April isn't the full update.  I'm not sure how things are going to go as we head for the full release.  There's going to be a lot coming at me.

Will human, elven, and goblin civilizations be given hairstyling options now that we're getting procedural portraits? Also, why don't elf sprites show their facial hair, and goblin sprites don't show their hair or facial hair? I did notice though that the goblin portrait examples showed hair, but not beards. Elves and goblins do have beards, so the sprites should probably show that.

I've added hairstyles for humans and elves.  Goblins are in an odd position since we have hair but they don't follow the existing styles, so everybody is still bald.  No idea about elf beards.  We have one drawn, but no style images for it, though I think elves will style them now in text.

Any plans to make water a continuous requirement for farming (and other crafts)?
Several DF crafts depend - in their real-life counterparts - on having water: farming, brewing, cooking, dyeing, smithing, breeding, and I'm sure I'm missing some.
While df-irrigation is used to create farmable soil, farmers don't water their plants.

Eric Blank: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8531554#msg8531554
PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8531820#msg8531820

The replies handled this - we certainly want water to be used in some more places.  Using it absolutely everywhere might be too much, just in terms of the amount of moving about or little cisterns or whatever that would need to be kept to keep the fort running, but adding a water requirement to several jobs would be fun I think.  We might need some more water gathering methods before we jump too far into that though, to keep more biomes viable.

Do you plan attempting an in fort market economy again in the foreseeable future?

Ha ha, sure, but I have no idea when.

I was looking into why buoyancy isn't a thing in the game and I haven't been able to find a post from you on the subject since August 2007:

Quote

The new fluids invalidated most of the old code.  Have water stop you when you jump into it so you don't go all the way down into the bottom is linked to density sink/float stuff, which I haven't done yet.  I'm not sure what I'll get to.  It'll either be done or get Req'd.

Other than that I saw lots of people make various comments about buoyancy being too hard, or implying you didn't want to implement it for some reason, but it's kinda hard to tell what is assumption, speculation, or accurate. 

So what is the deal with buoyancy and why hasn't it been included yet? If it is a technical issue what are the major problems?  Is it going to wait for boats?

Caldfir: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8532238#msg8532238

Yeah, it just hasn't come up strongly yet, as Caldfir says.  Although I'm sure there'd be a few funny side effects currently, as with water pressure.  I'm definitely pro buoyancy, and I imagine it'll come up with boats, yeah, though things are so stark we'll have to be careful.  It seems unavoidable that it'll be the situation that adding a single coin to a boat at some tipping point will cause it to sink one tile deeper, suddenly flooding the entire ship and sinking it.  It'll have to warn you about that.  But if a dragon gets on board and the boat is all on fire and also sinks that would be amusing.

Download (Click refresh on your browser if it doesn't show up)

Release notes for 50.12 (March 6, 2024):

New stuff
   (*) Ability to sort the lists from the creature/task menus
   (*) Kitchen interface sorting and searching
   (*) Work detail sorting and searching
   (*) Can edit and restore default work details
   (*) Saves can be sorted by world and folder on the title screen
   (*) Keyboard support for many unit lists
   (*) Ability to designate burrows over multiple Z levels

Major bug fixes
   (*) Fixed a few crashes relating to pregnancy
   (*) Fixed save corruption related to bad job ids
   (*) Fixed crash related to language mods
   (*) Goblins should have trolls again, and some additional friends (new worlds only)
   (*) Vampires in forts should hide properly

Graphics additions/changes
   (*) Additional statue graphics
   (*) Fixed some classic building interface lights

Other bug fixes/tweaks
   (*) Squad assignment now lists already-assigned units last
   (*) Fixed error in calculation of bridge support
   (*) Fixed issue in how environment-appropriate work animals are selected for visiting fortress
   (*) Fixed missing autopause tooltip
   (*) Additional miscellaneous optimizations
   (*) Fixed minor issue with forest variant display
   (*) Fixed clipping issue on unit sheets
   (*) Fixed minor issue with cage contents display
   (*) Fixed pet list display on unit sheet rarely skipping a pet
   (*) Llamas are pack animals now

Does this mean that the portraits shown will change variations every time they're displayed (at least until they're linked to fashion-item terms)?

Telgin: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8522215#msg8522215

Yeah, Telgin's got this one.  It's possible to randomize in a consistent way on a per item basis.  This one's slightly complicated since the item can theoretically float between different creature types if it isn't stopped by size (from a human to a 70000 size experiment, for example), so it has to be able to survive that, but that's just a matter of making the text consistent in the different raw layer entries, and having any necessary art available.  (whether size 70000 experiments have portraits with full clothing variations by the first release is a different question ha ha, the art work can really go on forever, in a good way, like the rest of the game)

Quote from: me

Annie made us cool hoodies in the style of those pig hoodies I wear, with the pigs in a grid, but with the dwarf face in place of pigs.

Pics?

https://bay12games.com/imgs/krumkake.jpg

- Why is the number of custom labor groups limited and with numbers instead of icons?
- Are there plans to allow editing the default labor groups?
- Have you ever considered adding a world painter for precision embarks? (trying to spawn good & evil tiles adjacent is incredibly difficult)
- Do you know if Adventure Mode will be backwards compatible with existing worlds?

Quote from: me

Yeah, the Adv mode stuff isn't directly related (despite me working to have keyboard enabled there), but Putnam's already got some keyboard stuff working in Fort mode on some additional menus.  It's already in progress.

- Does this mean we can fully remap the sub-menus? Like right now adding a hotkey for building a door requires a custom graphic corresponding to said keys.

PatrikLundell: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8522780#msg8522780
Ziusudra: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8522859#msg8522859

- Just didn't have time to do the art before the December 2022 release with the rest that was going on, and I didn't use the custom icons we had at the time since there were only a few the last I worked on it.  The player custom icons between burrows, squads, work details, etc., could be more unified and useful.  I'm not sure when we'll get to it, but it could certainly use improvement.
- This can be done in 50.12 on beta, although the normal restrictions on held-object labors apply.
- The replies covered some of this - if we get back into the map painting in vanilla, it'll be as part of the Myth/Magic editors, where we want to also include things like site maps.  It's an open-ended topic like most of the rest of development - could spend all the rest of dev time on map editors ha ha, but we'll likely do some stuff that goes beyond the current arena and map field files.
- Yeah, Adventure Mode is compatible with existing worlds.  I think certain things like portraits for necromancer experiments, if we get to those at all for the initial release, will be too time-consuming to get in to old saves, and some of the myth/magic stuff will probably require new generated objects, which would need a new world as well.
- We haven't touched the building menu yet so far as I remember.  We're just adding stuff that people want, pretty much, with an eye on getting a full keyboard enabled experience back.  It's not going to happen quickly.

Is saving in adventurer mode gonna gain the same options as in fort mode? Such as to save and continue playing or save to a new timeline.

Do you think there's any current features that might not make the initial adventurer mode release? Like the camp building mentioned on Blind's steam.

Are the controls also going to be designed around WASD?

I'm using the same save options, yeah.

I mentioned the camp building a long while ago and also in the latest adv mode update post (which probably was after your question) since it is the largest interface that isn't as core as stuff like inventory.  It'll be in the second feature (i.e. not fix/tweak) update if it's not in the first.

There's diagonal movement so I'm not attempting WASD alone.  I'm not sure what the keyboard option is for people without numberpads - eating up the QWEASDZCX cluster (or equivalent) is really expensive in terms of lost keys that we want for non-movement options.  People can rebind of course, but I'd like a decent default option and am open to suggestions.  I'm currently just using numberpad and/or mouse.

Any chance we will have key shortcuts such as "q", "+" and "-" back to fortress mode in the premium version?

We're slowly getting stuff back.  50.12 (up on beta now) has new keyboard controls for the unit lists.

How hard would it be to make the motion graphics of DF more smooth, interpolating the movement of creature sprites between squares instead of jumping discreetly from one position to the next? Rimworld style, basically.

Putnam: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8524213#msg8524213
voliol: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8524343#msg8524343
uristmctinkerer: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8524351#msg8524351

Yeah, I've assumed that even at the default FPS this would look torn and broken.  Our creatures move very fast in comparison to other games.

Before the premium version, we could change which font to use for the ASCII graphics by changing the font name in the FONT tag in init.txt. In addition to changing the images used for the ASCII graphics, this would also cause map cells to be rendered with the aspect ratio of the font.

In the premium version, changing the font in the FONT tag still changes the images used for ASCII graphics, but the aspect ratio for map cells remains the same as that of the default font.

Will this feature - the font aspect ratio driving the display aspect ratio - be making a comeback?

Ziusudra: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8524678#msg8524678
mikekchar: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8524707#msg8524707
Putnam: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8525596#msg8525596

Don't have anything to add except that on top of the fix Putnam mentioned, there's a lot of marked spots in the code where there are assumptions about 8x12 and 32x32 playing together (like unit textures in unit lists) that would also need to be addressed specifically, and non-ugly solutions for some combinations are not obvious.  But it would be nice.

Regarding the recent Steam announcement:  will demigod players be able to select which deity is their divine parent, during character creation?  Also, assuming that “demigod” here is used to refer to the child of a deity and a non-deity, will they also be assigned a non-deity parent?

Also, what about elves?  Will they no longer be able to be demigods (or will it be possible for a “force” to be a demigod parent)?

Deity selection, yeah, that's the plan.  I'm not as concerned about the non-deity parents currently - regular adventurers don't get those either.  Deity selection could depend a lot on which options are most viable for an effective tutorial, if you're going for the tutorial aspect of it.  If that ends up being tight, the tutorial side of it might force a selection, but that's not the general idea.

I think whatever myth creation ends up being here and later will have a lot to say about elven etc. demigods.  In the most straightforward, fastest implementation, you'd always be a human or dwarf, yeah, but that situation is slowly going to get stranger and stranger.  We'll also have to tutorialize completely non-magical worlds as well, eventually, or warn the player that full tutorials aren't available on those settings.

Getting a chunk of myth stuff is super exciting, however finalized it turns out it, it really is a sign we're entering a new era of feature development, beyond the different kind of goodieness that graphics and reworked UI has and will continue to be.

Tutorialization through deity sounds really fun, though I wonder:
1. In worlds without deities, or civilizations without, how will the demigod tutorial work? Will some other being take that tutor position? Or will it be impossible to play an atheist demigod?
2. Will demigods from goblins/dark fortress civs get guidance from the deified civ leader? Will megabeast-followers get it from their patron roc or dragon? What if this physical deity dies?

1. I mean, if there are no gods, there are no demigods, in a technical sense.  And yeah, we'll have to deal with it, but default worlds have them so it won't be a problem unless the player opts for it, at which point not having a full tutorial is not so bad.  But yeah, ultimately if we have to go with a standard abstract tutorial that plays the same role that's fine.  It just won't be as neat and will be missing some cool integration with other features (or be implemented in a flatter way.)  We'll see how this feels when I'm farther along this track.  Elves in forests being strictly left out of the tutorial zone is slightly weird.  The force could work, though the whole point of forces was not to give them personal identities, not at all, and even an abstract "you feel this, you feel that" still does that to some extent.

2. Ha ha, the rocs and dragons don't become deities in vanilla, they are just worshipped by frightened/awed people.  But of course the official introduction of myth/magic changes the possibilities up.  Gonna have to make decisions as I go - I wouldn't expect anything here until I get the basics up.

1. Will the graphics layering system be expanded or made more powerful? For instance, will more conditions for quality like in portraits, or will conditions for other layers existing/not existing be added to the regular, small-scale sprites?

2. Will a rework of the combat system, or at least the information displayed, be done at any point soon? A lot of things are somewhat confusing, like how "squareness" affects armor penetration and damage, what the chances of penetration and dismemberment are to begin with, how much skill affects things like dodging, parrying, chance to hit, etc. I think that clarity is more important than actual changes, especially considering the newer players.

1. It's like anything else now, slowly expanding.  The conditions we've added for portraits for instance work on all other layer types (like the small full body ones.)  A portrait is just a type of layered image.

2. It was always lurking behind the siege/army update to some extent, and the return of adventure mode brings it back.  I'm not sure what we'll have time to do for the initial release though.  There are a ton of high priority items for new players.  The mode is rough!

If a (very basic and incomplete) framework of the Myth & Magic system is coming with the Adventure update, does this mean the Big Wait might not be so big after all (at least, not counting the Big Wait we've already had waiting for the Big Wait)?

We're trying to kill the Big Wait dead at this point.  Or, yeah, as you say, the pre-graphics wait was the actual Big Wait and we've already done it ha ha.  Nice surprise if true!

So with the demi-god being converted into tutorial mode is there like an option to have the old demi-god settings? So that future runs aren't just stuck to the two lesser point pool options or risk dealing with the tutorial again?

the force tutorialization stuff kinda threw a monkey wrench in my common demi-god adv runs a bit
that said I wonder what this means for multiple adv party members if one of them is a demi-god? Does that lead to the Tori the goddess of Tutor popping in to explain a feature if a player tabs over to the demi-god?

PlumpHelmetMan: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8526052#msg8526052
aSpatula66: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8526275#msg8526275
Rumrusher (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8526290#msg8526290
aSpatula66 (op): http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8526297#msg8526297

Character creation is one of the big menus/screens I have left to do, and this has been on my mind a bit yeah.  Up until now, the point pools enforced some sort of difficulty but didn't have any meaning in the world.  There are different interpretations for how point pools could work for different modes in the new peasant/hero/demigod setup, with the added layers of basic difficulty and roleplaying.  You should be able to play some kind of skilled warrior without having a divine parent or a heroic destiny for sure, with a variety of backgrounds in a way that makes sense.  The good versions of this are out of scope for the initial release (proper background generation/selection, playing historical figures, etc etc), and we'll likely just expand the concept/name away from "Peasant" and support varied point pool difficulty options at first.

I think the tutorial aspect of guidance will be tied to the party, mostly likely, just for simplicity.  But yeah, it's surely going to get weird as deity relationships build up in the party - I suppose this has always been true, even with regular relationships, since NPCs could hate different party members etc., and that probably led to intra-party stuff that simmered and broke in various ways ha ha.  Happy for it to get totally messed up as long as the tutorial aspects remain intact.

Will there ever be a rework of how alcohol is brewed, which is currently really simplistic and kinda boring for a game about alcohol addicted dwarves?
Perhaps procedurally generated, culturally unique recipes?

Is an overhaul planned for other older parts as well?

We've got our fort mode list and one of the big things we're going to do after the initial adventure mode release is figure out how to balance additions going forward, without getting sucked into the language of major arcs we have never finished.  Nice solid additions to fort mode are important, and we're hoping to slowly work through our giant backlog there while we're also expanding into the myth/magic/siege/villains/etc. stuff that we had previously planned in vanish-for-a-year+ arc terms.  That's just not viable now with a team of people, which I think will be good, really.  I've still got some ridiculous larks on lil version controlled branches so I haven't changed all that much ha ha, but they don't need to hold the nice solid bits up.

1. Will peasant characters be able to join temple organizations to get bonuses when interacting with related deities? If so, what would the temple faction expect from the peasant character in return?
2. Will the spheres of a demigod character's divine parent matter in determining their special powers?
3. Since property rights are being overhauled does this mean we can no longer walk into a random warehouse and start stealing goods with no consequences?
4. Will hamlets get a new provider for food for adventurers since they don't have markets or inns? I assume the property rights update will stop us from stealing food from random people's houses with no consequences.
5. Previously characters could talk to their deity and get no response, with the myth and magic stuff coming will there now actually be some form of response to talking to a character's deity?

Silverwing235: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8526247#msg8526247

1. I expect it'll be the same as whatever we get to for everybody else, you'll just have to be proactive about retrieving relics or whatever we end up making easier for demigods (because the deity can short-circuit the being lost and confused part of it all.)  One of the reasons we're going with demigod tutorials to start is that we can't quickly fix the issues in the base game with quest flow and such - it's a larger multi-step project (along the lines of the adv mode villain stuff, which included better investigation.)  So I'd expect stuff here, but it might be hard to accomplish.
2. Depends on how much diversity we have - we have quite a bit available already, so it seems very possible.
3. This is the goal, but there's a lot to police.  We're going to take some steps.
4. Probably not at first!  There's a lot to do.
5. That's the basic idea ha ha.  We thought it would be funny if that option actually worked.

Hello Toady and thanks for this wonderful game.  I have been wondering if there was any word on a Mac release for the Steam version?

No additional word!  I'm stuck in adventure land with a deadline.  Still need a few computers.  Linux being done theoretically means the hardest part is over, hopefully.

Quote from: ryno

i have a question about the giant creatures of dorf fortress. Is it the case that they are very straight forwardly giant versions of real ones, or is it more like they are fantastical beings that are simply nicknamed after real ones due to their closest approximated similarities? Are the giant creatures considered to be genetically related to the normal ones? I understand that for their sprites they are simply scaled up versions of the base creature set, but I believe this is in order to save time above all else, and that it's possible that the canonical nature of giant creatures is not so 1:1, but can you clarify?

Quote from: voliol

I'm also curious if there's an official answer to this, what they are in the current version of the game. Otherwise it should be expanded upon when Myth & Magic drops for real. Are these giant animals monstrosities created by a force of chaos, only similar to normal animals as a mockery of their form? Are they normal animals warped by the magic surging in the lands? Or are they escapees from the platonic realm of beasts? Etc. etc... I imagine that will depend on their procedurally generated past in mythgen.

We don't have a theory for most things.  We'd rather generate canon on a per-world basis.  Of course we've had to make various decision for the default world, but here we didn't make any decisions at all except for the fact that there are "wild" regions with giant animals which are tied in some nebulous way to animal agitation and elves and forces and titans and big trees and sharp plants.  We'll have a complete set of giant creature sprites with the adventure mode release (they are almost done!), and we've been conceptually vague with their art as well (though no longer so pixelated!).  They are bigger, with the occasional emphasized feature.

Ideally, the magic release will give us all kinds of options, and they could have in-game repercussions.  Animal people are explicitly created in the prototype through whatever random incident, and giant creatures (and every other kind of creature) should also have some kind of explanation eventually, with procedural emphasis.

Sorry to hear that 50.12 is delayed, but why do the links to the report and FoTF in the 1/30 devlog point to the ones from last month?

Eric Blank: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8527138#msg8527138

Yeah, I was just super late.

The Bay 12 Games Report, January 2nd 2024


Mission Status

  What's to say about the year gone past?  That's one that I'll remember.  The year my other brother died.  There is nothing really good to say about this year...  except that we got paid.  It really does to take a lot off your mind.  It opens up a lot of opportunities, but can it really bring back someone who died so young?  There are a lot of things we are going to be able to do now.  We can travel the world on our own dime.  How much does it really matter when you lose someone who mattered so much?  I'll tell you.

You are the only ones holding us together.  Without you we would still be working thankless jobs that were far from rewarding.  We are getting older.  Friends and family passing away is something we'll have to get used to.  This was a lot though.  I have to ask if my wife will ever be happy again.  Do I think any amount of money will fix that?  With your help, I sure will try.

"Congratulations to the generous!" -- ThreeToe


Fun with Numbers

  Yeesh, what a year.  Hopefully the next one will be more relaxed and see us finish out Adventure mode and then get into new stuff for everybody.  I guess relaxed might not be possible, since we have ourselves another deadline ha ha.  But it'll be good to get through the basic Adventure mode update.

With the Winter sale, we hit 27k copies sold in December.  As expected, a pretty good chunk!

Any chance of procgen prepared meals, similar to how procgen instruments are currently implemented?

Bumber: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8510314#msg8510314

Yeah, as Bumber says, we had a whole plan for this, at the same time as procedural tavern dice/board/card type games, but those things got pushed off into the nebulous future.

How do you keep motivation, working mainly alone, for years and years, on a nearly unique project ?

I think having such a variety of things to work on helps a lot.  It'd be harder for me if I were, say, balancing and tightening (or doing UI stuff...) continuously.  The resultant lack of focus and refinement also leads to some of the problems with the project most likely, but it's not gonna be perfect.  We also used side projects for this purpose - breaks into completely different genres etc. are good.

my brain exploded recently when i discovered there were no above-ground mushrooms in the world of dwarf fortress. how did things end up this way? would the dwarves reign supreme in every version of history with access to such a resource? do you have a favorite real-world mushroom type? Thank you

I recently grew some golden oyster mushrooms from a little kit.  That was fun!  It is weird that there are no aboveground mushrooms, especially since we ended up adding so many real world crops over time.  I'm not sure if I didn't imagine them in gardens rather than purely being foraged?  That could be the reason, since I was working on little gardens and plots when the new crops came in.

I know this may sound a little strange, but I would like to know if your idea of an adventure mode will also be focused on people who prefer a more peaceful game mode? By this I mean if, for example, we can focus our objectives on making a farm and living peacefully on it, until the goblins allow us, spending our days fishing to sell the fish in the nearest city. Or, for example, be a merchant seeking his fortune to settle in a big city and have a life of luxury there? Or maybe set up a tavern in a city and work so that others can get drunk?... Will there be a possibility in the future of something like that? Would the ultimate idea of the game be to create a truly living world where we can truly do anything we want?

And another question that may have already been asked before, will it ever be possible in the vanilla game to play with other races in fortress mode?

Eric Blank: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8512440#msg8512440
mikekchar: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8512478#msg8512478

Yeah, it's really just a matter of work.  Every idea you suggested requires not peace but a robust economy, for instance, which is something we've been vaguely aiming at but have failed to attain a few times.  Other ideas of peaceful play styles require a more robust social sim.  These are things we're interested in.  Combat has always been easier, but it's not the only stuff we work on.

I think the reply addressed the other races question - gonna give it a shot with myth magic stuff.  The game is geared a bit toward dwarfiness perhaps, and dwarfiness has given us certain leeway narratively, but we're not too too far from having aboveground/etc./etc. stuff working out.  You do have a lot less play space that way.  Spreading out to a much wider shallower play area, as you'd have in the NPC human villages, is a technical problem.

1)why canI nobles with some sort of SUCCESSION not be appointed to a position that is a SQUAD-holding? Like baron and monarch that cannot be militia commander?

2) Is there any way that an unit holding a site-level position can succeed a civ-level position? It is possible in world-gen, but it seems not to be in fortress-mode.

1) Is that the specific constraint?  I don't remember if there was some annoying thing about squad assignment upon succession, maybe.  But the monarch shouldn't be manager either.

2) Hmm, I'm not sure how it picks among all the site position holders?  I don't think we have a syntax for that, or code to hold some kind of selection/election among the candidates.  Whatever is going on in world-gen is probably glitchy or arbitrary.  As usual, we don't support a lot outside of the default cases (and I'm not sure what the world-gen case is here.)  This may be particularly true with entity stuff, where various backing code/simulation for situations is necessary.

Honey bees do not possess the vermin_micro tag, and consequently do not spawn in swarms.  In spite of this, unused sprite graphics remain in the premium raws, which depict swarms of the remote_colony honey bee worker caste.
-- What kind of buzzing nightmares did you originally have in mind for our dwarves?  And are there any plans to have us to experience these horrible nightmares at some point in the future?

Ha ha there's no particular plan, but bees do swarm in real life and it seemed prudent to be prepared.

In older versions of the game in adventure mode it was a terrible slowfest near goblin towers. What are you going to do to fix this, will you reduce the maximum population in goblin fortresses?

Eric Blank: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=169696.msg8514572#msg8514572

We're going to look at it, but I don't want to suggest a solution - I've often been wrong about profiling issues, and Putnam has managed some pretty amazing gains in fort mode already.  Ultimately if we have to change the populations, or how they are distributed, we'll have to go there, though that has knock-on effects, like making sieges less frequent etc., so we need to be cautious.