Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Eric Blank]

Oh wow i just got done eating dinner. Was that really all of it? It was a short month.

How was thanksgiving for you Toady?

[Egan_BW]

Thanks for the answers. I wonder if we've gradually ran out of questions for the time being.

[elanto]

Other races is a possibility, yeah, but not a priority.

There was talk of the myth and magic update, having a randomness and magicalness modifier in advanced worldgen, whereupon if one or both of these settings is turned up high enough the world will be generated with random, possibly magical species in place of some or all of the vanilla races, including dwarves. So if that gets implemented, either those worlds will have playable procedurally-genned races or be adventure mode only.

Thanks for the answer, I just saw that!

[elanto]

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?

Tarn and Zack actually answer this question in the latest interview with Blind https://youtu.be/a77Oj8UQmsw?si=jJ7H7k190pvNBz4f (Sorry I don't have a time index for you).  If I remember correctly, he said that it was something he'd like to do, but it won't be for a long time.  There *are* things you can do now, though.  For example, you can wander the world performing.  You can buy and sell stuff (well, barter... although, it's basically impossible to make a profit).  You can make bone carvings and trade them.  I often play peacefully, but there isn't much fun in staying in one place.  Really it's geared for "adventure", whether that adventure is simply traveling around and learning about the world, or fighting stuff.  Farm sim stuff, etc are unlikely to be prioritised.  You can kind of play that way in Fortress mode, though.

Thanks you. I will check that interview!

[elanto]

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.

Thank so much for the answers.
Regards!

[Acearl]

Hello everyone. Long time lurker first time poster. But I dont know if this has been asked before. I have a question that might be considered controversial. One aspect I liked about .47v of dwarf fortress is that civilizations, at least in the begining, had pretty similar genetic traits. Like colors of hair, eyes, skin tone, etc. When discovering my first civ had a people of purple eyed bronze skined brunettes I was very entertained. And could more easily distinguish other dwarfs of other civs with different characterists using the lazy newb pack portrat painter tool. I noticed this with other embarks as well from similar or different civs. It was also facinating that one civ spawned on savannah mountians so I thought that played a role in skin tone dwarfs had. At least initially. In the real world skin tone in humans or other creatures is influenced by their amount of UV sun exposure over generations. Darker skin tones better resist UV damage, lighter tones better absorb light for vitamin D. And part of me considered that a reason why the skin tones of dwarfs were darker.

But the steam release kinda changed that it seems. Its more like American demographic diversity where every tenth dwarf is of a deeper darker skin tone. I understand why, like culturally or to target a certian audience. But I miss the idea of like a dark or light skinned variety civ of dwarfs, elfs, or humans. It makes more sense that over time all dwarfs that live under ground get lighter skin tones. But to me this took away a bit of that suspecion of disbelief I had enjoying this game before. In terms of fantasy simulation it made sense to me. Same way the rainshadows were calculated behind mountians. Or available civ metals/materials effected the armor/products they produced. A consequence of circumstance.

So my question is, was this ever a feature that civs would intially have similar asestetic genetic traits? Or was this all head cannon created by coinsidences? If so why was it changed?

Thank you for your time.

[Egan_BW]

That could be a result of increased migration between civilizations? Since traveling bards were added you see more people from other civs.

[BlueManedHawk]

I have a question that might be considered controversial.

I see not why, but i'd say it's good you asked it anyway.

So my question is, was this ever a feature that civs would intially have similar asestetic genetic traits? Or was this all head cannon created by coinsidences? If so why was it changed? [col.+]

Questions for answering in this thread directed must in limegreen be set.

[Inarius]

So my question is, was this ever a feature that civs would intially have similar asestetic genetic traits? Or was this all head cannon created by coinsidences? If so why was it changed?


Acearl : I copy your question, and put it in lime so Toady sees it and can reply.

[Eric Blank]

I remember that was intentional, at least it was intended that creatures would inherit "genes" from their parents and it would track that through the civ during worldgen, but I believe it was unintentional that there would inevitably be zero variation, like most civs did indeed end up with the entire population having the same skin hair and eye colors. Maybe it ended up getting over-corrected or the inheritance mechanic busted.

[edit] I just looked at one particular family in one of my forts, both parents happen to have burnt umber skin and all the children do, but eyes and hair arent all the same or related to the parents. The fort as a whole is pretty randomized. Maybe its still working? I'd have to look at a bunch of different families across multiple saves to tell. Doesnt help one of the kids has a different father from a previous marriage.

[TheFlame52]

That's what happens when your entire civilization is descended from 20 or fewer individuals.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Will the upcoming procedural portraits be applied to other humanoid creatures besides the playable races (such as semi-megabeasts)?

[Acearl]

So my question is, was this ever a feature that civs would intially have similar asestetic genetic traits? Or was this all head cannon created by coinsidences? If so why was it changed?


Acearl : I copy your question, and put it in lime so Toady sees it and can reply.

Thank you

[darkhog]

Will you add graphics raws to the Classic version so implementing custom graphics packs that are compatible both with premium and Classic will be easier? I'm talking about the TXT files in vanilla*_graphics that are present in premium but not in classic, not the art itself.

[kontako]

G'day Toady, I hope all is well. I wish you a happy holiday season.

Will the attire represented in the portraits enable distinction of units based on things like the social standing, culture, etc?

Will weapons / shield also be shown in the portrait?


Do you think that generated mythologies would be as extensive as current world generation history? (i.e, spanning hundreds to thousands of events and characters)

Do ettins have two personalities / souls?

Thanks.