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[loser]

The Recent Developments entry for 1/20/2010 says, in part, "The adventurer can interact a bit with the underground, and it might happen away from sites like caves and old fortresses, so I had to create weird invisible sites to store the changes permanently (not mining yet)."

Anyone know what invisible sites that's talking about?

I get the feeling that the explanation is going to be pretty simple.

[smjjames]

Maybe they are equivalent to a named cave system? Like carlsbad caverns for example.

[Danarca]

Sounds to me like they will be special sites for adventures, so you cant even attempt to embark on them, since you cant see them, but seeing how toady rolls that seems very strange :s
i agree, not proberly formulated, toady is in need of human contact :p

[Lav]

Unless I'm terribly wrong it's just a programmer's trick.

Looks like the code needs an area to be a site in order to store permanent modifications to the terrain and everything, and won't save modifications to mundane terrain. So in order to save such changes, some virtual "weird invisible sites" have been created.

This happens all the time in gamedev. I have read similar things about a WW2 game in one developer's blog. They had two factions hard-coded in the game, so when they added common domestic animals they started throwing bugs. Because the animals actually did belong to one of the factions, and when they saw an enemy they reached for their weapon... and since the game assumed all units always have a weapon, and the animals obviously didn't have any, the game threw an exception and died.

Instead of rewriting the framework that 90% of the code relied upon, then simply added an empty revolver to all pigs and cows and dogs on the map. So the animal would see an enemy, reach for the weapon, discover it has no bullets and calm down. :-)

[Deon]

Nah. Currently the only locations which store info about items, creatures and stuff are sites (towns, caves etc.). Toady means that there're weird invisible "sites" which store info about your adventuring, i.e. you could drop a sock there and it wouldn't disappear as on overworld map. Something like that, to store info about your deeds and objects around you.

P.S. Damn, I was ninjad by Lav. So yeah, it's a workaround to use the current site system to store data in new underground places an adventurer can reach.

We don't know which kind of changes, because it's in the "The adventurer can interact a bit with the underground". Unless we know what "interact" here means, we cannot know anything else.

[Cthulhu]

Otherwise, it might randomize the terrain every time you go in, which is fine for the wilderness where you don't really notice, but the caves should be static.

[smjjames]

Hmm, so does this mean that every region tile (the entire local screen at embark and the max embark size possible) is going to act as an invisible site, meaning the entire (or almost the entire) underground world will be in effect one giant jigsaw of sites?

[Lav]

No idea. All we can do is guess. :-)

[darius]

Unless I'm terribly wrong it's just a programmer's trick.

Looks like the code needs an area to be a site in order to store permanent modifications to the terrain and everything, and won't save modifications to mundane terrain. So in order to save such changes, some virtual "weird invisible sites" have been created.

This happens all the time in gamedev. I have read similar things about a WW2 game in one developer's blog. They had two factions hard-coded in the game, so when they added common domestic animals they started throwing bugs. Because the animals actually did belong to one of the factions, and when they saw an enemy they reached for their weapon... and since the game assumed all units always have a weapon, and the animals obviously didn't have any, the game threw an exception and died.

Instead of rewriting the framework that 90% of the code relied upon, then simply added an empty revolver to all pigs and cows and dogs on the map. So the animal would see an enemy, reach for the weapon, discover it has no bullets and calm down. :-)

Empty revolvers to pigs is a veeeeryyy bad move in the programming business. That shows that the game was created flawed from the start. My personal experience is not to do this because later it bites you. Of course nowadays when games are thrown out just to sell without this could be a popular short-cut. As for Toady's post i think it's a step to player modifiable world. And also that part that you could interact makes me very happy (as now there is very little to do in adv mode).

As for randomization AFAK that does not work this way. It is randomized but it is randomized to the same terrain every time. This is achieved by using magic of pseudo random (and seed numbers).

[Draco18s]

Empty revolvers to pigs is a veeeeryyy bad move in the programming business. That shows that the game was created flawed from the start. My personal experience is not to do this because later it bites you. Of course nowadays when games are thrown out just to sell without this could be a popular short-cut.

Such as a player pig-ally handing the pig some ammo.

[Jay]

Sites, like towns, that don't have a specific name or symbol associated with them to differentiate from the surrounding terrain (hence, invisible) that store specifics such as critters, and perhaps what your adventurers do down there.
Precursor to proper adventurer-created sites when he gets to the ASA, I would imagine.