Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Suggestions => Topic started by: DwarfStar on April 08, 2021, 09:32:15 am
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I’ve got a map with a lot of elevation changes, and it’s darn difficult to understand what is happening during an invasion. Since virtually every step is a Z-level change, following units manually is tricky. Of course you can f follow but that just tracks one unit. And it’s near impossible to get a tactical understanding of the battle as you can only see a tiny slice of it at a time, and units appear and disappear as they switch levels.
Stonesense almost, kinda, gives some of that tactical information back since you can display multiple z levels. But it’s far from ideal to have to switch windows to control the game or just examine a unit. Anyway this is a core problem and ought to be fixed for the benefit of people who don’t DFHack.
Could we get a way to see invaders on multiple z levels at once? Perhaps just an option like “draw invaders on every z level” would be enough. But then maybe people will want to v-select them, which could be done by allowing the selection across a levels and indicating the elevation difference in the text, e.g. Axmu Stinkybritches, Goblin Lasher (six floors above)
For extra credit, and maybe this would be the right way to fix this for the Steam version, it might be better to have a special “outside” viewing mode, that would basically flatten out the ground. You would show the highest walkable z level for each tile. Would be a shame to lose the trees though so many those could be drawn transparently on top. Does the Steam version renderer have blending modes?
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another (partial) solution may be to draw them differently if they are directly one level down (the way tou see liquids, or the colour of the ground on the next z-level)
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I'm pretty sure the Steam version is already adding in what DFHack does, which is allow you to see floors below the current floor (with a bit of fog to denote that it is not the current z-level). It's in one of the screenshots (the third one, not counting videos) in the Steam store page.
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I'm pretty sure the Steam version is already adding in what DFHack does, which is allow you to see floors below the current floor (with a bit of fog to denote that it is not the current z-level). It's in one of the screenshots (the third one, not counting videos) in the Steam store page.
I don't think you can see actual creatures though, only terrain and plants; keep a close eye on the elves and buffalo here as they move to a lower layer:
https://youtu.be/G5x_ZCo2B2k?list=PLAcQJt6sSXKBnycjCT2Hprq1bIgnM1vPp&t=242 (https://youtu.be/G5x_ZCo2B2k?list=PLAcQJt6sSXKBnycjCT2Hprq1bIgnM1vPp&t=242)
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Does TWBT multilayer show you the creatures?
If so, just how disorientating is it?
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I agree, the multi-z-level rendering should fix my original problem. It's not perfect yet, but with some tweaks it should allow fighting on a slope to be much less of a problem. From what I can see so far, here are my remaining concerns:
* Units not being rendered on lower Z levels as Mr_Crabman mentions (probably a bug or oversight)
* Still not being able to see units above the "current" level
* Fog might be too thick and still obscure unlts just a few levels down.
Maybe that last one could become a gameplay element? IOW, some biomes might have more fog than others, and/or smoke/steam/mist producing enemies might make it deliberately harder to see them across Z levels as an extra challenge.
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* Fog might be too thick and still obscure unlts just a few levels down.
About the level fog thickness in particular, this would be a great candidate for being customizable, and maybe as well as that, the number of layers that get rendered (so some people can render more if they think their PC can handle it).
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Has it changed, somehow without me noticing, to no longer having (changable via Tab) a 'full map' window available that gives (IIRC) red/cyan shades applied to show <unfriendly+wild?>/resident creatures, on a full-embark 'map'..?
Hmm, it seems so, from the Wiki. But I'll add that to my plans to check when I get back to my DF machine...
(Definitely was a thing in 40d, but then that also had the experimental in-screen 3D Visualiser that later vanished, right?)
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OK, I hadn't seen that creatures weren't rendered the same as the terrain and plants were, so yeah, urge that to be added, although I can't imagine it's not on a to-do list and there might just be some additional technical work that needs to be done for that sort of stuff.
Has it changed, somehow without me noticing, to no longer having (changable via Tab) a 'full map' window available that gives (IIRC) red/cyan shades applied to show <unfriendly+wild?>/resident creatures, on a full-embark 'map'..?
Hmm, it seems so, from the Wiki. But I'll add that to my plans to check when I get back to my DF machine...
(Definitely was a thing in 40d, but then that also had the experimental in-screen 3D Visualiser that later vanished, right?)
I remember that from a lot more recently than 40d, like the 2014 versions. That said, it had problems with a random crundle 100 z levels down making a red chunk of map just the same as a goblin invader, so it would have lots of false positives. The experimental 3d thing was removed a lot earlier because it never really worked and stuff like Stonesense came out to do the same thing.