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« on: June 22, 2010, 07:25:52 pm »
I play Dwarf Fortress because I enjoy complex but sensible systems. If I didn't want that I would play any of the much more visually appealing games out there that already have a high degree of polish.
* Why are there six different healthcare jobs? Does anybody actually make one dwarf the suturer and another one the wound dresser?
I do.
* Is the new materials system (density, impact yield, impact fracture, impact elasticity, shear yield, shear fracture & shear elasticity) really better than the more generalized one in the pre-2010 version?
I feel it doesn't go far enough, and so it overemphasizes things like density and shear yield rather than computing the psi at location of impact and properly carrying the force over through each tissue layer modified by the toughness of the tissue and the ability of it to redistribute the stress of the impact across a greater region. Effective "blunt" weapons are actually still puncture weapons: ballpoint hammers, flanged maces and studded morning stars, whose narrow tips are designed to maximize the pressure by making the point of impact smaller. The secondary function is that they can hit perpendicular to the thing you're trying to break: it's hard to break bones with a narrow point partly because it relies on hitting the bone by chance, partially because of the friction of the tissue over the point and the abillity of it to "pass through," but mostly because you can often apply more force to a thing you are swinging than something you are thrusting with.
* What about bruising and gut pressure?
The thing about the combat system is that it doesn't matter how complex it is, so long as the end result is reduced to something we can understand and we are given instruction on how to achieve a result we desire, we're still able to play the game and enjoy it.
* Liquid flow?
Liquid dynamics in DF are very simplified compared to real simulations. The biggest problem appears to be the current model of the system can result in bodies of water that are never "at rest" with dozens of 1/7ths floating around an open body looking for a spot to flow into, and that's a consequence of making the system simple in the first place!
