Bay 12 Games Forum

While I have managed to get *most* of my dwarves to put on some clothing^[1] by placing them into a squad with an appropriate uniform, this doesn't seem to work on miners and woodcutters, presumably because they need separate civilian equipment (pick or axe). Has anyone else encountered this, and if so did you find any workaround?

^[1] I'm kind of insisting on this after a rather long traumatic cleanup operation after a forgotten beast got loose in the fortress... Fortunately it was early enough in the game that my important dwarves still had shoes, but if all my now naked legendary miners died I would be rather ticked off...

I have about 16MB of the following:
Load Game: Invalid Hist Event Collection ID Number
Load Game: Invalid Hist Event ID Number
Load Game: Invalid Hist Figure ID Number

Ok, the 'problem' here has been raised before, but after a quick search I think my proposed solution is newish

The issue is the current artifact selection mechanism: grab a dwarf at random, then pick their best skill. Firstly this gives rise to unintuitive game behaviour- most dwarves will be relatively unskilled, so these unskilled dwarves, en mass, are more likely to produce artifacts than your artisans. Secondly, this promotes 'gamey' behavior in players, such as having all the peasants make one weapon or armour, just to influence what artifact they might make.

So, how might this be improved? How about this algorithm:

Start with a list of all eligable dwarves. For each dwarf, go through the eligable skills.
Add the experience (or level, or something) of each eligable skill to a total.
Eventually you wind up with a grand total for all the dwarves.
Create a random number between zero and that total and store it.
Now go through your list of dwarves and skills again. Subtract the experience/level/something from your random number.
When you hit zero, that is your dwarf *and* the skill they will be using.
(Half the people reading this have probably seen and or used an algorithm like this before, but it's easier to write out in full than try to put a name to...)

Consequences:
The process is somewhat cumbersome, but doesn't need to be executed often, so shouldn't be a performance hit. Larger number support than usual may be required, especially in terms of large random number generation.

More skillful dwarves are more likely to produce artifacts, so it will be your artisans who get inspired. There is also less predetermined behavior, in that secondary skills can still get picked- keeping an unwanted skill's level below a wanted skill's level is another gamey behaviour.

The only way to game the system towards some artifact types is to train those skills in bulk, so to get artifact weapons, you need a weapon producing fortress (etc).

Variants: Give each dwarf a tiny bonus for each skill, to add randomness. Give a larger bonus to the skills that could result in items the dwarf likes. (Maybe something proportional, eg +10%, so that it works best if a dwarf already has the skill to make something they like?). Weight the skills so that anything that trains too easily may not be as likely to give artifacts (eg mining).

OK the concept is pretty simple:

DF outputs reams of information to gamelog.txt
We have regular expressions.

therefore:

A bit of python later and I have a program that will read through the gamelog (as the game writes new lines to it) and:
(a) play sounds when user defined text snippets are found
(b) also create a window of filtered messages

I've thrown a first pass up on DFFD:
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=1511

It requires python and a sound library: http://www.speech.kth.se/snack/

Oh, and it doesn't actually come with a collection of sounds at this stage, use whatever you have lying around already. I guess that makes it a game message filter with sound without sounds...

I just wish there was a way to turn on combat messages in recent versions...

While I am, from too much roguelike experience, in the ascii-over-graphics camp, I find that the DF ascii representations of creatures tend to be rather ambiguous. Right now I am getting ready to start up a new fortress, and so I am once again trying to find a better letter-critter mapping.

This time I thought I would post my ideas here so anyone likeminded can steal and/or comment on them.

Critter Type	Letter	Examples
Ape	a	gorilla,orangutan,etc, also apelike: troglodyte, sasquatch
Amphibian	A	Giant Olm, Giant Toad
Bear	b	black bear,polar bear, etc
Bird/Bat	B	giant bat, giant eagle, giant cave swallow (small birds are '.', etc)
Canine	c	dog
	C	wolf, ice wolf
Deer	d	deer, elk, gazelle
Dragon	D
Elf	e
Elemental	E	fire imp, blizzard man, magma man, iron man, mud man, etc
Feline	f	cat
	F	cougar, lion, tiger, etc
	F	Giant lion, Giant tiger, etc
Goblin	g
Small Humanoid	h	gremlin, grimeling, gnome
Human	H
Kobold	k
Monkey	m	chimpanzee, rhesus macaque, etc
Ox-like	o	muskox, cow
Ogre	O
Pachyderm	P	elephant, hippo
Rodent	r	racoon, large rat, groundhog, etc
	r	giant mole, giant rat
Reptile	R	alligator, beak dog
	R	sea monster, hydra
Shark	s
Spider	S	giant spider, giant scorpian
Titan	T	titan, colossus, giant
Troll	t
Ungulate	u	horse, goat, camel, warthog, mule
Unicorn	U
Walrus	w
Whale	W
Crossbreed	x	chimera, griffon
Hydrid	y	small *men
	Y	large *men, satyrs, blendecs, harpies, centaurs
	Y	stranglers, nightwings, werewolves, minotaurs
Dwarf	@
Demon	&
Fish	α	fish that your dwarves eat
	α	fish that eat your dwarves
Treant	♠

Some notes:

I am planning on adding bold versions of some characters as shown here, but it is used more along the same lines as colour differentiation

'u' for horses is familiar from nethack, but still a bit of a stretch for the number of critters I have stuffed in there. At least they are all pretty interchangable domestic animals

There are way too many things stuffed under hybrid, and Im not too happy with x for crossbreed.

There dont seem to be many canines, looking now, but I dont really want to lump dogs (probably friendly) with wolves (probably hostile)

Any thoughts and suggestions welcome

Was following a road in adventurer mode, and came across this abomination.



"Them human types may be able to get a hovel to stay upright with a few tries, but this is what happens if you let em try building bridges. Best let dwarves do what dwarves do best, methinks"

I have a save file if it would help, 6Mish

Hi. I was after some information on a few defensive options I'd rather not learn about the hard way:

Will BUILDINGDESTROYER critters break down walls? My previous fortress I made sure all external facing walls were protected by an airgap as well, but I may have been a trifle on the paranoid side...

Do SWIMS_INNATE creatures like trolls need air (ie can they go through enclosed, completely full, tunnels)?

I know in Adventurer mode you can get out of a water filled trench provided you are not drowning. Does this apply to swimmers (especially critters) in fortress mode too?

I just had a Queen and company arrive. Checking the thoughts of the Queen showed that she likes.... nothing! Theres nothing at all listed there!

Is this normal? Am I just going to get completely random mandates?

Or maybe they'll want a 'large'? 8-)

[ May 26, 2008: Message edited by: kaypy ]