Bay 12 Games Forum

Hey guys,

Yesterday I've been sitting in front of the world gen quite a long time. My current fortress is running pretty well, but it's also... a bit boring. I'd actually love to embark on something really fancy. At the top of a volcano that's standing on a beach with a goblin fortress nearby or something of that sort.

But world gen just won't offer me such a cool neighborhood. And every time I'm messing around with the parameters, I seem to be doing something wrong. Hm.

I mean, I could also just download a nice pregenerated world... but I'm sure you're familiar with the desire of having an own, unique, selfmade world.

Do you have any ideas for a cool location and how to generate it ?

I recently installed the 40d version of DF. When I started playing, I was kind of confused because the game was running way too fast. Dwarfs were digging and running around like hell ! Then I checked up the FPS via the FPS-counter. I did that with the 40d version and the 39e version wich I was using before. And than it smacked me in the face: Before using the 40d version, which runs with 100fps on my computer, I have only been playing with 33 FPS ! THIRTY-THREE-FPS. Which is ONE THIRD of the speed that the game USUALLY has. I didn't even know !
And know I even set the FPS of the 40d version to a max of 33 fps because I can't handle those lightspeed dwarves; it's just too strange !
Now I do at least know why I've always been so slow in succession games...

Hey guys,
I'm new on this board and I would like to share a suggestion with you
that I have:

THE WINCH !

 

Oh yeah, it's a winch. Let me explain the concept to you:

There is an object that you would like to see moved on the z-axis. Let's say it's a huge rock that you want to be hanging over your entrance that is supposed to fall down and smash possible invaders.
The construction of the winch should basically work like the construction of a lever: You build the winch, just as you build the lever. Then you attach an object to it, in our example, it's the rock. In order to be able to attach the winch to the rock,  you need three things: a wheel, another wheel and a chain. This works approximately like linking a lever to an object, which you need mechanics for.
When the consctruction is finished, you can tell a dwarf to lift the object via the winch. When it's up there, the winch will be locked automatically.
There are several things that you could do know. One can tell the dwarf to unlock the winch and let the rock fall down, but this wouldn't work for our trap-example. Instead, you build a pressure plate behind the entrance and attach it to the winch. This way, the winch will be unlocked automatically. After the rock has fallen down, you can tell a dwarf to lift it and the trap is ready again.

The trap is of course just an example. You could also use the winch as a lift to move objects or persons. Therefore, you could make use of an option that you can set up: When you select the winch, you can set up how many z-levels the lift is supposed to be moved and wether it should move up or down. A dwarf that is told to use the winch will then move the lift, let's say, three levels down, to your stockpiles. Or three levels up, into your defense tower. Or you could lift a platform with cages six levels down in order to drown a bunch of goblins in a magma stream.

Again: just an example ! The possibilities are AMAZING !

You could also use it to:

-build your custom sized floodgate that can be lifted up/ down to reveal/ 
repress the power of a huge magma/water lake
-lift a piece of floor down in order to transport surprised invaders into your chambers
-use a lift to frequently drown your miasma-spilling reject stockpiles in a sea
of magma, thus burning the trash and cleaning the stockpiles
-build a crematorium
-lift down a massive wall in front of your door to shut it in case of an invasion

Or whatever you like !

I would really like to hear some comments/ideas/suggestions or whatever from you,

teefek

/EDIT: added the winch to the eternal suggestion voting