Bay 12 Games Forum

Hi!

Until a few weeks ago (more than a few. But not nearly as many as several.), I had no programming skills. Zip. Naught. Nihil. So, I got a beginner's book and started teaching myself Java (yes, I'm embarrassed about that. The language has disappointed me. Sadly, my hours of searching for one that I, newbie, could switch to have been fruitless). Of course, I've made a few misc trivial programs, but I've only had one - named Code 74 - that I've developed to the stages of "actually using a GUI" and "built in at least kinda an object-oriented style." If anybody wants to see some of the first few versions, I uploaded them here. (aw... lookat past-me; he just learned how to use a KeyListener! so cute.)

I've discovered that I love programming. It's mostly replaced gaming as something to do in free time (though DFvNext will replace it for a while, I'm sure). Clearly, then, I need some goal to design towards. What should it be? Well, there are two reasons I could program. (1) to teach myself and (2) to create something worthwhile. The first just is a bit boring. Soooo... finally, the whole point of this post. Basically, I'm trying to write a clone of DF. In Java. Even though I have absolutely no prior experience programming. Yeah, I don't think I'll actually come anywhere near.

Supposing that I succeed in making something that is really similar (if quite inferior), without actually using any code or raw files from the game, is there any illegality in freely sharing the game, similar to how Bay 12 Games has done with their games? If it was, I would be very sad. Maybe I could design a game with a similar CP437 keyboard-based interface (that interface I happen to love).

Edit: oh! right! that's what I was forgetting! Toady, are you okay with this?
Edit-edit: thank you Toady!

Edit2: Latest version is here. Source files are included inside the jar - open it.

--Savok,
hoping that this sort of thing is okay
glad that this sort of thing is okay and thankful for the programming advice

For the last several embarks, I have not gotten more than two males in the starting seven. I started noticing this on what I think was my first embark in 40d, and was definitely my first in which I count sex numbers.

According to my calculations, the probability of such an event happening is about ten percent less than 1/30000.

Whoa.

I was running an 10x12, 47 z-level fort with magma, chasm (undiscovered), underground river, and HFS (undiscovered). As expected, FPS got down to about 25 or 30 once I had 60 dwarves. It is important to note that I had several 1-wide corridors, one of them going from a corner of the map to the middle and spanning several z-levels.

I had heard somewhere on the forums that designating high traffic zones improved FPS because the numbers used to calculate stuff were smaller. Following this advice, I designated high traffic everywhere.

New FPS: 50-65!

So. In 40d9+, we can have the png alpha channel for use in nice edges. However, I have not found an editor that can do everything that MSpaint does as easily AND work with alpha channels (Paint.NET comes close but not quite). So, if anyone knows of such a program, I'd be delighted. If nobody does, here is the request that somebody create for us:

EDIT3: This is a rather mangled post. Semiscratch EDIT2. And scratch EDIT1. But not so much EDIT0.

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EDIT2: Revised my ideas:

A program that sets the new alpha values to the old green (if I have a white-on-magenta image, green is what I want) values and sets the new red, green, and blue values to FF.

Alternatively, a way to do that with any freely available program, like GIMP. That would be wonderful too.

Alternatively, a way to do that with Photoshop CS4.

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A program that replaces magenta with alpha. So # WX YZ WX (red green blue) would turn to # YZ YZ YZ WX (red green blue transparent). I personally don't see a need to ever use non-gray colors, so that wouldn't interfere.

Alternatively, a way to do that with any freely available program, like GIMP. That would be wonderful too.

EDIT1: A program that converted grays like # XY XY XY to transparents of # FF FF FF XY would be able to convert most current tilesets and would be as useful for 99% of cases.

So, I want to build this megaproject in a giant lake covering most of an ~80 local tiles (could be more) map. The lake will have to be artificial, since the underwater city will be mostly made of half-spheres on the lake floor. I'll need at least 4 z-levels of rock underneath the city and two z-levels of water above the highest point (in the city) for atmospheric purposes, so on a normal map with 15 z-levels of underground, that leaves me with a 16-diameter area inside my largest dome. This is unacceptable.

I have done much searching for a map with (at the very least) 30 z-levels of mostly rock. I know that I can't find 30 of solid rock, but I can put artificial dams covering small areas. Does anyone have suggestions on finding an area with?:

• At least 30 z-levels of mostly-rock. This is critical, although 28 would be okay too.
• A water input device near the edge of the map, like a brook. This is critical.
• Some form of magma for glass. A magma pool would be nice, but a volcano is okay too. This is critical.
• Sand. This is critical.
• Version 40d9. This is critical.
• Access to civs. War with humans or goblins is very important.
• Ideally a bottomless pit, but a chasm's okay. This is nice, but completely unnecessary.
• A roughly square local area not exceeding 12 in either dimension. This is quite nice.

I make some minor mods, like removing aquifers and increasing dwarf lifespans, so, if you do have a world to give to me, please give the seed.

The levels of rock combined with a river has been my greatest problem. I could probably solve all the others given that.

After about an in-game month of playing the last few games I've played, all in 40d, everything frequently pauses for a moment, reducing effective fps from 125 to 25.

After I think about it, this might've occured after I updated my drivers for my Nvidia GeForce FX 5200. It also appears to affect worlds genned in 40d exclusively.

Windows XP.

EDIT: This is also happening really bad in 40d5 with a world genned in 40d.

EDIT2: According to another guy, setting fps at 10x monitor refresh rate and gfps at 2x monitor refresh rate helps some.

EDIT2: Also, according to Baughn, this is fixed in 40d6. Which isn't out at the time of writing this.

What kills most of your dwarves, aside from deliberate killing?

I find that failed fey moods kill a lot.

If I use a tileset with grey pixels or one larger than about 100 pixels per tile, I get a massive penalty to FPS. Anyone have any idea why? It used to not do that for me.