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Topics - palin88

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DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Your Criteria for the Perfect Location

« on: November 23, 2007, 02:42:00 pm »

Related to this thread:
The Perfect Seed?

I was burning through a bunch of different seeds last night looking for a really good spot to put a fortress. I set aside a separate install path and wrote two simple batch files to help me:

generate.bat

code:

dwarfort.exe -gen 1 RANDOM STANDARD

cleanup.bat

code:

del *.bmp
rd data\save /S /Q

First one loads the world generator with random seed and random name, if I reject the world after surveying it I execute the second batch file that deletes the two bitmap maps in the root folder and deletes the save folder so I have a clean slate to generate a new world.

The whole point of this was so I could find the "holy grail" of starting locations. After doing this for twenty minutes or so though, I realized that I wasn't entirely sure what my personal requirements were so I figured I'd make a list.

REQUIRED:
Mountain Tile (happy bonus stuff)
Water Source
Magma
Flux

STRONGLY DESIRED:
Trees
Sand

I've seen mountains with flux before, and flat plains with magma and flux, but finding a mountain with magma AND flux seems to be incredibly difficult. Also, I was curious, is there a reason why people seem to prefer limestone as their flux? It seems to be one of the rarer sedimentary layers in the game.

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Vertical Design Patterns

« on: November 16, 2007, 02:13:00 am »

I figured since we have all of these nice z-layers to play around on, I might as well separate out the functions of each level. This will (hopefully) allow me to be a bit more organized and will allow for a bit of expansion horizontally on each level to allow for population increase.

Idea is as follows, find a nice rock cliff and drill into the surface at z level 0.

z+1 - Sleeping quarters, dining rooms
z+0 - Entrance, traps, barracks, weapon/ammo/armor stocks, statue garden, throne room, offices
z-1 - Food production/processing (farm, farm workshop, mill, kitchen, still, butcher) animal storage
z-2 - Food storage, finished goods storage, furniture storage
z-3 - Workshops (non-metal and stone)
z-4 - raw materials storage
z-5 - Forges, smelters, mason (hopefully with magma)
z-6 - Raw ore storage
z-7 - Prison
z-8 - Stripmine

Any comments? My biggest concern with this layout is the distance between food storage and the dining rooms. I wanted to keep the bedrooms as far away from the workshops as possible, so I'd rather not put them on the z-layer underneath the food storage. The main reason why I'm insisting on having food production at z-1 is because that's the easiest place to channel surface water in for mud.

Reason why the throne room/offices are on z+0 is because I'm paranoid about the trapped liaison bug where he can't figure out how to path between z-layers.

DF Gameplay Questions / Setting maximum population

« on: November 12, 2007, 06:24:00 am »

I noticed there was an option in the init file to set maximum population, and my current above-ground fortress is growing rather slowly so I was hoping I could change it to avoid getting flooded with immigrants. Changed it from 200 down to 15, but I just got another group of ten jumping me to 25.

Do the init settings not stick once you have a save file?
Is it possible to limit my population growth once the game starts?
Should I just start chucking useless dwarves into a pit?

DF Gameplay Questions / Fire imps infesting my magma forge

« on: November 06, 2007, 10:02:00 pm »

So I traded with the caravans to acquire two steel blocks, and a steel anvil. My plan was to use those to start up a magma smelter and magma forge. My difficulty is that as soon as they have a route to reach my delicious flammable dwarves, the imps and magma men start harassing me. I don't want to keep a gaurd stationed there 24/7 to stop incursions (and besides, the magma man took out my best swordsdwarf when I tried that) so is there a clever method to have access to magma without letting flame creatures in?

Only idea I had was to use a single channel blocked with a steel floodgate, then once the magma reservoir was full I could seal the vent. Problem with that plan is that it uses up both pieces of my steel to make a floodgate and mechanism that can withstand the heat, and I don't have a way to get anymore until the dwarf caravan comes in with another shipment.

DF Bug Reports / Interior Above Ground Water Freezes: Expected Behavior?

« on: November 14, 2007, 10:18:00 pm »

As the title says, I made a little building above ground and channeled some water from the river into a holding pool inside. Come winter though, the water inside the building freezes along with the rest of the river, but I notice the tiles that go underground are still liquid. Is this the way its supposed to behave? Buildings don't regulate temperature at all?

If that's the case I'm going to have to figure out something elaborate in order to get some underground running water from the river, probably involving some pumps.

DF Suggestions / Adding new mechanisms?

« on: December 02, 2007, 08:34:00 pm »

I haven't thought this through very much, but I was considering the fact that a Mechanic's Workshop can only make one item. I also was pondering how there are only a few things you can use mechanical power for.

To make things more interesting maybe we could add a few more powered items? The first one I thought of, off hand from reading another thread was to have a repeater switch. Something that requires one mechanism to build, and acts as a mechanism (you can place it between a power source and another item.) Using some sort of setting you can cause it to turn the power on and off on an interval. Have it be built in the workshop instead of constructed like levers.

DF Suggestions / Blood, mud and vomit (oh my)

« on: November 14, 2007, 11:48:00 pm »

I have a feeling that there's a more permanent solution being worked on to the whole cleaning and mud creep problem. In the mean time I was brainstorming on how to deal with my above-ground fortress that's now mostly covered in blood, from a single kobold kill a few seasons back.

Anyhow, the idea goes as follows, rate the blood/mud/vomit the same way water depth is handled, some sort of ranking from 1-3 say. A 3/3 tile, say a "pool" of blood can be be spread to surrounding tiles as a 2/3 depth say a "splash" of blood. Then if someone walks on the 2/3 tile they can spread it as a 1/3 "smear" of blood.

At the least, this will prevent a single corpse from causing an entire fortress to be painted red. I mean, at this point that kobold probably had a dozen gallons of blood in him to be able to cause this much scarlet spread.

Having a multiple strength rating for "mess intensity" could allow dwarves to clean up small messes quickly, and pools of filth will require a bit more work. Then maybe expand it so that mud will progressively dry out from 3/3 to 1/3, which will mean you'll need to replenish it using irrigation systems, something that many people I think have complained about. It was a bit frustrating making an elaborate flood gate system, only to realize that it only has to be used once.

DF Suggestions / Immigration Control

« on: November 12, 2007, 05:01:00 pm »

I don't read the suggestions forums very often so I don't know if this sort of idea has been proposed before. Basically, I want there to be some sort of in-game control over immigration along the same lines as the trade contracts with the mountain home.

Have the liaison meet with your Outpost Manager and start up a request screen as to how many, and what kind of dwarves you would like to see in the next season. Maybe have it on a point system, or a priority system, where you might want to get a handful of craftsmen, or a large number of peasants or some such. If finding enough time to meet with the liaison is a problem, maybe split it into two separate visiting nobles, a liaison and a trade minister or something.

Along the same lines, I'm a bit annoyed that the liaison meets with the Expedition Leader instead of your broker for the trade contracts. This is mostly only a problem because my leader title was assigned to a random miner instead of my trader, but it still makes more sense to me that the broker would have more to do with trade contracts.

To help with the annoyance of having the liaison follow your dwarf around waiting for a chance to butt in, maybe have them auto assigned to travel to the relevant noble's office and wait there, like traders do. Then, like the depot, give the task "noble requested" to priority drag someone into the office to interact.