3556
DF Suggestions / Re: Trade improvements
« on: February 20, 2014, 01:20:27 pm »By the time I start making trades worth 23k, I have two brokers with at least master level.That would make the order of trades a bit less important
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3557
DF Suggestions / Conditional raws
« on: February 20, 2014, 11:10:15 am »
I think this would be reasonably straightforward to implement, but I'd like to hear from the modders out there if this would actually be useful.
My idea is to include conditional tags inside the raws, basically giving the player a second page of options within world generation.
In the [WORLD_GEN] token one needs to call out each variable, its text for the worldgen screen, its default value and its possible values.
[PLAYER_CHOICE:GOOD_DWARVES:Dwarves settle in Good biomes:2:Yes:No]
[PLAYER_CHOICE:GOBLIN_AGGRESSION:Goblin aggression:3:Low:Medium:High:Fanatic]
The choices set up variables that can then be used later, with defaults of 2 and 3 respectively. If the player chose "Yes" and "Fanatic" then GOOD_DWARVES would have a value of 1 and GOBLIN_AGGRESSION would have a value of 4.
Just before worldgen, while the raws are being copied into the new region's folder, they are processed in a SED-like manner to include or exclude tokens based on the variables. For example:
[IF:GOBLIN_AGGRESSION:1:[PROGRESS_TRIGGER_POPULATION:5]]
[IF:GOBLIN_AGGRESSION:2:[PROGRESS_TRIGGER_POPULATION:4]]
[IF:GOBLIN_AGGRESSION:3:[PROGRESS_TRIGGER_POPULATION:3]]
[IF:GOBLIN_AGGRESSION:4:[PROGRESS_TRIGGER_POPULATION:2]]
If the condition is met, the process strips off the wrapper and processes it again in case of nested IFs, eventually leaving a tag. If the condition is not met, the line is not copied over at all. If DF allows repeated tags with last-in-wins, then this is even backwards compatible. Have an unconditioned tag first as a default and just expect a bunch of errors in the log.
A version that would break backwards compatibility and make raw processing a bit slower would be:
[IF_START:GOBLIN_AGGRESSION:1]
any number of tags, maybe changing the types of weapons or mounts available to Goblins
[IF_END]
These choices probably need to be very early in the [WORLD_GEN] token because conditional worldgen parameters would be a good use for this feature. Or at least I think it'd be useful.
Do the modders out there think this would add value?
My idea is to include conditional tags inside the raws, basically giving the player a second page of options within world generation.
In the [WORLD_GEN] token one needs to call out each variable, its text for the worldgen screen, its default value and its possible values.
[PLAYER_CHOICE:GOOD_DWARVES:Dwarves settle in Good biomes:2:Yes:No]
[PLAYER_CHOICE:GOBLIN_AGGRESSION:Goblin aggression:3:Low:Medium:High:Fanatic]
The choices set up variables that can then be used later, with defaults of 2 and 3 respectively. If the player chose "Yes" and "Fanatic" then GOOD_DWARVES would have a value of 1 and GOBLIN_AGGRESSION would have a value of 4.
Just before worldgen, while the raws are being copied into the new region's folder, they are processed in a SED-like manner to include or exclude tokens based on the variables. For example:
[IF:GOBLIN_AGGRESSION:1:[PROGRESS_TRIGGER_POPULATION:5]]
[IF:GOBLIN_AGGRESSION:2:[PROGRESS_TRIGGER_POPULATION:4]]
[IF:GOBLIN_AGGRESSION:3:[PROGRESS_TRIGGER_POPULATION:3]]
[IF:GOBLIN_AGGRESSION:4:[PROGRESS_TRIGGER_POPULATION:2]]
If the condition is met, the process strips off the wrapper and processes it again in case of nested IFs, eventually leaving a tag. If the condition is not met, the line is not copied over at all. If DF allows repeated tags with last-in-wins, then this is even backwards compatible. Have an unconditioned tag first as a default and just expect a bunch of errors in the log.
A version that would break backwards compatibility and make raw processing a bit slower would be:
[IF_START:GOBLIN_AGGRESSION:1]
any number of tags, maybe changing the types of weapons or mounts available to Goblins
[IF_END]
These choices probably need to be very early in the [WORLD_GEN] token because conditional worldgen parameters would be a good use for this feature. Or at least I think it'd be useful.
Do the modders out there think this would add value?
3558
DF Suggestions / Re: Trade improvements
« on: February 20, 2014, 09:57:11 am »Hilariously I'm somehow unaware how one would go about selecting items without selecting bins...Your broker gets skill each trade, so you're better off making lots of smaller trades. It also makes the merchant happier which can affect the prices you see. So I start out buying a couple logs (worth 6) for some cheap rock craft (worth 10) and work my way up the value chain as the merchant gets happier. Not sure if it makes a huge difference in how much I pay, but it does skill up the broker nicely for next time.
Not like I have the experience of selecting around several hundreds, even thousands of items per trade, so as to give the merchants required profit of roughly 50%
But then again maybe I am.
Bins, in my forts, generally serve to reduce stockpile sizes, and decrease the time it takes to haul items to the depots.
w/out the use of bins, such trades would only be possible by using metal based crafts witch are a waste
or there would be nowhere enough time to get the required amount of goods to the depot on time
I generally buy all metal bars - cloth - leather - plants - fish - wood - and w/e the hell else I feel like in trades.
This brings my checkout totals to around 23k in mature forts - gems are too much of a pain in the ass, so I only tend to use raw green glass exclusively, as I can produce it in vast quantities.
23k checkout means I need to go through and manually choose hundreds of items to make it up to around 34.5k, or the trader usually won't accept, irregardless of broker levels
It's a pain in the ass and excessively time consuming
Not to mention manually removing clothing that I've produced, splints and crutches I don't care to reproduce, varifying material for elvish trades, backpacks, quivers, flasks, ect
meaning I have to go through and manually check every single item - making it more time consuming then it already is
The fix is exceedingly simple as I've outlined.
As I've stated before, I'm not a programmer, but I believe it would be easy to implement and one could take similar code from elsewhere.
Namely the current job selection system that noone uses. When in the job selection, pressing "enter" on something like farming, crafts, metalsmithing, ect - expand the menu - to furnace operating, black smithing, weapon smithing, armor smithing, metal crafting
enter in the expanded menu select an item
"shift+enter" over a category - selects the category as a whole.
how hard would it be to adapt this code to the trading menu?
In my opinion, the whole trading, and much of the crafting systems, need to be replaced as dwarf fortress evolves. However, improvements take time, changing systems take time, I'm more than satisfied with the current speed at witch Dwarf Fortress as a whole is progressing. It's definitely something I'm looking forward to.
Thats not even counting the fact that trading is a very low priority change. Other systems are far more interesting to see take place. Improved economy, religion mattering, the army system, the world around you not being completely frozen since world gen ended....plenty more exciting things.
That said, this would make the current system less excessively time consuming. Witch would improve the experience. Less wasting time with traders, and more accidentally having fort implosions because you used the wrong dwarf to apply fortifications to the magma forge channel is damn good thing in my book.
3559
DF Suggestions / Re: A warrior - male profession
« on: February 20, 2014, 09:52:43 am »Set up a Nursery (a hospital-like zone that should be stocked with toys and milk, tended by someone with labor akin to Animal Caretaker) and moms will drop off their little ones at times depending on their personalities. An impersonal workaholic might never see her baby again, but most are more attached than that. Militia Mom would get unhappy thoughts from not seeing the tot after months of patrol, and so on. (BTW, I think Dad should get unhappy thoughts from long bouts of separation, too.)Dwarfs are identical in physiology between male and female with the only difference being beards. This is not an uncommon idea in fantasy in general.In some settings, not even that.
A designated babysitter eliminates the need for all women to stay home with the baby. In fact, many noblewomen IRL had them so they could get on with ruling and business and things.
For bonus points, have Mom hand her kid off to someone else to take to the Nursery (Haul Wounded labor?) while she gets armed and armored.
Of course, if someone modded in Stepford Wives that never take dangerous jobs, there would be no need for a Nursery. Stepford Wives are decidedly undwarfy.
3560
DF Suggestions / Re: A warrior - male profession
« on: February 19, 2014, 04:59:50 pm »I think the better feature would be to add more caste-specific definitions of entity behavior to the raws, which would enable a lot of other things. For instance, a full-blown antperson civilization could ensure that only soldier castes got military roles, and the worker ants don't wind up in the majority of battles just because there are more of them.I concur with the one whose name is immaterial. With the Humans & Cave Spider Civilization example from the wiki, I thought arbitrary entity tags could be sloshed around castes. Maybe the stuff about professions cannot, which means making it so qualifies as a suggestion.
3561
DF Suggestions / Re: A warrior - male profession
« on: February 19, 2014, 01:00:03 pm »
There aren't any stat differences between male and female Dwarves in DF, but this is not universal. For example, the warrior caste of the ant-man race is described as "ant women" (though they lack a [FEMALE] tag and are thus sterile).
Dwarf Fortress does impose two sex differences on Dwarves that make many players lean toward drafting males.
The first difference is tiny. In vanilla DF male Dwarves have beards and female Dwarves don't. In DF's combat system, having an extra nonessential "body part" confers a tiny advantage. A one-line change in the raws would give the females beards, and at least some fictional depictions of Dwarves support that idea.
The second difference has a much bigger impact. Females have children and after birth carry the infant everywhere for about a year. Everywhere including battle. Losing a child affects both parents, but Warrior Mom would definitely witness the death. I'm not sure how this baby-toting behavior could be affected by the raws or if it is hard-coded.
Of course, my computer's random number generator hates me, so the Dwarves in my forts with above-average combat stats skew decidedly female. So I've got big beefy miner gals protected by wimpy accountant guys. Some kind of babysitting labor would be highly useful.
Dwarf Fortress does impose two sex differences on Dwarves that make many players lean toward drafting males.
The first difference is tiny. In vanilla DF male Dwarves have beards and female Dwarves don't. In DF's combat system, having an extra nonessential "body part" confers a tiny advantage. A one-line change in the raws would give the females beards, and at least some fictional depictions of Dwarves support that idea.
The second difference has a much bigger impact. Females have children and after birth carry the infant everywhere for about a year. Everywhere including battle. Losing a child affects both parents, but Warrior Mom would definitely witness the death. I'm not sure how this baby-toting behavior could be affected by the raws or if it is hard-coded.
Of course, my computer's random number generator hates me, so the Dwarves in my forts with above-average combat stats skew decidedly female. So I've got big beefy miner gals protected by wimpy accountant guys. Some kind of babysitting labor would be highly useful.
3562
DF Suggestions / Re: Trade improvements
« on: February 18, 2014, 11:13:44 pm »A convenient, easy-to-use UI in Dwarf Fortress?! This is madness!Halfway sensible dwarves?! This is madness!
In a more serious vein, I think this counts as polish, something for Toady to do later on when more of the core game is fleshed out. I mean, I'd be happy if it did get implemented, but there are other things I want more immediately, like Adventure Mode survivalism or halfway sensible dwarves.
3563
DF Suggestions / Re: macro countdown
« on: February 18, 2014, 01:09:06 pm »I don't think you understand... Currently we define a macro using Ctrl-R and playback using Ctrl-P or Ctrl-U, one or two digit count, Ctrl-P.You're right, I completely mis-read that. I was imagining those folks who duplicate their instructions within the macro using a text editor (to dig down 20 z levels or something).
If you use the Ctrl-U and count method, I'd simply like for the remaining playback count to be displayed instead of simply blinking "Play" as the macro runs.
No extra variables. No loop control for use defined macros. Nothing that you mentioned. Simply display the count (that Toady needs to maintain anyway).
3564
DF Suggestions / Re: macro countdown
« on: February 18, 2014, 12:38:41 pm »The macro capability of dwarf fortress is usable, but a minor tweak would make it better. Currently when a macro is running, you display a blinking "Play" on the screen to indicate so. But since macro playback can be a bit slow, if you have a large repetition factor, the duration of the macro is unknown to the player. How about also indicating the current count on the playback. Or perhaps the number of repetitions still to execute? That way the use would still know that a macro is playing and be able to estimate how much longer the playback will take.This would require Toady to implement variables in the macro language (which I don't recall seeing in there) and a variable monitor mechanism in the interface. Although looping and conditional execution would be nice, it's probably not in the foreseeable future. There are external tools that do this (I think they function as keystuffers so that the internals of the macro are hidden from DF).
If you want to make a vanilla DF macro show a counter, try designating and undesignating a spots for mining/channeling every N iterations. Suppose your macro is doing 500 steps. After 100, you designate top-left square. Then the top-right one. Then the lower-right one. Then the lower-left one. Then clear all four after the 500th step.
For bonus points, you can designate pixelated numbers instead.
3565
DF General Discussion / Re: This is only marginally relevant, but...
« on: February 18, 2014, 11:19:19 am »Haven't seen it since Second Edition, so I'll defer to the more recent sighting.It really depends on your preferred source material. Tolkein (and thus D&D) dwarven females have beards. Narnian female dwarves, which aren't even confirmed to exist at all, do not have beards.Explain female dwarves.They have beards too.
Not in vanilla they don't, thank god.
-snip-
I have a fourth-edition monster manual volume 1 with dwarves in it that strongly suggests otherwise.
I still like the idea of ladybeards, which I have modded in.
One that I forgot to mention was the Discworld Dwarves. In that setting, males are females are indistinguishable.
3566
DF Suggestions / Re: Skill books, education and teachers
« on: February 18, 2014, 11:14:33 am »Yes, the books have been around since antiquity. Didn't help much until a steady stream of practice-patients arrived to allow massive trial-and-error learning. Afterwards medical books were truly useful.I'm sure they had books on drilling holes in peoples' heads long before then.Libraries would come handy for skills now difficult to train such as the Health skills.In the real world, surgery didn't get practical until relatively modern weaponry and relatively modern sanitation combined to give the doctors lots of still-living wounded to practice upon (think US Civil War).
In Dwarf Fortress, HFS provides a similar service.
My point is that DF is set in a pre-industrial era and it is entirely reasonable for Toady (or a modder) to decide either way whether enough knowledge exists that it can be usefully distilled into books. In any case, I don't like the idea of becoming an expert by reading about something (which seems to be the current state for necromancy).
3567
DF Suggestions / Re: Slaves
« on: February 18, 2014, 11:06:41 am »"Just tell me about the bits with the forest-defending part, the sociopath part is pretty normal dwarf behavior.""When the human caravan came with its booze made of murdered plants, we drowned the humans in their booze and feasted upon them. It was a nice change of pace from the mead. Speaking of changes of pace, the human siege that followed was interesting..."
3568
DF General Discussion / Re: Is this an evil sea?
« on: February 17, 2014, 06:07:24 pm »Bah. I'm ranting. Anyway, an evil aligned sea isn't half as bad since we have yet to breed a race of marine dwarf, or any other civilized trader/enemy, but if its big enough its still annoying for how homogenous it is. You have to luck out for it to have the sort of nastiness you want since its eating half the map.Has anyone managed to mod mermen (etc.) into an ocean-faring civilization?
The wagon "creature" might be a good starting point for a boat mod. Good luck getting the boat out from the carpenter shop 9 z-levels below the surface.
3569
DF General Discussion / Re: This is only marginally relevant, but...
« on: February 17, 2014, 05:52:06 pm »It really depends on your preferred source material. Tolkein (and thus D&D) dwarven females have beards. Narnian female dwarves, which aren't even confirmed to exist at all, do not have beards.Explain female dwarves.They have beards too.
Not in vanilla they don't, thank god.
Personally, I think I'm delving into the raws before my next worldgen. It won't be long because in my current fort a Forgotten Beast is having my woefully under-prepared militia for lunch.
3570
DF Suggestions / Re: Slaves
« on: February 17, 2014, 03:55:39 pm »If my dwarves are able to drop goblins down 10 stories onto a metal spike and leave them impaled for days then I think they'd be cool with slavery at least towards those who they are at war at. I guess that kind of goes with the whole ethical drift thing though."Urist, explain to me again just how did we become forest-defending sociopaths?"
[ETHIC:TORTURE_FOR_FUN:REQUIRED]
[ETHIC:MAKE_TROPHY_SAPIENT:ACCEPTABLE]
[ETHIC:KILL_PLANT:UNTHINKABLE]
"It's a long tale. And like all worthwhile tales, it involves magma."