Bay 12 Games Forum

For some reason, I thought doors had friend/foe recognition.

Well, they kinda do.  Doors can get "captured" in a way, if you let hostile forces get through them, then the door no longer responds to your godlike will, refusing to lock or unlock itself on your command.  You have to manually send a dwarf to go through the door and "uncapture" it before you can lock or unlock it on command again.  That's probably what you were thinking of.

I'd be happy with just getting alcohol treated as a liquid.  When I dumbassedly cave in my booze warehouse ceiling, all those crushed barrels shoudn't just vanish, they should unleash a tidal wave of booze.  Sure, my residential area will flood and half of my dwarves will die, but they'll die ecstatic.

The OP's suggestion is a good one, though.  It makes perfect sense for a dwarf fortress to have an ale moat or a beer waterfall in the dining room.  Why walk all the way to the stockpile to get a drink when you can just hold your mug under the winefall?  It's like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but with alcohol!

Hell, you could even replace the traditional drowning rooms with something more incendiary, but less hazardous than magma.

Oompa, Loompa, doompa-dee-do
I've got a little puzzle for you
Oompa, Loompa, doompa-dee-dee
If you value your life you'll listen to me

Why would you have such a mandate in hand?
Ten clear glass items on a map with no sand!
Forgive me for thinking, sir, that is fairly dumb
Now show me how you swim IN A LAKE OF BURNING RUM!

I always MEAN to dig out some elaborate tombs for my dearly departed, but I never do seem to get around to it.  What I do for an interim measure is, well, you know how you find gems in small clusters?  I hate how digging out those clusters leaves small 2X2 or 3X3 notches in my symmetrical architecture, but no self-respecting miner could leave GEMS of all things imprisoned in stone.  So I use the little alcoves as tombs until I create something better.  I smooth and engrave the natural walls and place as much of the dead dwarf's possessions in the chamber as will fit, then wall it off.

Of course, this only applies to MY dwarves who died honorable deaths.  Merchants get buried one z-level below the farm.  Cowards, fools, humans, and elves get tossed on the rubbish heap if they're lucky, or left where they fall if I can't be bothered to retrieve their bodies.

Eventually I'm gonna construct elaborate tombs with like weapon and armor racks for soldiers, workshops for legendary craftsdwarves, and the like, but in the seven fortresses I've played since I was introduced to this game a month ago, I've never got around to doing this.

I think this absolutely WILL work.  I've used a much less elaborate method (a trap-filled corridor with a door that I alternately forbid and allow to get the invaders to march back and forth across the traps) plenty of times.  I considered automating it, but I kind of like the feeling of doing it myself.  It's that personal touch that means so much.

"Betcha wanna get in here, goblins!  Come on in, the door's open!  Nope, now it's closed, better turn around and march over the traps that you missed on the way in!  Wait, come back, it's open now!  Nope, just kidding."

I know that this sort of game is about as far away from Dwarf Fortress as it's possible to get, but I'm a huge fan of Warning Forever.  I recently found out how to play it with an XBox 360 controller, making it even better.  Has anybody else here ever enjoyed this evolving boss rush shmup game?

I also discovered Fraxy this weekend.  It's similar, having a better variety of enemies (and an option to create your own) and a nice range of somewhat-upgradable weapons to choose from.

Does anybody know of any similar games besides WF and Fraxy?  I have heard good things about Boss In A Box, but can't get it to work on any of three machines I've tried it with.  I've also tried Protoganda, but it didn't float my boat like WF or Fraxy did.

The original SS is also supposed to be very good, but it's hopelessly outdated now. It's amazing how much stuff they put into SS2 when you consider that it's a contemporary of DOOM. (I think) In Doom you just blasted things and collected keys. SS2 had all kinds of interactivity, story, ghosts, etc.

Actually it was System Shock ONE that was the contemporary of Doom.  IMO that's why System Shock is all but unknown, because it was overshadowed by the near-simultaneous release of Doom.  No, wait, Doom 2.

SHODAN is my favorite villain in any videogame ever.
http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/?page_id=1103

I recently went through the nightmare of extracting the audio from my original System Shock CD so that I could listen to SHODAN's lovely voice all day if I so choose.

ok, parallel question then: since you keep your barracks roofed over, is that sufficient to prevent cave accomodation?

No.  However, in my experience, cave accommodation is bugged anyway.  In my current fortress, although 90% of my building is above ground and only my barracks and mines are deeper than 2 z-levels, not to mention 75% of my dwarves spend 75% of their lives above ground (every one of my workshops is exposed to the open sky) I still see puddles of puke everywhere.  I'm at like year seven now, and this has been happening since year four.  Contrary to what the Wiki says, I've NEVER been able to prevent cave sickness, and the most infuriating thing about it is that the personality profiles still say "enjoys working outside and grumbles only mildly at inclement weather" and completely fail to mention "pukes like a seasick sailor at the first sight of open sky".

I didn't want to give the impression that my barracks is close to the surface.  It's not, it's actually the deepest part of my fortress at the moment.  My towers and gatehouses, however, are completely roofed over, and this seems to keep cave sickness from being a problem.  I don't see the soldiers puking as long as there's a roof between them and the hideous endless sky.