Bay 12 Games Forum

It'll be really nice to leave a fortress in a successful state, rather than watching every single expedition eventually grind, glacially and inevitably, towards total and complete entropy.

Not to say that that's not fun - it's fantastic - but there have been many times when I've wanted to leave a fortress that had become the capitol alone, in order to explore it as an adventurer while all the dwarves who I've overseen continue to go about their work.

Of course, I'm sure we still have a ways to go before we can cast a fortress off into the digital waters of a generated world and see it float with perfection. There are many things (including a few which have been mentioned in this thread as well, particularly the economy) which will have to be included in the game before true interconnectivity occurs.

I've never pushed my set at anyone, ever, nor have I ever claimed it's better than anyone else's. I even spent a fair amount of my time last month to fix the wiki and add more ascii-based tilesets and graphics sets that weren't there before. So to be accused of self-aggrandizement after all that is incredibly insulting.

I removed them because I realized this really was yet another self-masturbatory "Purists vs. Noobs" snobbery thread. Nothing I post here will really change any of the opinions of the ascii diehards anyway (and your further insults only prove that). It only opens up my hard work to ridicule, and I'd really rather not subject myself to that, thank you very much.

Alright. The vast majority of posts in this thread from people who prefer ASCII as opposed to tilesets have been respectful and reasonable. The very first post after you put up a picture of your tileset was a compliment of your hard work. While I understand that you may be upset due to a handful of posts that were directed at you, it is not ok to slather blanket judgements over everyone else in the thread because they prefer one way of playing the game over another. The "Purists vs. Noobs" arguments happen often enough as it is, and are literally the most frustrating thing about this forum for me. So, please, let's keep this civil.

The idea of graphical tilesets being easier to decipher "at a glance" is interesting to me. Not because I doubt it - it seems reasonable enough - but having learned to play DF using the ASCII, I have no trouble determining what is going on at any point in time when viewing the game without a tileset. Hell, I spend most of the game paused, managing many different aspects of the fortress at once, so using "v" or "k" to determine what a specific tile is does not especially bother me. In fact, I've never before considered how much time I actually spend in the game just going through looking at different things. I don't suppose that this would change, however, if I was using a graphical tileset, as the reason I spend so much time viewing individual tiles/creatures is to take in the detail of the scene, and not the shallow breadth. That is, I like going through and looking at individual dwarves, or creatures, or piles of spatter, or accumulated work orders at individual workshops, or the contents of bins... that is truly independent of tilesets.

This is really fantastic, it warms my heart. Congratulations to you both!

However, what a lot of people seem to confuse is tilesets, and creature graphics.  You can have unique creature graphics while still using the default (or a more square-ized for symmetry) ASCII, so, say, the person who found it hard to tell between a unicorn and a human would not need to use a tileset just to distinguish the two.

It is an important distinction. I overlooked it myself, although I have zero experience with either tilesets or creature graphics, so that's predictable, I think.

I learned on the original tileset that comes with the game, and my few attempts to work with tilesets have been met with frustration. As noted earlier, learning an entirely new set of graphics can be difficult.

Aesthetically, though, I definitely prefer the minimal look of the original tileset. It is clean.

Quote from: Geldrin on April 27, 2013, 06:42:51 am

I like that artifact!
However, it made me thinking. Artifacts are undestroyable (aside from atom-smashing), right? So what happens, when you lit an artifact on fire which is made from flammable material, like coal, or wood? Would burn forever?

Yessir! Eternal flames all around! One guy made a room of all his flammable artifacts, poured magma in to light them all on fire, realized the outright insanity of this plan of action, locked the door, and never looked back. I cant recall which fort that was though.

Ah, yes. Mapleguy555's "Room of Prophecies." Something close to a dozen assorted wooden, bone, or leather beds/cabinets/bags/chests/weapon racks/armor stands. It was a nightmare, but it "worked" exactly as one would expect it to.

Water sources in cold maps only freeze if they are out in the open. By draining, pumping, or channeling water from whatever source you have available into an underground area that you've dug out and made available to your dwarves (with a well, or even just a nearby ledge or ramp leading down into the reservoir), you can prevent a portion of it from freezing in the winter.

However, I would actually recommend having a farming/brewing industry up and running by the time winter arrives, or otherwise have enough alcohol stocked up to last until spring. Drinking only water slows down your dwarves anyway, so it's more efficient from a production standpoint as well. I understand you're still quite new to the game (and I still remember how daunting even basic industries were for me back then), but food and alcohol production is such a crucial element of any successful fortress, I would recommend learning at least the basic ins and outs sooner rather than later.

Quote from: DS on April 05, 2013, 01:48:58 am

Quote from: Shininglight on April 04, 2013, 02:39:14 pm

How the heck would you channel that properly from the top? I have enough trouble doing a 2 z-level dining room with a throne, and only a 20/60 at that.

It just requires adequate planning, that's all.

1. Decide how many z-levels [...]
2. Find a space [...]
3. Make a decision [...]
4. Dig out the topmost level.
5. Channel out the floor, and dig outward if the level you are excavating is wider than the one beneath it.
6. Repeat step 5 until you reach the bottom floor.

This method can be used to dig out caverns of any size [...]

I disagree.  I've recently started mining large amounts of ice for a project.  In the past I dug as you discribed above and I've had to micromanage the digging.  Although it's no big deal as I've yet to see a dwarf seriously injured from channeling the square his standing on.

Instead I suggest that all dig orders be ramps and not channels.  You only have to be careful about digging ramps under trees.  In my case I designate ramps every other level.  This removes stone at twice the rate because a ramp digs out the square above as well.  This wont work for making caverns unless you are okay with colapsing the floors (just dig out the edge squares, but be careful).  If you are okay with colapsing floors your dig rate will be about twice normal.  The floors will also prevent accidental cave-ins from dwarves mining in screwy patterns.

Ramps are indeed a useful tool for many situations, but for excavating large vertical caverns, their usefulness is secondary, I think, to channeling. As you note, ramps (under optimal circumstances) excavate stone twice as fast, but in any excavation project deeper than two z-levels, they leave you with broad floors which must be either collapsed or chipped away at one tile at a time - both processes are potentially fatal to miners.

In a situation where you are digging out a cavern one level at a time, choosing ramps or channels is ultimately a personal choice - either you designate a layer to be dug out directly or from the z-level above. I find, however, that in these sorts of projects it is easier to channel, since you have a direct reference to the already existing cavern outline, without having to constantly reference the z-level above the one you are designating.

As far as channelling-related injuries - these occur primarily when digging out a 3-dimensional area that contains pre-dug passages, such as mines or exploratory tunnels. Paying close attention to the ramifications of digging out areas before your miners get to work is a valuable habit for any fortress planner to have, and most mining accidents on my watch tend to happen when I am not paying close attention, or trying to rush a project, or both. To anyone who plans a project of such magnitude, I would recommend not cutting corners to save time.

I'm fairly sure you've read it incorrectly. The pocket world size is 17x17 (haven't checked this, but it's a moot point), and the largest sites will be 17x17 - but a world's size is measured in world tiles, and sites are measured in embark tiles. A single world tile is 16x16 embark tiles.