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Topics - rucksackjack

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DF Gameplay Questions / How can I make my caves as deadly as possible?

« on: May 02, 2010, 03:39:27 am »

I've heard vague suggestions that it's possible to alter world gen settings in such a way as to make caverns more full of deadly crap to overrun my fort. Is this true, and if so, how? I'm finding that I'd like the caverns to be more dangerous than they are, even though they're by no means tame.

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Reason for framerate decrease over time, besides population?

« on: April 25, 2010, 10:09:17 am »

Up until now I'd assumed that my gradually-decreasing framerate over the course of an average fort was due directly to the increasing population -- more dwarves pathing, etc. I'm sure that's a significant part of it, but today I had what seemed like a strange experience:

I started out with the FPS capped at 400, as is my wont. As usual, my framerate started in the 300s and then gradually decreased over the course of the game, until at around 70 population it was well below 100. At this point, I allowed my entire fort to be murdered by an angry goblin. When I was down to less than 10 population again, I realized that the framerate hadn't gone back up, and was still around 50!

Can anyone explain the real reason for the drop? Is it because of all the items lying around in the fort? I admit that my fortress was not exactly tidy; a lot of workshops were cluttered, and stockpiles were massive and constantly overflowing. Or is there some other reason? I kept animal population to an absolute minimum, and all of them were dead by the end anyway, so I don't think it's that. But what exactly is changing over the course of the fort, if not population, that causes this permanent drop in framerate?

This is driving me nuts, so any reply would be appreciated. I'd really like to get to the heart of this issue so I can figure out how best to optimize framerate in future forts.

DF Gameplay Questions / What aspects of the game depend on population?

« on: April 23, 2010, 03:44:20 am »

In other words, what will I be missing out on if I cap my population at a very low number, like 30-40?

I'm trying to find ways to maximize framerate on my terrible CPU, and I've noticed that my framerate starts to drop below 100 around the time I have 40-50 dwarves, so I'm wondering if it would be best to just keep my population low. However, there are some aspects of the game I don't want to miss out on.

For example, will I be limited to smaller sieges based on a lower population, or is it entirely dependent on created wealth? Will I be less likely to encounter terrible, deadly creatures if my population is low? I know I won't get all the nobles, but that in itself isn't particularly important to me; I'm mostly interested in building elaborate contraptions, combating overwhelming threats, and that sort of exciting thing.

What worries me is that init.txt claims that "your population must be at least [...] 100 to obtain the current game features." What features is it referring to, and can anyone give me a general list of any interesting stuff that I might miss?

Thanks so much for any replies.

DF Gameplay Questions / Can I significantly reduce the number of Z-levels while retaining all features?

« on: April 19, 2010, 11:22:52 pm »

I love the new underground stuff in DF2010 -- caverns, magma, etc. -- but I really dislike having to dig stairs through dozens upon dozens of solid layers just to travel between the areas of interest, since there seems little point in it. Is it possible to reduce the number of Z-levels so that I don't have to do quite as much pointless digging, while still having numerous caverns, a magma sea, etc. within my shallower map? If so, how?

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / (SPOILERS) Can I use HFS to deal with my enemies?

« on: April 14, 2010, 08:11:12 am »

It occurred to me that, with sufficiently dwarven ingenuity, I might be able to lure goblins and other attackers into contact with clowns. Ignoring the difficulty of engineering such an encounter, if I did get a goblin face-to-face with a clown, would the clown annihilate the goblin just as it would my dwarves? Or would it ignore the goblin and continue saying "raaagh! Must kill dwarves"?

I know this isn't a practical solution to, um, anything, but I'm still really enamored of this idea if it works. Surely turning HFS to one's own purposes is the greatest conquest a dwarf can achieve.

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Best way to keep several similar stockpiles supplied?

« on: April 07, 2010, 04:27:07 pm »

I was hoping that the new version would do something about the "can't have more than one stockpile drawing from a given stockpile" thing, but alas, it seems not.

However, the burrow system has made me determined to design an awesome decentralized living system in which each workshop has its own input stockpile (e.g. a small wood stockpile by each carpenter's workshop, etc.), and I'm not sure what would be the best way to keep them all well-supplied.

Obviously, I can assign a loop in which stockpile A draws from stockpile B, stockpile B draws from stockpile C, and stockpile C draws from stockpile A. But this seems like it would just cause my dwarves to perpetually run around moving stuff needlessly between the stockpiles, which seems undesirable.

Is there a better way of doing this? I've never tried this sort of thing at all, so most any advice would be helpful. Thanks!

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Generally, has the new version made framerate issues better or worse?

« on: April 05, 2010, 11:35:13 pm »

I've often gotten frustrated in the past with the low framerates that are experienced with a high population, but I'd like to get into the game again, and so I'm wondering about the new version. In your experience, has the framerate gotten better, worse, or mostly stayed the same?

DF General Discussion / Basic water algorithm when dealing with flat terrain?

« on: December 11, 2009, 11:44:28 pm »

Hello,

I'm in the midst of developing a (vaguely) Roguelike game and, mostly just for kicks, decided that it would be nice to implement water into the game which would hopefully behave roughly like the water in DF. I am, however, extremely terrible at figuring out even remotely efficient algorithms for things like this, so this is where you folks come in.

As my game is entirely 2D, can someone knowledgeable about this subject explain approximately how the water in DF works, or might work, when ignoring any Z-level-related complications? I.e., if in one frame I have a bunch of variously-leveled water lying around on a flat surface, what's the basic algorithm that should be applied to it between that frame and the next in order to create reasonably DF-like flow of the water?

I'm sure that the answer will be extremely simple and obvious, but, as I said, I freely admit that this isn't my forte. Nonetheless, I'd really like to get something working so that I can mess around with it. Any help would be greatly appreciated. =)

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Keeping a multitude of food stockpiles supplied?

« on: July 28, 2009, 09:21:02 pm »

I'm trying out the idea of having many separate dining rooms near workshops to maximize efficiency, but the effort will be wasted unless each one also has its own food stockpile near it. Since it's currently impossible to designate more than one stockpile to "take from" a given stockpile, is there a good way of accomplishing this? Thanks in advance.

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / General suggestions about optimizing a fort pathing-wise to maintain high FPS?

« on: July 27, 2009, 08:22:08 am »

I love Dwarf Fortress, but I often find it hard to play one fortress for very long because of how dramatically the framerate drops after a few migrant waves. Does anyone know for sure how best to mitigate this drop? I've heard that one should use wide halls, avoid chokepoints, etc., but it also seems that overly open areas can have a detrimental effect. What about the relative positioning of different parts of the fortress, of stairs, etc.? Can anyone give me some general fortress design tips that will help keep my framerate from being totally wrecked?

DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Framerate drops with large open production areas?

« on: September 29, 2008, 07:36:47 pm »

In the past, I've always designed my fortresses with small walled-off stockpiles, each workshop in a different room, etc. Recently I tried using a new strategy of putting all the workshops in a big, wide-open room, and doing similarly for stockpiles. I also made the halls very wide (5 tiles), which I've never done in the past.

Now, this is the odd thing: I've never had framerate issues in the past, but this layout seemed to cause large amounts of stuttering, even with only seven dwarves running around. I thought it might just be some feature of the landscape that was doing it and not my layout, so I restarted in a different place. Nope--the fortress layout still seemed to cause lag.

This is completely contradictory to what I've heard about improving framerates, so what gives? Does the game hate it for some reason when I create very big rooms with many stockpiles/workshops, even though this should ease pathfinding issues? Am I just going insane?

DF Gameplay Questions / My dwarves no longer understand furniture stockpiles.

« on: September 26, 2008, 11:03:47 pm »

Sorry for what is undoubtedly a newbie question.

I've just recently started a new fortress, and for some reason my dwarves have ceased to put any kind of furniture in furniture stockpiles, seemingly no matter where I put the furniture and the stockpiles. Stuff just piles up in the carpenter/mason workshops as it's built, despite the fact that there's a furniture stockpile directly adjacent. Initially, it was working just fine, and I'm not sure what I did to break it. They use other stockpiles as normal. Can anyone suggest what might be the problem?

Thanks in advance.