Bay 12 Games Forum

I've found a number of "Sewer Access" locations, which are grates in the road.  How do I actually enter said grates?  < and > don't work.

This is almost more a thought experiment than a real suggestion.  But the problem is real.

The problem is that since every player gets dwarves with moods, and moods aren't THAT difficult to fulfil, everyone gets Legendary Dwarves.  In fact, it makes it so that really, there's only two types of dwarves: low class plebes (including the so-called nobility) whom no one cares about, and legendaries.  Furthermore, this makes anything below masterwork quality basically junk.  If you can EXPECT to have a legendary craftsdwarf, then anything below masterwork is rubbish.  Fit to be given away in order to increase your frame rate.

This basically makes a huge portion of the game meaningless.  When lower skills are basically just waiting for legendary, you may as well not have them there.

So, here's the thought experiment-- consider this re-working of the situation:

1) On his own, a dwarf can only gain experience up to Next Level -1.

2) Upon reaching Next Level -1, if your fortress is grand enough to support the next skill level, that dwarf has a chance to enter a mood.

By grand enough, I mean has a certain value, certain number of tiles mined, certain population, whatever.  (Currently, there are these kinds of restrictions that determine how many moods your fortress can support-- ie, at tiles dug X, you can have 1 dwarf mood in your fortress histroy.  at tiles dug Y, you can have another one. at tiles dug Z, you can have a third mood.  Instead, I propose that these markers say that at tiles dug X, you can have Novice Level moods, at tiles dug Y, you can have Skilled Level moods, and so forth)  Perhaps there should be restrictions so that your whole fort doesn't go moody at once.  One mood at a time, and maybe only one mood per season.

3) The dwarf creates a "Masterpiece"... literally, a piece that shows mastery of a skill.  Like current artifacts, this will involve multiple objects mashed together with art and such, but UNLIKE current artifacts, not all craftsdwarfship will necessarily be of the highest quality.  Instead, the various aspects of the creation will have the quality of the skill the dwarf is obtaining.  Upon completing the skill, the dwarf gains one single experience point, levelling him up to the next skill rank.

4) Under no circumstance do you want to have to do this for EVERY SINGLE DWARF, EVERY SINGLE LEVEL.  So, you make certain that you set up schools/guilds.  Your highest level dwarf will be given teaching duty, bringing other dwarves up to snuff.  Then, one of them will hopefully get a mood and level up to the next rank.

5) Legendary Mood requirements should be significantly higher than all other mood requirements, and teaching up to legendary should be impossible (Grandmaster, yes, Legendary, no).  This will make legendaries special: they first had to skill up to just below legendary, and THEN get a mood.  No more dabbling to legendary in a day.



Not all skills would require this system.  Mining, farming, woodcutting, and so forth for instance.  But then again, perhaps those skills could skip the mood, but still make it random and fortress-prereq locked before they level up.  These could also perhaps combine working and teaching, if dwarves were assigned a close enough area to each other when digging or cutting or whatever.



So, what's the result I'd be looking for with this system?

1) Making players deal with having lower level dwarves in general, for extra challenge in a game that's been getting too easy.

2) "Mid level" dwarves are valued, even when not legendary.  High level immigrants are VERY valued, as they may be able to teach skills beyond your fortress' means.

3) Less-than-masterwork goods are still valued, and there's a slow progression in the quality you get.  In fact, it might make way for a much larger number of item quality rankings, to match the number of skill rankings!

4) A general feeling of progression as your fortress increases in stature.

5) More challenge when faced with sieges (assuming you don't just wall and trap up everything) given that higher skills and better armor and weapons are harder to come by.  More casualties should be expected, and thus more danger from sieges in the first place.  They'll be actually somewhat threatening!

As well all know, DF's connectivity map works great for walkin dwarves, but not so great for flying or amphibious creatures.  This is because of the Connectivity Map, which determines whether the A* pathfinding system should be run at all.  If the spot can't be walked to, the game assumes it can't be reached, even if it could be reached via flying.

This problem gets worse the more movement types you have, such as tunneling, or climbing.  Because you'd not only have to make a connectivity map for each movement type, but also for each COMBINATION of movement types, which is the harsh part.

I'm not sure if Toady has considered methods by which multiple movement types could be implemented, but here's one.  It would likely require a couple days of coding, and more days optimizing, but it's a method, and I'd like to see what people think.

Assume we have 8 different movement types requiring continuous movement (thus, removing teleportation).  We don't have eight right now, but maybe one day.  Let's say Walking, Swimming, Magma Swimming, Flying, Climbing, Jumping, Tunneling, and Demolishing.  Eight is convenient because it's one byte.  We can add more bytes too, for example "Trap Avoid" or some such.

Step one utilizes the current system for making connectivity types, except this time we do it 8 times, a linear increase in processor requirement, so we're pretty safe.  Each tile is thus flagged with a number like 10011100, which means that if you can walk, fly, climb(aka crawl), or jump, you can move through the square.

Then, the game must find all adjacent numbers, that is, all adjacent tiles with 10011100, and mark that as one continuous region.  From this region, create a nodal graph of the map.  This must be done once every time the map changes-- otherwise, you just need to keep the same map.  Remember, this is a linear increase in processor time, so it's expandable.

Now, for connectivity checking, first the game sees whether you are within the same exact region, just like now.  If not, however, it then checks to see if there is a path utilizing all your movement types.  If each character is assigned a byte determining how they can move... such as 11000001 (for a troll perhaps), just do a Logical AND with each node of the connectivity map, then use a flood fill technique to see if it is possible to get to point A to point B.  After that, A* to your heart's content.

Here's an example.

Aribtrary Map:

01101100 10110011 11111110
11010100 11100111 00110110
00111011 10101010 01010101

Our creature's movement: 01001000

AND map:

01001000 00000000 01001000
01000000 01000000 00000000
00001000 00001000 01000000

Truth map:

101
110
111

And there's our connectivity map!

EDIT: If this is too slow, you could even cache such a map for each movement type possessed by a creature on the map.

We are now entering into ROUND TWO of voting.  The following three suggestions will be set aside for the future top 10 list: Job Priorities, Improved Resource Management, and Farming Improvements.

Goto ROUND TWO for new votes.

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Well, people have been clamoring for a new "Top 10 Suggestion" poll, so it's time to start gathering votes for what people want on the list.

The way this works is that each poster gets to vote for/suggest THREE different suggestions.  These are your votes for what you are MOST interested in seeing Toady accomplish after he finishes the current FotF (dev_next).  He may or may not listen to us, but he has stated that he likes to know what people want, and we know he at least factors our desires into his decisions.

What you should NOT suggest:

• Anything currently on the FotF page (dev_next).
• Anything Toady has expressly stated that he has no intention of doing (such as multithreading or multiplayer).
• Anything that is a PERPETUAL goal (such as "More RAW files" or "Improved framerate")
• More than three suggestions.  If you post more than three, only the first three you list will be counted.

Other than that, feel free to vote for anything.  See Neonivak's post below for a list of suggestions from PREVIOUS threads of this ilk. 

Although not -required-, it would help me out if when voting for something already listed, you use the same "suggestion name" as is listed.  I will attempt to consolidate suggestions that are similar, but the list is pretty long, so anything that you can do to help me out will help.

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Here's the final ROUND ONE vote list:

* Job Priorities [14]
zagibu, Granite26, Velusion, Impaler[WrG], Someone-else, Faces of Mu, Narmio, NBtQMK, Jetman123, penguinofhonor, Tormy (via PM), Ryo, PTTG??, mizipzor

* Improved Resource Management [13]
Inquisitor Saturn, Gantolandon, JujuBubu, Mephansteras, Velusion, Techhead, Cristes, CJN, Yaddy1, Jamini, Footkerchief, vanarbulax, mizipzor

* Farming Improvements [10]
Draco18s, Fieari, Othob Rithol, Osmosis Jones, evktalo, Someone-else, Dame de la Licorne, Quatch, PTTG??, vanarbulax

* Tabbed Filters and string search for all selection screens (stocks, units, etc) [7]
Osmosis Jones, Granite26, JujuBubu, Narmio, Davion, Quatch, Ryo

* Bring Back Guildmasters to fill requested "special abilities" (prospecting, zoom to dead, etc) [7]
Othob Rithul, evktalo, Dame de la Licorne, Yaddy1, Jamini, Ryo, stummel

* More detailed religion [6]
penguinofhonor, Ukrainian Ranger, PTTG??, vanarbulax, Glacies, stummel

* Automatic switching to sparring weapons [6]
evktalo, snelg, Dame de la Licorne, Jamini, NBtQMK, Footkerchief

* Designate "safe area" for civilians to go to during danger [6]
pavlov, snelg, Yaddy1, Jetman123, Footkerchief, mizipzor

* Standing production orders (produce to level) [5]
NBtQMK, Faces of Mu, CJN, Quatch, stummel

* Make all professions at least minimally useful [5]
Impaler[WrG], Gantolandon, Velusion, Techhead, Someone-else

* Add Center on Announcement key [4]
Impaler, Inquisitor Saturn[WrG], Osmosis Jones, Faces of Mu

* Forbidden area designation (acts as wall for pathfinding) [4]
Untelligent, Joseph Miles, Narmio, snelg

* Improve the morale system [4]
Gantolandon, Fieari, Jetman123, Ukrainian Ranger

* Material selection for materials used in workshops [4]
zagibu, Untelligent, JujuBubu, Glacies

* Remember Trade Agreements [3]
Othob Rithul, Exponent, Christes

* Full graphics support [3]
Exponent, Fieari, Onion Knight

* Improved site finder [2]
Blackcat, CJN

* Stockpile priorities (order of filling) [2]
zagibu, Granite26

* Dwarf Foreman integrated into Dwarf Fortress [2]
Blackcat, Exponent

* Quantified courage/scariness levels [2]
Inquisitor Saturn, Christes

* Improved Hauling (carts, wagons, conveyor belts, etc. and the AI to use them) [2]
Koboldbard, Draco18s

* Door access lists (keys, etc) [2]
Joseph Miles, Glacies

* Sort skills by ability [1]
Techhead

* Zoom to dead units [1]
winner

* Multiple government systems [1]
Eatnobles4breakfas

* Bulk resource requests from caravan [1]
Wang Commander

* Attributes gain separated from skill gain [1]
Draco18s

* Miner prospecting [1]
Blackcat

* Improved Health Care [1]
Mephansteras

* Make clothes rot, and make them rot quickly outside [1]
pavlov

* Prevent dodging into lava, off cliffs, etc [1]
pavlov

* Custom name all jobs in the RAWSs [1]
Untelligent

* Allow engravings on constructed walls [1]
Joseph Miles

* Task Priorities (ie, Do this task even if something scary is in the way) [1]
Mephansteras

* Combine useless professions [1]
Ralje

* Optimize the UI for larger screens [1]
penguinofhonor

* More pervasive temperature (burn trees, melt ice walls, temperature damage to items) [1]
Gargantua06

* Steam power [1]
Gargantua06

* Different materials/quality for rewalling (sandbag walls, etc) [1]
Gargantua06

* RAW entries for damage types [1]
i2amroy

* Allow creatures to be made from smelter or [ITEMCORPSE] [1]
i2amroy

* Ability to buy sand from merchants [1]
i2amroy

* Interspecies breeding [1]
Ukrainian Ranger

Coming up at some random point in the very near future, are these three little items:

Creature Improvements

I.A: Appearance tags for the raws and associated data (beards, color, etc.)
I.B: Wilderness population/megabeast reproduction and improved population tracking
I.C: Eggs and feathers, associated skills and objects

I figure that if he's going to be reworking the creature RAWs to do this anyway, we could post a list of specific creature modifications and fixes, all put in one place so he doesn't have to hunt them down.  These are mostly things that could be fixed with modding right now, but we'd like to see as the standard setting in the default game.  (There's one or two other fixes we'd like as well though.)

I'll start the list off with,

Megabeasts
Dragons - Give them wings to fly with.  Make them immune to all fire, not just their own.
Hydra - Make it so Hydras can survive 6 decapitations, and that you can't strangle it to death unless it only has one head left.  Alternatively, add coding so that it regrows two heads for each head cut off, so that the only way to kill it is to go for the heart or whatever.  In this case, hydras should maybe start with only three heads.

Fish
Carp - Give them sane damage values.
Dire Carp - The same as the current carp.  Heck, you could even make these bastards skill up by swimming too, just like in the first release.

Animals
Beak Dog - Should be quadruped, not humanoid.

What else do people want fixed/altered?

What does it mean when a dwarf has a flashing blue down arrow superimposed over them?

Is it possible to re-engrave a square, so that your legendary engravers can make the room better than the novice (or worse, DABBLING!) ones did?