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This is weird; is the option to train a war muskox a new feature?  Or is there sommat wrong with my download?

Yes, something is definitely wrong there, if you haven't installed any mods. You probably did something wrong when you installed it, like extracting it over a previous version of DF instead of into a new folder.

DF uses enough ram to bring even the fasest computers to its knees, now if it was something like and Xbox 360 which has not 1, not 2, but 4 CPUs then it would work.

.. The number of CPUs is completely irrelevant since DF only uses one of them, besides that having nothing to do with RAM.

The manual includes instructions on updating to a new DF version or new DF install, although it won't apply to the version that Toady's going to release when he finishes his big changes - I'll have to make changes for that.

Installation instructions (if you can run modbase)

• Install modbase, if you don't already have it installed. (May require windows - probably won't work on wine)
  
• Download sl_tileset_mod_1_1_0.zip from the Dwarf Fortress File Depot, and extract it into your 'Dwarf Fortress\modbase' folder such that you should now have a 'Dwarf Fortress\modbase\sl_tileset' folder. It will also place a sl_tileset_manual.html file in the modbase folder. (These installation instructions can also be found in there, but they have been modified/updated for this post)
  
• Then, start up ModBase, tell it to scan for mods, make sure that 'Modbase Test' (if it exists) is disabled (un-check it, if it is checked), and make sure the sl_tileset mod is enabled (it should have a checkmark). You probably want to install the tileset into your init.txt automatically, but if not, uncheck 'Automatic Tileset Install'. Note that ModBase will probably eat the comments in your init.txt either way, but it saves the original init file in modbase/init_original.txt. Whether you are doing manual or automatic, continue on:
  
• Finally, click "!!! ACTIVATE !!!" After a few seconds, a dialog should pop up, asking if you want to continue and reload (the list of mods), exit and launch DF, or just exit. Click 'just exit'.
  
• Graphics for creatures are not included: You will probably want to download and install a "user graphics set" (art for creatures) from http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/List_of_user_graphics_sets or from elsewhere. (there are nice creatures in the "enhanced DF - graphic mod pack v2", but they're shaded like the sun is to the right, whereas everything in this tileset is shaded like the sun is to the top-left). Personally I'm using the Dystopian Qantas set compiled by Veryinky.
  
• If you are doing a manual tileset installation, you can find the tileset in modbase/sl_tileset/SL_square_16x16.bmp - copy that into your DF data/art folder, and set your init.txt to use it for its font, and set the width/height to 1280 and 400 if you are using an 80x25 screen size (or 1280 and something valid for fullscreen). To manually set the font in init.txt: Open up your data/init/init.txt file, and find your '[FONT:something]' line. Change it to '[FONT:SL_square_16x16.bmp]'. If you are using GRAPHICS mode, also set GRAPHICS_FONT's parameter to 'SL_square_16x16.bmp'. If you are using fullscreen, you'll have to set those up too (FULLFONT, etc). You may need to change the window/screen sizes. 16x16 corresponds to a 1280x400 area window if you are using an 80x25 screen size. I use the following settings (they should probably each be on their own line): [GRAPHICS:YES] [GRAPHICS_WINDOWEDX:1280] [GRAPHICS_WINDOWEDY:400] [GRAPHICS_FONT:SL_square_16x16.bmp] [GRAPHICS_BLACK_SPACE:YES] [VSYNC:ON]
  

Information about the character set / mod
This is a 16x16 user character set (if tilesets are evolutionary, this one would be descended from Flying Mage's and Guybrush's), and a ModBase mod which together allow a vastly more enhanced tileset than is possible with just a user character set alone. ModBase was very important in the development of this tileset, as it makes it possible to easily and automatically find and replace (or change) multiple entries in the raws, in addition to allowing the mod to be essentially DF-version-independent (Edit Feb 8, 2009: although it will probably break when the fancy new DF version that Toady's working on is released).

Here's what the character set bmp looks like (before anyone panics, this really links to a png ):


The manual is in the download, but also here: http://shadowlord13.googlepages.com/sl_tileset_manual.html
The download: http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=370 (on the Dwarf Fortress File Depot)
A fortress map: http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-3412-flamespear (one of my previous forts, re-exported after it had ceased being anything more than a testing ground)

The primary three goals in making this were:

• Eliminating graphical bizarreness (levers and other graphics in names, coffee cups for trees/cities, chairs in bridges/catapaults, etc)
  
• Having actual art for all rough walls instead of symbols, and for almost all trees. (Continuation of what Flying Mage had done for some rough walls)
  
• Improving art further, including adding new art, but keeping things identifiable, ideally without causing graphical bizarreness. (Ex: See the barrel image, ore-in-wall image (to the left of the lobster), hatch image, the levers which now have 'OFF' and 'ON' written above them in tiny text, the single ~ which has only one wave in its image, making it easily identifiable if not as pretty (many previous tilesets had the single and double ~ look identical except for which direction the waves were facing))
  

The biggest benefit from this is that text looks a lot saner, without sacrificing much of the graphics (chairs had to go, and bare trees, and mugs changed back to steins, and that was about it).

In more detail, the tileset/mod:

• Attempts to provide sensible graphics for tiles, while avoiding showing graphics where there should be text.
  
• Avoids showing graphics that make no sense (trees in catapaults, chairs in catapaults or bridges, bricks in catapaults, rivers...)
  
• Taking advantage of ModBase's capabilities to relocate a bunch of graphics to both improve appearance and to fix graphical bizarreness that has been present in previous high-graphical tilesets - for example, rough rock walls which formerly appeared as '%' now use rock wall graphics which are at character 0xb6, and the '%' character graphics still exist. No previous tileset of which I am aware had done anything like that (although it's a fairly simple matter, it would just be hell to maintain as fast as DF changes versions without something like ModBase). There are many more like that. One example is that Flying Mage made a nice crystal icon, but to make rough gems and gem walls use it, he replaced the sun/masterwork icon, which made it replace the sun, the masterwork symbol, etc. I split it into its own slot and set it up so that only extracted uncut gems, rough gem walls, and extracted bituminous coal use that icon, and everything else still uses the sun/masterwork symbol. (Except that DF is ignoring it for the extracted uncut gems, but oh well)
  
• Tries to make graphics still look sensible when multiple things use the same graphics - the winter trees and chairs in catapaults/bridges were not acceptable to me. This was particularly a concern when there are things which can't be relocated, such as smoothed and engraved walls, catapault arms, bridges, and overland rivers, all of which use the same characters (there wouldn't be enough free characters to split them anyways).
  
• Additionally, adds new graphics for a number of things which lacked graphics in previous tilesets. I drew art for tower-caps, feather trees, glumprongs, and quarry bush leaves (although the quarry bush leaves were probably silly, if dwarves don't ever take them out of bags without being ordered to dump them), all have their own art now, and there's a new graphic that's shared by cave wheat, rope reed, and longland grass. (Cave wheat and longland grass used to have the same icon as pig  tails and a bunch of other things - those other things still have the same icon they had before)
  
• Additional enhancements to the art, such as additional shading on trees, or partially or completely redrawn art, like for hatches,  or the new ore-wall image I drew, or the cage/!!! icon (which looked better as a wooden cage before I realized that it looked not-so-good as a glass one, and I had to change it to look decent for both), the new barrel icon, the levers where you can actually see the handles even if your monitor's brightness is turned down, the differently shaded walls/bridge/river/catapaultarm (this one isn't that major a chance from guybrush's, though). That's most of them.
  
• On the subject of walls, the ones with bricks in them weren't acceptable to me - Flying Mage's and Mike Mayday's both had bricks, which looked good as walls, except that brick walls look rather jarring in catapault arms, bridges, and overland rivers. It was a bit too out of place for me, which is why this tileset+mod does not have brick walls. However, if tileset/tilemod support works in a future version of ModBase, brick walls/bridges/catapault-arms/rivers can be an option.
  

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Suggestions and feedback are welcome. For example, chairs look like solid stone stools right now in order to make them match up with the walls/catapults/bridges, and maybe you might want to suggest a way to resolve that without causing catapults or bridges to look bizarre (if you can come up with one). Or maybe you just want to request a tilemod that puts the chair image back in.

Edit: Updated to point to newer version of example fortress which uses v1.1 tileset instead of v1. Manual and png also point to v1.1 versions, but that's because I changed the files that they point to directly rather than changing the links here.

Okay, the first bug I ran into was:
It's throwing an overflow exception while trying to activate a mod with an enabled tileset component (it happens on the modbase test mod, so it should be pretty easy for you to reproduce).

System.OverflowException: Arithmetic operation resulted in an overflow.
   at ModBase.Form1.CompileMods_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   (And so on.)

It is beautiful! I thought ground tiles were hard coded to be little dots too. I love this, I love you, I love this guy above me.

They are, actually - that is to say, they're hardcoded to particular places in the font bmp, which normally has art for ` ' . etc. Now if the images in those places are replaced with something other than those symbols, you get (potentially) nicer ground but weirdness where the symbols would have been in text.

The first post in the ModBase thread says everything you'd need to know.

ModBase allows multiple mods to coexist, and makes it really easy to move mods from one DF version to the next, but if you're writing new creatures to new .txt files instead of the default DF .txt files, that's probably already usable by ModBase. (It generally has the same format as DF's raws, it just has some additional capabilities via additional commands/symbols, which allow making mods that modify or remove existing entries, among other things)

Yeah, and IIRC each race needs at least one animal which has [PACK_ANIMAL], although I'm not certain about recent versions (I messed with it last in the 2d version when I wanted to mess around with making a goblin fort).

Examples: (Make a tile that looks like)
- a chest, a backpack and a waterskin

(and a quiver)

Here's my backpackquiverchest: , which I just drew in about 5 minutes, but had thought of a few days ago.

The barrel and screw pump I don't see a way to do, the cabinet and dark fortress is doable if you want to make your cabinets have fancy evil decorations, I changed chairs and mugs to the versions from Guybrush's ASCII tileset (the one without all the graphics), (and slightly modified the chairs) so they look like a backless chair or stool, and the mugs look like steins, and are still passable as giant trees or elven cities.

Edit: Meant to type dark *fortress*, not dark *forest*!

(I'm working on a tileset but haven't released it yet)

P.S. According to the tilesets article on the wiki, waterskins actually use the same icon as flasks, not the one that backpacks/chests/quivers use.