Bay 12 Games Forum

Also, if you disconnect your magma from its source, it will cool into Obsidian. I'm not sure whether or not this happens if you turn Temperature off though.

The trouble is that Magma-men and a handful of aquatic creatures (Trolls in the old version?) can destroy buildings - presumably including grates. Is there any way to reliably keep them out?

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Originally posted by Axehilt_VuP:

Steel Bar x5 (16 avg distance)   (x2 selected)
Limestone x40 (18 avg distance)

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I'd heard that something like that was happening. I don't like the "avg distance" though - I don't think it adds anything (you can go and look and see that there are 8 blocks of obsidian near the bridge). Also, it would seem to be rather computationally expensive (as sorting the list in order of distance would be).

I would find it more satisfying to specify a material (or a mix of...), and have the architect select the stacks of it that are closest to the point of construction.

Incidentally, I think that would be a general improvement - if materials were selected by proximity to the point of construction rather than by proximity to the dwarf.

For example, I have a craftsdwarf making stone blocks. He has a large stockpile of Granite next to his workshop. While he's working, he'll pick up granite (because it's nearby) and work with it. However, if he goes to sleep, or to eat, when he resumes his task he'll pick up a random rock from elsewhere in the fortress.

Would it be possible to have workers move to their workshop before they pick materials to gather?

There are a few things that get in the way of this.

Some of these ideas have been discussed elsewhere, but I'm going to collate them here.

1) Lack of overview screens.

Are any of my Dwarves unhappy? I have to manually cycle through every single one of the blighters to find out. u-c-z-enter-space-space-space u-down-c-z-enter-space-space-space u-down-down-c-z-enter... etc.

You would do well to try to gather a bit of information on what kinds of data the player needs access to while playing the game. This data could then be presented in overview screens. In order to preserve the challenge of the early stages of the game, these screens could be abilities of nobles (like the Justice, Stocks and Manager screens)

Off the top of my head:

- Dwarf happiness (Filter by happiness level. Zoom to creature - to manage unhappy dwarves)

- How many empty barrels/bins/bags are in my fort.

There's probably a few others.

2) Lack of macromanagement tools for your military.

First up, a panic button (all squads go "on duty") would make military encounters less micromanagement intensive. Additionally an "all dwarves stand down" button would be helpful.

When (A)ctivated, dwarves should initially be in the "standing down" state - or at least there should be an option to toggle this.

3) Lack of macromanagement tools for labor assignment.

I want all of my "Haulers" to be hauling Items and Furniture and nothing else. I want all of my "Farmers" to be farming and nothing else. At the moment I have to set up labors for each dwarf individually - which seriously disrupts game flow whenever a wave of migrants appears.

Better would be to have a system of labor profiles. This has been discussed elsewhere, but I'll summarise:-

I designate a new "profession" (possibly with an associated tile color, but that's less important), let's say "Furnace Operator". I want all of my "Furnace Operator"s to have the Furnace Operating, Ashery Operating and Wood Burning labors enabled. Then I designate Dwarves X, Y and Z to be "Furnace Operator"s and the game assignes these labors to them. If I then go and add Item Hauling to the profession, that labor is added to the dwarves with that profession.

All of these tasks are already accomplishable in the game. All of this data is already availible. However, it is not availible in an easy-to-navigate flow-preserving fashion. I do not believe that these features would reduce the challenge of the game (manually tabbing through my dwarves to determine their happiness is not a challenge, nor is repeatedly assigning the same labors to a number of dwarves a challenge), but they would allow the game to flow more smoothly.

That's my 2p.

Apologies if I sound too critical. These flaws are expected in a game in-development, and DF is a fantastic game despite them.

TY and see you.

Back to the Elephants.

Mowglie.

Could you share with us the code you made to make horses drop adamantine? I'm experimenting with dropping lumber (and occasionally steel), but ITEMCORPSE doesn't seem to work when the animal is butchered.

Out of interest, did you have them drop wafers, strands, or bars? (or all three... O.o)

Thanks