Bay 12 Games Forum

I just got...

"The Armored Uncertainty"

...very dwarfy indeed. It's never certain if the military will arrive at the battle or prefer to have a party. And armorerd they will be, as I just struck some lovely metal very deep down.

After the great deadly dust catastrophe of 509, everything's back to normal in the beginning of 511. The quarantine period is over, migrants arrive again (despite the danger) and there are 70 dwarves of which 28 are in the military - enough to defend against most sieges and ambushes without traps or the newly built quarantine mechanism. That one's fun, though. When I first opened it again after more than a year (remaining military stationed right behind the raised bridges), there were 40 elven ambushers waiting outside and a few goblin thieves, too. I can only imagine their surprise, when they're just idling around the gate und suddenly the door opens and 8 legendary+5 soldiers rush out and slaughter everybody. Yep, the 8 useless recruits grew into real killing machines during the quarantine.

In other news, the magma pump stack was finally started. It's only 14 levels deep/high as the map is very shallow, but I'm still a little proud that everything works as planned. There's only galena (about 20.000 pieces overall) in this embark and the little iron I get from traders is needed for armor, so my dwarves built magma pumps out of wood (!) and powered the whole thing with perpetual motion... take that, real world physics! So far, there's no damage and I thinkg it's pretty stable as long as there's no magma on the pumps.
So far, the magma is only used to power the forges and smelters in the above-water castle, but I'm already planning a pressurized magma cistern for generous gifts to all invaders. I'm not sure, if it's going to be a simple flood-the-world device à la Boatmurdered or a more complicated one with "magma landmines". We'll see soon.

Depends... how are his chances for getting well again? If he won't heal anyway, you should just find a way to kill him. Cave ins are very popular for this, but magma works too if you want something completely over-engineered.  Otherwise, set him to take no equipment from the military screen and he won't try to pick up any. Just don't forget to assign new equipment if he ever comes back to active duty.

It is mad. In a very likeable way

I built something similar once, but dropped the magma from above. Building all the magmaducts took years and I also used a lot more pumps to get enough pressure. It was more like a giant magma rain machine. I think, I prefer your way. Does it also have a way to open the hatches manually, in case an invader walks close by but doesn't step on the pressure plate?

I always went the cheap way and only used the "compact danger room" with one trap using a single spear. Got legendary soldiers in less than half a year... it works just as well and doesn't use up as much wood and your mechanics' time.

(response to trolling removed)

The same happened to me once... guy entered the map and keeled over without anybody being near him. I think, it's because world gen figures' age doesn't get checked during fortress mode until he enters your site and notices he's way overdue and promptly dies.
Anyway, the next year, the humans came and brought some iron armor and weapons with the pointy end first. After they hung around the map edge for a few weeks, I sent my dwarves to take care of them and the year after that there was a new diplomat with the peace offering which I accepted. It was fun to be attacked by goblins, elves and humans, but I wanted to build my city wall first... if I ever want war again, I can just arrange a little accident

Some aren't too bad... my current baroness mandates bolts, doors and very rarely lay pewter items in her dining room. She's also the mayor, manager, broker, bookkeper, legendary butcher and adept hammerdwarf. I just hope, she doesn't get too mad, because some marksdwarves "exported" bolts (which is forbidden) by shooting them into elves who ran off the map...

Sometimes you get nice nobles... for everything else, there's magma

I'd love more support for tilesets. Like, make it possible to have a away to display levers as little lever-symbols without messing up ó and ò in text. I played a long time with mayday's set, but after a while it got very annoying to have random objects in the middle of text or tree-symbols in raised drawbridges. So basically, what's done for creatures in graphic sets (having graphics for say, a craftsdwarf, an axedwarf, a bowgoblin, etc. without messing up text or the tiles for other creatures), only for furniture, buildings and all other in-game stuff. Give us the possibility to make separate graphics for every game object, not only creatures, and the modders will do the rest. It would make it possible to have very detailed and advanced tilesets but doesn't mess up the traditional ASCII display.
Currently I play with a 12x12 ASCII set that I made myself. It's basically the standard set, only slightly enlarged, put into a square and with lots of pseudo-antialiasing. I'd probably keep using it, even if there were more possibilities, because I got used to it.  But I imagine, better tilesets (which are not possible right now) would help new players to understand the game instead of screaming "Waaah, Matrix!" and turning off their computer right away.

3D graphics on the other hand... no, that's just not Dwarf Fortress and also out of the frame of what's possible for Toady. Even something rather simple (compared to completely rendered 3d graphics) like Stonesense's sprite based pseudo-3d would need a rewrite of way too many things to work. Opening up the interface for modification will probably be done in the future and make some improvements possible, but only Toady knows, what the far future brings for DF.

Generally, I like ASCII graphics... I could write several pages about the psychology of pictograms and visual abstraction, but others will explain (or already have) that much better. I just prefer it and that's not even, because I grew up with roguelikes (I didn't), but because it produces relatively little visual clutter. If I can have a simple 12x12 symbol or a detailed 16x16 graphic which mean the very same, I'd choose the simple symbol any time.

Just imagine you're standing in front of two toilet doors, male and female... there's probably a very simplified version of gender symbols on each door, which makes it possible to choose the right one. Now imagine the same two doors but on each one is a detailed drawing or photo of a man or woman... does that make understanding the meaning and deciding which door to open any easier? For me it wouldn't, especially after a few beers.
Now imagine the same with 256 doors (ok, unlikely in a toilet...), each having its own little symbol. I'd prefer something simple that can be understood at a glance instead of more complicated stuff. The same applies to DF tilesets. The simpler, the better, as long as there is a way to make a visual connection (╤ does look somewhat like a table and g obviously does not stand for "elephant")
Vattic's symbols actually do a good job of characterizing the entities without making things too cluttered.