Bay 12 Games Forum

Going to be building my first computer soon. My current machine begins to chug around 50~ dwarfs, dropping to abysmal FPS and it's over four years old now. I was hoping I could get some suggestions. My budget's on the semi-economical side (<$700) but I was hoping I could get some advice on what I should focus on. A powerful video card doesn't seem like a good investment, though don't video cards accelerate some non-graphical calculations? Or is that some misinformation I have? I suppose I focus focus on getting a good processor? Would upgrading to 64 bit so I can use 8 gig ram be a good idea? Or is DF relatively memory-light? Should I just invest in a good processor?

Wow... someone follows a blog like that? I found the point about "ancient humans considering their body artificial" interesting, but it's probably something the guy got in an anthropology 101 class. The rest of the article is a rambling mess. The kind of person who writes like this needs to sit down and read some Socrates: "The only thing I know is that I know nothing." A little modesty could go a long way for this guy.

What Toady decides to do is his business. Marketing Dwarf Fortress, a project no gaming company would ever sign on for (10+ years of development at least?) to begin with - is a contradiction it itself. I don't know if society is "wrong" or "right" as to whether we should rebel against it or not, but Toady is directly doing the opposite most companies would do right off the bat. And to market something like dwarf fortress? An /alpha/ game? I know minecraft did that - but the creator of that game is a dirty scumbag from my estimation. It's wrong to charge money for an unfinished product, in my book.

At any rate, dwarf fortress /could/ be marketed when it's finished, if Toady needs some retirement cash. But right now it's not. It's in development and will be for a long time. End of story. There's no product to sell. For it to be even successful as a finished product, it needs to have its entry barriers removed or stifled, which will take a lot of work. I know Toady wants to keep the graphics at a bare minimum, but hopefully by the time DF is at 1.0, stonesense or some similar mod will be so advanced, you'll be able to seamlessly translate between the two, or three or four graphical representations of your fortress. Which suits me just fine, and will probably suit others fine too.

There's nothing quite like Dwarf Fortress simply because of the beastly nature it is to create. Tons of programming. Tons of work. It's not going to be replicated. So there's no point analyzing it like a normal game you go to market with. It is a piece of art, at least in its craftsmanship and the audience it appeals to.

I love fortress mode - but I want to enjoy adventure mode too. And yet... it almost seems like it's not fun unless you have a world map /crawling/ with interesting dungeons. I want to create a world filled with such dungeons, but making them in dwarf mode is a painstaking process. I mean, I can memory hack and embark with 7 legendary miners, all the food/drink I want, et cetera, but it still takes a long time to do, and I was wondering if there is an easier, faster way to just create dungeons using mods. I've looked at most the popular ones and I don't see anything that would speed up this process. Can anyone suggest some things to me? I want to be able to place monsters in cages, mine out large sections of space or build towers swiftly, create complicated traps and monuments, but without the sheer time and effort fortress mode takes.

Okay. I'm really frustrated here. Haven't played DF for about a year (too busy to dedicate the proper time it requires) and I'm just now getting accustomed to the changes (military is especially confusing now). My first meeting hall I dug a channel from a nearby river and ran the water down two Z levels and dug a waterway under the meeting hall. The water "pipe" doesn't immediately go down two Z levels and actually passes over the dining hall briefly, however, I dug no extraneous stairwells or anything while making the channel, it was a sealed waterway.

I got my well operational and food stockpiles and tables and chairs all set up. My dwarfs had a party and everything was great. I let the water into the pipeway and nothing leaked. The dwarfs drank and ate merrily.

And then about an hour (real time) later I find "dangerous terran" text popping up and I scramble to see what's up. There's water in my base! I seal off the dining room and groan, knowing my foodstocks and furniture will be inaccessible.

How did the water get in? I didn't dig any holes. I checked everywhere. I sighed and decided I would just dig a new well a distance away. I tapped into the same water tunnel in a nearby room (about a dozen squares from the now flooded dining hall). I got that well operational after a little hassle of making the chain (wasn't ready to smelt anything yet and was out of cloth).

The new well room was fine and operational. I was satisfied.

Until about 30 minutes later /that/ room was now flooded. There are definitely no holes above the room, and only a single channel space/tile was dug to make the well, in both cases. Did water pressure force the water UP from the well into the room? Is that a new feature? Do I need to put a floodgate at the point where the river and my waterway meet to stem the flow until I need more water (the river freezes over in the winter so I can do this)? What's going on? Any possible explanations for how this could happen twice? With no apparent holes in the ceiling (where some water does passes through).

Additionally, can someone recommend a good way to manage water systems? I've always just dug a few Z levels down and trained the water to where I needed it. Never bothered with wooden pipes or anything like that, I just flood rooms under my base and draw water up with pumps or wells.

edit: While I've made a thread about this, I also have two other general questions about managing my fortresses. Is there an easy solution to deal with migrants? It can be so difficult sometimes to make sure everyone has a bed and is being well fed/hydrated. I usually only find out that a dwarf is homeless or dying when they are at the verge of doing so or are incredibly unhappy. Is there anyway I can make beds be auto assigned to dwarves that enter my command? Secondly, my game starts chugging around 40 dwarves, is it fine to just sac the rest that come? Are vengeful spirits something I should be worried about? I don't want them to stop coming all together, especially if I think I might need them as cannonfodder for exploration and defense.

Thanks.

So if in my example, the whole top floor goes, I can expect all the floors below to be destroyed, provided they're basically symmetrical?

And will it really be instantaneous? What if I make the tower massive? Even if the player can't react, I'd be nice if he had a second or two to realize what was happening before the inevitable came.

Logic-based stuff sounds cool, but a lot of work, especially since it'd be hell to bring water up high enough to do that kind of stuff.

ah, I see

Thanks.

Been playing DF for a about a year and now I'm starting to wonder, just what exactly are dwarves? I'm not aware of any official lore, history, creation myth, etc. on them, so I'm looking for everyone's opinions.

1. Who created the dwarves?

2. Why do dwarves embark?

3. Where do dwarves hail from? Is there a capital city? Why can we never see it on the world map? Is it because the embarked don't belong to a "dwarven nation"? Are these dwarven tribes and factions, instead of colonizers of a civilization?

4. Do dwarves have a written language with syntax, or is it all pictographs? Do they have a number system?

5. How many dwarven words are there for alcohol?

6. How do dwarves feel about the caste system? Do they yearn to be something greater?

7. How do dwarves perceive humans and elves? Have they had any significant history together?

My interpretations:

But enough of my ideas, what does everyone think? Are dwarves bloodthirsty slaves to Armok, or are they gentle philanthropists that get a little too stressed out sometimes (and do naughty things in their fey moods)?