Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Messages - Hammurabi

Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5
46
DF Suggestions / Re: "Hints" System - Simple option for new-player help/accessibility?
« on: June 30, 2010, 08:14:41 am »
Quote from: Virex on June 30, 2010, 02:41:47 am
Wouldn't it be better to let this wait until after V1.0?

I can't see how waiting 20+ years before adding in-game help would be better.  Ideally, the UI needs to be modifiable, so third parties can hints and tutorials.   



47
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: "Using up stone" How does that REALLY work for fps?
« on: June 29, 2010, 01:44:18 pm »
According to this post, the game spends over 80% of the time moving units.  Apparently the moveunit() function does a large amount of redundant checks. 

48
DF Suggestions / Re: Ui fund?
« on: June 29, 2010, 12:37:35 pm »
Quote from: existent on June 29, 2010, 12:32:37 pm
.... yet you stalk the forums?

O.o

Stalking?  Not at all.  If the UI was fixed, I'd play the game and donate.  That's what this thread is about, donating for a UI fund.

49
DF Suggestions / Re: Ui fund?
« on: June 29, 2010, 12:05:25 pm »
Quote from: Retributi0n on June 29, 2010, 11:45:03 am
If the UI bothers people so badly, why are they still playing and donating?

FYI, I'm sure that I'm not alone in not currently playing and not donating.  The game UI and lack of documentation has turned me off. 

50
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: "Using up stone" How does that REALLY work for fps?
« on: June 29, 2010, 07:07:20 am »
On Pathfinding, I wonder if the dorfs pathfind each frame?  Or do they pathfind once upon taking a new job, and only re-pathfind if something happens to their current path?

51
DF Suggestions / Re: Ui fund?
« on: June 28, 2010, 07:09:32 pm »
The question is, how long can 'the elites' continue to fund Toady's development?  Can it cover the next 20 years?  If Toady can continue his hobby, ignoring the UI that he finds boring, and be funded for the rest of his life, then that is wonderful.

IMO, Toady will need to increase the userbase to keep a steady flow of donations.


52
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: "Using up stone" How does that REALLY work for fps?
« on: June 28, 2010, 10:55:02 am »
Quote from: palsch on June 28, 2010, 10:28:21 am
The raw distance to an item is calculated in a relatively simple way; as the eagle flies mole burrows direct distance, ignoring paths. This value is what is calculated and used whenever a dwarf wants a certain item or material. Therefore, the selection method is;
1) Populate list of potential items.
2) Calculate distance to each.
3) Select the 'closest'.
4) Calculate path to this item.

Let's just assume this is how it works.  Obviously as forts get bigger, the selection method takes up more and more time.  Here's what needs to change.

1. A workshop should be able to designate a stockpile to draw from.
2. When a workshop job needs an item, it looks for it in the associated stockpile.
3. If Stockpile doesn't have the item needed, the search reverts back to the old method.
4. If a workshop has no designated stockpile, the search reverts back to the old method.

This results in most jobs only looking for the closest item from a handful of items, instead of every item in the fort.  It also allows some control over the material used for a job by controlling the material in the stockpile. 

 

53
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: "Using up stone" How does that REALLY work for fps?
« on: June 28, 2010, 10:01:51 am »
In another thread, someone profiled DF and found most of the time is spent in pathfinding.  It is unclear if pathfinding is slow due to too many items or some other reason.  What's the best way to structure a test to discover more information?

54
DF Suggestions / Re: Toady, it's time to simplify
« on: June 28, 2010, 09:44:23 am »
Quote from: MaDeR Levap on June 27, 2010, 08:06:24 am
My prediction: development of DF 2 (full title - Slaves to armok: God of blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress) will be halted in 5-10 years due to problems mentioned in many places of this forum (shoot: it will be around 0.45). Toady will at last learn basics of multithreading (this is inevitable), other things and start new game from scratch.

I also think Toady is overambitious in his design.  His feature set for Chapter II is likely to take him 20+ years to implement.  Until then, the game remains in alpha state.  I'd rather see the feature list broken up into 4-6 workable 'Chapters'.  Each Chapter could then be completed in 3-5 years.

What is happening now is called the Second System Effect.
In computing, the second-system effect or sometimes the second-system syndrome refers to the tendency, when following on from a relatively small, elegant, and successful system, to design the successor as an elephantine, feature-laden monstrosity...People who have designed something only once before try to do all the things they “did not get to do last time”, loading the project up with all the things they put off while making version one, even if most of them should be put off in version two as well. 

 

55
DF General Discussion / Re: Will we ever get to a point where forts don't die FPS deaths?
« on: June 18, 2010, 07:33:40 am »
Quote from: Jake on June 18, 2010, 03:42:20 am
Something that's worth bearing in mind here is that the game is currently less than one third feature-complete. At this point Toady One's approach seems to be to put most of his effort into getting the content to fit his vision of the game DF is intended to become, only changing code he's already written when absolutely necessary. Systematic streamlining and optimisation will probably take place after we hit v1.0.
This may be frustrating for us in the short term, but it will ultimately bring us the finished product a lot faster.

%   Release Date
21   8/9/2006
22   10/2/2006
23   1/18/2007
27   10/29/2007
28   7/16/2008
31   4/1/2010

Based on a linear trendline, the v1 is projected to be here sometime around 2034.  I think it is amazing what Toady has done.  Lets just be realistic on how long this ambitious design will take to complete.  Putting off optimizations for another 24 years just isn't going to work.

56
DF Suggestions / Re: Allocate farms to be directly muddied
« on: June 17, 2010, 10:46:58 am »
Quote from: snelg on June 16, 2010, 07:20:33 am
A choice on the farm plot for "have dwarves muddy this plot Y/N" making them automatically go get water from a designated water source with buckets and then muddy the plot with it would be nice. But I'm sure there's going to be a major overhaul of farming somewhere in the future and not sure what's planned.

I think it is fair to say that almost everything in the game is going to have a major overhaul. 

57
DF General Discussion / Re: Will we ever get to a point where forts don't die FPS deaths?
« on: June 17, 2010, 10:17:32 am »
Quote from: Jimmy on June 17, 2010, 06:04:47 am
Hot tip: I see many players using stacked up/down staircases. FYI, these kill your FPS. Ramps are extremely FPS friendly on the other hand.

Why?  Ramps and Stairs are just different names for connecting z-levels, regarding pathing.  IMO, stairs being massively slower than ramps is a bug.   

58
DF Suggestions / Re: Allocate farms to be directly muddied
« on: June 15, 2010, 10:36:43 pm »
The current system defies logic.  I have dwarves, buckets and water.  Yet I cannot just pour water on the ground to make it muddy.  I have to channel down from the z-level above, then designate a pond.  Without this being documented in the wiki, I would have never figured it out. 

One solution would be able to (d)esignate an area to be made muddy.

59
DF General Discussion / Re: What turns you off about DF?
« on: March 15, 2010, 08:53:44 am »
Quote from: Solarn on March 14, 2010, 06:26:08 pm
But then you'd have the problem that the kitchen workshop menu only contains instructions for that particular kitchen, so you'd have to manually set cooking options for every single kitchen you have.

Is that a bad thing?  The standard galley uses the plain ingredients, worked by chefs-in-training, producing food and alcohol for export.  The dwarf's primary kitchen uses the best ingredients, worked only by the master chef, producing the highest quality stuff.  Replace "kitchen" with other types of workshops.  Manage the types of stones used by your legendary Mason directly, not by fiddling with stockpiles to make sure the stone you want the dwarf to use is the closest stone.

This is also newbie friendly.  Someone learning the game won't have multiple workshops of the same type.  So they only have to learn how to manage multiple kitchens once they have gone past the beginning of the game.  The complexity of the game should grow as the game progresses.

60
DF General Discussion / Re: Steep Learning Curve
« on: March 10, 2010, 02:39:16 pm »
I don't recall anyone suggesting that the game needs to be made easier.  It's just the interface needs to be consistent and intuitive.  A well designed interface does not lessen the depth of the game.

Think of the converse.  Every time DF was loaded, all the menus were randomly scrambled with new hotkeys.  (b)uild -(d)oor might become (s)tatus - (r)build - (p)door.  Would this make the game harder to play?  Would it increase the enjoyment?  Would it make the game have more depth?


Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5