Bay 12 Games Forum

Just thought of a question -

How is health care going to relate to adventure mode? Will you be able to perform basic medical care on yourself and others? Will there be doctors (or whatever is appropriate to the race in question) in town for more serious procedures, like removing the crossbow bolt lodged in your skull?

Quote from: Dasleah on January 22, 2009, 02:38:26 am

Update: We're hanging at irc.efnet.org #bay12refugees until something better comes along.

sounds good. That's where I'll be.

So would I, if I could join any channels on this network at all

ADDED: Apparently everyone is on 'irc.newnet.net' in #bay12games now anyway

Get them to wear chain then switch them to wearing plate, they'll just layer it on over the chain

I thought about this some more, and I think I realise what the problem is - everyone is thinking about this feature in a vacuum, instead of how it will relate with other planned features.

If you took the game as it is right now and just added tunnelers then yeah, I agree, that would suck. Goblins tunnel in, all your military stand around instead of going to where they need to be, everyone gets killed. But think about it in the future.

In the future, they'll have to support the tunnels they are digging to avoid collapse. That means bringing supplies for propping and shoring, if you've clear-cut the trees as many people do. And then you've got lighting. Nobody, not even goblins, can see in absolute darkness. This is going to mean they have to bring torches as well.

So now they can start digging the tunnel. But that much soil has to go somewhere (at least if things go that way). So the big piles of dirt that are outside your fortress are probably going to be a clue that there are sappers on the way.

Speaking of clues, mining makes a lot of noise. Surely there are going to be dwarves hearing that coming through the walls, giving you an idea of where the goblins are going to break through. Using the improved military control, you station your squad there. The entire goblin army is probably going to have some difficulty squeezing through that one hole.

But do they even make it through the hole? Once you know where they're coming from, you could dig your *own* tunnels underneath, with deliberately poor support beams. Then when the entire goblin army, clad in full iron armour, tries to walk through the tunnel your tunnels underneath collapse, burying the unfortunate invaders alive. Not to mention the possibilities of dropping water, magma, boiling oil, rocks or whatever into the tunnels.

And then finally you have the aesthetics issue. Well, after the goblins are all dead you remove the support beams from their tunnels (or set them on fire or something) and bam! - no more tunnels.

In conclusion, I think people need to think about this as the future feature it will be, rather than as a right-now issue.

I can't believe people are sitting there and actually claiming that 'oh it will make my fortress look untidy' is a legitimate reason for not including sappers in the game. This is Dwarf Fortress, not Barbie Dreamhouse. I realise people like having amazing looking fortresses, and I do too. But this is perhaps taking it too far.

Nor can I believe people are actually talking about abstracting sapping away as 'they make an entrance on the surface and then a while later an exit magically appears somewhere' in the game that simulates whether you get blood on your pig tail coat from the goblin who's first finger, right hand you just chopped off.

As for me, I voted yes. I don't think the most complex simulation of fantasy medieval life ever created would really be complete without including one of the staple elements of medieval warfare, especially the one that would work most effectively against someone living underground.

You mean... oh... yeah. That.

OK, this might be a bug. Iceberry turns into a drink named "Something". Maybe this is for Lord Nagash.

Code: [Select]

matgloss_plant_useable.txt:
[MATGLOSS_PLANT:BERRY_ARCTIC]
   <<Thanks to LordNagash>>
[TILE:58][COLOR:3:0:1]
[NAME:iceberry][NAME_PLURAL:iceberries]
[GROWDUR:600][VALUE:3]
[DRY][BIOME:TUNDRA]
[DRINK:something:3:0:1]
[DRINKVALUE:5]
[MILL:iceberry dye:3:0:1]
[MILL_VALUE:20]
[MILL_DYE:PALE_BLUE]
[EDIBLE_RAW]
[EDIBLE_VERMIN]
[AUTUMN][WINTER]
[FREQUENCY:100]
[CLUSTERSIZE:5]
[PREFSTRING:hardy foliage]
[SEED:3:0:0]


Well, that definitely sounds like a placeholder. I uh... use a lot of those, while I attempt to get the creative juices flowing. Whoops.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Kind of not what the topic is about anymore but as far as I remember, sheer cliffs are smoothed out now to avoid path finding problems as someone already said, but also to make it so there aren't dozens of unreachable places in Adventure mode, what with climbing not being in yet and all.