91
Bay 12 Games Forum
- April 04, 2024, 12:12:17 pm
- Welcome, Guest
News:
March 6, 2024: Dwarf Fortress 50.12 has been released.
News: February 3, 2024: The February '24 Report is up.
News: February 4, 2021: Dwarf Fortress Talk #28 has been posted.
News: November 21, 2018: A new Threetoe story has been posted.
Forum Guidelines
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.
92
DF Bug Reports / [40c] Freezing water and ice blocks not behaving like they used to
« on: September 04, 2008, 12:30:39 pm »
Trying to make a fortress of ice in the new version:
1) After five maps with "temperate" biomes, I've yet to see any water freeze during winter. Tried a "cold" biome, and only two tiny pools out of many ever froze, even through I have half a river and lots of other pools that visually fall definately into the "cold" biome part of my map.
2) On that same "cold" map, mining the little ice I did have generated no ice blocks at all. Mining ice on a "freezing" map generated ice blocks as expected.
1) After five maps with "temperate" biomes, I've yet to see any water freeze during winter. Tried a "cold" biome, and only two tiny pools out of many ever froze, even through I have half a river and lots of other pools that visually fall definately into the "cold" biome part of my map.
2) On that same "cold" map, mining the little ice I did have generated no ice blocks at all. Mining ice on a "freezing" map generated ice blocks as expected.
93
DF Gameplay Questions / Building with ice?
« on: September 03, 2008, 07:12:17 pm »
I'm trying to build a fortress out of ice, and I'm having some difficulty:
1) According to the wiki, in "Temperate" climates, water above ground will freeze during winter. This simply isn't true. It doesn't. I've played almost half a dozen temperate maps and NONE of them have frozen during winter. Why? Is this a bug, is the wiki simply incorrect, or is this an extreme case of the RNG not cooperating?
2) Even in COLD climates, not all aboveground water will necesarily freeze. I've been starting and restarting trying to get a suitable map, but in my current map, even through the middle of winter, only two tiny ponds froze. Yes, I've checked biomes. Even in a "cold" biome the vast majority of my water is not freezing. This doesn't seem right to me. Again....bug, or is there something obvious I'm missing?
3) Here's the strange one: On "cold" maps, even when water DOES freeze, for some reason I'm not actually getting blocks of ice when I mine it. The ice is just mining to murky pools, and whatnot. I've tried both tunneling down and mining under the ice floor above, I've tried channeling the ice from above, but either way I don't get ice. However, on a "freezing" map, mining into the river gives me ice blocks without any difficulty. But, this is inconvenient because on freezing maps the water never melts. I'm simply trying to get a river that freezes over part of the year so I can mine ice blocks, but still have irrigable water at some point during the year. How do I get this?
4) Even if I do play on a freezing map, if the river never thaws, once I get the ice from it I can....that's it. To get ice in any meaningful quantity the river has to freeze and thaw over and over to replienish the ice that I've mined out. Again...how do I get this?
5) How do you stockpile ice? My dwarves don't seem to want to move it into any type of stockpile. I can build with it, but how do I move it around so my haulers are hauling instead of my masons?
Thank you,
1) According to the wiki, in "Temperate" climates, water above ground will freeze during winter. This simply isn't true. It doesn't. I've played almost half a dozen temperate maps and NONE of them have frozen during winter. Why? Is this a bug, is the wiki simply incorrect, or is this an extreme case of the RNG not cooperating?
2) Even in COLD climates, not all aboveground water will necesarily freeze. I've been starting and restarting trying to get a suitable map, but in my current map, even through the middle of winter, only two tiny ponds froze. Yes, I've checked biomes. Even in a "cold" biome the vast majority of my water is not freezing. This doesn't seem right to me. Again....bug, or is there something obvious I'm missing?
3) Here's the strange one: On "cold" maps, even when water DOES freeze, for some reason I'm not actually getting blocks of ice when I mine it. The ice is just mining to murky pools, and whatnot. I've tried both tunneling down and mining under the ice floor above, I've tried channeling the ice from above, but either way I don't get ice. However, on a "freezing" map, mining into the river gives me ice blocks without any difficulty. But, this is inconvenient because on freezing maps the water never melts. I'm simply trying to get a river that freezes over part of the year so I can mine ice blocks, but still have irrigable water at some point during the year. How do I get this?
4) Even if I do play on a freezing map, if the river never thaws, once I get the ice from it I can....that's it. To get ice in any meaningful quantity the river has to freeze and thaw over and over to replienish the ice that I've mined out. Again...how do I get this?
5) How do you stockpile ice? My dwarves don't seem to want to move it into any type of stockpile. I can build with it, but how do I move it around so my haulers are hauling instead of my masons?
Thank you,
94
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Metalless fortresses, a good thing.
« on: August 12, 2008, 10:26:46 am »
I'm finding that fortresses without metal can work extremely well. Metal industry is kind of a lot of effort, and metal isn't really all that much better than easier-to-get alternatives. Often, metal isn't even as good as the alternative.
Swords, for instance. Obsidian is way easier to get than steel, does just as much damage, and I can easily count on the fact of having several highly trained stonecrafters with every fortress by mass producing stonecrafts to clear out my hallways. Consquently, it's easy to get masterpiece obsidian swords, whereas it's difficult, expensive and time-consuming to get even "superior" quality metal swords. Plus, if I lose a legendary stonecrafter to a mood, it's not a big deal because I probably have two or three more. Losing a legendary weaponsmith...that's an unhappy thought.
Traps? No big deal. Stonefall traps, and wooden corkscrew traps work perfectly well. And like stonecrafts, a highly trained carpenter to give quality bonuses to your wooden corksrew is much easier to get than a highly trained metalsmith. Plus, personally I tend not to go overboard with traps anyway. Having a 10x3 row of serated steel discs makes sieges silly easy. But again, if you want traps...you don't need metal, and it's a lot less effort to use stone and wood.
It's not like anyone needs metal for trade goods or improving room values. There's always a massive surplus of stone, and I tend to find statues unneccesary anyway. Just make a room a couple squares bigger and engrave it. Poof! More valuable.
Armor is the only thing...but I've been playing mostly metal-less fortresses lately, and I really don't miss it. Maybe leather and bone armors aren't as good as steel, but it's cheaper, faster and easier to make them, and personally most of my millitary tends to be marksdwarves anyway.
....
Plus there are a lot of other benefits to avoiding metal:
* More flexibility in map locations since you're less dependant on magma, or if you don't have magma, you don't need to cut down an entire forest for fuel
* An extra 1000 points at start since you don't really need the anvil
* Pretty much an extra useful dwarf at the start, since there's no reason to invest in any of the metal-related skills
* No need to dig out the entire map looking for ore, and consequently less having to deal with stone all over the place
* No need to deal with smelting goblin gear. I know a lot of people think of this as a great source of iron rather than something that needs to be "dealt with," but you do need to wait *years* for the goblins to give you iron in any meaningful quantity, by which time you can easily already have all your legendary stone, leather, wood and bone crafters cranking out masterpiece weapons, armor, bolts, traps, shields, etc. So instead of burning up ten pieces of charcoal or depending on a magma smelter to get your one or two iron bars from a dozen goblin items, you can trade them away and increase your total exports.
* -=Amazingly=- less time and effort spent training skills, and much better synergy with skills you're training anyway. All of my fortresses have highly trained masons, stonecrafters and carpenters, and these are the professions that are taking over most of the work the metal industry does.
Metal really doesn't seem to be very worthwhile.
Thoughts?
Swords, for instance. Obsidian is way easier to get than steel, does just as much damage, and I can easily count on the fact of having several highly trained stonecrafters with every fortress by mass producing stonecrafts to clear out my hallways. Consquently, it's easy to get masterpiece obsidian swords, whereas it's difficult, expensive and time-consuming to get even "superior" quality metal swords. Plus, if I lose a legendary stonecrafter to a mood, it's not a big deal because I probably have two or three more. Losing a legendary weaponsmith...that's an unhappy thought.
Traps? No big deal. Stonefall traps, and wooden corkscrew traps work perfectly well. And like stonecrafts, a highly trained carpenter to give quality bonuses to your wooden corksrew is much easier to get than a highly trained metalsmith. Plus, personally I tend not to go overboard with traps anyway. Having a 10x3 row of serated steel discs makes sieges silly easy. But again, if you want traps...you don't need metal, and it's a lot less effort to use stone and wood.
It's not like anyone needs metal for trade goods or improving room values. There's always a massive surplus of stone, and I tend to find statues unneccesary anyway. Just make a room a couple squares bigger and engrave it. Poof! More valuable.
Armor is the only thing...but I've been playing mostly metal-less fortresses lately, and I really don't miss it. Maybe leather and bone armors aren't as good as steel, but it's cheaper, faster and easier to make them, and personally most of my millitary tends to be marksdwarves anyway.
....
Plus there are a lot of other benefits to avoiding metal:
* More flexibility in map locations since you're less dependant on magma, or if you don't have magma, you don't need to cut down an entire forest for fuel
* An extra 1000 points at start since you don't really need the anvil
* Pretty much an extra useful dwarf at the start, since there's no reason to invest in any of the metal-related skills
* No need to dig out the entire map looking for ore, and consequently less having to deal with stone all over the place
* No need to deal with smelting goblin gear. I know a lot of people think of this as a great source of iron rather than something that needs to be "dealt with," but you do need to wait *years* for the goblins to give you iron in any meaningful quantity, by which time you can easily already have all your legendary stone, leather, wood and bone crafters cranking out masterpiece weapons, armor, bolts, traps, shields, etc. So instead of burning up ten pieces of charcoal or depending on a magma smelter to get your one or two iron bars from a dozen goblin items, you can trade them away and increase your total exports.
* -=Amazingly=- less time and effort spent training skills, and much better synergy with skills you're training anyway. All of my fortresses have highly trained masons, stonecrafters and carpenters, and these are the professions that are taking over most of the work the metal industry does.
Metal really doesn't seem to be very worthwhile.
Thoughts?
95
DF Gameplay Questions / Back after a long absence
« on: March 07, 2008, 09:39:00 pm »
Hello everyone. 
So after having been away for a long time, I've downloaded the most recent version and I've played a few fortress with the new a-axis. Is it just me, or has Dwarf Fortess become much kinder and gentler than it used to be?
1) It seems like there's nothing to fight. Over three fortresses and about four years of gameplay, I've had a grand total of one fight, and that was against a kobold who was dead before I even got to see him. I haven't seen a single unicorn, not one elephant, no tigers...nothing. What happened to evil zombie elephants picking off dwarves in the first month of gameplay? What happened to scrolling through pages and pages of hungry wandering monsters? In my current fortress I've mined all the way to the very bottom of the z-axis and have mined nearly from end to end, and I haven't seen anything interesting. No demons, no imps, no chasm monsters...nothing. Am I simply seeing a peculiar streak of luck, or are there a lot less monsters than there used to be?
2) I haven't seen anything else either. No rivers, no chasms, no magma, no adamantium, and scarcely any metal. I've found some casseterite veins and that's it. In the 2d version it used to take a year of gameplay for me to work my way to the magma, and by the time I had I'd have gone through a river, a chasm and several different types of metal. Now, I can mine straight to the bottom of the z-axis in five or ten minutes of real time and build my fortress from the very bottom immediately. But there isn't a lot incentive to. I'm finding the same stone and the same ore at 15 levels down as I am at five or six levels down. Is it supposed to be like this? Shouldn't there *be* something in the mountain?
3) It used to be that getting past the river and building your first irrigated farm was the first real milestone in for any fortress. Now...it kind of seems like the whole food gathering process is really easy, and irrigation isn't worth bothering with. All three maps I've played have had a couple levels of moist soil, so I've been able to carve out farms in any shape I want and instantly start farming. No point in irrigating at all. I suppose one could build a farm on the bottom of the z-axis and irrigate that with water from the surface, but why go to the effort, and why risk a mistake that could flood your fortress when you can simply build an enclosed farm near the surface, directly above your food processing area? Carrying food up and down 15 flights of stairs is a lot faster, easier and safer than dealing with irrigation. Is there something I'm missing here, or is irrigation pretty much a thing of the past?
4) The game seems a lot easier than it used to be. Nobody is starving, nobody is fighting, nobody has died. There's just nothing going on. Food can be farmed through winter, so there's no need to save for it. Winter used to be a bad, dangerous thing. A time when people starved and died. Now winter is actually convenient because you can mine through frozen rivers. There's no more cave-river-flood to kill miners, no more magma spurt to turn them into dwarf-goo, and I have miners who have survived multiple cave-ins without so much as a mangled arm. Once he was knocked unconscious and had to be carried away, but when he woke up he was fine, completely uninjured and went right back to work. In my second game I deliberately flooded my fortress and the water moved so slowly that people just walked out. It used to be hard to survive, now it seems hard to die. What's the deal?
5) The entire pace of the game has changed. There doesn't seem to be any progression any more. I can start with a forge and start a metal industry before the first wave of immigrants, I can mine to the bottom of the mountain before the end of the first season. Winter, like I said, is pretty much meaningless now, and there just doesn't seem to be as much to do. In 2d it used to be a struggle to get things done in time. Now it seems pretty trivial to have more food and booze than I know what to do with and private bedrooms for forty dwarves carved out before I even get to my first winter. What's going on? Why is the construction pace so much faster and easier than it used to be? In 2d I remember having to hurry and strategize, but now it seems like I can get everything done before my first batch of immigrants arrive, and when they do the game almost feels over.
Is anyone else having these issues? Again, is it just me, or does Dwarf Fortress seem much gentler than it used to be?
96
DF Gameplay Questions / No hematite?
« on: March 26, 2007, 04:13:00 pm »
Is it possible for maps to spawn with zero hematite? I've long since reached magma, and I've spent the past year with four miners digging out screen after screen of rock...and I've yet to find any.
Being forever unable to make steel would be...unfortunate.
Bucket Man
97
DF Gameplay Questions / Conversational playstyle questions
« on: March 18, 2007, 08:35:00 am »
We each have our own preferences and playstyle. I'm curious to share and hear some perspective from others:
* Do you use underground tree farms? If so, why?
Unless you're playing a challenge map, I really don't see any reason for these. Tree farms take a lot of time and space, generate a lot of unsightly clutter, and I don't personally find them very useful. Even on an only moderately wooded map, there just isn't any shortage of wood outdoors. Plus it's not like there's a tremendous demand for wood. Barrels, bins and beds are the only things you absolutely need wood for, and I find that once I'm past the first year or two, my wood consumption drops off considerably. I'm generally not fertilizing fields any more, and lava smelters reduce the need for wood as fuel. Tree farms do allow you to completely "turtle-up" inside your fortress, but how much do you really benefit from that? Sieges don't exactly happen often, and if you lose the occassional lumberjack to rampaging elephants, there are always plenty more to replace him.
* Where do you like to build your fortress relative to the cliff face, river, chasm and magma? Why?
Personally I've found that I like between the river and the chasm best. Largely for the standard reasons, but also because it allows me to completely mine out absolutely anything I want near the lava without having to worry about aesthetics or leaving walls for buildings. The most valuable deposits are back there, and my worker dwarves don't really need gold and platinum in their bedroom walls.
* How do you relate with the other civilizations? Do you depend on trade? Is it irrelevant to you? Do you think of caravans as opportunities, nuisances, or irrelevant?
I don't get much out of trading, and I like to have battles. So I seize everything, and generally use drawbridges to starve merchants. Not very nice, but I save a lot of time and energy building crafts and roads, get all the benefit of trade, and also get to have a more interesting game in the form of battles. Even without using lava traps, steam rooms, or bridge crushing, it seems like combat is a little too easy unless you really go out of your way to provoke the other civilizations. Five or six traps and a half dozen dwarves will easily protect you from anything for years and years.
* What's most important to you hwne you design your fortress? Aesthetics? Efficiency? Defense? Mining out every last ounce of valuable ore? Overcoming obstacles as the game presents them?
With me it's mostly aesthetics and defense. Gems and ore tend to annoy me, both because they make my fortresses less 'pretty' and because they prevent fortifications. And I'm one of those people who likes to clean up ALL the leftover stone. It seems so unsightly to leave it strewn all through the hallways. So what if I have to commit twenty dwarves for a year to clean it up? It's not like they had anything better to do.
* What's your pace? Do you rush out your entire design in the first five minutes and then impatiently wait for the dwarves to get to it? Or do you slowly progress through the mountain, designing as you go for years?
Unfortunately I find it's best when I take my time advancing into the mountain. Sure, it's possible to rush all the way to magma, even, but witout having infrastructure already established, I find I don't get much out of it. Plus it's much easier to keep everything tidy and "in proper order" if taken one step at a time. For instance, in my latest fortress, I've made a point of smoothing out anything before I ever build on it. Hallways can come last, but every door, every stockpile, everything gets smoothed first. Easier to keep track of what's been done that way. Plus, taking my time digging deeper makes it a LOT easier to stay current on hauling chores. It's difficult to try to play catch-up with that. With five pieces of rubbish each on opposite sides of the fortress, hauling dwarves have an unfortunate tendancy to alternate between opposte sides, rather than more efficiently cleaning then all from one side at a time. Having only a small area to clean up makes this much less of a hassle, and while slower, is probably more efficient in the long run.
What about you? What's your playstyle? Anything you'd like to know about how and why other people play?
Bucket Man
98
DF Gameplay Questions / Animals eat seeds!
« on: March 16, 2007, 06:13:00 am »
So I just started a new fortress, and decided to start farming as soon as possible by using the very first river overflow to make mud, and planting a field right in the middle of my primary corridor. I had two proficient farmers, and...much to my distress, proceeded to watch as SEVENTEEN "Urikbak Firecrotch cancels plant: seed lost or destroyed" messages flash across my screen. Something was very obviously wrong...and after paying more close attention, I realized what it was:
Nearby cattle will eat seeds being planted by farmers!
So, I just thought I would post for the benefit of anyone else who hadn't realized it yet.
Enjoy,
Bucket Man
99
DF Bug Reports / Unplaced floodgates block water
« on: March 05, 2007, 09:11:00 pm »
It's possible to block a flood simply by queuing a floodgate. It doesn't actually have to be placed to stop water, just queued.
Consequently, if you have a few floodgates on hand, you can always stop any flood, anywhere, instantly.
Bucket Man
100
DF Suggestions / Legendary, Moods and Artifacts
« on: April 24, 2007, 03:06:00 pm »
I've noticed that with the exception of miners and detailers, pretty much all of my Legendary dwarves come from random artifacts, and that practice and training don't count for a whole lot.
Is this a balance we really like?
For example, I routinely start with Proficient stone masons and carpenters, generally set them to work right away, and often have them working almost non-stop. But, I don't think I've EVER had a stone mason or carpenter make it to Legendary from actual practice. Instead, it's generally some random idiot cutting trees, or doing something totally else, who, on a whim, suddenly decides to go build an artifact and POOF! they're Legendary.
This doesn't really make a lot of sense to me, and I don't think it adds anything to the game.
Plus, the whole 'moods' thing is annoying to begin with. Dwarves randomly deciding to kill themselves if some random bunch of ingredients (that they should know aren't available since they've lived in the fortress for years) suddenly materialize? Even more annoying when the dwarf who takes the mood happens to be the only talented craftsman you have of that particular profession.
Does any of this make sense? Is there anyone out there who enjoys it when their dwarves kill themselves for no good reason?
I propose that:
* Random 'crafting moods' be eliminated.
* A new system for artifact construction be implemented.
What? How about this: Artifact construction may be initiated at any time, for any dwarf, by the player, with chance of success being determined by combining the dwarves skill level with the quality of ingredients used. For example, say that 50% of the chance to succeed is determined by the skill level of the dwarf, scaled from 0% success at zero proficiency up to about 40% success at Legendary. The other 50% is from ingredients, also with a 40% cap, and with more and better ingredients giving better odds. But, the maximum chance of success in any case would cap at 80%. And, further cap the maximum value of the ingredient bonus by the value of the skill bonus. So, a 'novice' craftsman using adamant would still have zero chance of success. A moderately skilled craftsmen who receives a 20% chance of success from skill would similarly be limited to a bonus of an extra 20% from ingredients, for a net of 40%. From the artifact creation interface, the player may choose to attempt to build any 'type' of artifact. Thus, deliberate creation of spectacular weapon and armor artifacts would be possible, but, any failure to create the artifact would result in the craftsman committing suicide, similar to the present arrangement.
101
DF Suggestions / Solution for Water Equilibrium Problem
« on: April 10, 2007, 02:29:00 am »
(From Future of the Fortress)
>just talking about reaching a hydrostatic equilibrium.
>Terminology aside, here's a simple test case:
code:
0.0 0.0
7W0 0W0
7W0 --- becomes ---> 7W7
7W7 7W7
7W7 7W7
777 777
I think we can solve this.
First:
How about assign a 'water density' value to each square, and allow squares to 'give' single point of density to adjacent sqaures when conditions are suiatble. Assert that for each additional z-axis of depth, the density capacity of an area increases by one relative to the squares above it.
Rule 1: Any time a square has a density two or more greater than the density of the square above it (current Z + 1), it 'gives' one point of density to that squares.
Rule 2: (If after Rule one has been checked) Any square has a density two or more greater than the density of any of the four squares adjacent to it at current elevation, it gives one point of density to any one of those squares.
Rule 3: Any time a squares has a density greater by one, than any of the four squares adjacent to it on equivalent level of Z, it will give one point of density to one of those squares, on a random basis.
Rule 4: Diagonal exchanges are unneccesary, and probably easier to ignore. Thus, any given volume of water may only give density to six possible adjacent squares.
Now let's take a look at at example:
(X-Z crossview)
Initial state:
code:
z=0 000
z=-1 1W0
z=-2 2W0
z=-3 3W1
z=-4 3W2
z=-5 4W3
z=-6 554W = Wall
# = Density value of water (0 = empty space)
No violation of Rule 1 occurs. Nothing is 'required' to happen. However, because of Rule 3, eventually a horizontal exchange will occur on the Z=-6 level, resulting in this state:
code:
z=0 000
z=-1 1W0
z=-2 2W0
z=-3 3W1
z=-4 3W2
z=-5 4W3
z=-6 545
Which then results in the following chain reaction over time:
code:
z=0 000 000 000 000
z=-1 1W0 1W0 1W0 1W0
z=-2 2W0 2W0 2W0 2W1
z=-3 3W1 --> 3W1 --> 3W2 --> 3W1
z=-4 3W2 3W3 3W2 3W2
z=-5 4W4 4W3 4W3 4W3
z=-6 544 544 544 544
At which point it appears to have reached equilibrium. However...once again, because of Rule 3 and random exchanges on equivalent levels of Z, that extra point of density on the level of Z=-6 is eventually going to work its way over to the other side:
code:
z=0 000 000 000 (Now we 000 000 000
z=-1 1W0 1W0 1W0 invoke 1W0 1W0 1W0
z=-2 2W1 2W1 2W1 Rule 1) 2W1 2W1 2W1
z=-3 3W1 --> 3W1 -->3W1 -------> 3W1 --> 3W1 --> 3W2
z=-4 3W2 3W2 3W2 3W2 3W3 3W2
z=-5 4W3 4W3 4W3 4W4 4W3 4W3
z=-6 544 454 445 444 444 444
The levels have evened out as much as they can. The overall elevation has improved. Obviously I've chosen an initial state that was 'off-by-one' so you don't end up with exactly equal water levels, but that doesn't matter. To see why, we need to examine the Y-axis:
(XY top-view)
code:
1.0
1.0
1.01=water density
.=walkable floor. (The top of that W in the previous example.)
0=empty space
Seen from this angle, (what the player will actually see) the elevation disparity doesn't appear to be a problem. It simply looks like water on one side, and empty space, leading downward to water on the other. No problem with this.
But, let's now zoom out, and take it a step further:
code:View at Z=0 View at Z=-1
0000000.000000 1111111W111111
0000000.000000 1111111W111111
0000011.000000 1111122W111111
0000111.000000 1111222W111111
0000111.000000 1111222W111111
0000111.000000 1111122W111111
0000011.000000 1111111W111111
0000000.000000 1111111W111111
Because of Rule 2, those 1's are going to randomly move around across the board of 0's. But, the reality is that because of the randomness of the water current, you're probably never going to have a purely 'still' pond, and it's really going to look more like this:
code:
View at Z=0 View at Z=-1 View at Z=0 View at Z=-1
0000000.000000 2111111W111111 0000000.000000 2111111W111111
0000000.000000 1111111W111111 0000001.000000 1111111W111111
0000011.000000 1111122W111111 0010110.000000 1111122W111111
0000111.000000 1121222W111111 0000011.000000 1111212W111111
0000111.000000 1111121W112111 --becomes--> 0001011.001000 1111121W111111
0000111.000000 1121111W111111 0010111.000000 1111111W111111
0000011.000000 1111121W111112 0000101.000001 1111121W111111
0000000.000000 1111111W111111 0000000.000000 1111111W111111
Do you see what's going on? Because of Rule 1, those 2's on the level below are pushing up and becoming ones on the level above, all while simultaneously, because of Rule 3, those 1's are (randomly) moving horizontally over to the 0's on equivalent level of Z.
And, viola! We have just created water currents, with no additional effort.
Now, while this is neat, we might want to control the behavior of those currents, which we can do in a variety of ways, depending on exactly what we want to accomplish.
1) If our goal is to make life easy for the player, we could say that: If at any time a 1 exists completely surrounded by 0's on it's X-Y axes, then it disappears. Poof! Gone. (Or perhaps disappears some percent of the time.) This will allow water to be turbulent when conditions change, but will cause them to generally disperse and even out over time, as well as ultimately bring an end to situations where 1-deep floods randomly wander through the Fortress.
2) We could do the above, but only when the level of Z is a certain height relative to ground level. This would allow currents, but eliminate 'flood the world' type situations.
3) We could come up with some 'Life' style rules that created psuedo-realistic current flows, in one form or another. For example, we could pick a general direction of water flow at time of map creation, and bias the random number generator to make extra 1's flow in that direction 10% more often than any other direction. Then assert that water may leave the map once it reaches the map edge.
4) For that matter, if you wanted general water flow, when the map was created you could assign an source/entrance river at a map edge, and bias the random number generator to move water away from it. Then, any time water left the map, it would re-appear again at the source. We now have directional current.
Lots of options. But, I think establishing water density is the basic solution to the problem. And doing so could have all sort of neat implications for water flow, and all without ever having to worry about tracking actual direction of movement. Just have a couple rules, allow water to move semi-randomly, and let it sort itself out.
[ April 10, 2007: Message edited by: LordBucket ]
102
DF Suggestions / Several Feature Requests
« on: March 05, 2007, 09:33:00 pm »
* It would be nice to be able to "fill in" empty channels. Channels are created when you remove wells and floodgates, and it can be inconvenient to have channels permanantly in their place if you subsequently remove them. It would also provide a workaround for certain other issues. For example, the "perma muddy shrub" issue could be worked around by building a channel and filling it.
* It would be nice to be able to mark dangerous animals to be hunted down and killed.
* It would be nice if we could sort our dwarves in the list by name or profession. With pages and pages of dwarves in the list, it can be very difficult to find the dwarf you're looking for.
* Similarly, it would be nice if there were a way to filter dwarves by profession/level. If catastrophe strikes and I suddenly need everybody with any food gathering or farming skill, it can be amazingly tedious to have to check fifty dwarves manually.
* It would be nice if there were better ways to view material inventories. For example, looking at a stockpile, it would be nice to have an itemized list of its contents.
* It would be nice if "k" view displayed more information. For example, if I'm looking at a fish barral, I'd like to know how many units of fish are in it. If I'm looking at a dwarf, I'd like to know what he's doing right now. Etc.
* It would be nice if the custom stockpile interface were consistent. Up/down/left/right to navigate, and enter to toggle. Having to press e/d sometimes, and enter some other times is awkward.
* It would be nice if we could smooth/fortify walls with gems/ore. Personally I enjoy building nifty fortresses more than collecting every last ounce of material from the map.
* It would be nice if the map didn't load/uoload with every single step in Adventure mode. I'd like to be able to explore the world.
* It would be nice if there were, in addition to the current "Dwarf Fortress" and "Adventure" modes, there were also a third mode that allowed you to play a SINGLE fortress map without having to take twenty minutes to an entire world and hope you get terrain types you want to play. Simply play in "Skirmish" mode, and choose the temperature/trees/etc. that you want to play with.
* It would be nice if there were a way to center the screen on any position.
* It would be nice if there were a display option (similar to toggle engravings) that allowed you to unify the color display of terrain with different stone types. Again, I'm more interested in having a nifty fortress than mining stone, so I'd ilke to be able to have a pretty wall of only a single color, rather than alternating between gray and white every few spaces. Especially with walls that are not only smoothed, but also engraved. As is those can become very visually awkward.
Thank you,
Bucket Man
103
Curses / LCS: Assassination
« on: April 05, 2008, 05:52:00 pm »
Why not allow squads to conduct raids to assassinate political leaders?
Don't want to wait eight years to replace the current president? Raid the white house, assassinate him, and the vice-president takes over.
Don't want to wait forty years for a justice to step down? Raid the Supreme Court, and put him out of your misery.
Of course, after the first succesful raid on a location, subsequent raids become far more difficult.
[ April 05, 2008: Message edited by: LordBucket ]
104
Curses / LCS: General feedback
« on: March 15, 2008, 05:40:00 am »
Hello, everyone.
I played LCS extensively about six months ago, and decided to download the latest version and see how it's changed. I thought I'd offer some general feedback and suggestions.
General impression:
LCS doesn't seem as fun as it used to be. In general I notice that the game is a lot more tedious than it used to be. It seems like there are a lot of places that requires six or seven keystrokes just to do a single thing. Sometimes, things that you want to do extremely often. There's even more micromanagment than there used to be, and like before, there's very rarely any meaningful feedback to give you any idea what effect your choices make. I really like the idea of the game, but it's so frustrating and tedious that it's difficult to actually enjoy playing.
Some specifics
* So here's a situation that I'm sure every LCS player can relate to: You're in the Vegan co-op early on, simply gathering up people to fund your operation. The game doesn't keep track of people at all, and just creates the illusion of there being people in the map by giving you encounters on a completely random basis. Consequently I end up mindlessly pressing back and forth...left and right...over and over...until I get an encounter. There's nothing I can do to actively seek encounters, I'm just mindlessly mashing keys. This isn't fun.
* After finally getting an encounter with people I actually want to talk to, I then get to tediously pick my way through a bunch of options. Let's say I get five liberal hippes, and I want to invite them all. Here's the key sequence: t-a-a-anykey-anykey-(a-l)-anykey-anykey-anykey. And that's for EACH of them. That's a LOT of keys, and since there are five hippes, I have to do it five times. Nine keys times five hippes is FORTY FIVE keystrokes to do one thing: invite the liberals to join me. This is WAY TOO MANY. And, even worse, because it's so ridiculously many, what often happens is that my actual keystrokes go from t-a-a-anykey-anykey-(PickATopic)-anykey-anykey-anykey to t-a-a-anykey-anykey-(I Don't Care just press a)-anykey-anykey-anykey to t-a-a-a-(a)-a-a-a. Come on...everyone knows what I'm talking about. And then t-a-a-a-(a)-a-a-a becomes t-MashDownTheAKey. Again, we're mashing keys to play this game. This is not fun. Especially because for some absolutely baffling reason, the awdx keys are all mapped to movement, so when I mash the a key I end up pressing it too many times and moving out of the encounter instead of actually talking to a hippy. So then I get to go back to mashing movement keys to get another encounter, which, if it takes me ten more seconds of mashing movement keys, the brain tends to go numb, and I end up accidentally continuing right past the next encounter. I'm being harsh here, but seriously...does ANYONE playing LCS not have this problem? The awdx keys need to be made to NOT cause movement. Ideally an actual map with people in it that we go see and intentionally approach would be added. If that's too much effort and the keyboard-movement-mashing for encounters is going to stay, the "There is somebody up ahead" message could be made to require the spacebar to clear it and place you into the encounter. That will prevent movement keys from bumping you out of it while you're in that mind-numbed state from mashing keys to begin with. I would also add allow the numeric keypad for movement since it's more comfortable on the fingers than the arrow keys.
* It's amazingly frustrating that there's absolutely no feedback on what your various actions do in terms of training. A LOT of LCS is just training skills, but it's never really clear what trains skills, nor by how much. Does "Sell Liberal Music" cause the music skill to raise? Uhh...I don't know. Maybe. If it does, how much does it raise it? .01? 0.2? Let's say it's .02. That means that you have to do it FIFTY times to get a single skill point. So, what happens? Well, whatever the skill you want to raise, you end up setting the appropriate activity, and once again, holding down keys. In this case the "W"ait a day key, for a couple months of game time to get your skill raise. But, what if it's an activity that isn't legal? Selling brownies for Streetsense skill, for instance. You hold down your key, and after a few weeks your activist is arrested, and then you get to wait before you can resume. Depending on the time of the month he gets arrested, you may end up having to wait through a month to be moved, and then another month to get to trial. Sixty days waiting, just so you can get back to your "W" key mashing some more. You may end up having to spend six months just to see if the action that you're doing even raises the skill you care about. This is not fun. These things NEED to be documented...and...this is such an obvious thing...why not DISPLAY fractional skill values when viewing an activist's profile? Then we wouldn't need to mash any keys, or spend an hour of real time just to see how much an action raises a skill. We could do it once, and then check. It would make things so much easier.
* Interogation: Nice idea, but the way it's implemented isn't really fun. It's just tedious. Oh sure, it's kind of neat the first couple times, but like so much else even after playing for the past four hours, I really have very little idea what effect anything I do has on anything. In particular, I really can't tell if the Interogation skill has ANY effect on conversion at all. I've succesfully converted people from 14 wisdom even in the first five minutes of gameplay with only one point of Interogation, but I've also seen conservatives with 1 heart and 1 wisdom fail to convert after three days with a 200+ juice interogator with 20 interogation skill, persuasion somewhere in the teens and who they're clinging to as their only friend. My impression is that short of killing the hostage, the whole thing is really terribly random. I've experimented a lot with it, and the best results I seem to get are from:
- Never beat
- Always drug
- Always dark
- Always try to convert
Starve, dehydrate and sleep deprive for the first three days. On day four give them sleep and water. On day five add food. Continue as is until they convert.
Sometimes toggling lights and physical restraints will cause a borderline case to convert, as sometimes will repeating the cycle of no food and water, but overall the whole process just screams *random* at me. The process that I described above works only slightly better than simply accepting the defaults from repeating them from day one. And, it's a lot of time, effort and keypresses for something that seems so random. And, let's not forget this whole process is to get sleepers, who, in most cases have mysterious, invisible "unknown" effects on public opinion. So much of this game is like shaking a box to find out what's inside...while blindfolded and wearing earmuffs. It's frustrating.
* Continuing with the theme of keyboard-mashing:
- After interogation, I have to press spacebar anywhere from three to eleven times. I typically have to go through this process between seven and nine times to get a convert. Nobody really enjoys pressing the spacebar a hundred times. Could we replace all of this with a single display? Also, so we have some clue what's going on during the interogation process, could we maybe have color coding of the lines so we know if effects are helpful?
- After my twenty or thirty new Vegan co-op converts have finished their community service, I have to press spacebar for each and every single one. As happens again when they've completed causing trouble, and again when they've found their weapon. What's with all the button mashing? These people are going to perform some liberal acts then disappear in jail and I'm never going to see 95% of them again. They don't need their own spacebar pushes three times for each and every single one of them.
- When they come back, and I invite them to join, I have to press spacebar twice to get to the next convert. I appluad you for only requiring two spacebar presses instead of hundreds....but why do I need to press it twice? Shouldn't once be enough? For that matter...what exactly is all of this process for? There's no documentation, and other than the free weapon that I'm probably not going to use because it's usually a knife I don't see any obvious skill or attribute changes for going through this whole process. I assume that it's doing something, but I don't really have any idea what.
Summary: Again, constant theme of keyboard mashing in this game. It's not fun. Please change it. Doing things without any idea why or what they're accomplishing is also not fun. Please change it.
* Can we have a way to move a squad from one location to another without having to disband and recreate them? The whole heat system requires you to move people around a lot, but doing so is, like so much of the above, really tedious.
* I can go to a location day after day for months, break down doors, destroy equipment, kidnapping and killing people, blowing away security guards left and right...and that's fine. BUT...if I ever lose a squad, then the site goes "high Security" on me. Uhh...what? The one time security actually succeeds in doing its job, that's when they conclude they need to tighten security? This makes no sense. So far as I can tell, high security status isn't as much of a nuisance that it used to be, but what exactly is being gained by this arrangement?
* Why is it that I can shoot somebody multiple times in the head with an AR-15, and then again through their heart...which then explodes...but they're still alive?
* During every single election and voting event, we have a lengthy process of sitting and waiting patiently for the numbers to stop incrementing. Especially when elections go together with propositions, it's like thirty seconds of sitting watching numbers get bigger. This really isn't fun. Could we be allowed to skip this process by pressing space to jump to the final results? Also, could proposition results be color coded, so we can quickly see if they're to our benefit, rather than having finely read and puzzle it out? Some of us are fuzzy on the liberal agenda to begin with, and some of these proposition names are phrased in such a way that they really need to be read closely. True to life? Yes. Fun gameplay? No. Color code it.
I think I'm going to stop now. There's so much more that could be said, but it's already been over half an hour that I've been typing this. I really can't believe that nobody else who has played LCS has had these thoughts. It's a great idea, but the game has become even more frusratingly obscure button-mashing than it used to be. I think it would benefit the game tremendously if it were to move away from this. More documentation. More feedback to the player. Less button mashing. These would be good things.
[ March 15, 2008: Message edited by: LordBucket ]
105
DF General Discussion / Racoons of Death
« on: March 07, 2007, 11:37:00 am »
So, I just started a new game...
Maybe fifteen minutes in, still tunneling out the initial tunnel to the river, when I see the following:
"Rogthirkuk cancels eat: interupted by racoon."
Hmm. Annoying racoons. I ignore it and go back to business.
"Foegirbag cancels drink: interupted by racoons."
At this point I start wondering what kind of racoon this is. I mean...why exactly do dwarves stop drinking because there's a racoon half a map away? Is it an undead racoon? Then, over the next minute my screen erupted with dozen interupts, as three racoons descend on my camp, and the dwarves panic. Everyone stops what they're doing to run around in terrified little circles.
This, of course, amuses the racoons to no end, and they give up on the food they came for to chase the dwarves around for a good laugh.
"Gebugbuh cancels tunnel: interupted by racoon"
"Foegirbag cancels gather wood: interupted by racoon"
"Hebeyuk cancels pregnancy: interupted by racoon"
"Foegirbag cancels the cancellation process: interuped by racoon"
Pages and pages of cancellations. Ordinarily when a racoon whows up I just ignore him and the cancellations, he steals some food or a silk handbag or something, and he's on his way. Not this time. Minutes and minutes of racoon interuptions. Eventually they did lose interest in in dwarves and made for the food. And, how ravenous they were! Not one piece of food stolen...not even one piece of food stolen each, but over the next three or four minutes, TEN PIECES of food were stolen! I really don't know what happened. Whether it was three racoons each coming back for several trips, or whether they were going home and telling their buddies to come play, but I never saw more than three at a time. By the tenth piece of food stolen, though, I was starting to realize that the racoons weren't merely a nuisance.
They were evil.
So, I rallied my forces for our final stand near the furniture stockpile...and, what a glorious battle it was! How proud I was of my dwarves as they courageously held their formation despite only outnumbering the viscious racoons a little over two to one.
Indeed, it was a proud day for dwarves everywhere, and not a single racoon was left standing. Ever shall we remember the Battle of the Furniture Stockpile, the dread day that the Evil Racoons of Death were finally laid to rest.
Bucket Man
[ March 07, 2007: Message edited by: LordBucket ]
[ March 07, 2007: Message edited by: LordBucket ]