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Topics - TurnpikeLad

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1
DF Suggestions / Mining vs. quarrying
« on: March 29, 2023, 01:32:50 pm »
I realize this is stuff that has been in the game for 20 years so probably not first on the list for reprogamming.

However, the conversion efficiency of unmined rock to boulders and the way that efficiency interacts with miner skill has been tweaked a number of times since 2006, so it's not as if mining mechanics are off the table for possible improvement.

The observation I want to make is that the process of mining doesn't usually create a bunch of large boulders that can be carved into nice stone blocks. It usually makes a lot of rubble. The better you are at mining, the faster you can remove chunks of ore or coal from the rock, but you aren't trying to get big nice pieces of stone for masonry.

On the other hand, if you want a really nice piece of stone in the real world, the best way to get it is to cut it directly from a quarry rather than to shape a boulder into a slab or whatever.

I think it would be cool to allow quarrying to be designated separately from mining, and for quarrying to directly create blocks rather than chunks or boulders. Quarrying would always be slower than mining, but an expert quarrydwarf would leave behind a block close to 100% of the time. Most mason tasks would require blocks rather than boulders.

2
DF Modding / Curious about pathfinding: how much info about the map does a creature need?
« on: August 05, 2016, 07:08:30 pm »
As a budding programmer but long time DF fan, the more I venture into writing multithreaded programs the more I've been ruminating about pathfinding and multithreading in dwarf fortress.

Sorry if this is rehashing discussions of the past.  I was wondering what people thought on a couple questions:

* Imagine we attack the problem of pathfinding by starting a new thread for each creature every time they need to path to a new place.  How much information must that thread have access to?  Seems to me the minimum amount of data the thread needs is a starting location, an ending location, and a linked network (each node corresponding to a tile on the map) that it can search to find the shortest distance.  If so, that's the only data which needs to somehow be made threadsafe.

Is that enough data that it is prohibitively expensive to make a copy and pass it to the new thread each time a creature has to pathfind?  I'm imagining that the main program saves a map network every ten frames or something, and each thread takes its own copy of that updating-every-10-frames network so that it can keep working even across refreshes.

* If it turns out that the network is too large to copy for each thread, how plausible do you think the following solutions might be:
- The main program saves a copy of the map network and starts all pending pathfinding requests as new threads.  It only saves a new copy once all threads have completed, however many frames that takes.  This allows all threads to access the same unchanging copy of the map network, preventing us from having to create a new copy for each thread.  Pathfinding requests that come up during the process are started as new threads in the next cycle.
- The main program starts a new thread every x frames (10?) that will handle all pathfinding requests that cropped up in that time period.  That thread is passed its own copy of the map network.  If it takes longer than 10 frames to finish processing all the requests, no matter -- a new thread will be started to handle the new requests.  This way we aren't held up for a long time if, say, 200 dwarves all want to pathfind at once.
- All pathfinding happens on a single constantly running pathfinding thread that is always dequeueing from a list of creatures that require pathfinding (only enqueued by the main thread.)  Every x frames (10?) it gets a request from the main thread to stop after finishing the current pathfinding task and update its copy of the map network.

* How long is too long when it comes to pathfinding algorithm execution time?  If the main game logic were running on a different thread from pathfinding, how many frames of game time are too many between a creature starting to pathfind and obtaining the correct route?  What's the failure mode if it takes too long for dwarves to find a path?  I imagine one danger is that the map might change, but it seems to me that if that happens it isn't too hard to detect that the path isn't connected anymore and start a new pathfinding thread.

I personally would not be too upset if dwarves took ten or so frames to "think" about their destinations, as long as the game isn't running so slowly that those ten frames take longer than a couple seconds.  Sure we'd get a lot of path cancellations because the dwarves are running on old map information, but I would be ok with that if it meant general speed improvements.

3
Other Games / Trials of Ascension's new Kickstarter: Permadeath MMO (after 100 lives)
« on: February 19, 2015, 11:40:33 pm »
Hey folks,

I've been following the people behind this putative MMO for thirteen years now.  This is their second attempt at Kickstarter, after a failed one Nov 2013, and in the intervening year they've put together a lot of neat stuff to look at.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/forgedchaos/trials-of-ascension

The video explains the game pretty well.  It's an MMO with a lot of sandbox systems (many skills, player structures, player settlements and kingdoms, cooperative crafting) and a lot of oddball stuff that's charming and interesting to me.  For example:

The naming system: when mousing over a character you don't see their "true" name, but only the name you've given them;   

Innovations:  when using a skill, you have a small chance to discover an "innovation" to that skill, which is a new technique that only you have access to, but that you can teach to others if you choose.

Spawning:  GMs can place "spawn markers" on the map, which can create forests, monsters, animals, dungeons, etc.. and have internal logic so that, for example, after the population of deer is a certain density wolves will begin to spawn;  Or, when the players have chopped down enough trees, no more trees will grow;  Or, if enough orcs spawn in the orc camp, an orc shaman will spawn and begin leading raids on a nearby town.

They're starting out with three playable races, each with a very different playstyle... humans, "raknar" (giant spiders) and dragons ... with the goal of adding more gradually after the game is released.

I haven't been very active in this community for a few years, but I find there's a lot in this game that I like for the same reason I like Dwarf Fortress, and so I wanted to share it with you guys.  Please check it out!

4
Other Games / Trials of Ascension's Kickstarter just launched!
« on: October 24, 2013, 03:00:56 am »
Check out my old topic here or just go to their Kickstarter page!

This game is pretty much the MMO of my dreams, and I'd love you guys to check it out.  You can read all about the game at http://www.trialsofascension.com/guide ...

I seriously hope their Kickstarter succeeds. I've been waiting to play this game for ten years, and spent hours and hours on the forums discussing and hashing out various parts of their design.  I feel about ToA the same way I do about Dwarf Fortress, which is why I'm here proselytizing to you guys.

Maybe I'll see you guys ingame someday.. I intend to open an alchemy shop.

5
Other Games / Trials of Ascension: a 99-death MMO: come join the pre-Kickstarter community!
« on: March 11, 2013, 06:55:22 pm »
Hey folks,

There's this game I used to follow.  I heard about it 10 years ago when it started development.  I was a fan until they closed shop in 2006 due to lack of investment money... but now the developers are back, developing a pitch for their imminent Kickstarter campaign.  Let me tell you why I love...

Trials of Ascension

Trials of Ascension aims to be a dynamic world, driven by the actions of the players, where every character has a unique story with a beginning and an end.  It has sandboxy features like skill-based character advancement, full loot PvP and player-driven economy and politics: a system where all items are player-made, (using an extensive crafting system) and all settlements are player-run.  But I think it stands apart even from other sandbox games like Darkfall, Mortal Online and EVE online, because of a bevy of unique features.  Here are a few:

Permanent Death  [See article here]

In ToA, each character has 100 lives.  Then that's it.  This feature keeps many from even considering investing any time in the game, but I think it's the most important feature of the game, the one that makes everything work.  Permanent Death has been tried only a handful of times in an MMO, and never in a game that wasn't hampered by numerous other gamebreaking issues.  As the developers explain in the linked article, permanent death changes the way you play the game.  Particularly, it changes the decision-making calculus that precedes any risk you take.  Night is approaching.. do you circle your caravan and fortify for bandit attack, or do you press on, torches in hand, hoping to reach your destination before you are waylaid?  So much more rides on every choice.  It makes the game come alive.. defeats hurt more, but you can be so much more proud of your successes!

Also, permanent death kind of removes the focus from an individual character - who will eventually pass on - and shifts emphasis to communal endeavors that will live on, like settlements or player projects.  Community is a necessity in a game with permanent death.

There are many other arguments for and against permanent death.. this is just the perspective that inspires me most.

Dynamic Ecology and spawns.

Creatures and plants won't appear at set spawn points, but will spawn throughout suitable environments based on ideal totals for that biome.  Plants and trees are harvestable..  and creatures will act in accordance with the situation, prey animals running away, pack animals avoiding you if they're not hungry or if they don't have advantage in numbers.  GMs can place special spawns that develop over time... for example, an orc scouting group, which if not checked will soon become a camp, then a small base with a warleader, then start raiding nearby villages.  Dungeons are also placed in the world by GMs, and change over time as they are delved into (for example, you might find an unexplored cave one day and empty it of monsters, taking home a small haul of precious stones... then the next person in the cave might find the ceiling collapsed, opening up a passage down to an old temple filled with inscriptions that they can copy down and get translated.)  The goal is to allow GMs to actively provide a dynamic experience for the players where the world is changing daily.

Innovations  [See article here]

While practicing a skill, characters have a very small chance to discover an innovation to that skill.  Innovations are new techniques or new craftable items that, once discovered, are removed from the available pool: only one character can discover a certain innovation.  Once you've discovered an innovation, you can choose to keep it to yourself, or teach it to whomever you want... but be aware that anybody to whom you teach it can spread the knowledge further!  This is one of my favorite ideas in ToA; innovations will introduce some real differences between settlements and set some fun politics in motion.  (Spies... trade deals... resource wars!)  Innovations are also an organic way to introduce new features to the game... boats, carts, siege weapons, these things can be discovered and disseminated by player characters rather than suddenly being available to everyone via a game expansion.

Magic  [See article here]

Magic is not just another character path in ToA.  Trials of Ascension offers players a bargain: High power comes with high risk.  A skilled and lucky mage can destroy a rank of warriors.. but you must fight for that skill tooth and nail, wresting knowledge of arcane sigils and spells from eldritch beasts.  Also, the more powerful the spell, the more skill it takes to be reasonably certain that it won't backfire, potentially immolating the caster and her friends.  The system is designed so it takes both luck and skill to become a master mage without permanently dying on the way... most will not make it.  The same higher reward= higher risk equation carries through the whole game.  In the same way that it feels better to have a high-level character in Nethack than in WoW, the rewards that accrue to your character are meaningful because you fought for them tooth and nail, against the odds.

Trials of Ascension is just beginning to ramp up for their Kickstarter, which will begin in the coming months once they've got some more interest.  There's not much media yet, but they're using the HeroEngine and have already started limited development once more. I hope you guys will check the game out, even if one or two features strike you as being totally unreasonable.  I think the developers have done a good job of putting together a cohesive design that's more than the sum of its parts.

More articles:

Interrogation
Healing
Navigation
Mining
Structures

Settlements series:

6
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / How do I train biting?
« on: April 06, 2011, 06:47:53 am »
The military guy from my starting seven turned out to be the expedition leader.  I made her my military commander anyway, and in between not speaking to the diplomats she managed to lose both her hands.  I replaced her as military commander and let her be a civilian, but now a different dwarf has been elected mayor.  I kind of want to put her back in the military now and train her in biting (she can't hold weapons!)  How should I do this?  Can I get her to bite instead of kick?  If I put her in my danger room, will she block the training spears with her teeth and skill up?


7
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / What piece of adamantine armor to make first?
« on: April 06, 2011, 04:00:49 am »
So in my current fort I've got my military dwarves all kitted out in bronze (no iron unfortunately.)  Now that I've struck adamantine, what's the most important piece of armor to make first?  I'd rather give them all breastplates or gauntlets or something than just make a couple complete sets.

8
DF Suggestions / Ability to see general layer type from embark screen?
« on: March 28, 2011, 09:51:13 am »
I couldn't find a thread on this, so sorry if I missed it.

Basically I was thinking it would be nice to be able to see the general type of the top rock layer of a site in the embark window.  We can already see if there is soil or clay, if there's an aquifer, if there are metals... I'm fine with not having a detailed rundown of what exact layers there are like there was before.  It's just be cool to be able to see "sedimentary, metamorphic, igneous", etc., at least for the layer closest to the ground.  There's still so much variation within each of those categories that the basic unpredictability of embarking wouldn't be compromised.

9
DF General Discussion / DF Meetup Final Thread - be there on May 9! **WITH LIVE WEBCAST**
« on: April 19, 2009, 04:36:46 pm »
Hello to all meetup-goers!  The meetup's in three weeks, and we have a few things to work out, so this post will be long.

The Dwarf Fortress 2009 Meetup will be at 6:00 PM, May 9.

Location and Parking
The meetup is going to be at the Pike Place Brewery, a fine and reputable eating establishment open to all ages.  It is located at the intersection of 1st avenue and Union street in downtown Seattle.  Seattle's downtown isn't very large, so parking can be tough; expect to have to walk a few blocks to the restaurant.

Here's the thread for coordinating parking and carpools.

Food and Ordering
The food here is delicious, but there will need to be a single check, and the size of our party means that we need to take some special measures!  Here's how it'll go down.  After everybody orders their food, I will go around the table and act as a cashier, collecting the price of your meal in order to pay the bill later.  Since we have so many people coming, the Pike Place Brewery is charging an 18% gratuity on the menu price; the sales tax comes out to 10% on the menu price, so the actual price of your food is going to be 28% higher than the menu price.  I'll factor that in, and then I will round down to the nearest dollar amount. 

For example, if your meal cost $9.95, after tax and tip that comes out to $12.74 - so I'll collect 12 dollars from you.  I'm doing this to streamline the process as much as possible.  I've got offers from a couple people to help pay for the difference, so we should come out on top.

This is really important information, so just so people don't miss it I'm going to say it again!
  • Bring enough cash for your meal.
  • Round the price after tax and tip down to the nearest dollar amount.
If you want to order anything else after dinner, that's fine - just come to me and pay me after you do.

Here's the menu for the restaurant:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Activities
After dinner, we'll spread out a bit and set up a couple tables for games.  I'm bringing Settlers of Catan, Munchkin, Risk, Monopoly, and perhaps more.  Someone offered to bring Apples to Apples in the last thread.  If anybody has any other ideas, post em!  Even if you don't own the game, somebody else might be able to bring it.

Laptops (and live feed?)
It's traditional at Dwarf Fortress meetups to set up a community fortress that can be passed around the table after dinner on a laptop.  For this to happen, we need to have a laptop present!  Since this meetup is larger than the last, it might even make sense to have multiple forts running.

Also it would be really great to get a live streaming web feed for the meetup, either video or even just an audio feed from Toady's table so people can listen in on the conversation.  I've got no idea how to do this, though, so somebody with the proper skills needs to take charge here.

Here's the thread for figuring out these and other technology issues.

Daytime activity - Woodland Park Zoo!
At least six people have chimed in saying that they'd like to do some kind of activity before the meetup begins.  I think it would be awesome to go to Seattle's zoo with a few Dwarf Fortress fans.  This will probably be a noon-5 thing on the day of the meetup.  If you'd like to come along, come and visit the thread!

Here's the thread for the zoo trip.

Finally, Sir Finkus has set up a live webcast on mogulus, here:  http://www.mogulus.com/dwarffortressmeetup There's a chat room there too.  When we set up Finkus's eee, everybody who wasn't able to come will be able to watch the festivities remotely!

10
DF General Discussion / DF Meetup parking and carpool thread.
« on: April 19, 2009, 04:36:24 pm »
This thread is for coordinating parking and organizing carpools for the Dwarf Fortress Meetup on May 9.  If you are coming from a city or an area of the country where somebody else also needs to get to the meetup, consider carpooling!  Consolidating into fewer cars seriously makes it easier and cheaper to find parking in the city.

So if you are looking for a ride or wanting to carpool, post in this thread where you're coming from.  If you see somebody coming from the same place and want to carpool, please use private messages to coordinate!  This'll keep the thread less crowded and make it easier for other people to find rides.

*****

This thread is also for good parking recommendations in Seattle.  My favorite lot is almost always open, and it's quite close to the restaurant.  Going north on Alaskan Way (not the viaduct, the surface street that runs along the waterfront,) turn right on Pine st. and you're there.  It's public parking, so you pay $2.50 an hour until 6 PM, after which point it's free.  It's a damn sight better than paying 15 bucks at a private lot!

Once you're there, go up the stairs to Western avenue, then turn right and walk downhill until you reach another long stairway.  The brewery's right at the top of the second stair.

The only problem with the lot is that it's small enough that enough DF fans might fill it up!  So if anybody else knows another good lot, speak up as well.

See you guys at the meetup.

11
DF General Discussion / DF Meetup technology coordination.
« on: April 19, 2009, 04:35:49 pm »
This thread is for figuring out technology-related issues for the DF Meetup on May 9.  There are two orders of business:

1- If you're going to bring a laptop capable of playing Dwarf Fortress, and are willing to let your machine be used to run a community fortress during the meetup, speak up so we can know you're out there.

2- Setting up some kind of streaming feed to the web would be great, but nobody who can do this has stepped forward yet.  If anybody has the resources to set something like this up, here's the place to announce it and figure out how it's going to work.

See you guys at the meetup!

12
DF General Discussion / Pre-Meetup daytime trip: Woodland Park Zoo
« on: April 19, 2009, 04:35:17 pm »
Hi there!  Are you coming to the Dwarf Fortress Meetup on May 9th?  Do you want to come to Seattle's famous Woodland Park Zoo and look at interesting animals with fellow Bay 12 fans?  Then this thread is the place for you!

Where?
The Zoo is in North Seattle.  Here are some directions on how to get there.

When?
Let's meet at the Zoo [edit: south parking lot] at 12:30 PM, and hang out there until 5.

Hold on, I don't have a car!
If you need a ride from the Amtrak station or the Greyhound station, I can pick you up there.  Aim to get there at 11:00.  Make sure to post in this thread if I need to do this!

How much does it cost?
The group will not be big enough to qualify for group rates, so individual rates still apply.  It costs $16.50 for a single person.

Post in this thread if you're coming!

13
DF General Discussion / DF Meetup 2009: Seattle, May 9th (rsvp in thread!)
« on: March 09, 2009, 03:07:47 pm »
So it's going to happen.

On May 9th, Bay 12 fans from around the world are going to converge on the Pike Place Brewery in Seattle to join in an evening of good food and celebration.  Toady One and Threetoe will be there and we will try to get a community fortress up and running, and I'll also bring a few card games that might be fun.

I have made reservations for 20 people.  Last year, 12 people showed up, but the thread from January had nearly 20 confirmations and some people said they might bring guests.  I can amend my reservations so that more people can come, but I need to know a hard number of people who are coming before I can see if I have to do that.

So please, if you want to come to the meetup please reply to this thread.  Even if you already replied to the first thread.  Even better would be to say something like

I'm in.

Code: [Select]
[b][color=lime]I'm in.[/color][/b]
so that I can easily count who's coming.  Please also say if you want to bring guests.

How to get to the Pike Place Brewery, plus parking tips
It's on the northwest corner of the intersection of 1st Ave and Union St. in Downtown Seattle.  There is parking under the Alaskan Way Viaduct and in numerous pay lots, but the best parking is a a hidden lot at Alaskan Way and Pine whence you can take a stair up to the restaurant.  I will arrange to pick people up at the train or bus stations if that is needed.

Stuff to discuss in this thread
  • People who need help with transportation should speak up so we can figure that out.
  • Someone should probably bring a laptop so that we can get a meetup community fortress going.  We should figure out who will do that.
  • I've heard some interest in broadcasting the meetup live over the net, either in podcast or video form, but I've got no idea how to do that.  Maybe we should just keep a terminal open to IRC so that we can talk with people who aren't there?
  • I'd like to also plan an event during the day for people who want to come early. Ideas thrown out so far include a visit to the Woodland Park Zoo, or perhaps to the Science Center.  There are a few fun hikes we could go on in the region as well, so if you're feeling outdoorsy you should speak up!
  • Once again, if you want to come please post in this thread.

Edit: The reservations are for 6:00 PM.

Thanks everybody, I'm looking forward to meeting you guys.

14
DF Suggestions / Making traps less broken.
« on: January 13, 2009, 05:40:47 pm »
Right now you can bring invasions and megabeast attacks to a halt with a few well-placed cage or weapon traps, or a few dozen stonefall traps.  There are a few things that can be done to make this a bit less gamebreakingly easy.

-Link weapon traps to power sources, or require them to be manually reset each time they're used.  Also, limit the number of weapons that can be used in them.

-Make traps effective a certain percentage of the time, perhaps tweaked based on the attributes of the creature who triggered it.  Cage traps should trap dragons 30% of the time or less, while perhaps they should trap goblins 75% of the time.  This could be based on a number of the new attributes.

-Allow creatures in an invasion force to notice when one of their comrades has been affected by a trap and take appropriate AI actions (perhaps a chance to perceive traps inside a certain range, followed by avoiding spotted traps or maybe an increased chance not to be affected by them.)

-Let traps have a small chance of going off when triggered by a friendly creature - this would stop you from simply trapping your main entrance and calling it a day.

-Require most traps to be placed on indoor tiles.  Right now a stonefall trap can be placed anywhere.  This doesn't make much sense.

Any of these imho would make the trap situation a little bit more balanced.

15
DF General Discussion / Any interest for a 2009 Dwarf Fortress meetup?
« on: January 12, 2009, 07:50:58 am »
It's coming up on a year since the first Bay 12 fan gathering.  For those of you who don't remember this, there's an album of ginormous pictures up on the site here: www.bay12games.com/meetup .  We had dinner with Tarn and his brother at Ivar's on the Seattle waterfront and played an impromptu fortress (in which a bunch of dwarves failed to melt some ice fast enough to not die of thirst.)  I had a pretty good time and I think others did as well.

Anyway, I think we should do something like this again in 2009.  This would probably be in the Seattle area again, but aside from that it's totally up in the air.  Maybe a meal at a different restaurant, or maybe a daytime thing in a park somewhere? I don't know.  The restaurant last time was a bit pricey, so I would try to find something cheaper.

Would any of you be interested in coming if this pans out?  We're probably looking at a date in April or May, like last year.  About 12 people came last time, and we raised a couple hundred dollars for the Adams bros.  (To honor the venerable dwarven tradition, we put the money in a ceramic kitten for Tarn to drop from a great height.)

This would only happen if there were enough interest, so post if you might be able to come!

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