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Messages - hactar1

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136
DF Suggestions / Re: Baiting
« on: August 01, 2007, 03:58:00 pm »
Not a bad idea.  This could be combined with pedestals and display cases... build a pedestal and assign any small-enough item to it, and the item will be placed there on display.  This would make an ideal target for goblin and kobold thieves, who could target on-display items first, and be lured into your existing cage/weapon/stone traps, although kobolds wouldn't set that off.  Perhaps pedestals (and other usable objects like doors and levers) could be trapped in some special way that anything using them or stealing from them would get hit by the trap, with some random failure factor?

137
DF Suggestions / Re: 3D tool thingy
« on: July 31, 2007, 08:25:00 am »
http://www.bay12games.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000896
quote:
It'll be there, but like many things it'll increase in utility only very slowly and won't receive attention over long periods of time.

[ July 31, 2007: Message edited by: hactar1 ]


138
DF Suggestions / Re: Politics, Strategy, Tactics, and AI - Suggested Reading
« on: July 26, 2007, 08:56:00 am »
Yeah, DF might have an unwieldy number of goals and actions for this to be practical.  But I don't think the light state needs to be included in every single node of the planning tree in that example; the light state exists in the game world, and all the planning tree needs to know is how to "sense" that information from the agent's surroundings.  Similarly, an enemy agent needs to know where the player is, but his AI code isn't directly updated whenever the player moves; it just "looks" around for the player whenever it needs to know.  That's the "Working Memory" box in figure 5.

Nevertheless, FEAR's AI needs to run for probably only 10-40 agents at a time, and they each have only a few goals apiece with a few dozen actions at their disposal.  DF needs to run for many hundreds of agents at a time, most of whom have complex goals (drink when I'm thirsty, eat when I'm hungry, sleep when I'm tired, take a break when I've been working a lot, defend myself when attacked, and do my job otherwise) and, all told, probably a hundred possible actions they can take.

Honestly, it's a miracle that DF's AI works as well as it does at its scale, so I wouldn't worry about re-engineering it unless you have some comprehensive idea of how to make it all work.  That's not to say it couldn't be made smarter using the current systems.


139
DF Suggestions / Re: Politics, Strategy, Tactics, and AI - Suggested Reading
« on: July 25, 2007, 09:59:00 am »
The goal prioritization would be especially useful in DF.  The "Satisfy Thirst" goal should not become highest priority until they're dying of thirst, whereas the "Defend the Fortress" goal should be higher than any normal job, but not higher than goals involved in preserving one's life, except for particularly brave dwarves.

140
DF Suggestions / Re: Multi Threading
« on: July 26, 2007, 08:32:00 am »
I dunno...  I agree that multithreading is difficult to pull off correctly, and can cause lots of bugs if you don't know what you're doing.  But from the way Toady's described how certain processes in DF work, it might be possible to split certain tasks off into another thread without too much risk or change.  For example, certain processes like temperature or weather could probably run in a separate thread.  Maybe even the connectivity map calculation, although that is apparently calculated whenever a tile is blocked or unblocked, and the game might not be able to handle running the next tick if the connectivity map hasn't been updated by the second thread yet.

141
DF Suggestions / Re: need some help plz
« on: July 16, 2007, 11:50:00 am »
The red X is telling you that you can't place the bed there.  Beds (and many other objects) can only be placed inside, so you have to dig into the mountain and make some bedrooms.

142
DF Suggestions / Re: Hospitals
« on: July 15, 2007, 12:23:00 am »
IVAN style limb replacements are not appropriate for Dwarf Fortress IMHO.  Too fullmetalalchemist-y.  Peglegs... good.  Maybe you could replacing a lost arm with a prosthetic axe or something?  Funny, maybe kinda stupid, but it would be a neat what-if feature.

There's a lot in the dev notes about healing and such, including magical healing.


143
DF Suggestions / Re: Accidents
« on: July 10, 2007, 04:38:00 pm »
Perhaps dwarves who are Expert or better in the pertinent skill should be exempt from causing accidents, and have the likelihood scale up with less experienced dwarves.  Thus, the accidents would not be random... they would be directly caused by assigning a putz to do the job.  Come to think of it... even dwarves with a Competent skill level should be fairly accident-proof... with only the occasional screw-up.

Maybe dwarves who trigger an accident should gain bonus experience for doing so?  Learn from your mistakes?

This makes burrows and assigned workshops more valuable... build a "University" where newbie dwarves can work without putting the rest of the fortress at risk.


144
DF Suggestions / Accidents
« on: July 09, 2007, 01:56:00 pm »
I was thinking; maybe DF should include more mundane accidents.  The game has a lot of semi-random challenges: attacks from the river, chasm, and lava, spider bites, sieges, sparring injuries, noble demands, etc etc.  But maybe the everyday lives of the dwarves should have accidents too, to keep things interesting.  And of course accidents should be much less likely across the board with high-quality buildings/objects and skilled workers.

"Hot" workshops like wood burners and smelters should have a chance to catch fire during use... though obviously not until there's a reliable way to put fires out.  Good reason to store your wood elsewhere!

Unskilled workers should have a chance to completely botch the job, ruining the materials.  Good reason to keep your wannabe jewelers from encrusting with diamonds!

Stills should sometimes spill barrels of booze out onto the floor that would spread around like vomit or blood does.

Alchemist laboratories should blow up or release miasma.  Animals to be butchered should be able to break free and go on rampages.  Clothesmakers should screw up sometimes and make Large or Narrow garments.  Anything requiring a mechanism should jam once in a while and require a mechanic to come fix it.  With the new water flow mechanics, floodgates should leak a little bit of water occasionally.

Any other goofs you can think of?


145
DF Suggestions / Re: "Mine this vein" designation.
« on: July 09, 2007, 10:55:00 am »
quote:
Bloat218, VEIN MINING OPTION, (Future): Ability to designate a metal vein for digging. They'd keep mining out the same kind of metal in adjacent squares as they uncover them.  

146
DF Suggestions / Re: Better pressure plate
« on: July 07, 2007, 06:43:00 pm »
Not being able to build pressure plates under drawbridges is by design.  It would ruin the challenge by making a perfect infinite-damage trap.

Plus, you probably wouldn't want to, in case your buff axedwarf was chasing a goblin down a bridge-trapped hallway.  Oops!


147
DF Suggestions / Re: Lectures, school, and apprenticeships.
« on: July 06, 2007, 01:58:00 pm »
An excellent suggestion.  This is already on the dev page a little bit:

quote:
Passing on Knowledge:  Most entities will have a system (possibly instinctive or informal) of passing on knowledge. Players will have opportunities to study under various masters to hone their skills. The master might also be a source of quests/errands for apprentice players (a wizard's apprentice might be asked to collect spell components, etc.). Soldiers will be trained in various ways - perhaps all children in a town are trained as warriors (the maladjusted wash-outs can go become necromancers and come back for some zombification: meek, creepy children can also go to the local swamp and mix poison). If an entity codifies its foci, culture, and laws, it might reappear later even if all of its members disappear. In general, masters that can write will be able to produce instructional manuals for their skills (unless the nature of the skill makes this nonsensical). The effectiveness of these manuals will depend in part upon the teaching skill of the master, the writing skill of the master, and the reading skill of the student (including basic language skills). A civilization that fails to pass on knowledge will probably return to base savagery in time.

As well as:  

quote:
Bloat252, ENVIRONMENTAL LEARNING, (Future): Some preferences could be gained by children as they play and explore, rather than having them be innate.

This doesn't seem like it needs to be a complex task... perhaps a teaching session could be started when a legendary dwarf is idle, using the same code that exists for parties.  Dwarves who attend the teaching party (children and peasants, maybe) would gain some skill experience from the legendary dwarf during the course of the party - not as good as actually doing the activity, but enough to become a novice eventually.

Also, children with some skill should tag along with adults exercising those skills, and gain experience that way.  So after Junior gets all excited about jewelcrafting from listening to the legendary jeweler talk at the party, he can later be found hanging around the workshops, watching jewelers encrust stuff, and learning.  Perhaps the adult workers would even be annoyed by the constant presence of nagging kids.

This kind of thing would make me much more excited to watch kids grow up, as well as help personalize them.


148
DF Suggestions / Re: Beasts and taming
« on: June 27, 2007, 10:20:00 am »
I believe the Biome tokens in the creature definition determine where your creatures will be found.  Lacking any biome tokens, I think other tokens like [COMMON_DOMESTIC] and [LARGE_ROAMING] might cause them to show up... I don't know for sure, as I haven't done much modding.  The creature definition language is kind of delicate in that some tags do unexpected things in-game.  Your best bet is to find a similar creature that someone else made (or exists in the game data files) and copy it, then change it the way you want.

I believe you have to regenerate your world in order to make the new creatures available.


149
DF Suggestions / Re: Beasts and taming
« on: June 27, 2007, 08:59:00 am »
Actually, adding creatures (and making them tamable) are some of the easiest and most common DF mods... check out http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/New_Creatures and http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/Creature_Tokens

150
DF Suggestions / Re: better levers?
« on: July 05, 2007, 10:36:00 am »
I thought about DF computers a while ago too, but haven't made any progress with it since.  My idea for goblin powered computers:

code:

###########
#g.D...D..#
#D#######D#
#.#######.#

acts as a flip-flop, with pressure plates to open and close the doors.  Once the goblin sees a path to freedom, he'll scamper down that path, only to be blocked in when he hits the pressure plate.

Interestingly, this can be done in such a way that allows direct player interaction, since doors can be locked and unlocked directly by the player.  Hence, you don't have to wait for your dwarves to pull the lever; you can get goblins to do it for you, right away!  Might be good for anti-flood generator switches, since the goblins can be tucked away somewhere the permaflood will not reach, and there is less impeccable timing needed when you don't need to figure dwarven response time.


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