Bay 12 Games Forum

I was reading through the hall of legends, and came across Sparkgear. I also noticed the last game was in 2010. Its high time we had another one on here.

From the last Sparkgear game:

Welcome to SparkGear the flashing, smashing DF sensation that will rock your world.
You know how in all those BRAND X succession games some douchebag always drags out his turn across three weeks and everyone else is like GAWD GET ON WITH IT? In here, we curbstomp fuckers like that. Your turn is twenty four hours. Nothing more, nothing less. Got your dad's crappy old 286 that runs DF in realtime? TOUGH SHIT. Got work? Call in sick. Class? Fuck that. Sleep? FOR PUSSIES.

In classic SparkGear there is only one rule: Don't talk ab DURING YOUR TURN, YOU ARE KING. Your predecessor made an awesome megaproject? Put a dick on it. Steal his royal bedroom. Put his avatar on latrine duty. (But being a dick will get you treated like a dick, so BEWARE). If the last sucker left you with an unplayable save (even FPS wise, SO DON'T LEAVE STONE LYING AROUND), revert to an older save. AND YOU BETTER UPLOAD THE MOTHERFUCKING SAVE ON TIME, MOTHERFUCKER.

Make sure you label your levers.

That's right, turns last 24 hours, and only 24 hours. I'm making turn changeover at midnight, Tokyo time.

Actually, we'll make it forum time, just this time.

You may EXTEND your turn by 24 hours, but you must play the extension whilst drunk or inebriated or or suffering from a form of temporary and induced mental impairment, such as lack of sleep. You must call the extension during your turn. If you get this extension, all players will have their turns pushed back by 24 hours. Deal with it.

You may MULTIPLAYER this using one of the Telnet clients that were lying around, if they can work. If you're going to multiplayer the turn, make sure you say so on your sign up. If you extend the turn, all players must be drunk or otherwise inebriated whilst running the fortress.

If an update to Dwarf Fortress comes out, we will play the latest version no matter how bug-ridden it is, unless version compatibility is broken.

When the fortress dies, we will begin a new thread. The new fortress will be created in the same world, unless a game-breaking update comes out, in which case a new world will be generated. 48 HOURS may be allotted to setting up a new fortress, WITHOUT any drunkenness requirements. Be sure to upload the save after the fortress falls.

Once your turn is finished, you may sign up for another turn.

I may be giving out some awards when this is done. I will not give details as to what the awards are, but they will either be given to a dwarf in the game, or to a player.

Worldgen:

We will be using Dig Deeper for DF2012. The world has already been generated, and I have a fortress just set down that might do.

I have NOT used Dig Deeper before this.

CLARIFICATION AND OTHER STUFF: I backed up a copy of the worldgen, and then started a new fortress. It was promptly overrun by rattlesnake man corpses and was pretty much lost. I closed off the application. I then started the new game before making this thread, to get a better idea of what Dig Deeper had. The embark is a bit north of the civilization's mountain range (I think?), one of about 14 dwarven civilizations. I did not get a screencap of the world or of the embark location. I just have a fortress about 4-5 days into Granite of the first year created. I'm counting this in "preparation" time. I can re-start on a new fortress if you like.

Damn, if I had read the "shark domestication" thread I'd have located the fortress next to an ocean. As this fortress is going to progress fast though, we'll probably be doing that for Sparkgear XIV in a week and a half.

World Map and Embark Location:

Signup list, July 2013

Turn Completed
Turn in Progress
Turn skipped
Turn missed
Turn not yet started

Saturday July 6 and maybe Sunday July 7 PREPARATION: CaptainArchmage - Starting out
Monday July 8th: griffinpup
Tuesday July 9th: Argembarger (CLOSE ENOUGH TO A MOTHERFUCKING WEDNESDAY FOR YOU?)
Wednesday July 10th: laularukyrumo (?)
Thursday July 11th: laularukyrumo IS THIS BETTER FOR YOU? Matoro (Previously The Master)
Friday July 12th: The Master (by request)
Saturday July 13th: CaptainArchmage
Sunday July 14th: Ieb
Monday July 15th: Mouseshy
Tuesday July 16th: StLeibowitz
Wednesday July 17th: Matoro
Thursday July 18th: The Master Japa Free (duh)
Friday July 19th: Japa Free (...) fort overrun
Saturday July 20th: Ezk1
Sunday July 21st: CaptainArchmage
Monday July 22nd: griffinpup


With the fortress of Sparkgear XIII destroyed in is thirteenth day, awards will now be given. This list may change.

The Master Award for Holy Fuck How Did You Even Manage That Devastation goes to The Master, for bringing the fort to the brink of destruction in three hours.
The Limbo Award for Most Missed Turns goes to Matoro.
The First Emperor's Chosen Award for Named Dwarf Survival (counting time whilst named at fortress) goes to Tiberius Drake, for surviving nearly up to the fort's end, through multiple disasters.
The Second Emperor's Chosen Award for Named Dwarf Survival (counting time at fortress before naming) goes to Argembarger, for surviving right up to the fort's end, also facing disasters on the way.
The Guerilla Medic Award goes to Japa, for a heroic effort to rescue the fortress.
The Expansion Award goes to Ieb, for improving fortress infrastructure.
The Perfectly Safe Portal Award goes to CaptainArchmage, for safely investigating the interior of an adamantine tube.
The Survival in Office Award goes to Argembarger, for the longest period of time in office.
The Two Bodies, One Dwarf Award also goes to Argembarger, for having two dwarves alive with his name at the same time. Whoops, just checked historical records.
The Achievement Hunter Award goes to Argembarger, for having the most awards.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/elephants-ransack-tribal-villages-in-chhattisgarh-in-search-of-mahua/1/267948.html

Elephants raid villages in India for alcohol, causing all kinds of mayhem. Do we need elephants to have the [GUZZLER] tag?

Let's start a general compilation of wildlife-related chaos, where real life beats dwarf fortress.

Lots of threads come up about a UI rewrite. How do you think the UI should work? I've put down some of my thoughts below.

My suggestion for building placement UI:

-Menu breakdown between Constructions, Mechanisms, Workshops, Furnaces, Defences, and Furniture.
-Can place building using the left-click standard to RTS games.
-Building material can be filled in automatically, and dwarves will always take the closest of a certain building material to the job.

-Wall placement can be click and drag. You should be able to place nodes and switch between "shortest distance" and "follow my curser" mode. You should be able to undo to the previous node. This means you could designate the entire fortress wall in one go.

UI for connecting up levers and pressure plates:

-You should have the option to click-to-select the thing to link up to a lever. You should also be able to reverse-designate from the item to a lever, also clicked on.

Designations UI:

-No comment on woodcutting as the new release has not come out yet.

-Mining, Cleaning, and Smoothing should have a click and drag option, and it should be possible to drag out a rectangle or oval. Right-click in "designate mining" should erase selection.

-When designating an engraving you should have some control over what gets engraved. Options can be "Engravings determined by owner", "Engravings determined by artisan", "Engraving set by player" (have a selection of choices to be set somehow). "Engravings determined by artisan" causes engravings to be determined as they are now.

Military UI:
-Can select military squads or dwarves by left-click or left-click and drag. Else have a military screen with hotkeyed squads you can switch between in addition to the current methods.
-Right click to move (individual dwarf or squad).
-Formation-setting and attack orders. These should not be absolute, and can be affected by the skill of the militia captain or by dwarves going into a martial trance.

Is there a version of DF Large Address Aware for Mac? My current (modded fortress) seems to blow the memory limit every time the autumn caravan arrives, so its really necessary for the continued survival of my fort, which is only in its second year. Any kind of assistance on this matter would be really appreciated.

If there isn't a Mac (or Linux) version of DF Large Address Aware, this would be an opportunity to get one out there.

We're back! Apparently, the initial run of Boatbusted broke because we were on a too-huge region size for most people's computers to load. I'm starting this one over, with a slightly altered mod file to before.

The Boatbusted Mod Version History (currently version 1.2):

We're using Civilisation Forge with additions of Spearbreakers material, Mr Frog's Maej, and the Vilius mod. I'm allowing dwarves to make firearms in this game now, using the same reactions as the Niveans. This is probably going to be less useful than people think. The mod has been altered so as to put a hard cap on the number of civilisations of a certain creature that can show up. I've haxed the worldgen heavily to generate more volcanoes and more civilisations, whilst leaving more neutral mountain biomes for dwarves to set themselves up in.

Once again, a recap of the rules:

The Turn List

Turn completed
In progress
Not yet started

X marks extension used.

1. Captain Archmage (As Lord Mana)
2. Coral
3. Lightningfalcon
4. Slowpokez
5. Godlysockpuppet
6. Valrandir
7. Australianwinter
8. Betelgeuse

Extensions Available: 4
Emergency Extensions Available: 3

As noted in the previous Boatbusted thread, the turn order will be carried over. In addition, I may play around 1 year before sending it on, which will be the one exception to the 48-hour rule.

Hey Bay 12,

I'm starting a succession game. I've put up a poll about mods, to just to have a poll running, which may be changed later if we need to vote on things about the fortress. We will be using Civilisation Forge with the Spearbreakers mod (which adds the Spawn of Holistic and Mountain Barbarians), with only one [DEEP_SPECIAL] metal, and possibly with language fixed. The version will be 0.34.11, or wherever we end up at in the future (assuming compatibility)

Rules:
-Turns last 48 hours of real time. Play as much as you can in that time, and then give a reason why your dwarf is stepping down. You can play more than a year or less than a year.
-Try to roleplay your fortress and post frequent. I understand that role-playing ability or willingness is extremely variable, producing results between the "realistic made-up-that-which-cannot-be-made-up" and "More secretive than Area 51 under omega+ alert" levels. At least we'd like to see an "end of year report" consisting of the screenshot or the numbers. If roleplaying is insufficient, of course, anyone may publish an interim report based on rumor, speculation, and paranoia.
-Try not to leave the fortress in an unplayable state. If the fortress isn't in a good state to move on from and ends up in an unplayable state, we will revert to a previous state.
-Try to avoid the use of DF hack. If you need to use DF hack, i.e. to plug up a hole in the ocean floor with the water draining into an aquifer, or into the caverns, with sub-zero FPS, we may or probably will let it go ahead.
-Most of these rules are subject to modification. If FPS drops to the point where we need more time, the general allowance will likely be increased.
-There will be 3 possible extensions of 24 hours available per month of real time, for use collectively, with 2 extra extensions of 24 hours available for emergencies per month. You may only take 2 extensions in one sitting, of any kind. The collective-use extensions may be used at any time and for any reason, including no reason. However, you should role play them i.e "In order to finish building the entrances to the caverns, I've been asked to remain overseer for a little longer." Good reasons should be given for emergency extensions. In general, these are because real life interrupts your crushing of the goblin siege with some crap that prevents you from playing Dwarf Fortress.

Embark information:
-I haven't merged the mods and genned a world, but I'm planning to do a "long embark", which means we will do a 3x16 or a 16x3, probably with the majority over a desolate biome (such as mountains or ocean). From experience, this produces reasonable FPS (same as for a 4x4) for yet inexplicable reasons (I have some suspicious about the pathfinding).
-I will attempt to have a [CLASSIFIED_INFORMATION] included.
-If a 3x16 doesn't produce the expected results, I will probably switch to either a 2x16 or a 16x2 or a 4x4 or 3x3. I'm going to try to include variety of biomes as well if possible.

EXTENSIONS AVAILABLE: 3
EMERGENCY EXTENSIONS AVAILABLE: 2

Turn List:
1. Captain Archmage
2. Coral
3. Lightningfalcon
4. Slowpokez
5. Godlysockpuppet
6. Valrandir
7. Australianwinter
8. Betelgeuse

If people want to suggest group or fortress names, post them below. If the name isn't available, we can add in the words...

Are long embarks better than square embarks?

I have a 3x16 embark, which covers some 48 tiles. This is nearly as large as a 7x7 embark. I'm getting around 100 FPS or so, or about the same as is usual for a 4x4 embark, which only includes 16 tiles.

I'll try to update this thread as the fortress expands.