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Messages - Blackcat

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31
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Generic strategy and building questions
« on: December 09, 2007, 01:17:00 pm »
Concerning farms:

One method I've used so far is to dig down one level into the topsoil, dig out some rooms and set farm plots there. However, once I've started digging out lower down for the actual 'fortress proper', I then dig upwards, back into the soil layer(s) and move the farming into the new area, so that the farms aren't right by the entrance. The level below the new farm room is ideal as a food stockpile, as it's directly adjacent to the plots.

The old farm room can then be used for something else. If I've settled on a flat area with no cliff, these rooms are ideal for storing siege ammunition, as an example, with a fort built above and around the main ramp down.


32
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Digging a shaft
« on: December 07, 2007, 01:52:00 pm »
Do up/down stairs block fluids or miasma at all? If not, could you not just dig your shaft with up/down stairs, and leave them intact?

33
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: How Do You Find Good Fort Locations?
« on: December 07, 2007, 07:24:00 am »
Well, I didn't expect an argument!   :D

To be fair, those saying you don't need everything, that you don't need a perfect starting location, are right. I've played a few forts, learning the ropes, and dealing with whatever the location is missing.

However, my question was not about "What makes a good location?", "What is essential for a good location?", or "What features make a location worthwhile?". It was "How do you find a good location?".

So, How do you go about searching the world map? Are there any particular methods you use when searching? What features/biomes make you search a particular area closely?


34
DF Gameplay Questions / How Do You Find Good Fort Locations?
« on: December 05, 2007, 11:15:00 am »
I'm getting a bit fed up of generating world after world, trying to find a starting location that'll provide iron ore, magma, wood, sand, and so on. And having searched the forums here for help, I realised I'm probably doing something wrong.

So, I'm all ears; How do *you* go about finding a good location to site a new fortress?

I've only seen Igneous Extrusive layers as the first rock layer, which precludes a sedimentary layer. So far in my searching of maps, I've never found a spot that has both flux stones and possibly-magma-bearing stone.

And I've lost count of the number of times I've started without a single damn tree on the map, having chosen a site with mountains and forest...


35
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: masterpiece finished goods bin
« on: September 08, 2006, 06:53:00 pm »
No problem, your post prompted me to wikify that point, which the bug report forum post somehow didn't when I read it earlier.

36
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: masterpiece finished goods bin
« on: September 08, 2006, 06:44:00 pm »
You can't, unfortunately.

http://www.bay12games.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000236


37
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Fey Dwarf is demanding stuff that I have
« on: September 07, 2006, 02:33:00 pm »
quote:
Originally posted by FunkyWaltDogg:
Of course, she could want a metal which you've dug deep enough to find but haven't yet hit, in which case there's not much you can do.

Dig like you've never dug before, and hope you hit the ore in time to smelt bars. I had this happen to me about four minutes after hitting the chasm.

I had to get a bridge up, and then send miners out hoping I'd hit the right ore in time. I could see iron and gold in the chasm wall, which helped. Or not, as it turned out he wanted platinum, which fortunately appeared not far south east of the bridge.

Unfortunately, it was an experienced mason, and he was possessed, so it was a case of nothing-to-gain, everything-to-lose...


38
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Fey Dwarf is demanding stuff that I have
« on: September 07, 2006, 02:29:00 pm »
When they scream "I must have metal bars", they have a specific material in mind, and you'll need to make some of that material.

Of course, you aren't told what material. You already have copper and silver bars in stock, so you need to cover the other basic possibilities:

Tin Bars: smelted from cassiterite ore, 1 bar per ore.
Bronze Bars: smelted from malachite and cassiterite, 2 bars per pair of ore.

I'm not 100% sure where sphalerite shows up, but if you've reached the area where it is, you'll also need:

Brass Bars: smelted from malachite and sphalerite, 2 bars per pair of ore.

If you've hit the chasm, you're in for some hurt, as the possibilities now include Gold Bars, Platinum Bars, Iron Bars, and I think Steel Bars.


39
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Need help w/wood-farming-butchering
« on: September 07, 2006, 08:29:00 am »
quote:
I need wood in the worst way, how do I use my wagons for wood?

[t], move to the wagon,

  • .

    quote:
    I found the cave river, set up working flood gates and carved out a room.  I flooded the room but I can't designate the are as a farming plot, only get the red X.

    Did you unflood the room, by closing the floodgates? (Floodgates linked to levers can be closed by pulling the lever a second time).

    quote:
    Set up a butchers workshop and have 2 dwarvs with butchering ability, running out of food fast so decided to sacrifice a horse only to have it rot.

    Butchering seems a bit hit and miss to me at times. Do you have a refuse stockpile? Were the butchers in question busy with other jobs?


40
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Info - Building Roads and Bridges
« on: September 07, 2006, 03:16:00 pm »
That I didn't know, and definitely useful to know. Thanks for posting it.

41
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Info - Building Roads and Bridges
« on: September 07, 2006, 10:15:00 am »
I actually did this a while back, but only using 3-wide bridges, so that I knew how many stones to select when building to get the correct distance.

This exercise proved slightly useful elsewhere, as it showed that the most material efficient piece of 3-wide road uses 7 blocks. This gives a 9x3 road piece.


42
DF Gameplay Questions / Info - Building Roads and Bridges
« on: September 07, 2006, 06:09:00 am »
I don't remember reading this anywhere, so I'll present the following. I fully expect a reply to link to another post that gives this information anyway, but it can't hurt to have this posted afresh.

When using raw stone, stone blocks, or wooden logs to build roads and bridges, the amount of material used limits the number of squares the road or bridge can cover.

The maximum number of squares covered by a road or bridge is (amount of material) x 4 - 1.

What follows is a dataset listing allowed and unallowed sizes:

code:

S/B  Yes  No
===  ===  ==
 1 -  3 -  4
 2 -  7 -  8
 3 - 10 - 12
 4 - 15 - 16
 5 - 18 - 20
 6 - 21 - 24
 7 - 27 - 28
 8 - 30 - 32
 9 - 35 - 36
10 - 36 - 40
11 - 42 - 45
12 - 45 - 48
13 - 50 - 54
14 - 54 - 56
15 - 56 - 60
16 - 63 - 64
17 - 64 - 70
S/B: number of stones or blocks
Yes: The biggest size that could be built
 No: The smallest size that could not be built.

Because of the limitation of working within a 10x10 maximum, and only being able to obtain sizes that are a multiple of two integers that are both between 1 and 10 inclusive, some sizes cannot be obtained. Obviously, primes above 10 cannot be tested directly, and also numbers who can only be factored by numbers greater than ten. An example of this is 22, which is only factored by 2 and 11.

As you'll note, the 'No' column increases linearly by 4 each time. The only time it doesn't is because of the above limitation on testing. An example of this is S/B:13, where we would expect 52 area to be disallowed. But, we cannot make a single road/bridge that covers 52 tiles. The closest is 54. However, the progression still holds, as S/B:14 returns back on track with the disallowed amount of 56.

To verify with wood, some wood was chopped and a couple of datapoints were tested. These all matched the results from using stone.

Assumption: The progression continues linearly up to 25 stones/blocks, whereupon you can place a 10x10 road/bridge. More than 25 will be a waste, as you cannot build greater than 10 tiles up/down or left/right.

Caveats: This does not apply to using metal.


43
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Is the game supposed to look like this?
« on: September 06, 2006, 04:19:00 pm »
I much prefer that the font is enlarged evenly, and as my LCD is 1280x1024, the 10x12 font won't fit in if doubled in size. However, the 8x12 font fits rather nicely into a 1280x600 window.

44
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Is the game supposed to look like this?
« on: September 06, 2006, 03:46:00 pm »
OK, here's a rundown on DF's display:

Firstly, and this is set in stone, the display is 80 characters across, and 25 characters tall. No matter what you set for your font and resolution, you will have an 80x25 display for characters. Setting your resolution bigger will just make the characters bigger.

Secondly, the fonts that ship with the game are:

curses_640x300 : Each character is 8x12
curses_800x600 : Each character is 10x12

Thirdly, when you specify a resolution, the font is resized as needed so that you have 80 characters across, and 25 tall.

OK, now let's examine the defaults listed in init.txt:

Setting the resolution to be 640x300, and using the 640x300 font, will result in the character width being (640 pixels / 80 characters) 8 pixels, and the height as (300 pixels / 25 characters) 12 pixels.

Setting the resolution to be 800x600, and using the 800x600 font, will result in the character width being (800 pixels / 80 characters) 10 pixels, and the height as (600 pixels / 25 characters) 24 pixels.

Wait a minute! Didn't I say the 800x600 font was only 12 pixels tall? I did, but this is before considering the stretching that occurs to make 25 character lines fill 600 pixels.

The upshot of all this can be summed up as:

1) You will always have an 80x25 display of characters. No setting will change this. You will always see exactly the same amount of text, map, and information in a 640x300 window as you would in a 1600x1200 window.

2) The resolution you specify will resize the font you have chosen so that 80 characters across and 25 tall fills the number of pixels you specified.

3) For a truly square aspect ratio, your window width should be 3.2 times your window height. However, neither font that the game comes with is defined as square.

Hope that helps.


45
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Is the game supposed to look like this?
« on: September 06, 2006, 05:02:00 am »
I find running the 640x300 font at 1280x600 works rather well. It fills the screen pretty much, everything is evenly stretched by a factor of 2, and the aspect ratio of square areas is better than running the 800x600 font at 800x600.

Talking of the 800x600 font, if you check the art file the characters are 10x12. That corresponds to an unstretched screen size of 800x300. At 800x600, you end up with a 10x24 font. That's an aspect ratio that I don't like, hence why I use the above settings.


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