Bay 12 Games Forum

So they can be destroyed by building destroyers, but on the other hand save on materials, is the distinction? Sounds good.

Incidentally, it annoys me though how those multitile things punish people who want to build in pretty, organic shapes (you have a lot of 1 and 2 tile long shapes that end up not saving any materials). I don't think it's a very elegant system, so I kind of don't like promoting more of that. But whatever.

Ideally, you would enter a designation "mode" for those, make all your designations, then hit confirm and it tells you the cost and you allocate your materials for the whole bunch, regardless of crazy shapes.

Of course that is a "safer" alternative to paralysis but then why have a paralysis syndrome effect at all in game? Considering some venoms and poisons in RL due cause death by suffocation from causing the lungs to become paralysed and or heart which of course kills you (duh lol)

The reason to have it in the game is what you sort of just answered for yourself in this quote: it kills you by suffocation, whereas unconsciousness does not. That's the functional difference.  So fr instance, a creature with [NO_BREATHE] will not distinguish between the two, whereas a dwarf will. This can matter in terms of real gameplay outcomes.

But as soon as you ask "How do I do paralysis, but without the suffocation" like in the OP you've now removed any functional reason to distinguish paralysis, so just use unconsciousness, yes? Unless you're THAT concerned about flavor.

If you ask "Why have paralysis without suffocation in the game at all?" the answer would be "No reason. That's why it ISN'T in the  game "

Bizarre.  That totally was it. I still had it open in the text editor, and there was a temp file version therefore in the folder. Closing the editor to make that go away fixed it. Thanks!

Not sure why two text files, neither of which changes any text for adamantine, tetrahedrite, or magnetite explains huge surface adamantine deposits, or tetrahedrite being replaced with magnetite in vein form, lol, but whatever. Apparently it does cause that somehow.

Now sure how this would work functionally.  If they take up a whole tile, then basically you just have a totally redundant version of fortifications.  Whereas if they take up the border between a tile or something, then Toady would probably have to dramatically rewrite the way information is stored and how the grid works and motion and pathing and everything, just for fences.

If you can think of a way this would work without changing the fundamental nature of the data structure, and that isn't the same as fortifications, then sure, another functionally different option for construction might be great.

Note that I'm all for having DEFAULT options be realistic. But pretty much every player wants to customize after just a couple of games, to some degree. Whether it be world gen picking, or making a race made out of copper that doesn't breathe or sleep or have emotions to play.

I'm only asking for more powerful optional tools.  It's a sandbox game, and the topography of the metaphorical sandboxes don't have to follow realistic wind-erosion patterns when 3 year olds are playing in them, right?

To kill water pressure by the way, simply have it go through a diagonal only connection at the top level of the cistern, and it will then A) no longer insta-fill, and B) only fill up to the top of the cistern and not any higher, even if the fill source is higher.

Your list still doesn't seem very close to actual frequency of use. Maybe it just depends on playstyle, but for me it's something like:

1) Q building thing
2) Designations
3) K look
4) V look at units
5) Building

then it gets murky (stockpiles? zones? z status? not sure). But having K and V underneath burrows? Come now. Especially for newer players.

Although perhaps this just highlights that there is no one solution. I do agree though that designations at least should be much less cryptically named.

World gen seems 90% focused at the moment on realism and worldwide maps and consistency, but fortress mode players don't have any great reason to care about that when they're playing on 0.1% of that world map. So I end up spending like 50% of my time trying to generate worlds, and not having much fun.

As a fortress player, I want a specific map, and don't want to generate 75 worlds on the off chance of maybe finding something kind of like it.  For example, let's say I want:
* A volcano, with a high magma level
* Steel making ores and flux
* a coast
* steep interesting cliffs
* elves humans and goblins, at war with humans and elves.
* An aquifer
* some sand and some trees

This is almost completely if not literally impossible right now. Even with world painter, your brush only goes down to a resolution several times the size of a fort, which doesn't help ensure any sort of diversity like I am looking for, or to make the shape map I want. It's like trying to paint a picture with an 8 foot wide paintbrush only.

Instead, I'd envision a process something like current world painter, but for one fortress embark, instead of a whole world. I.e. world painting individual embark tiles in a single world square. The rest of the world doesn't even really need to be genned at all, although it could be if it's easier to just leave that code there and not have to solve all the problems with where migrants come from etc. that would result. In order of desired value:

1) Make the resolution of the worldpainter tool be able to go down to a single EMBARK square, not a world gen square. This solves most issues. It might require smoothing algorithms etc. to change, and be more computer intensive for the same size world, but you don't NEED the world, so who cares? You would always be doing this in a pocket world or even a smaller option, so the algorithm using much finer grained nodes is fine.
2) Include layer type (or whatever it is called - metamorphic, igneous extrusive, etc.) as one of the painting brush options on world painter.
3) Instead of 1-100 volcanism, just be able to paint volcanoes, and the number of the parameter can be height of the lava instead, which would be more useful/convenient (the actual worldgen can then smooth from that height more or less, to make it not stupid looking. I.e. the volcano height basically = the height of the node on that embark tile)
4) Ideally, be able to just force whatever combination of civs and war statuses directly (harder probably), without having to have them be part of some long story. But this would probably require a lot more under the hood changes than #1-3. #1-3 could still be part of a world, but you're just simply only micro-designing the small area you plan to embark in, and you don't care if there happens to be a world outside still, but more of the same code would work.