Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Messages - Jurph

Pages: 1 ... 21 22 [23] 24 25 ... 37
331
Creative Projects / Re: A short survey to help me get my Master's Degree
« on: April 30, 2009, 08:41:44 am »
Funny you should mention that - part of the project is trying to decide if a custom hardware "gadget" would appeal to people, or whether they'd rather use their smartphone/PDA.  I'm looking at something about the size of a TV remote / small water bottle / GPS receiver but there's a lot of functionality I would need to cram in.

Also: who RickRoll'd my survey?

332
Creative Projects / Re: A short survey to help me get my Master's Degree
« on: April 30, 2009, 07:37:29 am »
Hey everyone, Part Two of the survey is up, so feel free to fill it out if you're so inclined.  Thanks again for all the great responses!  Special thanks to Strife26 for pointing out the similarities between my disclaimer and the Aperture Science disclaimer.   

...mua-ha-ha.

333
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Watchtowers?
« on: April 29, 2009, 12:42:47 pm »
If you get a half-dozen marksdwarfs trained up to very high levels and then split them into squads of one or two, you can assign them to either (S)tation in a single tower and tie a kitten or other sacrificial critter up outside the tower.  That way the ambushers will (likely) go after the tethered animal and reveal themselves while standing in the Kill Box.

I'd pick a spot 30+ tiles from your front gate, on the main road or approach path, and flank the road with a pair of towers.  Make them both accessible only from underground tunnels.  Place a barracks, a prepared food stockpile, and a booze stockpile directly under the towers; put ammo crates next to the fortifications.  Then tether a kitten near the road and split your marksdwarfs 50/50 between the towers.  PEW PEW PEW!

334
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Breeding pairs - not w/ your embark wagon?
« on: April 28, 2009, 03:05:07 pm »
Quote from: illiterate on April 28, 2009, 11:40:39 am
Of course, I've also imagined the caravan master spending an afternoon going to that merchant, buying one kind of meat and demanding a barrel to carry it in, and then going around a corner, putting on a fake beard, and buying another, then going around the corner, putting on another fake beard (not taking the first one off, mind you), and getting another kind of meat, and then another fake beard..

...and at the end of the day, putting all the fake beards in a big pile with a saddle and a rope harness, and trading it for a musk ox.

335
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Rooms spanning multiple Z levels?
« on: April 27, 2009, 03:03:02 pm »
Quote from: Llamiel on April 27, 2009, 03:11:52 am
Just stick an armor/weapon stand in the basement, make it a room and assign it to the dwarf in question and voila! Easy personal vault.


I'm all for high-ceilinged rooms; just because DF won't let you implement that third dimension doesn't mean you have to settle for hobbit holes.

So I'm with Llamiel.  Another approach would be to use ramp-digging to carve out the upper floor of the dwarf's room, smooth and engrave the walls around the top, but when taking away the ramps or stairs, leave one or two tiles of (ramp-accessible?) floor on the upper level.  Place a chair (or with two tiles, a chair and table) and designate it as a dining balcony. 
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Place a statue, deconstruct the ramp, and you've put a "bust of Pallas just above (his) chamber door" - perfect for the literary Dwarf in your fort!  An outdoor example is here:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
A weapon rack could be seen as crossed swords above the fireplace, or something like this:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

336
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Why is my food not being moved to stockpiles?
« on: April 27, 2009, 02:45:06 pm »
I concur with the suggestion to add dedicated food haulers.  Four dwarves dedicated to hauling can easily keep a Legendary Cook's kitchen clean and also help with the harvest.  If you turn on Food Hauling in the cook's labors and place a 1-tile-wide storage area around his kitchen for only storing prepared food, you can use that staging area to direct where a good portion of each batch of meals is going.


337
DF General Discussion / Re: How big a fort could I run with this comp?
« on: April 27, 2009, 10:44:50 am »
It seems like it would be simple... er, not simple, but certainly doable... to have a handful of save files of varying complexity available for DF users to run and report their framerates.  If there were a way to automate the load-and-run portion, you could even generate some rough benchmarks that would let you do a simple pulldown-type menu on a web app, like so:
Quote
I have
  • 2.8 GHz CPU with multiple cores (means that DF will have exclusive access to all 2.8 GHz)
  • 2GB of DDR2 RAM
  • ...other specs as needed...

...and I'd like a 200-dwarf fort running at 40+ FPS with
  • Meat industry (uncaged animals)
  • Magma pipe
  • An infinite water source
  • Invaders turned on
  • "Other Features"

My largest starting site must be no larger than ((AUTOMATICALLY-GENERATED NUMBER)).

Or you could do it another way: specify your desired features and minimum acceptable FPS, and an assistant program that knows the relationship between different parameters and your PC specs will auto-generate an INIT file for you by tweaking the temperature, weather, GFPS, FPS, Site-Finder Default size, Invaders, and Population Cap.

338
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Breeding pairs - not w/ your embark wagon?
« on: April 26, 2009, 07:22:32 pm »
No, but I have drawn an already-pregnant female musk ox, who proceeded to give birth to a pair of mixed-gender offspring.  Six generations later I've got the most delicious inbred musk oxen this side of the Mountainhome. 

Is there any gameplay reason that the dwarves wouldn't set out with (a) two animals of the same species pulling the wagon, and (b) a breeding pair to hasten future success?

339
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Computing with levers and floodgates
« on: April 24, 2009, 01:32:07 pm »
If you want to open one floodgate (or hatch, or door) and close another floodgate (or hatch or door), with the same lever, and you always want that lever to keep the two doors in opposite states, it's as simple as this:
  • Build a lever
  • Build your doors
  • Link the first door to the lever
  • Pull the lever
  • Link the second door to the lever

340
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: I carved a giant archway into a mountain, and I wanted to show it to you.
« on: April 23, 2009, 07:22:57 pm »
I'll know my fort is Dwarfy enough when the elves show up wearing fake beards made from unicorn hair and decorated with kitten-bone, carrying leather waterskins full of booze, and wearing large aluminum armor -- all in the hopes that I'll mistake them for Dwarfs and invite them to the kegger in my Legendary Dining Room.

341
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Help with gemcrafts, stockpiles
« on: April 23, 2009, 03:27:29 pm »
I like the idea of using qualities and specialized 1x1 stockpiles.  If I were looking to display a +sard scepter+, for example, I'd make a 1x1 stockpile with the following options:

  • no barrels or bins
  • finished goods
  • disable all materials (?)
  • disable all qualities except Fine
  • disable everything except scepters

The only bit I'm not sure about is "disable all materials" - since "gemstone" isn't a material, you might  instead just disable every material that you know might interfere (wood, bone, stone, glass, metal).  I'm not sure if gems are an invisible subset of stone, but it's worth a shot.

You could also find the finished goods stockpile that has the item you want, forbid all items in it except your preferred item, and then set a 1x1 pile with suitable parameters to Take From.  Once the item is where you want it, forbid it and delete the pile so it won't be relocated or binned.

342
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: I carved a giant archway into a mountain, and I wanted to show it to you.
« on: April 23, 2009, 02:11:17 pm »
Quote from: Marko on April 23, 2009, 01:57:40 pm
"Siege? What siege? No no no... we're just here to trade you all these fine goblin iron goods! It's all just a giant misunderstanding..."

D: "Fine.  We'll take the narrow iron armor, the narrow iron boots, the narrow iron gauntlets, the narrow chain leggings, and the narrow iron helms."
G:  "Sure, sure!  It's cheap armor, it's fine.  We could part with that for a few *kitten tallow roast* [30], or maybe a dozen -obsidian mechanism-."
D:  "For that many roasts, we're going to need you to throw in your swords and shields."
G:  "Uh... well... okay, I guess we could leave our weapons..."
D:  "We'll also take the stacks of goblin bone.  And we're not interested in paying for any of it."
G:  "Not paying?  Wait, what stacks of--"

PEW PEW PEW

343
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: I carved a giant archway into a mountain, and I wanted to show it to you.
« on: April 22, 2009, 07:30:06 pm »
Quote from: mithra on April 22, 2009, 06:50:20 pm
What app are you using to get that visual?

Indeed, it was 3Dwarf.  Bonus: I turned on hidden tiles and was able to see the underground river position as well as the location of the magma pipe. 

344
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / I carved a giant archway into a mountain, and I wanted to show it to you.
« on: April 22, 2009, 06:42:29 pm »
I wanted a site with an underground river and a magma pipe where I could practice some of the basics of building up a military.  When I finally found it, I saw a very (very!) tall cliff face across which most of my goodies were scattered.  Twenty Z-levels of digging, ramping, and striking MICROCLINE! later, my dwarves have moved out of the temporary housing inside the mid-level bridge (which will soon be the spillway for a misty waterfall).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dwarven apartments will each have at least one window looking in on the causeway.  You can see the single z-level doorway for trade wagons.  Above it -- and possibly off to the sides -- will be fortifications allowing us to rain death down on the invaders from three sides at once.  Haven't decided whether to make the spillway switchable for water/magma purposes, but I suppose that would be a deterrent as well. 

Anyway, I thought you might enjoy looking at my megaproject.  So, er... enjoy!

345
DF General Discussion / Re: How big a fort could I run with this comp?
« on: April 20, 2009, 03:41:59 pm »
Quote from: dreiche2 on April 19, 2009, 09:38:23 am
I'd be interested to hear how well the AMD does actually..

I just got a Phenom II 2.8GHz triple-core, and I can run 40d11 fairly well.  Running water in large volumes slows me down by a good 10-20 FPS, but when I say large volumes I'm talking about a cistern comprised of eight stories of 23-tile-diameter circles, all filing into a single-wide channel, and then entering a complicated pump tower where it pressurizes my dining hall wells and creates an artificial lake which is constantly trying to evaporate in my hot climate.  Without that complicated hydrodynamic system running I can get 60 FPS with 100 dwarves in a 5x5 fort with magma pipe and a brook.  Pathfinding slowdowns alert me to ambushes before they happen, giving me plenty of time to man dwarf the parapets and release the hounds.


Pages: 1 ... 21 22 [23] 24 25 ... 37