Bay 12 Games Forum

Here’s an overview of the way the DF map is organised, as copied from my notes. Note that these names aren't official and others might refer to them differently, but I believe I had based them on various references in the structures at the time. ("region tile" might be particularly confusing as it isn't directly related to actual regions).

At the lowest level we have local tiles; 1 local tile is the space the cursor takes up during regular fortress/adventure mode play. Coordinates of units, items, projectiles, etc are written in the local tile scale, where (x = 0, y = 0, z = 0) is the tile at the upper left corner of the lowest z-level on the currently loaded map.

Local tiles on each z-level are grouped into blocks, where
1 block = 16*16*1 local tiles
Blocks are visible during zoomed-in fast travel in adventure mode. Army coordinates use this scale.

Columns of blocks are grouped into region tiles as such:
1 region tile
  = 3*3 block columns
  = 48*48 local tile columns
Region tiles are visible when resizing your fort before embarking, or during zoomed-out fast travel in adventure mode.

Finally comes the world tile:
1 world tile
  = 16*16 region tiles
  = 48*48 block columns
  = 768*768 local tile columns
These are the largest map tiles, visible on the world map before embarking, when checking the dwarf mode civilization screen map and when checking the adventure mode quest log.

Doomscale Armour

Improvements to our present equipment are desperately needed, for our everyday soldier cannot be allowed to be overcome by the enemy's potions and fearmongering. Therefore, as an improvement to Improved Scale Armour, we will work magic into our soldiers' armour.

Blue Jade Dust is burnt into existence over the course of a Doom chant, imparting a Planning nature onto the substance. This is subsequently added to the batches of Windforged Steel destined to become armour pieces. To keep costs down, each set should contain a quantity of BJD equivalent to that produced by a Weak rite imbued with a Weak chant, with the dust spread across the various components (intending to fix the cost at 2 Mana). Wearers are expected to display a slight but noticeable increase in speed, discipline and cooperation.

The armour is also improved yet again in defensive capabilities, with the addition of a padded scale aventail that covers the top of the shoulders, the lower face, and the neck, protecting the wearer from strikes that make it past their shield, or making it safer to forgo the shield and use a two-handed weapon with less fear of lucky arrow strikes.

I wrote this before noticing that Tric had already posted their version. In any case, I think it would be good to specify the Mana limit as our allowance for this revision is quite restricted, considering that the unenchanted scale mail already has an Ore deficit and need it to remain cheap.

Swift Scale Armor: (1)
Bluescale Armor: (1) Madman
Targe of the Bloodthirsty: (3) Madman, AC, TricMagic
Paradox Shields: ()
Sky Cart: ()
Refining Sleeping Fire Poison: ()
Swift Unity Scaled Armor: (1) TricMagic
Doomscale Armour: (1) AC

Sky Cart

With Iqua on our tail and the Xi Shan gouging the land, further bedazzling of our trusty vehicles is clearly justified in the interest of maintaining our lead in strategic mobility.

Take a Sail Cart, remove the wheels and steering mechanism, and apply a thick coat of paint mixed with Flight-imbued BJD so as to release it from the grip of the earth (which is to say, to make it levitate). The lack of friction and flimsy wooden wheels should permit faster and more Chanting-efficient travel with a disregard for trenches and rough terrain.

Here's a possible flying cart revision; a little bare-bones, but it gets the idea across. The extra magic is likely to increase their cost, but having a couple around should be useful nevertheless.

Swift Scale Armor: (1) TricMagic
Bluescale Armor: (1) Madman
Targe of the Bloodthirsty: (2) Madman, AC
Paradox Shields: (1) TricMagic
Sky Cart: (1) AC

3

Heliel
To Trade City (1): C2M
To Xa-Nam (2): Powder Miner, AC

Silver Markswoman
To Darrin (3): C2M, Powder Miner, AC

Intrigue
Use GATE/HAUNTER to perform recon on the hidden facility draining ICE in MAGMA: (4) NUKE9.13, Madman, Andrea, AC
Cybernization Experiment: (1) TricMagic
No Intrigue:

Moon Nonsense
Lunar Mereth: (1) TricMagic
Moon International Research/International Science Shuttle: (5) NUKE9.13, Madman, TricMagic, Andrea, AC
No Moon Nonsense:

ANGEL Nonsense
Board it:
Crush it:
No ANGEL nonsense: (1) AC

The documentation does quite pointedly include square brackets in its description of the location option (-location [ x y z ]). Is this unclear? Authors sometimes document things in a manner that seems obvious to them without considering how users unfamiliar with system might interpret it, so improvement suggestions are appreciated.

In general, if you see square brackets in the documentation, they should be included where indicated, making sure to leave a space between them and the contained text. In the case of -location, many modtools scripts allow you to specify -location [ \\LOCATION ] in the -command option to pass relevant coordinates to another script, such as modtools/create-unit. For example, modtools/reaction-trigger allows one to do this if they want to create a creature at the location of the workshop following a specific reaction. It would probably be beneficial to document some examples of this.

It'd be possible to check the subtype info of valid item types for a non-clothing armorlevel, but there's a very convenient vmethod that does all the work for us. The following one-liner should serve as a general weapon/armour check (including shields):

if item._type == df.item_weaponst or item:isArmorNotClothing() then