Bay 12 Games Forum

Oh, I entirely agree with that. You still want the heft behind a hammer, or as you rightly say, you should use a small weapon that you can then wield with agility. Fencing weapons are the epitome of that, though, granted, I don't think they were intended as weapons of war. Great for dueling(and they can wrench a heavier sword out of its wielder's hands by wrapping around it and being used to pull at an odd angle), but the pinprick wounds they do, don't inflict much raw damage.

In the hands of a master, well... two words: crit boost.

But yes. The weight of a weapon figures into its raw damage; the surface can affect other attributes(additional damage types, crit boost, pierce armor) but isn't as likely to do much for a hammer.

Run Dwarf Companion from a command prompt(under Windows XP: Start -> Run -> 'cmd', don't know if Vista is different; cd to the appropriate directory, type it there) and you'll have a chance to see what that black screen is telling you.

I've always felt that the proper way to handle revealing-without-mining is by core samples. ...

A decent notion, but what about fluids? There needs to be some way to represent that the rock is no longer solid, and which direction that breach is in.

This would make it safest by far to core from above. Possibly with a constructed derrick of some kind. There might also be a limitation on how long you can make a single drill - without careful work making couplings, it'd have to be one piece, so you can only drill as deep as your derrick is high. (Well, not exactly; but even if the drill shaft extends above it, it does need to be adequately supported to keep from wiggling in its hole. Maybe twice as deep as your derrick is high.)

Y'know what...

If you're not even going to consider for one moment that anyone else's suggestions here have merit, why should I consider yours?

There was some genuine potential here, but as far as can be told from your reactions, anything that doesn't match your notion exactly just isn't good enough.

I did read the OP, and I think that degree of map-wide knowledge doesn't make in-game sense. It's basically knowing, magically, where things are. Within a few tiles, perhaps, but still knowing. Your comments since then haven't been discussion so much as reiteration. You have yet to address the objections presented in any meaningful manner - only tried to steamroll over them.

Perhaps the people who first scoped out the side could have figured where things were likely to be close to the surface(in terms of the "mining skill based" suggestion, treat the whole surface as scoped out by, say, proficient miners, or the best skilled miner you bring with you). That would give some notion of where to look for the earlier rewards - things within a few z-levels of the top layer. But how exactly are they supposed to know what's 15-20 z-levels below the surface?

A Siege weapons (such as a Siege Crossbow) would devistate them anyhow.

That would be a "ballista", yes. They're there, just kind of slapdash right now.

If siege weapons get improved in the future - say with the army arc - so they can be more easily moved around, brought with armies, and aimed with more precision than currently, they will assume their historical proper purpose: to attack, rather than the defensive structures they are now.

Just because it's fantasy doesn't mean it shouldn't follow rules.

The best fantasy I've ever seen was always consistent - with itself, and, where the fantastic elements didn't SPECIFICALLY override it, with the reality we know.

If you're going to go the route that just because it's fantasy and has some things that wouldn't exist in reality, that means that any effort toward making it otherwise match reality is wasted, well... Toady's work on the injury system, poisons, tissues, and the like, would seem to disagree with you.

The standard for Dwarf Fortress, the ideal toward which it's growing, seems to be that a breach of reality is intentional, not something thrown in willy-nilly. Thus, any flagrant violation of it should be weighed carefully indeed. Simplifying physics for the sake of a good game experience(including speed of play, i.e. not bogging down the world excessively) or easier coding is one thing. Going through specific effort to make the game less realistic...

Well, use with caution, anyway.

Hybrids of the sentient races - the ones which would in D&D terms be 'demihuman' - are not that objectionable(though I still think some thought to what said hybrids ought to be, rather than just putting it through a code blender, is the way to go). But some of the things being suggested are just... really out there. Things which have wings(EXTRA wings, at that, not modified forelimbs) with things that don't? Um.

Loosely speaking, if two creatures don't have analogous body parts(barring some variance for vestigial parts), they're probably not close enough to breed.

Moving on: I can't agree with tying body parts to tags. Ostriches have wings, for instance, but they don't fly; some animals walk on all fours and would be helpless if they lost any two limbs, others can lose one without much loss of mobility. It gets interesting in borderline cases(chickens, for instance, can't fly FAR, but can get aloft for a short time, probably depending on how fat the bird in question is), but in the end, putting that adjudication to an algorithm is iffy at best.

I've also had a few forts wind up sober - mostly back in the 2D days. In modern times, a fort that goes sober is actually much more likely to have problems - simply because it takes a LOT more effort to get a well working in most cases, and if you're not using a well dwarves could get upset(or killed by wildlife on the way to the brook).

Even forts that are starting to go sober can be frustrating to work with because of the more/longer(not sure) breaks the dwarves start taking. Breaks can be frustrating enough in a fort that has booze enough for every dwarf to swim in, never mind dwarves that can't remember what +dwarven wine+ tastes like anymore.

And you seem to be missing a major point.

Highlighting the different minerals from embark is cheating. Even if you can't see exactly what they are in advance.

No, exploratory digging isn't pretty. And it does present something of a hazard in terms of attack routes and the like. But some manner of prospecting is necessary to find out where things are.

If you want the veins to be marked, look into Dtil; I think it has something of the sort.