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Messages - Valdemar

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31
DF Suggestions / New military toggle: [Soldiers/Civilians] when inactive
« on: April 12, 2010, 03:29:03 pm »
Currently, the behavior for soldiers with no orders is to revert to their civilian profession. From here, they engage in individual combat training if they have the hard-working and/or self-motivated traits, or resume their civilian duties if they are not.

This is sub-optimal for several reasons:
  • There is no way to specify that you want all your off duty soldiers to resume their civilian duties even if they are very hard-working and want to train.
  • The announcements are constantly flooded with notifications that so-and-so has changed their profession, and their icons constantly switch from civilian to military
  • Soldiers often jump around in the units list and are often mixed in with the civilians; the only way to manage them is to give custom nicknames to each one, which is far from ideal.

I propose a new toggle on the military schedule screen next to the 'Inactive = [Uniformed/Civ clothes]' toggle that would work the same way for 'Inactive = [Soldiers/Civilians]'. It could even just be tied to that toggle, (Uniformed = Soldiers, Civ clothes = Civilians), though that would take away some of the control.

Dwarves in squads with the toggle set to 'Civilians' would turn into civilians the same as now when they have no orders or are the 'extra' dwarves when there are orders (i.e. when you have a squad of 5 and order 3 to station somewhere, I am referring to the 2 extras). They would resume their civilian jobs, and not perform individual combat drills no matter how motivated they are. A good use for this setting could be if you give some of your starting 7 dwarves some military skills, put them in a squad, and order one to always stand guard outside the fort and allow the others to work. The one on guard would rotate just like in the current system.

Dwarves in squads with the toggle set to 'Soldiers' would always remain military dwarves even when they have no orders, are the 'extra' dwarves, or are temporarily off duty to eat/drink/sleep. If they are self-motivated they will train in their off time, and if they are not they will just mill around in the barracks/meeting hall. Under no conditions will they ever switch professions to civilian, trigger an announcement, or change icons. This would be useful for more developed forts with a dedicated military which you want to always keep separated from the civilians.

Under both systems, giving a direct order through the squads menu will immediately force all dwarves to become military, take up arms, and execute your orders like in the current system.

32
DF Suggestions / Re: [2010] Changes to underground feature placement
« on: April 08, 2010, 09:47:39 pm »
The worldgen option you are looking for is "Cavern Passage Density". Set both the minimum and maximum to zero, and you'll get none of the tiny corridors. You can turn up the "Cavern Openness" while you're at it in order to make the large open caverns larger.

I also like to turn down the maximum water level so I don't get totally flooded caverns, and set the cavern number to 1 so as to not have to dig so far to reach the other features below, but that's more personal preference.

Edit: Skimmed the thread and didn't notice Footkerchief's response, just noticed the last post was still asking about how the worldgen parameters worked

33
DF Suggestions / Re: Integrated Dwarf Foreman (with functional prototype)
« on: April 08, 2010, 06:34:46 pm »
Quote from: Safe-Keeper on April 08, 2010, 04:51:19 pm
Highly confusing with the professions just saying "Mi" and whatnot, should be an option to expand the table so that it takes more space (and can be scrolled, of course).

I kinda like the idea of having 0-9 and then A-E and L for skills, but this will make things even more difficult to newcomers. Why not just expanding the table and using two digits?

You can expand the labels vertically with Tab. Expanding horizontally would cause far less information to be displayed, defeating the purpose of the condensed view. New players probably aren't going to run into skills that high for a while anyway (though the new migrants can be very skilled), and the blue description allows one to see the full expansion of both the profession name and skill level, so the first time they see it they can just move the cursor over it and the full name will show up. Condensing the 15 skill levels into 9 digits by doubling up some of the mappings could solve this problem, at the loss of some precision.

Quote from: Sutremaine on April 08, 2010, 04:32:25 pm
This is good stuff, and quite intuitive as well. Would it be possible to have a marker for Legendary +5? It doesn't matter for a lot of professions, but unless item quality has had an overhaul then L+5 is one of the thresholds at which a certain quality of goods is guaranteed.

I'm not certain Toady would like that, since he seems to have already made the decision not to differentiate the skill levels above Legendary in the existing interface. But if he is, it would be a useful feature to have.

34
DF Suggestions / Re: Integrated Dwarf Foreman (with functional prototype)
« on: April 07, 2010, 07:38:28 pm »
Quote from: Squirrelloid on April 07, 2010, 07:32:39 pm
I also don't recall being able to change the amount of 'world' you can see - but its been quite awhile since i've played Vanilla and they might have changed that aspect of display.

In DF (don't know anything about Angband), you've been able to change the amount of world displayed using the [GRID] setting in init.txt for a long time now. It was definitely present in 40d, which was released over a year ago. It doesn't affect the menus, though.

35
DF General Discussion / The new military screen is 100% mouse enabled!
« on: April 07, 2010, 07:21:12 pm »
Over in the Dwarf Therapist thread, I just read that the new military screen is 100% mouse enabled, and it is absolutely true. You can click on squads, uniforms, dwarves, schedules, and anything else to select them, and on the keyboard shortcuts at the top to activate them.

This completely revolutionized my usage of the military screen. It seems to be relatively unknown at this point, so I'm just trying to get the word out.

For me, it doesn't work in full screen, only in windowed mode (neither does mouse painting of burrows). Somewhat odd, since the mouse support on the designation screen works perfectly. I assume it's a bug that will be fixed soon.

36
DF Suggestions / Re: Integrated Dwarf Foreman (with functional prototype)
« on: April 07, 2010, 06:08:54 pm »
Quote from: Squirrelloid on April 07, 2010, 03:04:31 pm
Quote from: Footkerchief on April 07, 2010, 02:51:49 pm
Running the utility in a separate window would be gross, however -- it's aesthetically unappealing and doesn't work for people who like to play games in fullscreen.

I'm not sure i follow, plenty of applications have multi-window displays, and this is generally a positive.

Further, the game's full-screen resolution is what, 800x600?  My monitor hasn't been that small since 1993.  If nothing else, people with two monitors can full screen and use a second window with no problem.

Some thinking about how multi-windowing the full screen could work as a full screen display.  The main play area would be a 'window' or section of the screen in the upper left corner extending to somewhere near or beyond the center of the screen.  Foreman could be on the right side from top to bottom, and some other useful utility could fill the lower left area that is still open.  Possibly the current command layer could display there instead of on top of your map area, and you could issue commands without pausing the game.  (so if you go to mine the mining designations menu pops up in the bottom 'window'.

This isn't too unlike how a game like Civ IV divides up its screen space - there is a main play area surrounded by other windows with useful information, game controls, and so on.  And since DF's best resolution is far smaller than modern screens, it would seem the issue for 'full screen' users would be maintaining the illusion that the game is occupying the full screen.  Or really, if DF + Foreman did occupy the full screen, of convincing the user that it really was all the game.  (Foreman really is a part of the game if you're using it - pretending otherwise is like drawing lines in the sand).

Edit: Regarding Toady's willingness to create hooks for applications like Foreman: if he's unwilling to take a simple measure like making hooks, what makes you think he'll make the effort to fully incorporate it into the game?  Making hooks is vastly easier, and will involve less tweaking on his part as the code develops.  If he won't allow programs like foreman to hook into DF, he's certainly not going to try to implement Foreman himself.

What you're proposing sounds like a complete interface overhaul with all the sub-windows. While it could work, it's something that would take a lot of coding.

My monitor is 1280x1024, and I have DF set to expand the grid to fill all of it. With 16x16 custom tiles, it's quite beautiful. As I've said before, if I want to use Foreman, I either need to set it to the far uglier windowed mode or constantly switch back and forth. Either ruins the immersion. Additionally, Foreman has  the aforementioned problems of having to be constantly updated and possibly corrupting memory.

Toady has rejected the idea of hooks for custom interfaces because he feels that it takes the game out of his hands, a reasonable decision. But that's almost exactly what is happening right now without the hooks, with a huge number of people relying on Foreman.  Toady adopting ideas from utilities into the core game is not unprecedented. Remember Regional Prospector, the utility that revealed magma/rivers/HFS on the region map? It was a practically essential tool for a while, until Toady rolled it (and more) into the core game with the Site Finder.

Quote from: Draco18s on April 07, 2010, 02:57:28 pm
Quote from: Footkerchief on April 07, 2010, 02:51:49 pm
I don't find the two-letter abbreviation for the labor name at all readable -- the DF interface already has too many cryptic elements that require memorization.


Agreed, but once I realized what I was looking at, it wasn't too bad.

Then again, this is the default 80x25 grid view, adding more grid height reduces the problem (once we can get non-map screens to resize usefully).

Have you tried expanding the abbreviations with Tab? The four-letter abbreviations are more understandable, though it remain a bit difficult to read due to the vertical aspect. It shouldn't be too much of a problem though, since the full name of the professions are always shown in the the blue detail region. Along with the colors, one should be able to get used to them fairly quickly.

Some of the abbreviations could probably be better, though. I can't really judge what's easy to understand since I came up with them, so does anyone have any in particular they think should be changed?

37
DF Suggestions / Re: Pull names of dwarves from Facebook
« on: April 06, 2010, 09:47:05 pm »
If you get past the "social network" part in the title, having a text file to automatically name your dwarves from sounds pretty good. Is there perhaps an updated utility capable of doing this? Dwarf Companion certainly can, though it hasn't been updated for DF2010 yet.

38
DF Suggestions / Re: Integrated Dwarf Foreman (with functional prototype)
« on: April 06, 2010, 09:41:15 pm »
Quote from: Squirrelloid on April 06, 2010, 07:44:17 pm
What's wrong with it being in a separate window?  I mean, it would be nice if it was bundled with the game, possibly even if it started with the game, but there's no reason it has to be *in* the same window as DF.  In fact, it probably loses functionality doing that.

It would be pretty simple to write a script that started DF and Dwarf Therapist/Foreman/whatever with a single doubleclick.  At which point there's no real need to merge the code.

Other ASCII games (eg, Angband) have multiple windows to display useful information so you can track information while using the main game.  That those extra windows are controlled directly by the parent program isn't especially relevant - the fact that foreman is essentially separate is an advantage in the modern multi-core world, because it can run on a different core than DF. 

Basically, what advantages are there to combining this program into the DF codebase that don't exist when running it separately?

The point is that we shouldn't have to rely on third-party utilities for such an important purpose. I'm sure we all agree that managing a large fortress without Foreman is a complete nightmare. While the separate-window utilities do work, we have to worry about them possibly corrupting memory or saves, and of course they need to be updated for every new version. And I personally far prefer to play DF full-screen on a widescreen monitor than in a window, so am forced to either play it in a window or constantly switch out. It also breaks immersion since the Foreman windows look so completely different from the DF UI.

My goal with this prototype was to demonstrate how the Foreman interface could be programmed using interface elements already in DF, which should present a minimum of hassle for Toady to code if he so chooses. It may be slightly less convenient than the third-party tools, but it's definitely good enough for me and I hope many others. You'll always be able to use the third-party utilities if you prefer them.

39
DF Suggestions / Re: Integrated Dwarf Foreman (with functional prototype)
« on: April 06, 2010, 06:53:13 pm »
Quote from: Zedzy on April 06, 2010, 04:32:17 pm
It would be more intuitive if the letter order were reversed so that A were Grand Master ________ and if E were Accomplished ________ because an B on a test is good, but a D is bad, if that makes any sense.

An awesome example nonetheless.
Ah yes, that makes much more sense. The letters now go E-A, with Legendary remaining L.

Quote from: khantin on April 06, 2010, 04:16:13 pm
It would be rad if you could expand the profession names at the expense of the # of dwarves in the list.  Like the tab button changes the view from 15 dwarves and 2 letter skill names to 5 dwarves and 12 letter skill names.
You can now press Tab to expand the profession abbreviations to 4 letters. It just cuts off the first two dwarves in the prototype; I wrote the display code really quickly and it would be a real hassle to shift them down. I'm not certain that it's much better this way, since it looks like a big jumble of letters until you concentrate on reading down, but it's certainly a good option to have.

40
DF Suggestions / Re: Integrated Dwarf Foreman (with functional prototype)
« on: April 06, 2010, 03:21:11 pm »
Quote from: MagicGuigz on April 05, 2010, 10:50:16 pm
Great idea, but you're going to run out of space with double digit skill levels, so it'd also need horizontal paging, or better yet actual categories.

Still, I hope this gets implemented in some way.

I have it using the letters A-E and L for Legendary once it runs out of numbers, so that no profession ever takes up more than one column. I've changed the random skill generator so it actually generates skills that high.

A second page for the columns will be needed to fit some of the other labors anyways. Collapsing the column headers by labor group could work, though it seems like it would become confusing and you'd lose the big overview you get with the grid. Collapsing the dwarf list by custom profession name like in Therapist would definitely be useful, though.

Quote from: immibis on April 05, 2010, 11:45:38 pm
It should also be moused controlled, so we can click on the grid to easily toggle labors.

That would be great. I didn't want to go too far, since even though several screens in DF use the mouse, it's rare, which probably means it makes the coding more difficult for Toady. But if possible, it would definitely make the screen easier to use. Left click for toggling, right click to move the cursor, and Shift and Control click working like the modifiers for Enter would work well.


41
DF Suggestions / Integrated Dwarf Foreman (with functional prototype)
« on: April 05, 2010, 08:28:29 pm »
Dwarf Foreman (or its most recent incarnations like Dwarf Manager and Dwarf Therapist) are considered by many to be absolutely essential tools for properly managing a fortress. This has been proposed many times, and currently ranks fairly high in the Eternal Suggestion Voting. But how can such a seemingly complicated feature be implemented?

I've thought about this problem, and coded up a fully functional prototype of what this screen could look like in Javascript. It looks fairly similar to the new military screen, with the same general format as Dwarf Foreman/Manager/Therapist:


(this is just an image, follow the link above for the actual working version)

To be clear, this is not a utility, but a working prototype for what the integrated Dwarf Foreman could look like. I would suggest putting it under the Units screen with the hotkey "f".

Use the arrow keys to move around the screen. Shift + an arrow key will move 10 units in any direction. The full name, profession, and current labor column are displayed at the bottom, since each is highly abbreviated (especially the labors). The numbers indicate the relative skill levels, and the shaded in cells are enabled labors. I've fit almost all the labors on the one screen, though a second page will be required for the animal/hunting and medical labors. At the very right are the hauling professions; obviously there is no skill for these, but labors can still be easily toggled.

Press Enter in any cell to toggle the labor for the current dwarf. Shift-Enter will toggle the labor for all dwarves with the same custom profession as the currently selected dwarf. Control-Enter will toggle the entire labor group (the ones with the same color) for the selected dwarf; this is mostly intended for quickly turning hauling on and off.

Professions can be edited directly on this page with the y key. An underscore will pop up under the profession name at the bottom, and you can type and use backspace to edit the name. Press enter when you're done.

Another feature I put in that currently has no equivalent in normal Dwarf Fortress is editing the color of dwarves. It always annoys me when dwarves have a completely different color than their actual job, so you can press c to change the color of the current dwarf to that of the current labor. Ideally this would resort the list, but I haven't implemented that. If this goes contrary to DF design in some way, this need not actually be implemented.

Since one will probably have more dwarves than will fit, the screen will probably need to page in some way. Either automatically scrolling when you reach the bottom with the arrow keys or using + and - or / and * would work fine, though I haven't implemented that.

I hope this prototype will be a useful demonstration of what an integrated Dwarf Foreman could look like. I know I would be thrilled if something like this made it into Dwarf Fortress.

42
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: 0.31.01: How does military work?
« on: April 01, 2010, 04:10:55 pm »
Quote from: Phen on April 01, 2010, 04:03:09 pm
I'd also love more info. I can't figure out how to set alerts to whatever... Meaning, I can create a new alert, but have no clue how to make settings for it. I wonder if I need to make a burrow first...

Depends on what you want to do with the alert level. If you want to use it to restrict civilians, then yes, you'll need to create a new burrow and assign the burrow to the level. Then, when you select the level, civilians will be restricted to within the selected burrow.

The other use for alert levels is for changing squad schedules. You can select which alert you're defining the schedule for in the schedule screen using / and *. Then, when you change the alert level (you can do this individually for each squad), the squads will change to that schedule.

I've started writing up a basic guide on the wiki.

43
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: 0.31.01: How does military work?
« on: April 01, 2010, 04:00:56 pm »
To give a direct order, go into the squad menu (s, not m), select the right squad (a, b, c, etc), press m for move or k for kill, then select where you want to move or what you want to kill. This seems to override any orders in the schedule. When I do this, they immediately go to closed-face, drop their business, and do what I said, then go back to open-face and their previous duties when I cancel the order.

I've also had trouble getting them to spar correctly, but it sometimes works. Are you sure that 1) their schedule includes 'Train' 2) They are set to the correct alert level with the 'Train' schedule, and 3) you've created a barracks and assigned the squad to train there?

As for uniforms, I haven't really done much with them yet.

44
DF General Discussion / Re: Dwarf Companion - 0.17c out, 30/11/2009 [update for D16 WINDOWS, modded langs]
« on: December 01, 2009, 04:22:52 pm »
The exe version for 0.17c is up. I'm not sure why you're being so hostile, but I don't follow this thread very closely. Just send me an email when a new version is posted and I'll do my best to compile it as soon as possible.

45
DF General Discussion / Re: Dwarf Companion - 0.16 out, 05/08/2009 [solves bug with language mods]
« on: October 05, 2009, 04:23:52 pm »
Here is the exe version for 0.16.

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