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I really like the new system.

127 (35%)

Better than before, but more needs to be done.

93 (25.6%)

It doesn't make a difference to me.

41 (11.3%)

The changes don't really address my issues.

6 (1.7%)

I don't like it at all.

35 (9.6%)

I have mixed feelings on the matter.

61 (16.8%)

Total Members Voted: 362

[Kofthefens]

I definitely like the direction this is going. I feel like this will smooth the way for more update with rubble ect. later on.

[KodKod]

KodKod approves of this change.

[Ubiq]

I wonder how this will affect my embark points.
Raw materials will become even more important than the finished product.

e.g.
one raw stone = 3 points = gives 4 blocks = .75 points per block
-> one block of stone = 5 points apiece
and
1-tin / 1-copper / 1 lumber = 23 points = gives 2 bronze bars = 11.5 points per bronze bar
-> 1 bronze bar = 25 points apiece

I guess the extra points will go into food, since dwarves will be too busy making blocks to farm/train/etc...

A better option is to put it into tetrahedrite and metalcrafting/smithing; two tetrahedrite (18 db) now becomes six billion bars (180 db), which can make eighteen goblets (minimum 1800 db, maximum 21600).  Removing the buckets, splints, and crutches alone from a default embark gives you enough points to make sixty bars. Add in the bags and ropes and it goes to 180.

Plus bismuth bronze becomes an even better bargain. As is, bismuth/tin/copper/copper (40db) yields four bars (120 db), but copper ore/copper ore/bismuthinite/cassiterite (21 db) and would yield twelve bars (360 db). More steps, sure, but you can produce six times as much bismuth bronze for nearly the same price by smelting the ore and then forging the bars. Plus bismuth bronze is superior for trade goods (serrated disks) and could be used for armor/weapons.

[Count Dorku]

A better option is to put it into tetrahedrite and metalcrafting/smithing; two tetrahedrite (18 db) now becomes six billion bars (180 db)

...so each unit is worth about 3,000,000,000 bars?

[Eric Blank]

That's how I understood it too, but he meant billon

[bombzero]

so reading the last few pages it seems many people are detrimentally opposed to anything that makes resources actually take work to obtain, why?

if you say megaprojects, then how much of an accomplishment is it really if all it is is how much time you were willing to put in? currently there is no "wow he overcame alot of challenges" with megaprojects, just a "wow this dude has a lot of time", so we actually need more scarcity of resources to make the game decently difficult. for a community that preaches the value of difficulty, a lot of you seem to not want the game to be any harder (current page excluded it seems).

[Eric Blank]

so reading the last few pages it seems many people are detrimentally opposed to anything that makes resources actually take work to obtain, why?

if you say megaprojects, then how much of an accomplishment is it really if all it is is how much time you were willing to put in? currently there is no "wow he overcame alot of challenges" with megaprojects, just a "wow this dude has a lot of time", so we actually need more scarcity of resources to make the game decently difficult. for a community that preaches the value of difficulty, a lot of you seem to not want the game to be any harder (current page excluded it seems).

Honestly, most people don't even do real time-consuming projects because we honestly DON'T have much time to play. The longer it takes to set up a fort or complete a task, the less likely we'll ever enjoy it because we wouldn't be able to have fun or !!FUN!! within our timeframe/attention span. The game is reasonably paced right now and there's certainly difficulty for anyone not prepared to deal with the naturally occuring !!FUN!!, and unnatural difficulty can be applied through mods, but making resources more scarce doesn't really make things more difficult in the sense that you're in mortal danger, just more tedious and time-consuming. Less resources = less enjoyable and a longer wait for anything to happen, which sucks.

Of course, I am tackling the concept from the standpoint that I absolutely hate grindfest-type games that demand you waste time and energy on resource acquisition before blowing shit up/even encountering real problems, like being killed. I don't want resources to take more work to obtain as much as I want to take my massive hoard of legosstone and make a castle of horrors of such ridiculous complexity that I forget how to operate it, then enjoy the brand-new combat AI that makes defeating a siege far more satisfying and more difficult. I do such sadistic things as throwing a half dozen legendary soldiers against a horde of giants, because that's both fun to watch and !!FUN!! when the tantrum spiral starts because Urist mcDead was married, had a dozen kids, and was friends with everyone else. Waiting for blocks to be ready for my megaproject? No. I've been happy with rough stone boulders because I like to start as soon as possible.

[SirAaronIII]

I like it because it's going to make me stop usig raw stone for everything and start actually using blocks. The ores change doesn't sound too bad at all, and I REALLY like the gems bit.



Blocks are going to take a bit of time to get used to, though. This plus minecarts and new hauling stiff will probably lead to a confused me.

[Raunyc]

My only issue is the face that "Where does the rock go?" I would think that we'd need the 3 tiers of rocks I saw someone suggest in another thread (I'm lazy, pardon my not digging it up, and I take no credit for the idea a;though I'm adding numerical values)

Small rock 4 from one tile mined = small crafts and blocks (I don't like the idea that one "wall of rock" =/= at least 4 blocks, I mean a whole wall should yield a lot more, but 4 is reasonable for clutter, of course building a wall out of blocks should require 4 to offset this, but floors,  etc using as much as they do I don't understand using and entire wall of rock for a tile floor...  I do see this as running into too many items and could see blocks being moved up to medium, but I would like to request "1 block" be "some blocks" for clarification)
Medium rock 2 from one tile mined = Furniture etc...
Large rock = one to a wall or statue, other large object

Of course the large and medium would be able to be reduced to smaller sizes, but Large would be more common with higher skilled miners. A guy with a pick that's used it for a day will be making rubble out of any stone he's mining, however a guy that's done it for years will be able to carve out large rocks fairly reliably...

Thanks to whomever it was that originally suggest the 3 tiers of stone

I will however wait and see how it is all handled before I complain, not to say that I'm not worried about it thus far...

[bombzero]

hang on, why could an unskilled miner not obtain a decent sized chunk of stone? are you sure your thinking about this right? that's like saying I could not dig a round hole in my yard, as I haven't spent enough time digging round holes, its a basic concept, not a valued art. you chip away the stone around a chunk of it, and you have a large boulder, its the masons job to make that blocks, not the miners.

[Sadrice]

Having done a certain amount of work with cutting through stone with pickaxe and chisel (yay highschool paying me $4 an hour for masonry and digging), I can assure you that it is very difficult to cut a piece of stone into the shape you want.  Trying to knock off what looks like a delicate knob sticking out can break the whole stone in half if the angle of your blow isn't exactly right.  This would be especially difficult if you were trying to work quickly, using a pick, to at the same time dig out a room.

[Niyazov]

Even marble quarries, which have one of the higher product-waste ratios among mining operations since they are essentially trying to extract everything, only at very maximum a 50% yield of solid stones, with the remainder becoming rubble, scrapes, and slurry. Rubble and scrapes (small pieces produced during mining and extraction) have essentially no use for most stone types.  Stone slurries have only found application very recently and are typically generated during cutting and shaping.

Only a few kinds of stone possess the necessary properties to remain in monolithic form when being cut out of the matrix with hand tools.

Remember also that many of the stone types in Dwarf Fortress could never be used to make furniture, etc. in real life; e.g. talc, shale, sylvite, borax and chalk are very brittle and delicate; realgar and orpiment have been known to be toxic since antiquity, etc. This is one of those cases where some suspension of disbelief is neccessary. There are few historical real-world analogues for the kind of large-scale underground stone quarrying that DF dwarves perform.

[GoldenShadow]

Dwarves are known for their natural stone working affinity, humans, not so much.

[Niyazov]

Dwarves are known for their natural stone working affinity, humans, not so much.

Dwarves are known for their natural metal working affinity. Dwarves do comparatively little construction; mostly tunneling. The nature of underground mining precludes quarrying out large rocks; the physical geometry issues involved are prohibitive. On the other hand, presumably humans do know a thing or or two about stone quarrying since they build enormous castles and fortifications out of stone blocks.

[NW_Kohaku]

Honestly, most people don't even do real time-consuming projects because we honestly DON'T have much time to play. The longer it takes to set up a fort or complete a task, the less likely we'll ever enjoy it because we wouldn't be able to have fun or !!FUN!! within our timeframe/attention span. The game is reasonably paced right now and there's certainly difficulty for anyone not prepared to deal with the naturally occuring !!FUN!!, and unnatural difficulty can be applied through mods, but making resources more scarce doesn't really make things more difficult in the sense that you're in mortal danger, just more tedious and time-consuming. Less resources = less enjoyable and a longer wait for anything to happen, which sucks.

Of course, I am tackling the concept from the standpoint that I absolutely hate grindfest-type games that demand you waste time and energy on resource acquisition before blowing shit up/even encountering real problems, like being killed. I don't want resources to take more work to obtain as much as I want to take my massive hoard of legosstone and make a castle of horrors of such ridiculous complexity that I forget how to operate it, then enjoy the brand-new combat AI that makes defeating a siege far more satisfying and more difficult. I do such sadistic things as throwing a half dozen legendary soldiers against a horde of giants, because that's both fun to watch and !!FUN!! when the tantrum spiral starts because Urist mcDead was married, had a dozen kids, and was friends with everyone else. Waiting for blocks to be ready for my megaproject? No. I've been happy with rough stone boulders because I like to start as soon as possible.

The problem with that is, what you're describing isn't a game at all - it's just a construction set. 

A construction set where you have infinite powers, and you just use the terrain as your canvas is fine and all, but it's not a game and it has no challenges.

The game that DF is moving towards and should be isn't something where you move blocks around for 20 hours before deleting the world and making another world again and starting over from scratch. 

It should, instead, be a 300-hour project where you scratch your way up from meager beginnings to controlling a world-spanning empire, with every step along the way adding additional challenge and complexity until you are simultaniously juggling the military strategies of an army on the march, their logistical needs, the intra-court politics of your king and nobles, relations between the dwarves and their tigermen and antmen allies over the benefits of citizenry, maintaining farm production, keeping the citizens of your capital entertained with bread and circuses, keeping guild conflicts to a minimum, keeping the minecarts running on time, getting enough barrels made to keep booze production running, and making sure the mandates and moods get completed.

The tagline of the game is "Losing is Fun" because Toady wants us to keep coming back to the same fort and world with its ever-increasing depth and personality rather than just deleting the world and starting another random one every time you're done pushing around your lego megaprojects. 

The construction set things will still be there, but there's so much more game to be added onto DF.