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[VulpixUsedEmber]

Greetings all,

I'm a relatively new Dwarf Fortress player (a few months, a few fortresses, a few adventurers, picked it all up pretty quickly), and this will be my first post on the forums.

My inaugural post/suggestion is on the topic of cold weather and the (somewhat) lacking realism in terms of the effects of cold weather on a creature. So far I haven't had any issues with cold in fortress mode, but as far as I've read your dwarves can die from the cold, and I don't doubt I simply haven't embarked in a cold enough area to see those effects.

My latest adventurer, on the other hand. First I was able to trade away my only gloves (along with a copper 2-handed sword) for a silver short sword, then walk around the freezing tundras with bare hands without a care. Out of curiosity I removed all of my clothes and ran around just short of the south pole for an entire day without a hint of ill effect.

What I think would be an entirely fitting and welcome update would be to eventually re-balance the effects of cold weather such that the dangers of frostbite (I'd imagine for individual body parts like anything else, such as frostbitten hand which loses the ability to grasp) and hypothermia are more realistically present.

Please tell me if I've simply not pushed the limits enough to see that these mechanics are already present in this capacity, but I guess I'd still find it surprising that a dwarf can run around naked in very cold to freezing weather for even an hour before any negative effects set in.

Hope I've made at worst a neutral first impression, love to all of my fellow Urists, strike things and so on.

[Grim Portent]

It is possible to suffer frostbite, but I think it affects the whole body at once rather than damaging a single part at a time.

The temperature system is currently a placeholder that will get fleshed out as time goes by. At the moment most materials and creatures will eventually break/die if exposed to extreme cold. Items suffer wear, much like worn clothing does, and eventually just disintegrate. Creatures I think measure temperature as a single number that applies to the whole thing, and when it drops far enough it causes damage to the whole thing, so when frostbite sets in your entire body suddenly starts to suffer damage and dies.

[Vattic]

Unless I am mistaken temperature effects took a bit of a hit when the new materials/combat/wounds systems were added. At least my dwarves seemed to die more readily when on the surface of a glacier embark. It could just be that the specific cold and burn damage types made this more obvious, or perhaps the glaciers I'm embarking on are just warm enough for survival.

[VulpixUsedEmber]

It is possible to suffer frostbite, but I think it affects the whole body at once rather than damaging a single part at a time.

The temperature system is currently a placeholder that will get fleshed out as time goes by. At the moment most materials and creatures will eventually break/die if exposed to extreme cold. Items suffer wear, much like worn clothing does, and eventually just disintegrate. Creatures I think measure temperature as a single number that applies to the whole thing, and when it drops far enough it causes damage to the whole thing, so when frostbite sets in your entire body suddenly starts to suffer damage and dies.

Thank you for the explanation, that's basically what I assumed but simply haven't had enough time to play recently (and when I do I just want to play) to test these things fully. I would say that perhaps the intensity of the effects of temperature could still be more realistic as well as the individual body part issue, as it simply seems unbelievable to suffer no ill effects from 24 hours naked in cold to very cold weather.

I am definitely patient and fully understand the timescale of DF's development, I just wanted to make sure Toady has every bit of feedback he needs so he can make the best first passes he can on each step.

Thanks again, I'll just stay dressed and imagine the details for now; it's not like unexpectedly becoming entirely naked is a particularly high risk (for civilized races at least). Artifacts, Myths, and Magic will likely distract me from this completely anyways