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Author Topic: Best way to locate a ground-level waterfall embark?  (Read 1864 times)

Akoto

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Best way to locate a ground-level waterfall embark?
« on: December 11, 2017, 05:41:40 pm »

That's to say, a waterfall which ends at ground level, where you'll have enough room to build and play around it! As hard as I try, I'm apparently just too stupid to get this on the elevation tool. I got one on the bottom of a narrow chasm. I got another that was actually the top of the waterfall on top of cliffs, with nothing useful at the bottom.

What I would like to find is just the base of a waterfall to include in the surface city I'm creating. I want to build a bridge over the base pool and let my dwarves (and assorted immigrants) bask in the misty goodness of that meeting place. The problem isn't just finding this type of waterfall setting, though. It's also finding the waterfall base at an embark point large and flat enough to build a large surface city.

Any ideas, anyone? Maybe someone has a custom seed with an ideal spot? Thanks very much!
« Last Edit: December 11, 2017, 09:14:29 pm by Akoto »
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Akoto

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Re: Best way to predict a ground-level waterfall?
« Reply #1 on: December 11, 2017, 05:42:53 pm »

Oops, double post.
« Last Edit: December 11, 2017, 06:32:37 pm by Akoto »
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Akoto

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Re: Best way to locate a ground-level waterfall embark?
« Reply #2 on: December 12, 2017, 02:13:06 am »

Anyone have any guidance on this? Heck, I'll even ask for a worldgen seed with a waterfall area for my surface city. :P

I've been doing embarks all evening and I keep just not turning up waterfalls, or only finding ones in places wildly impractical for surface building.
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feelotraveller

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Re: Best way to locate a ground-level waterfall embark?
« Reply #3 on: December 12, 2017, 02:28:18 am »

Most likely to find Waterfalls where rivers meet.  Elevation and slope tools are... vague  ...indicators of possible layout.
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Best way to locate a ground-level waterfall embark?
« Reply #4 on: December 12, 2017, 04:52:21 am »

If you use DFHack you can use the Region Manipulator tool http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=164136.msg7454345#msg7454345 to shape your future embark just before actually embarking. If you make a copy of your save to can try to shape the embark, embark on it, see if it resulted in what you wanted, and, if not, delete save, restore the copy, make a new copy, and try again until you get what you want.
What I would probably do is:
- Find what looks like a nice embark location with a river (you can make the river yourself, but that's more work). Personally I'd go for completely flat terrain with a nice mixture of biomes.
- Determine which direction the river flows, as a waterfall has to drop down river (trying to make an up river waterfall seems to result in DF ignoring the elevation difference).
- Raise the elevation of the mid level (embark) tiles on river exit side of the future embark e.g. by 3 (so 103 of the flat embark is at 100), and also do that to the tiles immediately outside the embark (so you get a cliff rather than a hill).
- Raise the river elevation to match the ground elevation on the river tile where you raise the ground (otherwise you get a gorge).
- Adjust the width of the river to what you want, and toggle stream/brook (you probably want a stream).
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Akoto

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Re: Best way to locate a ground-level waterfall embark?
« Reply #5 on: December 13, 2017, 07:37:43 pm »

Questions:

1. How do you determine which direction the river is flowing so as to properly execute this DFHack approach?

2. Do I just want to raise the terrain at the top of the map, where the river is supposed to drop in my embark site, and the southern border of the area directly north of my embark site? Or, do I also need to raise cliffs on other sides of the square?

I'm a little in over my head with this approach, but I'll try it. :)
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Best way to locate a ground-level waterfall embark?
« Reply #6 on: December 14, 2017, 04:06:50 am »

1. There's no useful flow tag, as far as I know. The "directions" available through Region Manipulator seem to be used for connection by DF itself, rather than indicating flow direction. I'd recommend finding the source of the river (or end) and follow it to the embark. The other approach is to located the river within DF and look at the path to see which way it goes through your embark tile. I suspect that's a bit too advanced for you, though (not intended as an insult).
2. I'd try something like this:

33R33
33R33
00r00
00r00
00r00

where "3" = raise terrain by 3 and "0" leave the terrain as is, while "R" = raise both terrain and river by 3 and "r" = leave both terrain and river alone.
The 3*3 embark rectangle would be in the center, with a border around it on the outside.

I'll take a look at the Region Manipulator to see if river flow direction can be displayed.

Edit: Region Manipulator has been updated to display river entry/exit directions.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2017, 05:12:41 am by PatrikLundell »
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Akoto

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Re: Best way to locate a ground-level waterfall embark?
« Reply #7 on: December 15, 2017, 06:06:36 am »

Sorry about getting back to this a bit late.

Hate to take a diversion from your instructions, but it looks like I need to. I've been using the LazyNewbPack to play. Can't remember why, but I believe I needed it for some reason to install the latest Dwarf Fortress version. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to have DFHack.

I've tried downloading the latest DFhack I could find and extracting into the game directory, and I've tried the same with the tool you linked to. I don't see anything that would allow me to reshape terrain prior to hitting e for embark. Any ideas?
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KittyTac

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Re: Best way to locate a ground-level waterfall embark?
« Reply #8 on: December 15, 2017, 06:45:00 am »

That's because DFHack doesn't work for the new version.
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Best way to locate a ground-level waterfall embark?
« Reply #9 on: December 15, 2017, 07:33:09 am »

No, KittyTac appears to be out of date, as DFHack appeared a lot earlier than expected. The latest version of LNP (at least) contains DFHack (alpha version). I think the issue is more fundamental:
In order to use the script (and any other DFHack tools that are not integrated into DF by DFHack), you have to invoke it from the DFHack console.
If DFHack is enabled with DF (I haven't checked if DFHack is enabled by default: alpha versions frequently are not, in which case you need to go to the Utilities tab and enable DFHack [I think, I'm on LNP r02 with locally compiled and manually installed DFHack as I don't actually play yet]), a DFHack console is started together with DF. If no such window appears DFHack isn't enabled.
Once you get a DFHack console window when you start DF you then invoke non integrated DFHack commands/scripts etc. from the console by typing their name, in this case "regionmanipulator" (without the quotes and with a return at the end). That will either start the script or result in an error message (such a a failure to find it). Note that you should invoke regionmanipulator only when your embark rectangle is inside the desired embark region, as all manipulations done by the script are completely wiped when focus changes to a different region (moving the embark rectangle inside the region does not destroy anything, but be sure to use the correct key, as I tend to accidentally use the world movement keys instead...).

Another way to see if DFHack is available prior to embark is to see if the DFHack embark options are integrated into the pre embark screen (as well as the sand indicator, which is also a DFHack addition).

As to any late-ness: You're the one who's potentially "suffering" from delayed play start. I'm not in a hurry for you to start ;)
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Akoto

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Re: Best way to locate a ground-level waterfall embark?
« Reply #10 on: December 15, 2017, 05:56:22 pm »

Disregard. Will re-edit after trying again!
« Last Edit: December 15, 2017, 06:09:21 pm by Akoto »
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Akoto

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Re: Best way to locate a ground-level waterfall embark?
« Reply #11 on: December 15, 2017, 07:10:19 pm »

Okay, so I tried to follow Patrik's directions as best I could. I have a feeling that I messed it up, but maybe not! Note that there is territory above and below the following screenshot, but I just couldn't get it all. It was a 5x5 square embark. Patrik (or anyone), does this look correct? Hate to get started on my surface city if it's not. I have some concerns about not having enough dry ground to build on, too, admittedly.

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PatrikLundell

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Re: Best way to locate a ground-level waterfall embark?
« Reply #12 on: December 16, 2017, 04:26:47 am »

That's a mighty broad river, 47 tiles (maximum width). Region Manipulator can meddle with that as well, if desired. However, with a 5*5 embark you've got 20 tiles of land and 5 of river, so there should be enough land.
The waterfalls I've seen have had an abrupt line of water level difference, not a lot of rock in the river, but I've never looked at any that are this wide.

Thus, I'd rather make a new attempt with a narrower river (with a N-S river you'd change the x and X values to be closer to each other. I would probably set them to something like x = 20, X = 29 to get a 10 tile wide river through the middle of the tile. Note that this has to be done to each of the river tiles, or you'd get an hour glass type width change (which I guess might look cool, but probably not what you're after)).
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Akoto

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Re: Best way to locate a ground-level waterfall embark?
« Reply #13 on: December 16, 2017, 05:18:39 am »

That's a mighty broad river, 47 tiles (maximum width). Region Manipulator can meddle with that as well, if desired. However, with a 5*5 embark you've got 20 tiles of land and 5 of river, so there should be enough land.
The waterfalls I've seen have had an abrupt line of water level difference, not a lot of rock in the river, but I've never looked at any that are this wide.

Thus, I'd rather make a new attempt with a narrower river (with a N-S river you'd change the x and X values to be closer to each other. I would probably set them to something like x = 20, X = 29 to get a 10 tile wide river through the middle of the tile. Note that this has to be done to each of the river tiles, or you'd get an hour glass type width change (which I guess might look cool, but probably not what you're after)).

Hmm. I started the save back up to abandon the fort so that I could make your changes but I took a quick look around the map first and noticed this isn't even the bottom of the waterfall. What you see is several levels above that, and the bottom doesn't have any land around it.

Should I try something smaller, like a stream?
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KittyTac

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Re: Best way to locate a ground-level waterfall embark?
« Reply #14 on: December 16, 2017, 05:22:32 am »

What's that brown thing below the wagon? Tree trunk? ASCII supremacist here.
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